Building a business

[Joko the Clown]

The more you work, the more you work! Always assume you are in the business of selling yourself.

Get to know people. Ask people questions about themselves. You'll be surprised where you'll find synergy.

Remember the words of Zig Ziglar: Anybody can have anything in the world that they want, if they help enough other people get what THEY want!

Read the books "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill and "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Steven Covey.

To thine own self be true...

[GiGi]

I find that most of my business is from word of mouth. I advertise in a S. Fla. parenting magazine for a couple of months and then lay off for about 6 months. I do some volunteer work but very rarely have a had any bookings from it but when I do volunteer I'm not generally there to generate bookings so it's ok. Car magnets with all of your info work quite well. Never really had much luck with the yellow pages. I've also gone around to local restaurants (when trying to get gigs). Even if they don't want my services, they usually won't say no to you leaving a tray of cards. Also kids consignment stores will let you put out cards. I have also called around to other local party companies that do Bounce Houses, cotton candy etc. and worked it out so that they refer me/ I refer them and we can work package deals. It really works out well. That's just my 2 cents worth. Hope it's helpful.

GiGi

[NTC]

I do birthday parties. I have never advertised in papers, but put posters and flyers up in local businesses. Since last summer I haven't had to do that, because word of mouth has me constantly busy. What I have started doing though is giving out a coloring picture of a clown with ' Have a magical party with...' and my details, to the hostess to put in the party bags of the guests. I roll these up and stick them together with a clown sticker. So far it seems to be working. Hope this helps.

[saphireSue]

tried flyers, didn't get much response from that

Business Cards have been my best, Like Hopper said I give them out every where, and leave a stack and our one and only party shop, and at florist because they do the balloons thingy. and I keep several posted on bulletin boards more than one so if some one wants the info they can take the card and I check regularly and add when needed.

Adds. This year when the new phone books come out, I'll be the only clown listed [unless some one else got in at the last min - they had to make the catogory for me] so I'm hoping this will pick up.

Word of mouth is also one of the best, my minstry groups stays busy, and I only sched those events upon request.

Volunter, becareful they will take advange of you if you don't watch it. I only do two or three, Hospice Care camp, ALS , and my child's school

[Willace-the-Clown]

I use fliers & Bissness cards

[Jitterbug]

If you'd like a GREAT website designer at a great price, I'd suggest Jeff Johnson...www.freshstartweb.com He did mine and my husband's sites, and were both WELL worth the money. He's very inventive and communicates very well. Christian single guy. Look into it.
ALSO--I have a friend that is strictly a facepainter, and she sends out postcards to places like country clubs, legions, rotarys etc. and she gets booked every year for the same parties. They love her!
Bump a nose!

[OkiDoki]

A website works very well for me. To make a website work well building a website is only half of the work. You also have to make sure that people will find it easily. You need good metatags so searchengines will rank you high and you will be found when people use certain keywords. Find as many places as possible (keep reasonable of course) where you can put your link (Google for example ranks you on this) or can advertice on the web (including your website) etc. etc. A handy way to do so is search (Google for example) for other clowns and look where they advertice, put their links etc. An important one to report your site at is DMOZ. Searchengines will rank you higher if your site is on their.

I always have my businescards with me in my wallet. I've handed them out at the strangest places like supermarkets and trains while I'm not at all at work.

Also having a few balloons (or other small props) with you can be handy. How often don't you have the situation you have to kill time when there are other people around. No better time to train your juggling skills or practice your new balloonsculpture . You've got people around you to give it away. Much better than when they are laying around in your house or you have to pop it. And last but not least you're making PR, if you're lucky one or more people around you are just breaking there heads on what to do this year with the birthdayparty of their kid, or how to keep the kids happy on a certain occasion etc.

[Chance Marmalade]

I am in the early stages of building my business as well. It will likely prove difficult to find an advertising market for the sort of stuff I like to do since I am not a clown in the traditional sense but here are some of the ideas and options I've been working with. So maybe they'll help you too.

I am a net nerd. I love being online. I use email to stay in touch with close friends and family, MySpace to find and stay in touch with old friends and I don't remember the last time I watched TV because YouTube has everything I want. So I started there first.

I got some simple videos up on YouTube. I did them with a 6 year old webcam with no editing save the effects available in Windows Movie Maker. Basically I just click on the video and click on the effect and I'm done. You can see them here.

Before I moved YouTube accounts I managed to get 7 subscribers in a relatively short amount of time and if I'd kept making new ones (my webcam wont record anymore sadly) I think it would have built to many more. It was these very videos that got me my first paying gig.

I placed an ad on Craig's List looking for a vaudeville clown partner and I received a message from a guy named Michael Mielnik. Better known as Reverend Chumleigh. He wasn't contacting me about becoming my performing partner but rather, he was looking for talent for a fair in Roseburg Oregon and he wondered what I did. I sent him the address to my YouTube site and the next day I had a great offer! My very first! So YouTube was indispensable for me to get started. Also, placing an ad on Craig's List offering your services is a great free way to get an ad out that a lot of people see. www.craigslist.com

I think getting video up of yourself online is one of the best ways to get gigs. A 21st Century Business Card. Setting up a channel on YouTube is easy and I could not recommend it more highly.

Along with a YouTube account, I think the next indispensable thing is a MySpace page. I know it scares a lot of people off as it has a reputation for being built for teens but there are so many great people of all ages on there. It's a great place to network.

And to complete the set I finally purchased a domain. It cost me all of $10 for the year from www.godaddy.com

Once you have the domain you can have it point to a free website (I suggest staying away from pop up hosts like GeoCities). I use moonfruit.com and it has an amazing web page builder which is how I deisigned my site (no coding needed!). They put text ads on your page if they host your site for free but they aren't pop ups. I decided to pay the $8 bucks a month for no ads and a bunch of other options that came with it.

My next step is to get some trading and business cards. The trading cards are really cool and you can order them from Super Star Performers.

Also, networking absolutely every where I can has become part of my strategy and so far it has been working. Since I don't have business cards yet I give people my web address which is easy to remember www.climbthemoon.com or my MySpace if they ask for it.

Ok that's enough out of me, I hope these small bits help!

[The_Princess_of_Bozonia]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

It was these very videos that got me my first paying gig.

This is exactly why I've suggested making a video go on everyone's list of New Year's resolutions. (Well, that, and seeing everyone's videos here would be extremely cool.)

[OkiDoki]

Your absolutely right. I've heard this tip before from jugglers, as being a good way of advertising yourself. I never had the guts though to do it. Mainly because my jugglingskills are technically not comparable with most other jugglers you find on YourTube. Jeremy you convinced me I have to overcome this and make some videos.