People use us for our merits, but they love us for our imperfections. When we want ourselves or our organizations to be loved, instead of being great, we need to be good. Instead of perfect achievement and flawlessness, we need to show that we’re flawed.

To lead a group, or energize a crowd, we definitely need something to offer them. We definitely need good intensions. We don’t need perfection. In fact, it’s likely detrimental to our connection success.

It’s a release of control

I used to enter into relationships with girls trying to be a “good guy” and a generally ideal partner. I didn’t share when things were bad. I tried to not complain. I didn’t set up boundaries. I didn’t share my feelings unless I thought they were completely justifiable. What did this get me? A lot of resentments and breakups. It also gave me control. I mean, it was crazy. I thought I controlled the perceptions of my partners, but I totally didn’t. I would show up as a 100% angel, then when it was time to break up, 100% jerk. It was binary and clear. I was in charge!

What I didn’t get from this was love. I didn’t love myself, and since my partners couldn’t really see who i was, it was impossible for them to love me for who I truly was.

Also, when one of us sets up this dynamic of control, the other one needs to play along to stay in the interaction.

I think you see where I’m going with this. Vulnerability is the opposite. Being transparent is the way to get love. Showing up as we are is the way to not just find adoration, but to make adoration flow both ways. This is true with individuals and with groups.

We gotta be aware of our fear of losing control.

Show up

There’s no control, anyhow. The way to get people to love us when we don’t try to control them is thru just being there. When someone’s standing in front of us and giving us love, it’s very hard to reject them. Their vulnerability is a gift and it feels imperative to reciprocate. That doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to get love, but they are at least opening the door wide. We can’t guarantee anything.

Show imperfection

We can show imperfection by being honest about something in some way. Being self-deprecating is the go-to device for standup comics. Just admitting something didn’t go right at a shared event. Tell a story that demonstrates, in part, something we might not be totally proud of.

Show openness

Even easier than showing imperfection is showing openness. Breathing, letting silence, listening to the audience, this shows that we’re not trying to take control.

Don’t be sloppy

An event that is completely unplanned and contentless is the ultimate in vulnerability, but there’s no point. Our goal with gathering groups of people together is not to be vulnerable like it is in a romantic relationship. Our goal is our goal (team building, promotion, entertainment, selling drinks, etc.) being vulnerable is our method. We can’t let the scale tip too far to the other side and just be a total mess. Be open, receive… then give.

Doing Scot Nery’s Boobietrap, we wanted to fill every seat. So, when we weren’t sold out, we gave away lots of tickets for free. Our seats still weren’t filled. If enough people knew about us and knew they could get free tickets, why would we not have a packed house? Because money is not the only cost of coming to a show.

When the tickets were $20, parking in Hollywood was sometimes more expensive. Getting a babysitter costs more. The potential to be disappointed (if they didn’t know how good this show is) costs a lot. The potential to be uncomfortable instead of staying home with Netflix costs more.

Getting a $20 discount on an expensive experience is not that great. Although i’m sure people weren’t doing the math, they were feeling the math.

Everything’s got costs

This is an important lesson to remember when we’re trying to get people to commit to anything. When we ask people to clap at a show, we’re asking them for more than the calories that it takes to move their hands around. That’s why we have to make every request have a valuable reward.

Here’s how to get that going

1. Up the value

With Boobietrap, we had to clarify how awesome the show was to people. Tell them more about the value they got from it. Why was it good? Why was it worth all this effort and time? How was it something they already wanted?

EG: If I want a crowd to shout out a word at the same time, I have to convince them it’s worth really trying to shout. There will be a payoff to not phoning it in.

2. Lower the price

We got a parking sponsor for the show, so people would have free parking, but also they would have a guaranteed spot, which took some headaches out of their night.

EG: Instead of getting everyone to shout a word, I could get them all to hiss. It’s a little easier. Lower price, same value.

3. Up the trust

If people don’t believe the show will be worth the price, they won’t come.

In the same way, if people don’t think that I’ll listen if they choose to hiss, or they don’t trust that hissing will improve their experience, they won’t participate. One way to solve this is to make small requests, then come thru on the promise each time. Each time, make the price higher and the value higher. “everyone, let’s get quiet” “okay cool that was a little creepy” “you, right there. Could you clap for me really quick?” “thank you, that person is good at clapping” “let’s all clap!” “You’re all good at clapping, except that person over there” “Could you please all hiss?” “Yes! this is awesome”

This exchange is awkward and I probably wouldn’t literally do that one. I think i made myself clear, though.

I loved learning, but my teachers in school were often more into enforcement than enrollment. They’d rather make rules than entice students into the lessons. My fellow students fell asleep, quit school, or just tried to get okay grades. I was a class clown because I wanted kids to wake up. I would comment on what was going on to try to make learning more fun for others. Got punished often for this. 

I think Ken Honda said that your super power is what got you in trouble as a kid. I’ve found that that’s probably true for me in this. I love stirring people so they open their eyes and pay attention to the beauty of the moment and of those around them. When I do juggling shows, I’m not happy with just applause or laughter. I want to hold them in the palm of my hand and get them in a state of awe. When I emcee a corporate event or some big festival, I want to change the context of each thing I introduce and show people how awesome it is to be here now!

Blake Snyder wrote a book on screenwriting called “Save the Cat.” The title refers to a literary device wherein the hero has to do something like save the life of a cat to establish that the hero has a good heart.

Like I said in Creepy Creators I just can’t get on board with certain people. When we are leading a group through education or entertainment or action, we want enrollment. Instead of forcing them to participate, we want to draw them in to sharing a mission with us. That means they need to agree with us. They need to see us as having good intentions. Any disagreement can lead to distrust. Leading without trust is a tough job.

It’s mostly social

A strong audience is a tribe. They are communal and they are vibing together. Weirdly, they instantly setup a set of laws for the tribe that are completely unspoken. For a standup comedy crowd, the rules of what’s funny and what’s not are agreed and communicated through laughter, applause, groans, and heckles. People don’t want to laugh at the wrong things because they will be rejected from the tribe. Our animal brains tell us if we’re rejected from the tribe, we die.

So, death.

Getting on board with the wrong leader will take us to the grave. It’s not logical, but it’s an emotional reality.

Let’s save the cat

Here are some things we can do to attract people to our mission.

• random act of kindness. Do something sweet. Even small small signals like showing genuine gratitude for applause can make us more endearing. Compliment someone. Do something with not much payoff that obviously takes a lot of effort.
• share ethos. “I’m doing this because…” helps a lot. There is a greater purpose to the things we do. We want to make the world a better place. Sharing ethos helps to clarify the true intensions behind our sometimes confusing actions.
• make ’em laugh. it’s kinda a random act of kindness, but it’s also an ice breaker.

Here’s the problem with validation from others…

1. Real validation comes from success.
2. The only way to measure success is to know the situation, the starting point, the goal, and the level of accomplishment.
3. No one understands us completely.

When someone asks me who I see as successful, I say “Me!” because I’m the only one that knows me and I don’t completely know anyone else.

The separation of work and self

We can’t be validated for who we are. A human being existing is a success, so we can’t be successful as a person. We can’t be more valid as a person than any other person.

Validation of our work

Even though our work can be so entwined with our sense of self, it is not us.

Even getting our work validated by others is near impossible. For someone to validate our work, they have to know not just our field, but exactly what we’re doing. We’re not doing the same thing as many other people, so we don’t have good chances here.

Validation from self

The way to get real validation is from ourselves. This will let us push beyond our peers and grant us freedom to pursue our intentions.

1. We set goals
2. Try to achieve them.
3. Stay accountable to our success.
4. Forgive ourselves for our shortcomings.
5. Over-do it with remembering and appreciating our successes.

We have to over-do it because humans have a negativity bias. We are attuned to looking for danger and problems, so we gotta remember that we’re awesome as much as possible. Tap into the abundance of self. We gotta create our own validation.

False validation

A major issue with false validation is it can re-align what we pursue. If I’m a carpenter who loves giving my customers low price solutions, but I show my fanciest work to other carpenters, I might get the wrong focus. Those carpenters might start complimenting me on how I used really nice nails. That feels good! Then, I start thinking about how I can get more compliments by using more high priced supplies. Suddenly, I can’t do inexpensive work anymore.

I did this show where I killed. I absolutely did awesome. You could feel it in the room. The audience was connected to me and were moving with every one of my movements. It was great. I was the only one in the show that really rocked it.

After the show, I was standing on the stage with some other performers and audience members came up to talk to us. Many of them said “good job” to me.

There was another performer who performed some old vaudeville bits. They did them well, but they were old and they felt old and the audience responded generously. The audience wasn’t experiencing a show, they were visiting a museum.

Many audience members came up to this performer and gushed how funny their bits are (that they didn’t really laugh at) and talked to them at length just how perfect their show was. This audience was the type of people that dress up in vintage clothes and go to swing dance nights.

Based on the gushing, you’d think I did much worse in the show than the time capsule act.

That was an epiphany for me. These people don’t know what they just experienced. Their cognition is separate from their emotional response. I knew what I did to them, but they can’t realize it and they might just not have anything that they can verbalize about it. Normal people don’t get what a great entertainer does.

Go for the goal

I realized in that moment, I’m not trying to be gotten. I’m trying to change a room. I’m trying to entertain at a high level and really whisk people away to a greater plane of connection and joie de vivre. That’s my goal and that’s where I’m successful. I encourage everyone to find that validation.

Nobody understands me. Nobody understands you.

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