Corporate Seeds

Tuesday November 6th, 2007 - Lake Villa, IL

This is the first of three days ‘off’. I only say that because I’m not scheduled to perform but it doesn’t mean I won’t be working. I’ve got an odd schedule for the remainder of the year and there are some holes. I don’t mind at all because I can use the time to work on all of my unfinished projects that need attention. I am ok on money but am still being careful.

I took today to plant some seeds. I didn’t need to have lunch with Marc Schultz but that didn’t stop me from doing it anyway. I had some checks to deposit and I needed to go into the city at some point to do that so I called him and we hung out and had fun as usual. We don’t usually have a plan when we go to lunch but this time I made one. I talked over a lot of ideas with him as to how I can get more corporate bookings. That’s what I could use in the new year. They might not be creatively satisfying but the pay is way better than clubs.

Marc has pushed me to a lot of his clients and I’ve gotten work in the past but everyone including me agrees that my act as it is really isn’t for a corporate market. Companies have events that sometimes call for entertainment and I will be the first to say my show isn’t the first choice for events like that. I am ABLE to do them but I don’t necessarily enjoy them.

The same holds true with the college market. Even when I was that age I never did well in that environment. One would think college audiences are smart but the exact opposite is true. They are usually drunk and stupid and inexperienced in life and are terrible audiences at least for what I do. Comedians who do well at colleges usually have guitars and do a lot of pot and potty jokes. That’s fine if they want to do that but it’s never been my audience.

Corporate shows have not ever been the bulk of my work load either but that I can have a hand in changing. There is money there and I can get it if I just readjust a little bit. There is a guy named Greg Schwem who does very well for himself in that market. He’s a white guy like me and is close to my age and he worked clubs for a while and did relatively well. When he started doing corporate shows only his fee shot up and it now has a comma in it.

I don’t think it’s fair to write the amount I heard his fee is because it’s his business but I sure took notice when I heard it. I’d be thrilled to make in a MONTH what he allegedly is getting for one show and that’s good enough for me. I can’t do what he does in that kind of show because I never worked in corporate America other than being at a radio station.

What I can do is be an entertainer to a wide range of people. I’ve had to run the gamut over the years from kids to senior citizens to ethnic to regional to religious to drunk to all kinds of categories. One thing I have is PLENTY of experience and that shouldn’t go out the window just because I’ve decided to pursue my business idea. I am still a performer as long as I live so why not expand my market potential to earn a living? I think it’s smart.

Marc is very in tune with that market because he sells them other acts and he had a very helpful list of ideas for me. I’ll need to wear a suit and tie and get a high quality up to date video made of me in a business environment doing clean funny material. I don’t have that.
In order to get that it will take time and effort and realistically several thousand dollars. I have seen the packages of other comedians who aren’t that good but make huge money in a corporate setting because they’re ‘easy to buy’. They’ve been in the game and know the right people to use as references and how to schmooze the event planners and all that stuff I never really wanted to pursue. I always wanted to be FUNNY. How unimportant that is.

It’s really true. Funny has little or nothing to do with getting hired at a corporate event. Being clean and non-offensive is what everyone worries about. EVERYONE. I could get big laughs but if one blue haired stick-in-the-mud complains then the event was a disaster. I’ll never be asked back and the event planner could lose (usually her) job. That’s reality.

As I get older I have paid my dues and have experience to do what they want so I think I should put myself in a position to get the money. Why not make in one night what I now make in six to eight weeks of hard road work? I used to not want the bother. Now I don’t feel that way anymore. If I can stay home those six weeks and work on my business idea I will come out WAY ahead in the long run. One night of hell is better than six weeks out in the hinterlands rotting in a roach infested condo watching the opening acts do bong hits.

If there’s one thing I do want to accomplish in the next few years it’s to become a smart businessman. Planting seeds now to eventually get higher paying gigs is smart business. I’ll gladly have comedy purists look down their noses at me and say I ‘sold out’. Damn right I sold out. I’m in BUSINESS. I tried the starving artist route for years. This will be better.
None of this means I have to be ‘untrue to my comic vision’ or anything else like that. It just means that I am a professional entity expanding my potential customer base to a larger target audience. What’s wrong with that? I don’t see anything at all and I’m going to get a nice video together and put my hat in the ring to get those shows. I know I can adapt to it.

I can save my edgier stuff for clubs and that’s fine. I know how to write and perform for all types of audiences so why not come up with a show that corporate people will want to buy? It will only take a couple of shows to make my investment back and if I get 10 to 20 shows a year it could pay my rent and then some. At my age now this is a good decision.

Lunch with Marc got this all in motion and I feel great because I know it’s right. I might not get more than a few dates a year but that’s ok. I will be on their radar and the numbers game is totally in my favor. There are way WAY more potential corporate bookings in any town than club bookings. Most cities might have two or three comedy clubs tops. Usually it’s only one. How many businesses are there in a given town? Thousands! Why waste it?

I’m starting to think smarter because I made it a point to want to think smarter. I do like the direction I’m thinking and it’s like I’m opening up a whole new aspect of my life that I have let lay dormant for so long. I was so focused on building an act and being funny that I left all this kind of stuff alone all my life. Now I realize that funny is one of the least most important qualities so I can either change my thinking or keep getting paid low money and have to make big drives. If I do this right I’ll get flown in and paid well. That’s the goal.