Category: Uncategorized

If they don’t stand for something, they will fall for anything

Alexander Hamilton

We can go along with whatever’s there. We can choose to not setup boundaries and make whatever’s easiest happen… But this is the opposite of a job of a curator. A curator is a trusted filter. The more limits a curator has (and the more consistent those limits are), the more trusted they become.

When we build a fence to protect our audiences and protect our brand (quality curator / creative organizer / fun maker), people will run into that fence. We will have conflict.

It’s Not Me, it’s the Fence

By letting people know up front that performers in Scot Nery’s Boobietrap were booked based on short acts (not by general quality of the performer), and there’s always a place in the show for the best in the world, it reduced the number of people who ran into the fence, but I still have people who ask for spots that aren’t right.

Whether they’re “really funny,” volunteering to help, friends with someone in the show, giving someone in the show a ride, whatever… I might sympathize with them, but I will not book them. I will not book the squeaky wheel. These rules are not my rules. They’re the rules of Scot Nery’s Boobietrap. In casting, I’m doing my best to do the job for Scot Nery’s Boobietrap.

When I feel bad for sending a rejection, I try to remember it’s not me, it’s the fence.

Curating is curating

Same goes for curating decor, content, ideas, whatever. We’re a filter in many ways as individuals and team members. When we’re on a team and people are giving thoughts about the next step of the team; if the idea doesn’t work for the team’s missions, we must celebrate the conflict instead of backing down.

Not all conflict

Some people get too into the conflict and want to establish a million rules, strategize how to run into conflict, or just conflict with everything that comes in. These can all be weaknesses and take a lot of energy away from the goal of creative, beneficial curation. We gotta pick our battles and set up our fences in crucial components, make those fences visible so many people don’t run into them, and make them strong.

Too many rules, too much rejection, too much rigidity is demotivating.

Positive signaling

Positivity is motivating. We can tell people about our fences in positive terms. “We’re creating a team building exercise that celebrate’s our company’s smallness” connects with collaborators and gives them an aspiration instead of “We don’t want stuff made for big corporations”

Please don’t avoid conflict

If we don’t have content for a long thing ( a meeting session, a performance, a speech, etc ) we can think of it as promise and fulfillment. Making a promise of some great reward in an hour can be big. The easy solution is to make smaller promises. Divide an event up into segments that can be completed with a good feeling. Instead of “I’m going to tell you an hour long story that will be worth your time and will illustrate productivity” … try “I’m going to tell you a couple stories, then I’m going to give you some principles, then I’m going to give you next actions.”

The theme / thesis is the same, but the content is divided. It’s not about short attention spans. It’s about short attention spans for unworthy content.

If our content is really sucky, we can break it up into tiny chunks. As long as the people know that we’re going somewhere with it.

Jerry Seinfeld said that all he would want from a psychiatrist is for someone to just tell him to “quit it!” When he was feeling sad or wallowing in his own stuff… he just needed to stop. He’s very resilient and audiences are usually too. When we have a group of people that need to move to the next thing, get in a positive space, pay attention, understand the amazingness of a situation, or whatever; sometimes they just need a quick “quit it!”

It can be a simple sentence that sets a swarm of people on the right track, or it may be a little diatribe.

I was backstage at a show where the host was just miserable. I don’t know if he felt bad about his performance, but it was such a drag. Just like a psychiatrist who cares… just like a friend… I said, “What are you doing up there!? C’mon!” he said, “The audience is just low energy!” I said, “so fix it!”

The power of a host is to change the context. The opportunity of the host is to have downtime to go backstage and reevaluate what’s happening and fix it next time on stage.

He did fix it.

The Two Halves

When we’re guiding a group correctly, we have to get both halves of the process. He got half of it by himself – he empathized.

The other half is to lead them. With my rude nudging (I didn’t want him to introduce me to a cold crowd) he got the second half right too.

If we just do the second half it doesn’t work either, because we just get more distant from them. We force energy and we just become the crazy person in the room. The audience just watches. They don’t join the journey.

When we’re bringing a group together, we’re wanting them to grant us trust to take them to someplace good. They want to collaborate. Collaboration is about agreements.

Laura and I are figuring out where to go to eat. She wants something fun, I want something filling. I can easily be swayed to something fun, but if we don’t connect at the beginning of the conversation, everything else will be seen as a conflict from both sides.

The first agreement when the master of ceremonies or other introducer comes on stage is very crucial. All other agreements are either built on that or backtracking in order to heal the collaboration with the audience.

It’s so common to start with “How’s everyone doing tonight?” Totally great question. Unfortunately, it’s also common to not listen to the response. There we go. We’ve already broken the trust. The host is getting sushi and the audience wants spaghetti. The audience won’t leave, but it’s not going to be a great date because the audience will just keep thinking of whether they’re getting their fill.

If the audience responds with a resounding “awesome,” their host needs to be delighted by that and keep the party train moving — listen and respond. If they respond some other way, the host needs something like…

• Okay, let’s fix that…
• I will not let you continue at that energy level. Let’s try that again…
• This isn’t the night you might be thinking it is… give me more energy and we’ll get this started together

Without the agreement, we won’t get the magic of powerful engagement that we really desire.

I’m not going to talk about bloated websites much here, but small businesses need to make their websites simple so that they can make their websites good. Lots of tools promise the ability to make a complicated website, but they are a way to make a bad complicated website or a site that costs way too much time. The goals of almost every effective small business website are…

1. 60% no red flags customers / clients are looking to avoid mistakes. Give them nothing to fear.
2. 30% value speak directly to dream customers and tell them how they benefit
3. 5% clarity speak directly to dream customers and tell them what the product or service is. While it’s harder to show differentiating value with a commonly understood product like a box of juice, it’s easier to show clarity. You just say “It’s a box of juice” and you’re done.
4. 5% call to action usually, the call to action is “contact us.” usually best to make one call to action

This single purpose site needs to do the job effectively for our dream prospects.

Multiple audiences

If the website is made in a way that accomplishes those 4 goals for different kinds of prospects, then great. We prioritize the highest value customer who has the highest risk to protect. Then, we let the other ( lower value) prospects trickle down. The lower value prospects don’t need the same assurance and clarity, so if this site doesn’t hoist red flags for the lower value prospects, we’re good.

Multiple products

The easiest sales path is to have one clear and desirable product for one price to sell to one specific kind of customer, but this isn’t always possible.

If we have multiple products that fall under the same value statement / USP, we can have one website to show that single USP. So, explaining the separate products is a matter of clarity. In that case, we can show multiple services, features, or products that all reinforce that USP. Since value is way more important than clarity, we can have most of the site talking about the overall value we provide, then bury down lower on the site how that value is delivered.

check out David Gabbay or Frank Olivier sites to see how they talk about their different services, but those services are not even close to as important as the value they provide overall in ALL their services.

Make it simpler

A simpler site that shows more value and less detail about products is easier to create, maintain, and has more broad use. We don’t want it to be generic or speak to everyone, but most business owners want to talk too much or out-sell. Accomplish the 4 goals, then get out of the way

Make another site

If we need a site for an audience that conflicts with another audience. Let’s say we’re doing bubble shows for kids charities and chainsaw juggling performances for TV shows, that might be able to fall under the same umbrella, but most likely those gate keepers are very different with very different needs

• parents planning entertainment for the first time emotionally setting their budgets
• casting / stunt directors who work with pros all the time and have set budgets

A major red flag is being a jack-of-all-trades instead of a specialist. I’m sure if you empathize with either of these prospects, you’ll imagine other red flags that could come up seeing other work.

In these cases, we make a website for each thing.

Displaying past clients on a site can help to quickly visually establish credibility. It’s my fave way to show value. It’s visual, instant, and recognizable. Don’t use company logos without permission. Using client logos is only useful when it applies to building the value of the service. Eg: it might not be helpful if I’m selling tickets to a show to have the list of clients I’ve done group sales for.

Style 1: Mosaic

Logos are fit together as they best nest. They can be all different shapes. Fit them together so they look good and either have the same prominence or set the visual hierarchy based on what you want the viewer to see first. Mosaic can have a lot of energy and casualness to it.

Style 2: Grid

Try to get logos the same shape and try to balance out the weight among them so there’s nice symmetry. Grids have some rigidity and help to establish a feeling of dependability.

Style 3: Carousel

A side scrolling animated single or double row of logos makes it feel like an endless list of past clients. It saves vertical space. It has a certain aloofness to it. “We don’t need you to see all the clients. There are plenty of them.”

Organize the resumé

I recommend putting past clients in a spreadsheet. Then, once we have a good list, categorize and rate them. We can keep this list and come back to it, fill it in and sort it by category or rating when we need to put together client logos on a website or a brochure or whatever.

CLIENT	CATEGORY	RATING
McDonalds	corporate	5
Disney	corporate	5
Baskets	casting	5
Better Things	coaching	5
Moby	celeb	5
Brooklyn 99	coaching	5
FX	TV	5
NBC	TV	5
HBO Comedy Festival – Vegas	festivals	5
Bank of America	corporate	5
Mattel	corporate	5
Cisco	corporate	5
PPG	corporate	5
Delta	corporate	5
Paramount Studios	corporate	5
Nationwide	corporate	5
UCLA	college	5
Comedy Store	venues	4
Improv Hollywood	venues	4
New Belgium Brewing	corporate	4
L.A. County Fair	festivals	3
Brooks & Dunn- 2 U.S. Amphitheater tours Coachella & Lollapalooza	festivals	3
Lighting in a Bottle	festivals	3
World Buskers Festival	festivals	3

Carlsberg came to me for a video of extreme pancake flipping for their socials. The intent was to show that Carlsberg delivers more.

If Carlsberg did pancakes, what would that look like?

I took that branding message and I went extreme with it. Produced 4 great videos made to stand out in a social media feed that they could use however they wanted.

Directed, shot, edited by Adam Franklin
Food styled by Christina Dupont
Coordinated by Richard Michael Johnson
Creative advisor Brett Loudermilk

A picture says 1000 words. What are those words? Are the spelled correktlee? Are they legible? Are they actually what we want to say? A perfect photographer can take a perfect photo that isn’t good at all. Just like if someone made me the perfect high heel shoe, that’s not the kind of shoe I’ll ever wear.

A good photo has a message

Shana is a balloon artist. She had this incredible photoshoot. Looked really amazing and it was shot in a cactus garden – ironic and fun! Here’s one of the photos from that shoot. Great color, lighting, and flattering.

When I talked to her about her brand — what was really valuable about what she does… It’s not balloons for one thing. People with deep pockets aren’t just looking around for the best balloon artists. They are looking for someone who can give energy to them — especially for dreary online Zoom events.

She has so much positivity, playfulness, and charisma. Super fun that makes her stand out… not just from other balloon people, but from all people. She has a great thing she can do online on zoom with requests.

It was a bummer for me to not use these cactus pictures, but they just weren’t the thing we needed. We needed that charisma and we didn’t need balloons in the foreground distracting from the real message of value. I texted her. Asked if she was wearing makeup. sent her a picture of the pose and told her to give it some energy. She took this picture with her webcam and we were done!

Quality is communication

A good photographer is good at communicating what’s happening in a moment. Taking a 4D world and translating it to 2D is not easy. A good photo will make it clear…

• what the subject actually looks like
• the nature of the skin : smooth, evenly colored, moisturized
• the nature of the eyes : wet and round
• the location (in some way)

Basically, we need to know what’s going on. A subject that doesn’t stand out from the background is a little confusing. We might need to guess where their edges are. When the lighting is a mix of colors, we can’t see what the skin is really like or that it’s even real skin. When the eyes are not well lit, we can’t tell if the person’s alive.

Two days ago, I wrote about audiences labeling our stuff. We can do the same thing ourselves. We can label what we do… then ignore it… then phone it in.

This is so clear to me now that I hang with my toddler. He’s fascinated with a thing over and over again. It seems that he’s seeing something new in it every time and learning something and enjoying it.

If we think we’re doing our same show over and over again, we’re wrong. It’s new every time. It’s the first time it’s happened in that moment. The familiarity is good for getting us to a more natural state without paralyzing adrenaline, but eventually it can lead to apathy if we don’t watch out.

Here are some things I do to keep it fresh.

• Look around the environment and pick out something special about place
• Try to experience the event the way the audience does. Walk through the same doors. Watch them and empathize
• Pick out one audience member to entertain. Think about them never seeing this before
• Think about if my act means something different at this time in the world
• Put some broken glass in my shoe so I slowly lose most of the blood in my body
• Try to impress the soundman
• Get full of oxygen – almost hyperventilate – before the show to get myself into a higher energy state
• Remember that this is a special moment I get to do what I do
• Think “what if I was doing this joke for the first time?”

I made this Chrome extension so you can get kudos / testimonials / reviews off the following sites…

• Linked in
• Yelp
• The Bash
• Gig Salad
• TripAdvisor
• Google Reviews
• Facebook Reviews
• Thumbtack

Watch the video to see how it works…

We all label things and people. It helps us survive. The quicker we can label something, the quicker we can ignore it. We need to ignore a lot of things so we can look out for danger. We ignore the sticker on the windshield so focus can be put on what’s outside the windshield.

We don’t want our audiences to label our show. If they can write it off as something they understand, it is not going to be entertaining. It can not feel totally safe.

Every time I’m on stage, I need to change the pace to establish my leadership role, but then I also need to do something or say something that doesn’t make sense. Then, I need to do another thing that doesn’t make sense in a different way. This establishes that there’s no pattern to find. This is how I tell the audience that this is not about finding a pattern and relaxing. This is about getting involved mentally. We are going to see what’s around the next corner and we’re not going to be able to rest because we’re in a game right now.

I like peanut butter that’s just peanuts. Maybe a little bit of salt. When I’m at the normal grocery store, I can usually get it. I don’t need organic, but I like simple, so I go for lowest price all peanut butter. That is the best one for me. There are probably 50 varieties of peanut butter at the grocery store near me. Seriously, but the one that’s the lowest price that’s pure is the best in the world for me.

If I were in some peanut butter emergency, and I had to go to the 7 / 11 to get peanut butter I might not buy the same thing and i might pay way more for a worse product. That peanut butter is the best in the world for me. Whatever reason I can’t go to the normal grocery store or whatever reason the convenience store can’t provide a nice spread, doesn’t matter. At that moment for where I am, it’s the best in the world so I buy that one.

Our service needs to be the best in the world or our clients will not buy it. They will buy the best. Maybe we’re the only one they know about, maybe we’re the only one close enough, maybe we’re the only one inexpensive enough, maybe we’re the only one without a criminal record. These are not just hurdles, these are actual qualities that make us the best in the world.

If our promo and our communication make us look awesome, our potential clients might decide it’s not worth the time and headaches to look elsewhere. That’s what happens. If we’re being compared to a lot of others, we need to show up more awesome so that we’re best of that set, hence the best in the world.

Empathizing and understanding our audience’s world helps us understand what we’re good at. Jif is really good at being in a convenience store.