Back in 2005 I retired from being a full-time DJ and rave promoter and started a new pursuit – comedy stage hypnosis. I was driven simply from having had an experience years earlier of being one of the volunteers on stage and wondering “What the hell just happened?”. As my DJ career wound down, I knew I needed to find something else. I decided to indulge in my curiosity and take a stage-hypnotist training. I also figured I had a lot of transferable skills, about promoting myself, booking gigs and performing.
I was right about some of that. At the heart of being a stage hypnotist, or any type of new performer, is you need to promote yourself, book gigs and perform. However, I was essentially starting from zero.
Most new hypnotists, and I’m going to draw a line here to connect that to new coaches, fall into the usual traps of “set up a website and wait for the phone to ring”. Social media is around today when it wasn’t then, however people still fall into the idea of “promoting” themselves and waiting for the phone to ring.
That works about as well as you can imagine – not very. Most of these people fall into the “wannabe” or “fantasy” realm. They fantasize about what this future could be, and it ends as a fantasy of online pics and pretending they are bigger than they are and making no money.
My hypnotist mentor at the time, Geoff, had a piece of advice for me if I wanted to get anywhere:
“Book a bar show”.
What that meant was walk around, beat the pavement, and once finding a suitable bar, walk in, tell the owner you are a professional stage hypnotist and would like to do a show at their bar. You’ll charge a door fee, and they keep all the money they make serving drinks. A proper “win win”.
The show only needed to be 2 weeks out, just enough time to promote it, and then I’d have the ability to get experience performing and make some money.
However, this is easier said than done. It’s downright frightening to walk into an establishment, tell a stranger confidently you are a “professional” and make your pitch.
During my entire time in stage hypnosis, I was the only student of my mentor who followed his advice. Everyone else chickened out. I don’t need to add that none of their careers went anywhere, no matter how fantastic their websites were.
To be honest, I would have chickened out as well. However, I had a mentor call scheduled the next day and didn’t want to let Geoff down. My fear of letting him down overrode my fear of taking the action.
That night I walked into a bar I had identified as a prospect, walked in, asked for the owner, and they were there.
I made my simple pitch, and they responded with “When can you do it?”
It was that easy.
That first bar show I turned into a weekly show, every Saturday night, for 5 months. Every week I was listed in the local entertainment listings. I appeared on TV with something to promote – my bar show. I filmed video of my performances. I actually *was* a professional, even though it felt like I fooled everyone.
Now, these shows sucked. Often I’d have less than 10 people in the audience. I bombed on some nights. There was one night where I couldn’t successfully hypnotize anyone on stage and had to endure the humiliation of telling the audience I couldn’t do the show.
AND… these shows made me. I was forged in fire. As my career grew, I had practiced my craft under the worst possible circumstances. I could handle anything. I take these lessons with me to this day.
I credit my walking into that bar as making my entire hypnosis career. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere otherwise.
I’m mindful of it today and share this story now with new entrepreneurs. What is your “bar show”?
I get that there’s how you’d like things to go, the “set up a website and wait for the phone to ring” strategy. But what is the one thing you could do today that would give you immediate results?
I remember how scary it was for me, to do it, so I imagine the answer to this question for you can be quite scary as well. And that brings me to another tool of mine – using fear as my compass. I ask myself what scares me, and then do that thing.
What are your take-aways from my bar show story that can impact your business today?
