If I seem to hit on this subject a lot lately, it is because I see things happen and get emails about how to become famous almost every day.
20 years ago, ventriloquism wasn’t as popular as it is now. People wanted to learn the art to have fun. But today, about 50% of those who reach out just want to become famous. A scary amount!
Now – on with this article …
I’ve got to give credit for this article to an email I read from David Risley of the Blog Marketing Academy.
David talked about people who wanted to start an online business. In his words:
They want to start a blog, do it the right way, sell some stuff and make some money.
Problem is, they’re freakin’ cheap. They don’t want to spend any money at all.
They want to start a blog for pennies on the dollar (or even free). They want to use nothing but free content online to learn how to make it all work. They pretty much refuse to spend any money on necessary tools. And then, come to somebody like me and ask…
“How can I start up an online business without spending any money on it?”
And my answer, if I’m being totally honest, is…
You can’t. Go get a job.
David goes on to explain any business has start up expenses. It is less expensive to start an online business, but there are still costs.
So why am I talking about this?
Because each week I get emails from beginning ventriloquists and some who have been performing for awhile.
And these emails have one thing in common. They are all broke and can’t afford (or don’t want to pay for) lessons or scripts, but they will spend thousands on a cool puppet or figure that will take them nowhere. Then, they all want to go on America’s Got Talent and become famous.
This is the same thing that David talked about above.
You can’t start a business for free. And you can not just become a ventriloquist and be rich & famous.
His line: “They want to use nothing but free content online to learn how to make it all work.” really struck a chord with me.
Ventriloquism is not easy!
It is the ventriloquist’s job to make it look easy. Like they aren’t controlling or speaking for the puppet. But that takes years to master.
Yet some people suffer the delusion that they will read a book, study a free tutorial or follow some youtube videos and instantly have the talent to win AGT. How hard could it be? I mean a 12 year old girl won…
Extremely hard.
That 12 year old girl had coaches for voice and vent. Her parents invested money in her career. Plus she was a cute little kid with amazing talent. (Not just ventriloquism.)
People have sought out her coaches. They have been “selected” by her talent scouts for AGT.
And trust me when I say they will be disappointed.
Why?
Because folks, I’ve been in show business over 35 years now. I’m not jaded. I’m realistic.
You can have an amazing career. You can do a lot of cool things and meet a lot of neat people. But if you are going into this to be famous … go get a job.
You can’t go from playing local senior centers and small parties, to winning a major talent competition. (Which isn’t really a talent competition – it is a TV show about one.)
- It isn’t the ventriloquist figure or puppet.
- It isn’t just the ability to talk without moving your lips.
If you don’t have shows, if you don’t have a fan base, you aren’t going to develop that overnight. I don’t want to dash your dreams – but I don’t want you to be disappointed either.
Ken Groves did television 17 times. Some pretty big shows. And is he a household name? No.
Taylor Mason won Star Search back in the 80’s. He is an awesome ventriloquist. But he isn’t a household name either.
There was a full week of ventriloquists on Letterman. Ask any of them how many shows they got out of that.
These people are extremely talented. None of them broke through to the “big time” level. (Jeff was already there.)
If you want to be rich and famous, go buy a lotto ticket. You’ve got a better chance of winning a billion dollar jackpot than you do of becoming a famous ventriloquist.
But if you want to have fun, you want to make people laugh, and you don’t mind hard work – ventriloquism is a great talent to learn.
And no matter what people tell you – if you want to be good at this stuff, plan on investing in yourself.
Otherwise no clients will.
