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  • 5 Steps to Better Clowning: Marketing : The Usable Clown on 5 Steps to Better Clowning: Practice
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Something to consider when starting out as a clown is how far from home you would like to travel to entertain. A lot of clowns choose to limit the area in which their services are availible to the public. What is a better idea then saying that you aren’t availible in an area is to charge a fee for having to travel to perform.The best way to do this is to get a map of your area and make marks of the different areas. What works best for doing this highlighters. You can usually find/buy a map of your local area from the city goverment offices. You then find three or more highlighters in different colors, each color will signify a travel charge to get to the gig. Draw a circle on your map that is where you will perform for no addtional charge. Shade that area in with your favorite highlighter color. Then make continuing concentric circles out from there filling each one in with a different color. This will make it quick and easy for you to find out how much additional charge there is to go to a certain area. If someone calls from an area outside your map, you just need to figure out how much further it is and what the charge will be. Once you have worked in an area not on your map, remember what you charged so that you have that number figured out in advance the next time someone calls.This is one of the best ways to not limit yourself to a certain area and provide you with the ability to charge a little more for your travel time. Doing this is especially important if you have a website. If someone finds you on the web there is no guarantee that they are going to be in your normal area of operation.On the flip side of this, don’t be afraid to say no if you don’t feel comfortable traveling that far to entertain. What I ususally do then is try to find another entertainer I know and refer the client to them. Hopefully that entertainer will do the same if they get a call for a gig they can’t do.I always leave about fifteen minutes earlier then I need to when traveling outside my normal area. This allows for me to get a little lost, which is inevitable when traveling to a new town or even a part of a bigger city that you don’t know. If you find yourself lost, always call the people who hired you to let them know you are lost and get directions. 

It Has Been A While

I have missed you guys. A lot. A bundle of fun things have been happening to me lately and I realize that it has been a really long time since I updated. Here is a brief overview of what has been happening in my life.

I have returned to the halls of higher education to finally finish my degree. I have been making a lot of balloons and I have been crafting a whole lot more. Needless to say I haven’t been making the time to write. That is about to change.

I will attempt to keep this blog full of new information. I am going to start slow with at least one post a week, probably on Wednesdays, and then try to expand to more days a week. Once again I will say that if you are interested in contributing to the sight with a nice article please let me know through this site or my email theusableclownATgmailDOTcom. Also if there are any topics you are particularly interested in me writing about or you have questions about any previous topics, please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

-The Usable Clown-

Today we are going to look into common mistakes new and old clowns make with their makeup.

1. Nose is to Big: We have all seen these clowns, heck for a couple of years I was guilty of this. While a big red nose is the trademark of a clown a smaller nose will make you seem less foreign to children as well as make it easier for you to see, which is important to the jugglers, magicians and stiltwalking clowns out their.
2. To Much Outlining: Nothing darkens up a clown face like to many black lines on it. When you are designing your face make sure that you only outline the colors where it is necessary. This will allow you to have a lighter look to you face as well as help you appear more human to your audience.
3. Mascara- That is correct gentleman you need to wear mascara. This will get rid of the white eyelashes that most of us get while putting on the white parts of your makeup as well as make your eyes more expressive.
4. Shoes: A lot of clowns feel that they need to have those big crazy shoes. While those big crazy shoes are cool, they really only look nice when they are professionally made and match the rest of your costume.
5. Color Coordination: Being a clown dosen’t mean you don’t have to match. Some of the best looking clowns you will ever see have costumes that match from top hat to big shoes. When a clown first starts out the usual idea is to buy the zaniest brightest outfit you can find, because that is what clowns wear. Most clowns where oversized or colorful normal clothes, giving them that clown look without overwhelming their audiences senses.
6. Untrimmed Wigs: When you buy a wig you might think that it is fine as it is. That unfortunately not true. You need to go get it trimmed to fit your character so that you don’t look like every other clown that wears that same wig. There is nothing worse then one hundred different faces with the same haircut.
7. Wig color: Traditionally clown wigs where “normal” colors such as red, yellow and orange. As dyes got fancier greens, blues, pinks, purples and ,any other colors arrived on the scene. The thing to remember is that the color of you wig should match your character and compliment you costume.
8. Powder: Powdering is the most important part of your clown makeup. Without makeup you will become a melted faced mess. Powder often and you will have a clown face that can withstand the greatest heat as well as getting hit with a pie, jumping in a pool and eating.
9. Makeup: Use actual clown makeup. Women’s face makeup isn’t made to withstand the stress of clowning nor is face paint. There are many manufacturers of clown makeup and their products will stand the test of time.
10. Stay in Shape: Clowning is a physical art form. You want to make sure that you can do whatever it is that you do as a clown without running out of breath. It is ok to act like you are out of breath, but you need to be able to go and go and go. You don’t necessarily need to lose weight or change you appearance, but you do need to exercise to stay in shape.
11. Practice: When you are first starting out practice your makeup, performing in costume, anything that has to do with your appearance so that you know what it looks like and what you need to work on. Even so of the older clowns could probably use some practice on their makeup since you have possibly getting sloppy.
12. Ask for Help: Ask your friends and family what they think of your look. They hopefully will be honest and you will be able to improve your look. If you have no one to show your clown to email pictures to theusableclown [at] gmail [dot] com and I will be happy to critique your look.
13. Be Honest With Yourself: If you think something doesn’t look right with your costume, it probably dosen’t. The hardest part of being a clown is knowing what looks good on you and what doesn’t. If it feels to tight, it probably is.

There you have it, 13 ways to make you a better looking clown. Good luck and keep on being funny.

Wow that was quite a hiatus from posting, but we are back and ready to rock and roll. But real quick check out The Usable Clown Store. By a t-shirt or mug to show off your clown/Usable Clown pride. Oh and if you get this via feedreader check out the website, we have made some changes to the look and we have a new better logo.

There is a time in every clown’s life where he\she stops and thinks, “There has got to be a better way to do this” and every time a clown thinks that, they are correct. Here are 5 steps to better and easier clowning:

1. Simplify
2. Practice
3. Market
4. Plan
5. Execute

Here is the third, really the fourth, in the series. We will cover: Why, How and When to advertise, How is covered here, here and here

Advertising is usually the most costly part of having your own business. Luckily for you clowning is almost self advertised once you get it started, this means that if you have a well put together show and hand a card to every single person that sees you, there is very little left for you to do. This is because most of the advertising is done for you by the people you entertain. But we are getting ahead of ourselves first you have to understand Why.Why advertise? Especially if you can get your audience to do it for you. Because it is so simple to do. Once you have your cards (l) printed up all you have to do is hand them to everyone in the world. Grocery clerks, church members, coworkers, you get the idea. They all have kids or at the very least parties. Keep in mind that you may only get one call for every 10-25 business cards handed out. That means that one box of 250 cards should net 10-25 clown jobs at at least $50 a party you are looking at $500 - $1250 for the cost of the cards. That is a pretty good profit. But in order to do that you need to hand your cards to everyone, even people you might think have no use for a clown.Aside from getting your name out there this will also get you a collection of business cards from other people. For some reason you cannot hand someone a business card without getting one in return. These cards are the seeds for your off season marketing plan. Using the names and contact information on those cards you can start to sell yourself to local businesses for grand openings, sales and anything you or they can think of. If you give out enough cards you will be able to coast for a year without having to look for a job. I would advise against that as you should always be looking for jobs so you can clown forever.How you give someone a cards is as important as the card itself. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that age old first impression rule. The first impression is the most important and may be the only one you get. This means that at all times you need to carry yourself in a professional manner. This doesn’t mean that you need to dress like a business person, you just need to look like someone people want to invite into their home or business. Also, when you are in public out of your clown outfit you are not a clown. Not even a little. You don’t what to approach people in the same way that you would approach them in your clown outfit, you’ll just come off as weird and your card will disappear into the waste basket as soon as you walk away.The other part of this that is hard for even experienced clowns is when to distribute your cards. It all depends on the venue and the event. If you are making balloons at a restaurant you should give cards, see the ’s’ on cards that means you give them at least two, to every table you visit and have a stack of cards up at the host stand. If you are at a festival, hand them out after every show, performing at a business have a stack at the counter as well as hand them out as necessary. When you are doing a birthday party make sure that no kid leaves without at least one your cards if not two or three. This will ensure that their parents see the card as well as give their parents something to give to their friends.As you can see the trick with marketing yourself is word of mouth. The more people that have seen you perform that have a card with your phone number the more people will call you. Even if you think someone could never use a clown they might have a friend or relative that could. Leave no card unhanded out.

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.

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