It’s hard to describe just how little I knew going in to this. I knew nothing about marketing. All I knew was if I didn’t pull off teaching a class on it, I’d be fired. I had two months.

In an ideal world, the class would be nothing but personal stories of my past clients. I do not live in that world, so I went with option B – stealing from the best.

My company mailed me a package of books that gave me a solid foundation. If all I wanted was to learn the subject, I’d have stopped there and started applying it, but I wanted more. I needed to have an answer to every question thrown my way.

I read blogs for as long as I could stand, but kept getting distracted. I dare you to try learning about social media without being constantly side tracked. The line between just reading blogposts and actually working was nonexistent. Worse, none of the information was sticking. It all felt like random pieces of data. I couldn’t figure out how to fit it all together. It’s as if I was given directions to 20 different overlapping routes, but had no idea what the map looked like underneath them.

I chased down the top rated books on Social Media, and over the course of the next three days lived in a back aisle in Barnes and Noble. I waded through seas of bullshit, trying to find actual advice. After thee days, I had a blurry vision of the map, but wanted more. I kept going.

Over the course of 2 weeks I went through 20 more books on the subject. At some point they all started running together. The map became clear. How were referrals related to tracking related to targeting? What’s the greater message that binds them together? It took over a hundred hours of reading, but I got there.

It reached a point where the reading became a stall tactic, letting me avoid actually outlining the class. I held off on that until after I observed someone else teach it. I got to go to one presented in Pasadena.

After observing the class, I created an outline. I took apart the slides my company gave me, removing anything that repeated, updating the old data, and making it simpler. I’ve never been one for business-y bullet points so by slide 7, I realized it would take longer to update their slides then it would to just start from scratch. So I did.

I wrote 20 pages, breaking the class down into one minute sections. It weighed in at 5,000 words, all color coded. Black meant I fully understood the subject. Green meant I knew it, but needed to find better examples. Red meant I didn’t understand it at all. Company facebook pages, for instance, were black. iFrames and Radian6 were red.

By this point, there was only two weeks before I had to teach the first class, so I moved on to the next phase – turning the notes into slides. I turned the major bullets into slides, and as I went through the five sessions, started pulling as many examples as I could.

By the time the first Social Media Marketing class rolled around I had five hours worth of slides that got slowly lazier over the course of the day. I was ready. Or I thought I was.

The first week was a disaster.

Next Week: Part 11. The Disaster

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Featured Image via Practical Owl

You’ll find an article on why no one can market improv.

You’ll find an article on the sleazy side of the Dorito Video Competition.

You’ll even find an article on him as fake Stan Lee. Here’s Fake Stan Lee meeting the real Stan Lee. It’s kind of awesome.

He’s successfully doing what I want to be doing. He’s on a regular team (Trophy Wife) at one of the biggest improv theaters in Los Angeles, he’s working as an artist through his Photography and Design, and he even wrote and shot a pilot, even if it wasn’t sold.

He does all sorts of promotion for Trophy Wife from live streaming the shows to teaser trailers to posters like this:

It’s far beyond what you’ll find any other improv group doing.

I wrote him a letter, more or less along those lines:

I came across your website by way of googling marketing improv, and after looking at your website, I have this gnawing suspicion that you’re me, but 6 years in the future.

I realized that I’d actually seen you perform plenty, and am consistently  impressed by the Trophy Wife Posters/Trailers at iO [blah blah blah a bit about me, etc] Anyhow, I’m really not sure even what I’d ask, but I’d love to pick your brain, if you’d be up for getting together for coffee or lunch or some such – if you’re willing, I’d really appreciate it.

I guess mostly I’m curious how you’ve succeeded in juggling the same half dozen things I tend to juggle.

He was happy to get together. I just got back from lunch with him (or rather, on Monday, earlier this week).

I had two main questions for him. The first was, “Does all of the promotion you do help get butts in seats?”

While it gets a couple more people to the shows, he said, what it really accomplishes is recognition at the festivals. They’ve been flown across the country to do workshops and had their videos assigned as homework to groups in cities where there isn’t any great improv.

“I started putting them up because my mom and dad wanted to see the show,” he said.

These days, for better or worse, it’s not unusual for the shows to get three to four times the audience online as they do at the theater. The promotion sets the group up as an authority, which isn’t an exact yes to my original question.

You can see them every Wednesday at 9pm at iO West.

My second main question was ”How do you balance the 6 different sides of your life? Doesn’t the lack of focus on just one take away from the others?”

The basic answer was yes, but that’s kind of the point. If one really takes off, he’ll let the others compete for second.

His current view of improv is fairly zen, but it wasn’t always that way. He sees it as a wonderful creative outlet, complimenting the money he makes through directing, photography, and designing. Four years ago he wanted it as an end in and of itself, but he doesn’t think of improv from a business point of view as much now. It makes him sharper, he loves doing it, and others love watching it. For now, that’s enough.

He gave me a couple of websites and books to look at. He said I should read Getting things Done, a book that changed his life and his ability to manage his time. He also agreed that marketing has a dark side that’s an easy pit to drop in to and said I should check out: http://bajillionhits.biz/ - a guy making fun of all of it. It’s a healthy antidote to all of the endless self promotional mouth talkers I listen to.

——————–

I really appreciated Kevin taking the time to answer my silly little questions and helping me figure out what I could be doing better. Even if his responses largely were “It seems like you’re doing things all right” and “The big thing is to take on projects right now, now that you don’t have that many responsibilities” (which is true. I don’t. I’m able to spend time writing blogs like this rather than actually working.)

It was great talking to him, and seeing that everyone, even those at the very top of improv marketing, are still struggling. Still trying to figure things out, waiting for that big something to strike. With improv, it’s not about the ten other jobs we all juggle or the grand plan down the line. What’s important, is to just enjoy the moment.

All images by Kevin McShane

I asked for my old job as a trainer back, and they took me in. It was that same feeling one gets when returning to an old girlfriend.

‘It will be different this time,’ I told myself, forgetting what caused the original break up.

‘This time I’ll teach more than the same boring subject. It will be fun. I’ll love it.’ Going beyond teaching Basic Photoshop was a big step in our relationship.

First I offered to teach Advanced Photoshop. This was barely a stretch.

Then they asked if they could fly me to a company to teach them After Effects. I worked in After Effects on a daily basis at my day job, but teaching it was a major commitment. I needed to spend two weeks preparing for what amounted to a single day’s pay, but I said yes. It meant pushing myself, and that’s what mattered.

Soon after, I volunteered to teach a class in Web Design. I’d worked as a web designer for two years of my life, but trying to teach Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks in five hours seemed like a respectable challenge. After that, I took on teaching Print Design. It was five hours covering Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, InDesign, and Bridge. It had been two years since I’d last used Illustrator or Flash, and I’d never used Acrobat Pro, Fireworks, or Bridge before. It was the sort of challenge I needed.

Every so often I got emails from the company asking if I could take on more classes. Could I teach a full day class on Adobe Acrobat 9? Programming in Oracle? SQL? I’d barely touched them and had no interest in learning them, so my answer was a steady no, until they threw another curve ball my way.

They asked if I wanted to teach a class in Social Media Marketing. I wasn’t sure I could. I had 100,000+ views on my youtube channel at that point and was friends with people who had over a million and made their full time living off of it. I’d worked with dozens of companies  to establish their online strategy, but was I qualified to teach a class? I’d been meaning to improve my skills in it ever since I failed to start my own business. Teaching a class on the subject would force me to learn it. And not just learn it, but become amazing at it. I felt woefully underprepared, but I signed up. I had no idea what to expect.

Next Week: Part 10. Preparing to Teach Social Media Marketing

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

        “How do you make a living off of this?” I asked.

        “What?” he said, surprised that anyone would ever a question as insulting as that.

        “Hold up – I meant that as a compliment. In that you’re doing clearly what you love, unlike so many other people here who are just doing it in a style that the company would want them to work – you’re doing your own thing, and I respect that.”

        “Uh huh”

        “But making a living doing it in your own style – that’s so hard.”

        “Well, I get hired, like on skateboards and buildings and shit like that.”

        “I think I saw a piece of yours in Juxtapoz,” I said.

        “Yeah – I was in there.”

        He never quite said how he got to a point where people were hiring him for it, but I got the impression he’d been doing it forever, doing it for free, and from there people started paying him. At first, he was living in poverty, but over time he started making enough money to move out on his own and make a name for himself.

        This is me projecting, as he told me nothing, and I don’t care to look it up.

        It’s the same for just about any artist or writer I respect. For a long time they did what they loved for close to no pay. They always took little pay over doing something they hated, as they believed in what they were doing.

        It’s the single minded focus, and a drive causing them to produce a ridiculous amount of work that got all of them to where they needed to be. Slowly, I’m starting to believe in my own ability to make this happen. I’m reaching a point where I’m amazed at just how much writing I’m doing. I’m surprised at the single minded drive I’ve been able to go at it with. My level of output recently has been crazy. But more than that, the amount of time I’m spending on it is even crazier. I can’t imagine anyone else spending/wasting this much time on something that has such a small chance of ever paying off.

        When I tell people I’m writing 1,000 words a day as a bare minimum, the common reaction is, “Wow – that’s crazy.” If they knew how little of it was usable, how much of it a collection of self doubts and depression they might say something else. The follow up, if there is a follow up is, “So what are you writing?”

        As it stands, the answer is, “A Modern Family script, a pilot, some sketches, a few short stories, and a longer novel – in an attempt for something to hit and to build a portfolio.” That’s a lie, however. The truth is I’m writing warm up entries and an endless series of blog posts for the sake of getting into the habit. The truth is I rarely get into a groove where I lose all track of time and go for hours on end. The truth is I worry about what’s next. And then I think back to that conversation with Skinner – just keep going. Do what I love, and see where it takes me.

All art in this post is by Skinner

After leaving my old company, I took six months to prepare my own business. I might have started sooner, but I was contractually forbidden. My plan was to offer a one day intensive course on Photoshop for $79.

“Come in knowing nothing and leave knowing Photoshop or your money back.”

Exus Training was a fantastic deal.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know the first thing about marketing, and I learned the hard way that business is marketing. Anyone can teach a class, but getting butts in seats? That’s a skill. I put up a website and as many free videos on Photoshop as I could. I talked with dozens of people who voiced interest. The videos got thousands of hits, but I ended up with only one person signing up. It was embarrassing.

There’s a hundred things I could have done. I know that now. Marketing, I discovered, is hard.

I gave up on running my own business, saying I’d only get back to it if my youtube channel passed 100,000. I regressed a bit as my day job slowed down in terms of both hours and excitement. I’d fallen into a “What are you doing? Same Old, same old” situation. I was spending a lot of time writing in coffee shops, and watched as my bank account got closer and closer to zero.

I decided, more than anything, I wanted to be a writer. It’s what I talked about becoming when I was growing up, and I’d been off that path for far too long. If I was going to become a writer, I couldn’t keep juggling two main jobs, a smattering of freelance assignments, and two other very aggressive hobbies. It left no time for writing. I needed a sustainable source of income that took up no more than two weeks a month. Training made a lot of sense, but I couldn’t just return to training. Just returning with my tail between my legs would destroy me. I couldn’t keep teaching the same class over and over again. I’d done that. Instead I gave myself a challenge.

Next week: Challenging myself by teaching classes I knew almost nothing about

Next Week: Part 9. What Am I Doing Teaching this?

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Amy Poehler said, “If the stage is my church, improv is my religion.”

Here’s Poehler’s full quote:

Treat the stage with respect. Treat it with total and complete reverence. The stage is my church. There is no place that I feel more alive, more myself, more truthful, more satisfied and happy.

Some people go to church to feel in touch with that creative force that some people call God. Well, I get that on stage. I have learned more about the person I want to be and can be from the lessons I have learned in improv classes and performing in shows. That is why I am here today. So if the stage is my church, improv is my religion.

Now, two people up for a scene and just rock out with your cocks out.

[source]

Matt Walsh phrased it as “God is quite simply, the present moment”

So it’s not surprising that a couple of years back Matt Stillman wrote a series of blog posts for the Improvoker matching each of the commandments with a core tenant of improv.

Commandment 1 : I am the Lord your God

The God of improv is simply this — the present moment

Commandment 2 : You shall have no other Gods before me

So some may say that interesting choices or finding your where or establishing relationship are all critical the second commandment says before that you have to be fully there. You cant have an idol that represents your full attention and presence — you need the real thing.

Then he stopped, as by series of blog posts, I mean three posts, and then decided to turn it into a book called: A Funny Thing Happened at Mount Sinai.

As someone with a passion for both Judaism and Improv, I am not at all surprised this exists. And as someone who blogs on both Judaism and Improv, I’m glad to be able to highlight it here.

]]> http://jeremyshuback.com/the-religion-of-improv/feed/ 2 http://jeremyshuback.com/how-i-ended-up-traveling-the-u-s-getting-paid-to-draw-write-teach-part-7/ http://jeremyshuback.com/how-i-ended-up-traveling-the-u-s-getting-paid-to-draw-write-teach-part-7/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:06:23 +0000 Jeremy Shuback http://jeremyshuback.com/?p=1719 Continue reading →]]> Part 7. So good I had to quit

After 15 times teaching the same class, I figured out how to make it interesting to me. I stopped just explaining layers, and instead would design a business card based off of student suggestions. Instead of randomly showing how to select, I gathered images that escalated the difficulty in a fun way. A rubber ducky. A water tower. A statue. Hair blowing in the wind. Etc.

I spent two hours each night tweaking it.

On Monday, for instance, a student asked about file sizes so on Tuesday I gave the answer with a diagram that helped people visualize it.

People’s eyes glazed over on Tuesday when I talked about color correction so on Wednesday I demonstrated the theory by showing them how to change the color of a shirt in a photograph.

I could see blank stares on Thursday when I talked about color spill so I just cut that section out on Friday. The class started improving.

 Sometimes the classes were more spontaneous than others. For instance, during week 5 when I was talking about selection, one guy asked, “Jeremy – could you put the duck’s head on the statue’s body?”

“Could I?” I said, “Yes. Of course. But should I? No. Absolutely not. That’s a horrible idea. That’s so far from what anyone would call art….just thinking about that causes me physical pain – what a terrible idea.” Then I stared at him and shook my head.

“Will you?” he asked.

“Well, because you asked-” Then I spent half an hour going through the exact steps needed to create that picture, while still covering the topics that needed covering.

The same thing happened with beauty retouching. At first I shot to make various faces as beautiful as possible, but then I started having fun showing the class how they could use the same techniques to turn a person into a hideous monster.

I reduced the class down to nothing but applicable example after applicable example. No one cared about a demonstration of the latest tool if they didn’t know how to apply it to their own lives. I saw that. I knew exactly what worked.

But I started to get bored again after the 40th time. This job wasn’t making me the artist I wanted to become. It was making me a teacher.

Worse than that, the company slowly started taking things away. They took away the room’s coffee, started booking us in different hotels from where we were teaching, went from physical mail to email (that one I understood), and other small changes of the sort.

They sent out a contract to get all their trainers to take a pay cut ‘due to the economy.’ It was the final straw. I didn’t sign it, and didn’t hear from them until four months later when I got a form email, firing me. It was time, and I was glad it was over. You can only teach the same class so many times before it drives you mad.

It was time to start my own business.

Next Week: Part 8. Trying (Failing) to Start Up my Own Business

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

For $100, Thrifty would take our rental car, but because it was under only my name, I had to talk with them. Valerie said I needed to call Thrifty and ask for Olivia. I did.

“Hi, my name’s Ashley,” a peppy voice said, “Olivia is on the phone. How can I help? Or do you want to wait until she’s off?”

“That’s fine,” I said, “I’ll talk to you.”

I told Ashley the situation, “I was supposed to drop off my car at LAX, but due to circumstances, I need to drop it off at John Wayne instead.”

Ashley said, “Yeah. I see that on your sheet.”

I said, “Great. Also, I’m not going to be the one dropping it off. Valerie’s the one dropping it off.”

“Who?” she asked.

“You don’t know her. She was my travel partner for the week. She’s just some other person. Long story.”

She said, “That’s not on the sheet.”

“Ok,” I said, “So what I want you to note is someone who’s not me is going to drop it off.”

“Only you are authorized to drive the vehicle. She’s not a registered driver, so can’t be driving the car.”

“We’re past that at this point. Due to circumstances, she had to drive the car, and I just want to know what I have to do so she can drop off the car.”

“I don’t advise that,” she said.

“Well, I don’t really have a choice,” I said, “So I just need to know how I can authorize it.”

She said, “Sir, she needs to be a registered driver.”

“Is there any way you can mark down that I’m fine with it? I just want her to drop off the car.”

“You needed to do that when you originally signed up.”

“Well, that didn’t happen. Is there something I can do now?”

“I’m not sure I understand sir. What’s your problem?”

I went through the problem again.

She said, “Oh. No – she needs to be a registered driver.”

“Yes. I understand that. I get that. That’s….what do I need to do?”

“You need to go through Dollar-Rent-A-Car.”

“Okay. Great. What number can I call to authorize this?”

“Actually, you need to go there in person.”

“That’s fine. I’m by LAX,” I lied, “What exactly do I need to ask for in person?”

“Actually, you both need to be at Dollar-Rent-a-Car to authorize it.”

“That’s not an option. She has a flight to catch from John Wayne in two hours. I just want to drop off your car. Is there any way she can drop off the car?”

“I don’t advise that.”

“I don’t understand. What does that mean? Is it not allowed? Is it illegal? What’s the problem?”

“Well-”

“Is it illegal? Is there a problem with the police? I mean if my partner…I mean why can’t you advise this?”

We went back and forth for a while, until finally she said, “The car could get impounded.”

“Who would impound the car?”

“It could-”

“Are the cops impounding the car? Are you guys impounding it?”

“The cops might.”

“All right. In the off chance the cops don’t impound the car and we do manage to get it back to you un-impounded, then is it all right if Valerie returns it?” I asked.

To which she said, “Can I put you on hold sir?”

I said, “Okay,” and then waited. This wasn’t the exact conversation, but the gist of a conversation that went in circles over the course of 20 minutes, ending in the exact same way.

After five minutes, I hung up and called them back. I got Olivia and told her that I’m that person who Valerie was talking about earlier. I asked, “Would it be all right if Valerie dropped off the car?”

Olivia said, “Oh yeah. That’s fine. Let me just change the contract.”

I said, “Thank you,” and got very frustrated I didn’t just wait for her in the first place.

——————–

How we originally got in this situation is a much longer story. I wish the screw up only costed me the $100 fine and 30 minutes of frustration. The longer story ends with my job in jeopardy and having to put Valerie in the middle of an ugly problem and permanently hurting our relationship. But I’d rather just tell this shorter version. It’s funnier.

Note: Valerie’s real name is not Valerie, but all the same she was fantastic to work with, and I look forward to seeing her again. I learned so much, not only from her experience, but also her amazing professionalism when under an extremely stressful situation (again, a longer story only tangentially connected to this one)

Even less defendable, I was reading the comment section and saw the following:

Mute this and Play Dubstep
HOLY SHIT!
Muliox82Gamer

It sounded like a good idea, as I’d recently seen:

and

and most influential of all:

So I did what anyone might do in this situation – I spent half an hour, and created:

I told Muliox82Gamer about it. His response?

Muliox82Gamer: Nice … but needs more wub wub :C

Me: @Muliox82Gamer haha. Obviously I did it wrong. Let’s see your version. I had a fun half hour making it.

Mulio: @thebulfrog CHALLENGE ACEPTED… meh, im too lazy right now :3

Me: @Muliox82Gamer Love it. Pretty sure you just summed up the death of western civilization right there.

Mulio: @thebulfrog I FINISHED! See the Response video…

Which I did:

At which point I went to his channel, and saw remixing was kind of his thing.

I’m just going to come out and say it – I like my version more.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering – My Little Pony Dubstep? Yeah. That’s a thing. It’s called Rainbowstep.

Time well spent.

I was worried. After only 5 days I was bored of teaching the class, and I was signed up to do it over and over again for the next six months.

Two weeks before my second swing teaching I was told not enough people registered so I’d be teaching a ‘Best Of’ on Monday.

‘What does that mean?’ I wrote back.

‘It means that the beginning and advanced tracks will be combined into a single track’ they wrote.

‘How was this possibility not mentioned once in my three days of training?’ I wondered.

The challenge made Monday’s class interesting and new, and surprisingly the day went great because of it.

But on Tuesday it was back to the grind of teaching the same class I’d already done 6 times. I could tell my students could tell just how bored out of my mind I was. Wednesday was the same.

My partner missed his flight Wednesday night, so Thursday I taught solo for the first half of the day again, but Friday was the same, and I was no better off than I’d started.

Another month passed, and I was off on the road again. My partner this time was a guy who’d taught Photoshop for 15 years, and was a part of the team that originally invented it.

“Really?” I said, “What are you doing in the same job as me, then?”

He went through a series of life choices he’d made, most choices littered with Photoshop Trainer name dropping. I had no idea someone could do that much Photoshop Trainer name dropping. I got the impression if left alone he could amuse himself for hours with the sound of his own voice. But he knew his stuff cold and compared to him, I knew nothing.

The class started that Monday with a 30 minute intro going over the day. I carried my intro with a string of ‘ummms’ and he carried his with a string of Photoshop puns. Of the 50 students, only 8 headed to my room. By an hour in I was down to four. Still bored out of my mind, I hoped those four would head his way as well. Each time I taught, the class was getting worse. What kept my partner, who was going on 15 years of teaching this class, motivated?

‘This is just the wrong job for me,’ I thought while standing in front of the classroom.

That night in the car I asked my partner how he did it.

“I’m basically on auto pilot mode. I’ve done it so many times.”

“But how do you stay inspired?”

“Well – I did stand up for a while, and I think of it a lot like that. Every day I’ll adjust it a little bit. Test out new things. Try to improve it ever so slightly. I just try to have fun.”

We got to the next hotel, and that night I went through my lesson plan, and redid as much as I could. I found better images. I rearranged the order of how I explained things. I incorporated answers to questions students were asking that I hadn’t thought up.

It was hard to put myself in the mindset of someone who had never used Photoshop before. I needed to instill a wonder in discovering each new tool. I had a new challenge. Becoming spontaneous would not be easy.

Next Week: Part 7. So good I had to quit

Read Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Featured Image via Freaking News