The Usable Clown

I am sure that in some point in your entertaining career you will move from your starting location and have to basically start your business over from scratch. This can be one of the hardest things for your business as well as one of the best things for your business.

The first thing to do is to look back on how you started working originally, if you are like most of us you just kind of fell into it. It all started at a friend’s kid’s birthday party and suddenly you where hooked. You made some business cards and bought makeup and poof you where a clown. Your clown evolved over the years and you started to get busy.

You probably made some mistakes and I am almost positive you went through the scary clown stage. Everyone does. The great thing about moving is that you can avoid all of those mistakes. This means that you are brand new but have all of the experience you got while making all of those mistakes.

The first thing you should do is get a new phone number. Go to Grand Central and register for a number in your new area. This number can be set up to forward to your cell, home or pretty much whatever number you want. You then need to get some cards made up with your info on it. I would suggest using your old card design and just putting your new info on it. If you are renting or buying a house in the new area give a card to every realtor you talk to, in fact if you go and visit before moving follow the steps discussed here. Follow those same steps and you will be up and running again in no time.

One of the most important things you can do, once you have moved, is to interact with other entertainers. Talk to them, get to know the area, learn the average pricing. You don’t want to price yourself out of work or undercut your fellows to much. Make sure that you fit in with your pricing model. One of the easiest ways to turn other entertainers against you is to move into a new area and be a hundred times cheaper then all the other entertainers. So to be safe adjust your prices accordingly.

As you are trying to grow your business there is a chance you will come into contact with other entertainers: clowns, magicians, balloonists and many others. Some of these people will be positive towards you and some of them will be negative. The important thing to do is to make sure that you are positive towards other entertainers, no matter how they act towards you. This is important because you never know when you might get a referral from them when they can’t do a job or are sick.

A quick story that will illustrate this point:

When I first started out I was 15 years old. I was excited, this whole entertaining thing was new to me and I was looking for other entertainers to learn from, practice with, etc. The only entertainer in the area at the time was a magician/juggler/Christian entertainer. It just happened that my family where members of the same gym he belonged to and I had seen him practicing on the aerobics floor. So one day I worked up the nerve to talk to him and asked if he would like to juggle together sometime. During this conversation I explained that I was new to the business and was excited to get started working. I also explained that I was going to be a clown (not a juggler, magician or Christian entertainer). Apparently he viewed me, a fifteen year old with zero experience, to be a threat to his hold on the entertaining market in a small to medium sized town. Since that time, eleven years ago, I have never once referred a job to him because I didn’t want to risk him doing a poor job and having that reflect on me in anyway.

At the time there where only two entertainers in Greeley, me and him, and so when I needed to refer someone to another entertainer because I was busy I had to give them to number of an entertainer out of town, thus increasing their cost. Since then a few other companies have sprung up and though I may not agree with everything they do, we all agree that we should get along.

One way to foster a sense of community with other entertainers is to have balloon jams, juggling clubs or other entertainment related evenings planned through out the month or year. This will allow you to get together, trade stories, work on ideas and generally have a good time together. You may find a partner to work with that will allow you to broaden your shows or you may find someone who will be able to cover for you if you are sick.

Keep in mind that not every entertainer is going to have time to come to these, that dosen’t mean that they don’t care or you should treat them differently, it just means that they are busy or may not feel comfortable with all of the entertainment stuff yet. Remember hanging out with a large collection of entertainers takes some getting used to and not everyone is ready for it from day one.

Try to hold your meetings in a neutral area, such as a church or school gym, that way you won’t be infringing on anyone’s hospitality to often. The other option is to have a rotation of whose house it is at and stick to the rotation. Also make sure that you put together some rules so that people are polite to one another, this will also help keep people from directly stealing another’s ideas.