First in a series of tips for working for tips

I got into clowning so that I could do theater on the fly, not to be a balloon machine.

I’d been working at growing a theater troupe out of a church basement, was writing and performing original comedies, finding it more and more difficult to get 20 or 30 volunteer performers and techies scheduled and motivated to getting a program on the stage, when one of my actresses goaded me into putting together a clown sketch for a luncheon.

So I worked up a little pantomime for us to do together and it was like magic. It dawned on me that a clown show would be a great way to put on shows without all the hassle of running a theater company.

Once I started getting into it, I realized that I could actually charge for the shows and since I didn’t have to cut the pie so thin, I could make a little money on the side. I soon found that the better money (or maybe just the easier money) was not in putting on staged productions, but at parties and festivals.

Drumming up work, whether its trying to find venues for shows or clients for parties and festivals, is hard. That’s what makes this a job. But when I put on the nose and get out on the street, I want to make sure that I’m still doing this for the reasons I started doing it. I’m doing it because I have something to say that makes sense being said by a clown. I’m doing it because I want to provide entertainment for people and give them a little bit of distraction from living in a society on the skids.

Okay, okay, I’m doing it because I need the money, but the last thing I want to do is become a balloon factory even though that’s where the money is. So in order to make street and festival work more rewarding for me is to make sure that I’m always and foremost a clown show.

The challenge really is an artistic one. You want to both maximize your tips and your entertainment value. So you have to figure out a way to let the balloons work for you.

The balloon work doesn’t have to be spectacular, just spectacular enough. I usually don’t do anything that requires more than four balloons, just as a rule of thumb, though I always make sure they know that given enough time and enough balloons, I can make just about anything. But I can do a couple of things like stuffing balloons or making spirals that lets them know I’m a genius, and I have worked up enough of a repertoire to fake it when I get the odd requests. You want a cow? Sure, no problem. No one has yet argued over the white dog with black Sharpie spots. It’s just a nickel’s worth of latex, kid. Use a little imagination.

I try to work the balloons as props, not as an end to themselves. The problem is that Americans are so materialistic that you have to close the deal by giving them a product to make them more inclined reach in their wallets for green. However, I operate under the principal that they’re not buying a balloon, but paying for the privilege of having Daluni make a balloon for them. Thank you very much. Or as a souvenir of the performance they’ve just witnessed. Like a concert t-shirt.

Oh, I guess I could leave the balloons at home and go out there telling jokes and singing silly songs and all the other things I do while I’m making the balloons, but the tips just aren’t as good.

A festival is just one long, continuous clown show, as far as I’m concerned. Although I could go on all day without repeating myself, the fact is that you only need about 15 minutes worth of good material to get started if you’re working the right places. The good festivals for making tips are those that have a flow of people, so there’s a lot of turnover, not people hanging out. That also means the kids are sticking close to their parents. It’s essential that parents are nearby. They have the money. I don’t do church and school festivals unless I’m getting my full rate because the tipping opportunities are almost non-existent when families feel safe letting their kids run free. Even if the kid has some money, chances are he doesn’t quite understand the concept of tipping. If you don’t HAVE to pay, he reasons, then it must be FREE.

So I have to give them a good reason to give me their money, and they’ll give more if you get them laughing.

Your pal,
Daluni

As a clown you will find numerous interesting opportunities to perform in all sorts of venues. One of the most potentially rewarding venues is on the streets. As a street performer you have the chance to try out new material as well as pass out business cards to new customers.

A few important parts of street performing are patter, tip lines and routine. You will find that you will have more success as a street performer if you perform out of clown, but the lessons you learn will grow you abilities of a clown.

Patter is an integral part of any great performance, on the streets or otherwise. Patter is the small talk you make, the little one line jokes that bring your show along. There is nothing worse then a performer who is just doing a gag or trick without some sort of dialogue. Most really good patter is planned out and written down. Unless you feel real comfortable doing improv then I would suggest writing down your patter ideas so you can keep track of them.

Tip lines are what you use to entice the audience to give you those precious dollars. Most people will not even think of giving you a tip unless you ask for it. There are numerous good places to find tip lines, the best being watching other performers and adapting their tips lines to fit your performances. You should plan on asking for tips before your last big trick. This big trick needs to be the finale and should make people want to give you money.

Having a standard routine that you do for all of you tip based performances. If you are trying out new material you should still have a routine. Just slip your new material into the middle of you show. Make sure to have something awesome afterwards in case the new material bombs.

Another advantage of working for tips is that it will help build up you confidence as a performer. Also working with the general public will help you learn how to better handle hecklers and audiences in general.

A lot of clowns when they first start out get in a mood to buy, buy, buy. This unfortunately leads to a lot of purchases left unused in the garage and a lot of money spent on equipment before it can actually be used. One thing that can be used to remedy this spending spiral is to build\make more of your own props.

What’s that you say, “Building my own props/costumes will take to much time and cost more money.” That is incorrect. Most prop builders and costumers are taking a skill that can be done by anyone and created a niche for themselves by marketing towards clowns. What you can do is learn to make your own costumes and props.

Sewing is relatively easy to do and while making a whole costume would require a sewing machine, modifying cloths for a tramp type character is easy to do with a needle and some thread. Plus the beauty of sewing your own patches onto your costume is that it gives it the down home look of a tramp sewing on the road.

If you are interested in sewing a full costume for yourself make sure you are prepared to learn to sew. Take a class at a craft store or community college to learn the basics and you should be ready. Finding patterns for clown costumes is easy, just find a regular pattern that you like, by a couple sizes to big and sew it in a fabric of your choosing. This will give you infinitely more choices then buying an off the rack costume and it will save you hundreds of dollars on a custom costume.

Typically clown shoes are another major expense for a professional clown look, but at $200 plus for a nice pair it can be a huge expense for a new business. What I would suggest is to find shoes at a thrift store that fit you character and modify them accordingly. Another option if it fits you character is to by some canvas shoes and paint or decorate them to fit more with your costume.

There are a lot of everyday clown props are easy to make and always turn out better then purchased ones. Most of them are either substitutions of everyday objects decorated to fit your clown. There are a few that you can make from scratch.

If you are a juggling clown you know that juggling clubs are about $25-$40 a piece, a cheaper and funnier alternative is a plunger, a rubber chicken with a dowel in its mouth and a spatchula. All of these things are easy to find, well you might have to order a rubber chicken, and can be decorated with duct or plastic tape. These three objects can be juggled just like clubs and tend to make people laugh before you even start juggling. Other juggling props such as bean bags and cigar boxes can be made with just a little sewing or general woodshop knowledge.

If you are a ventriloquist clown you have probably looked all around for the world for the perfect puppet. All you have been able to find are copies of puppets that other entertainers the world over use. The only problem with those puppets is that they all look the same and getting a custom puppet increases the cost from $150 up to $500 and typically a lot more.

What you need to do is build yourself a sock puppet or better yet a foam puppet. Both of these puppets can be made by anyone and while you first attempt may not turn out perfect it will be more fitting to your clown character then any purchased puppet. Also as you get better at fabricating them your puppets will only get better.

These are just a few of the clown items that you can make on your own. There are many more and the resources for learning to make them are all over the Internet. Just search around and you will find places where you can make your own puppets as well as being able to look at sewing patterns online without having to go to the fabric store.

As a clown you should strive to be as professional as possible. One of the smartest ways to make yourself more professional is to have insurance. A lot of clowns choose to forgo the expense of insurance and this is a big mistake. All it takes is one person to decide that you caused them heartache, damage or other disservice and poof you have a lawsuit on your hands.
Some things you might consider…

1. What are your work habits including products, cleanliness, staffing and organization skills?
2. An allergic reaction?
3. Poke a child in the eye with a brush
4. Your table, chair or other equipment cause injury to a child or to personal property
5. Mixing your products with unsafe materials
6. Use contaminated water
7. Cross contaminate children
8. Be in an unsafe work area
9. Sexual harassment claims
10. Physical abuse claims

A lot of these things you will never encounter but there is always a chance. Not having insurance is a great way to limit the jobs that are available to you. A lot of businesses and other entities want to know that you have insurance and what it covers. Another part of clowning is parades and most parade organizers require anyone in the parade to have some sort of insurance to limit their personal liability.

So do yourself a favor and get insurance it is offered by a lot of different groups and companies. i would suggest getting the insurance offered by COAI as it is specific to clowns and is quite reasonable.

As a professional clown there is nothing worse that can happen to you then if you get injured while performing. This can be something as simple as jamming a finger while juggling or as serious as dislocating your elbow while performing. In order to prevent these types of injuries you should follow these steps.

1. Practice- This is a relatively simple step. The more you practice the more ready you will be for a mistake. Mistakes are where injuries happen, so the better prepared you are for a mistake the less likely those mistakes will cause an injury. A common mistake a lot of clowns will make when practicing their routine is to stop the practice when they make a mistake. What you need to do is continue your practice working the mistake into your routine.
2. Stretch- Before you practice make sure that you stretch. Stretching will help limber up your joints, further lessening your chance of injury. Typical stretches, such as bending over to touch your toes, are quick and easy and will haelp you become more flexible. Another thing that will help you to become more flexible is taking a dance, gymnastics or martial arts class. Any of those will help you to get to know you body better and will help you to avoid injury.
3. Think- Most clown injuries are caused by clowns not acting like a buffoon but acting like an idiot. Everything you do while in clown needs to be well thought out, this means that though it might seem like a good idea to balance on your rola bola on a chair, it will probably end in tears, both yours and your audience.

Today I will end with a story of what happened to me the first year I attended Moosecamp.

It was the day of the all star clown show, I had just spent the last week perfecting my clown makeup and getting a new costume. I had also been working with Bob on a boxing gag. Bob was probably six foot something and more then three hundred pounds. A big man compared to my five nine one twenty five self. The gag went flawlessly with the champ (Bob) being beaten by the wimpy challenger (me). Then the show was over.

After the show while other clowns where signing autographs I was running about juggling. That’s when it happened. I was running in my size seventeen clown shoes while juggling three clubs when I tripped. As I tried to catch myself my left elbow bent backwards and became dislocated. Don’t ever do that it is not fun. So there I was on my back, with my elbow bent all funny with a bunch of screaming kids saying do that again that was funny. I finally recognized one of the teacher’s kids and sent them for help. When Dale Bothum got to me he asked if my elbow normally did things like this or if he needed to call and ambulance. I asked for the ambulance.

Lucky for me the ambulance drivers in Minnesota have a sense of humor. The ambulance pulls up near me and out jump the paramedics. They bring over the backboard and start to place me on it. The funniest one asks me how I am feeling checks my capillary reflex all that paramedic stuff and then asks me if I was clowning around when I got hurt. HA HA. They loaded me onto the ambulance and took me off to the hospital.

As we were riding to the hospital they wanted to put an oxygen mask on me so that I could breathe easier not go into shock or whatever. The problem was that my clown nose was still on and they couldn’t get it off. They where pulling all nice and finally I just reached up and yanked it off. Once the oxygen mask was applied I just laid there on my back waiting to arrive at the hospital and wishing that there was a poster or something to read on the ceiling on the ambulance. I asked why there wasn’t a poster twice.

Upon arriving at the hospital they transferred me to a proper hospital gurney and tried to remove the oxygen mask. I say try because it had bonded to what was left of the nose glue on my nose. So once again I had to rip it off. At that point they gave me a conscious sedative to calm me down and take away the pain. Shortly after that in my drugged up time frame they took me to the x-ray room to be x-rayed. The lady in the x-ray room found the fact that a clown was in here x-ray room to be hilarious and after taking my x-ray posed for a picture with me.

Once the doctor saw my x ray he explained to me that I was lucky in that I hadn’t broken any bones in my elbow but I had dislocated it the hard way, straight back. She then said that she was going to need to give me morphine but I was not mentally able to sign the consent form because of the previous drug they gave me and I needed to pick someone to be a guardian for me. I pick someone at random first and the doctor suggested that I should pick someone I knew. So I chose Joe Barney aka Doc Geezer, one of the teachers at camp. He signed the consent and it was off into crazy land. The morphine hit me like a ton of bricks making all the pain go away and making me crazy.

While they where waiting for the drug to take affect I was left to my on devices. Those devices just happened to be show tunes. I don’t know why but I started singing the phantom of the opera with different voices for every character. They politely told me that I needed to be quiet because I was waking up other patients in the E.R. After about five minutes of show tunes they came in and re located my elbow. Talk about a POP! It was disgusting.

After that they took me to a room where a nice nurse helped me remove my clown makeup and get into a bed where I slept until morning. The next day I flew home and started physical therapy and my first semester at college. About two weeks after coming home I started to do gymnastics again and was soon back up to my old tricks.

In this three part series you will learn the ins and outs of clown marketing which will allow you to more effectively market yourself. The most important thing you can learn is that a well marketed clown is a hired clown. Without a well thought out and executed marketing plan chances are you will sit at home while some other entertainer gets the job.

Today we will cover the basics of brochures and classifieds.Prior to the Internet and websites, getting a large amount of information to a potential customer was difficult and expensive. Most clowns had to use a full color brochure, which can be quite expensive, to get the information to a customer. If you are afraid of computers or not ready for a website then a brochure may still work for you.

The classic tri-fold brochure is easy to design and, while being a little boring, is what most people think of as a brochure. Conveniently a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper when tri-folded is the size of regular mail, making a tri-fold ideal for any sort of mass mailing you might do.

To start making your very own brochure you will need to pick 4 or 5 of your best pictures. These pictures are not necessarily going to be your favorite pictures so much as they are going be the most professional looking pictures. If you are flush with cash you might hire a photographer to take some professional pictures of you.

Pick at least one picture (a) that is a close up of your face, pick two pictures (b & c) that show your full costume, pick one picture (d) of you interacting with an audience member and maybe one picture (e) of a balloon sculpture or face painting you have made. Once you have these picked out, lay them out like this:

This layout is not perfect so as you are creating your brochure adjust it to fit you needs. Your about section should not just be about you as clown but also about your company. The why section should be where you start to sell yourself. Make a brief high impact sales pitch that will get you the call.

You should have a price list so that people will have an idea of the types of parties you can do. However, you can put Call for Price so that you don’t give out all of your prices for all of your parties. The referral section will grow as your business grows. Referrals are important if you live in a very competitive area, so don’t be afraid to ask for them.

The party tips section is a great section to add to the back flap of your brochure. This way even if they aren’t going to hire a clown, they will put your brochure on the fridge to help them plan their part. To compile a list of party planning tips just cruise the Internet and see what is needed to have a successful party or if you are a parent remember what you wish you would have known before the last party you threw.

Now that you have put together a great brochure it is time to work on some classified ads. Classified ads can be a great way to market yourself especially if you are new to an area and want to announce your presence.

You will want to analyze your skills, picking your top two besides clowning. You will then want to design your ad. Since you typically pay per letter, including spaces, you will want to be frugal with your letters. Some thing like:

Dylan the Clown/Juggler and Balloon Art/Birthday Parties/xxx-xxx-xxxx/www.yourwebsite.com

That way you get a lot of information in very few letters (the ‘/’ are line breaks). Once you have a couple ads put together pick the one that you feel is strongest and get in contact with a couple publication that target parents and find out the prices to place your ad.

I would start out with the cheapest and work your way up. That way as you are starting out you will get plenty of exposure and you might luck out and find the perfect niche market for yourself. You will want to run each ad for at least six weeks to track where people are getting your number.

Of course to get this tracking done you have to ask where people got your number. A lot of people who call you will say “I saw your ad in the xxx paper.” If they don’t tell you right away they will be more then happy to tell you, you just have to ask.

After the six weeks are up, unless you have been getting so many calls you are booked for three months, it is time to try another publication. Continue running ads for six weeks until you find the one publication that works for you. Make sure you track the number of calls you have received from each ad.

Apparently I forgot the order I was doing things in so this week you are getting 5 Steps to Better Clowning: Plan and next week you will get 5 Steps to Better Clowning: Marketing. Sorry, my bad.

–The Usable Clown–

Today we are going to cover the basics of planning for your business. Just a couple of simple ways to make your business run smoother for you allowing you to spend more time focusing on entertaining. We will cover: Cue Cards, Scheduling and Price Lists.

Cue Cards

The first step is going to be analyzing your skills and the entertainment market in your area. The bigger the area you live in the more specific you are going to want your niche to be. Your niche could be weddings, car dealerships or any type of event. You probably don’t want your niche to be birthday parties because regardless of the type of parties fit your niche you will get calls for birthday parties.

If the city you live in has a lot of entertainers, check the yellow pages to find out, then you will probably need to classify yourself as a clown amongst those entertainers. If you live in a town where there are only one or two other entertainers, you should be good just advertising yourself as an entertainer. When you are first starting out you might want to list yourself as an entertainer and see how it goes.

After you have analyzed your area you need to make a list of your top five skills in order of your talent with the ability. Keep in mind that clowning does not need to go on this list. You need to put things like juggling, balloon art, unicycling, magic, etc. on the list. This list will become your focus page of your marketing plan. The top one and two skills will be your main points with the three, four and five being the icing on the cake. This list will be constantly evolving as you learn new skills or get better at one skill so don’t be afraid to adjust it accordingly

Now you need to take that list of skills and brainstorm selling points for each skill. What makes that skill different and better then all others, what makes that skill better then other entertainer’s skills. Make sure that you can communicate these selling points to a non entertainer in a way that makes sense to them, don’t tell them that you are a master at site swap juggling as you will only confuse them.

Once all the brainstorming is done you want to plan out exactly what you are going to say to someone planning different types of events. Take ten 3″ x 5″ cards and write these on the top of them:

• Birthday
• Grand Opening
• Wedding
• Company Picnic
• Office Party
• Non-Profit
• Restaurant
• Church
• Festival
• Other

The reason for this is that you will be filling these cards with talking points to use while on the phone with a potential customer. By having them broken down by type of party you will be able to give them a better idea of what you offer specific to their event. Using these Cue Cards in conjunction with the other tools we will be talking about makes booking jobs so much easier.

Scheduling

When talking to someone on the phone one of the first things that you should ask prior to giving any information is the date and time of their event. This will give you an idea if you are available to work the party as well as giving you some solid information about their party. Of course this information will only do you good if you have an accurate way to schedule these events in you calendar.

The best way to ensure that no party is forgotten is to have a desktop monthly calendar, and a daily calendar. The easiest way to do this is some sort of electronic calendar system such as Palm, Outlook or iCalendar. What you need to do is when someone calls and gives you the date you mark it in pencil on your monthly calendar. Then as you get more information and confirm the party you can rewrite the info in pen.

Also make sure that you allow yourself enough time to get to and from your parties. I would say to give yourself thirty minutes between parties. Another thing to have by your phone or on your computer is a map of your area so that you can check locations, allowing you to plan for more travel time as necessary. Remember that if you have an open time slot between to clown jobs a free show in a park or library is a great way to spread the name of your brand.

Always take your day planner out with you when you leave your house, that way if you get a call on your cell phone or talk to someone about a possible clown job you are able to check right away your availability and possible book the job right there.

Price Lists

Having a comprehensive price list written out is one of the best tools you can have. This is not the price list that you publicize or even show to potential customers, it is just for you to be able to see what you want to charge for a job. Creating this list is fairly simple just follow these steps.

1. Categorize- Take all of the different types of parties you do and place them into categories. These categories will be: Parties, Picnics, Festivals and Other. Decide what types of parties go where as well as breaking them down by the skills that will be applied at that party.
2. List- Using a spreadsheet program, make a three column list with the headers being: Type of Party, Cost of Party and Price of Party. The price of party is what consumables you typically use at a party such as balloons, gas and makeup. You might also include wear and tear on any other props you use.This will make it easy to see a profit when booking a party.
3. Use- Make sure that you don’t just make this list because The Usable Clown told you to. Really use it, the better you become at sticking to your price list the more consistent you will be at pricing. This will allow you to make a steady amount of money as well as treating everyone the same.

Now that you have your Cue Cards all ready, your Schedule setup and your Price List figured out, you will find that you are on your way to a more focused booking process making it easier for you to book gigs and get out the door faster.

One of the hardest to master and most effective ways to get more clown business is the sales call. You have to get used to the idea that you are selling your services as a clown and people may not necessarily come to you.

Most clowns, when approaching a business about clowning, goal will be to give someone a business card. The problem is that the person you give it to is probably not the one who will hire you. Or they might hire you for a $100 birthday party but not the $1100 grand opening.

The first step to creating an effective sales call is to gather intelligence on the business. This isn’t as cool as it sounds since all you want to find out is whom the owner/manager is, because that is who needs your card. If you frequent the business you are selling to you might be able to pick up a business card for the manager. If not, you might do some sleuthing on the better business bureaus website.

Once you have a name, it is time to get ready. The most important part of the preparation is appearance. Even though you are a clown you need to make sure that you look like a promoter and not a performer. A lot of clowns seem to think that being a clown gives them the right to dress crazy anytime they are doing something that has to do with clowning. Sadly, this is not so. Especially when dealing with businesses, you will need to wear your best professional attire. That way when you meet with the business owner, you will be of equal footing.

You need to figure out what it is that you have to offer to this business and what the benefit to the business will be. The benefit needs to involve money in some way as all businesses are worried about the bottom line. This is as simple as keeping the kids happy so the parents have more time to shop thus spending more money. If you have the reason ready when you walk in the door, the owner doesn’t have to think of one.

Finally, you are ready to make the call. You first need to set up a time to meet with the owner/manager. Remember that you need to do this at a time that is convenient to them and for clown sake, be on time. There is nothing worse you can do for your image than to show up late or not at all. A simple script for setting up this meeting is:

“Hi my name is Bobby Joe with Bobby Joe Entertainment. I would like to take 30 minutes of your time to talk about what I as an entertainer can do for your business. What time works for you?”

The important thing is to get that all out in one breath. That way they have all of the information they need to make the appointment. Remember to alter this accordingly if you are talking to a secretary or receptionist.

If they say no, ask if there is a better time to call or if you can drop off some information for their consideration. Don’t forget to call back within two weeks after dropping off a brochure (more on that later). If they agree to a meeting, show up on time ready to present. You should bring pictures of yourself both in and out of clown, any praise you might have received, as well as a price list. That way, they know up front what you can do and what it will cost.

It is also very important to be specific during the presentation. Do not make bold generalizations, but be as specific as you can. Don’t say that you can do magic, if all you can do is make one silk scarf disappear. Say instead that you can do some magic and are working on learning more.

Whether you book a job or not at the meeting is not important. What is important is that the business owner now has your name. When they are looking for entertainment, they will remember. Of course, it still wouldn’t hurt to call them every couple of months to see if they have any events coming up that they need entertainment for.

Don’t worry it is simple

In this three part series you will learn the ins and outs of clown marketing which will allow you to more effectively market yourself. The most important thing you can learn is that a well marketed clown is a hired clown. Without a well thought out and executed marketing plan chances are you will sit at home while some other entertainer gets the job.

Building a clown website is a daunting task for a lot of clowns. Part of this is because most clowns spend their time developing their clown skills and their money on props. This leaves very little money or time left to build a good website.Today you will learn why it is important to either spend the money or the time to build a good website and a few helpful hints on designing your website.

In the high tech world that we currently live in people expect everyone, especially entertainers, to have a website. Having a good website is like having the ultimate business card. A business card that can be seen by thousands of people a day at no additional cost to you. A website is a great place to put all of the information you think that people need to know about you that wouldn’t fit on a business card. This includes pictures, videos and a price list.When building a website you need to make the conscience choice to make your website at least as professional looking as yourself when you are in your full clown make up. This is because when viewing your website people will be subconsciously judging you and your abilities based on what they see online. If your site looks like you paid a twelve year old elephant $12 to build, people will assume that you are not a professional and move on to another entertainer.

A lot of clowns get so excited about having an online presence that they want it to do everything. When your website does everything it can overwhelm your customer and make them look elsewhere. This means that your site should have information about yourself(as a clown, not about your pets or children), pictures of yourself as a clown and information about the types of parties you do. You will notice that sound effects and music where intentionally left off the list.Adding background music or sound effects to your site is a great way to get people to pick another entertainer. The reason is that parents who are going to be hiring you for a birthday probably both work. Lets pretend the dad works at XYZ Bank, he sits in a cubicle all day long and his one job for the party is to find a clown. So he does a search and comes across Dylan the Clowns website. He click on the link to visit his site.Suddenly calliope music bursts forth from the speakers on his computer. He panics and tries to stop the music but the damage has already been done, his boss comes to his desk and yells at him for disrupting the whole office with the noise. Plus there is a good chance that he was using his computer to cruse the Internet for personal use during work hours. After getting yelled at and potentially written up all he can think is “Darn that Dylan the Clown, I’ll never hire him.”

While that exact situation may not actually occur, it is important to make sure that something like that never happens to any of your customers. Your site should never disrupt someone’s day or cause them any sort of distress. Remember you need your site to look at least as professional as you do in full clown make up.The first step to building your website is to decide what kind of information you want to include in your website. This means writing out all of the information in a word processor, doing spell check and proof reading to make sure that it looks good. Being a clown does not give you license to be stupid and having words misspelled will make you look stupid. You will also want to get together any pictures you want to put online and make sure that they look professional. Once you have all of the information compiled it is time for the fun stuff, designing your website.We will start off with a few simple rules:

• Do’s
  • Use easy to read fonts and colors
  • Make your site easy to navigate
  • Resize your pictures to make them faster to download
• Do not’s
  • Use multicolored background patterns or images
  • change your font color frequently
  • use already made templates

Since you followed these steps in order to have a wonderfully designed business card. Well never fear all of that hard work you did to make that card can be reused on your website.You want to make your website reflect your card as much as possible. Use similar colors for background and text . Use your logo on your site to further peoples association of you with that logo. Don’t worry about making your website an exact copy of your card just try to make them compliment each other.If you are having a hard time figuring out exactly what you want your site to look like, cruise the Internet looking at other entertainers sites. This will give you an idea as to what is out there as well as giving you ideas that you can modify to use on your own site. Also go to non entertainer sites and see what they look like. Make detailed notes of what you like and don’t like.Armed with these notes, go back to working on your site. Go through your list and see what you like about another site and see if that will apply to your site. If it does, include it; if it doesn’t don’t include it.

Once you have a design all put together and all your information has been proof read it is time to hunt down a nerd to help you get it online. You will need to realize that getting a website of your own and having it hosted is going to cost you some money every month, but you will find that it is money well spent.Next week we will explore all of the other ways of marketing your self. So have fun building your website and I will see you next week.

We all know that practice makes perfect, what some people might be missing is what makes perfect practice. We will be looking at three common clown skills and the most effective practice strategies to help you become a better clown.

The three skills we will be looking at are: Juggling, Magic and Balloon Sculpture. These where chosen because the practice strategy for each of these skills can be easily applied to other clown skills. Juggling is a physical skill like unicycling, stilt walking and balancing; Magic is a mental skill like ventriloquism; and Balloon Art is an artistic endeavor much like face painting.

Juggling like most physical skills can be very frustrating to learn. This is because you are not only trying to learn something new you are having to train your muscles to work in a different way then normal. The three main components of a good juggling practice session are: individual, routine and patter.

When attempting a new juggling trick or first learning to juggle it is important to start by teaching individual body parts what you want them to do. Usually it is better to start with your non-dominant hand as it will give you more trouble and once you learn that side teaching your dominant hand will be a breeze.

Once you have practiced each body parts part of the trick you are done with the individual part of the practice it is time to squeeze it into a routine. This routine is not your normal juggling show; you just need to get the transition in and out of the trick worked out.

Routine training will train your body to work together, putting together all of the individual parts of the trick into your pattern. The most important part of the routine practice is to take note when your pattern falls apart during a new trick and stopping right there.

Once you can pin point what is going wrong with the trick you can go back and work that part of the trick individually, focusing on the part of the trick that causes the pattern to crumble. Once that part is fixed, go back to the routine and wait for the pattern to be destroyed again and just keep repeating the individual to routine to individual pattern. Try to limit the actual juggling portion of your practice time to 30 minutes to prevent excess frustration.

Patter is an important part of juggling and all entertainment. You should practice patter all of the time. The most important part of your juggling patter is going to be drop lines. These are lines you will say when you are performing and your pattern fails, stopping the show. With a well planned and thought out drop line, you will be able to save the show.

Magic is another skill that a lot of clowns work on and it is mostly an art of the mind and crowd control. The best way to practice magic is to Learn it, Mirror it and Perform it. Learning a new magic trick is usually a very exciting process, not only are you finally learning a secret that you did not know before but you are gaining a powerful tool to add to your performances.

The most important part of learning a new trick is to make sure that you learn all of the mechanics of the trick prior to trying to do any sort of performance, even a performance in front of a mirror. Once you can perform the trick mechanics with your eyes closed, you are ready to move on and worry about angles.

You have now graduated to standing in front of the mirror for hours and hours. This will help you learn the angles of a trick and force you to make allowances for distance and audience size. Since you are already able to do the movements of the trick with your eyes closed, let your eyes wonder. Your goal is to fool your eyes and your eyes goal is to catch you red handed.

Once you can fool yourself at one distance from the mirror, take two steps back and check the angles again. You will be surprised at how the angles change as the distance to the spectator changes. Once you can perform angle free from about ten feet from the mirror you are ready to perform.

You should find yourself a magic buddy. A magic buddy is someone who you can perform magic for who will be brutally honest with you. This person doesn’t need to be a magician or entertainer of any kind, the only criteria is that they won’t give away the secret if they do figure it out and they will tell you, politely, when they catch you in the act.

Once you can fool them ten times you are ready for the big leagues. At your next party or event, present your new trick second in your magic act. That way you have other material to cover any mistakes you make in your presentation as well as seeing if it fits within the rest of your show.

Balloon Art is one of the most funs of all clown skills to practice. The basic plan for practicing balloon art is quantity. You will find that the more balloons you make the better you get. Here is a schedule that will allow you to practice balloons you already know to make them better, learn new balloons and to get more comfortable making balloons all together.

Always start your ballooning practice by inflating a 260 until it explodes. You might want to warn people you live with prior to doing that, as it is quite a loud bang. Doing this helps you realize that inevitably a balloon is going to pop while you are making balloons and the more used to it you are the better. Also the minor little pops you might encounter while making smaller balloons will pale in comparison to the noise of that first pop. Once this is done, you are ready to practice.

Start by inflating one balloon about half way; on that balloon make all of the twists you know: fold, ear, pop, tulip, etc. Doing that will remind your fingers how to make all of the different twists and gets you all warmed up for twisting. You should also do this prior to any heavy duty twisting at parties and events, offer it as an abstract sculpture.

The rest of your practice session will be spent making actual balloon animals and other sculptures. Start by making five each of the ten most requested balloons you make. If you are relatively new, you may not have any idea what might be requested a bunch and the list will vary year-to-year and place to place. Here is the list I use:

• • dog
  • cat
  • giraffe
  • elephant
  • poodle
  • bear
  • mouse
  • turtle
  • monkey
  • flower

Most of those are one-balloon creatures (with the exception of the flower) and should take very little time. The one thing you need to do is really focus on making each one perfect. Make them in a variety of colors and place them in a big black trash bag. The reason for the trash bag is so that after you are all done practicing you can donate that bag to a daycare or library for a free give away. Of course, you will make sure that your business card is attached to each balloon so your good deed does not go unrewarded.

Now it is time to learn a new balloon. The first couple of times you make this new creation take it slow and really focus on the measurements, making it by the book. Once you are able to make the balloon by the book without using the book, start to speed up the process. Once you are operating at full speed, make five perfect balloons and place them in the big black trash bag.

Now it is time for the fun stuff: Improv. Turn up the music and spend twenty minutes creating a multi-balloon masterpiece. Pick something you have always wanted to see made out of balloons and get started making it. This will help improve any balloon decorating you might do or just make you more comfortable with your balloons. Remember to take pictures of all of your balloon art, as they will make a great addition to your website.

There you have it, the best ways to practice all of your skills: Physical, Mental and Artistic. Remember that if you start to get frustrated or angry, stop and continue you another day. Next week we will talk about marketing.