241 – Punch Up Your Presentations with Comedian Larry Bloom of Funnier By The Lake Comedy

Gift biz unwrapped episode 241 and you find out what they

need and then you respond to them accordingly.

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now you are in the right place.

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Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

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Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Well, hi bear.

You too,

and thank you so much for joining me here today.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

How'd your day go yesterday?

Maybe a crazy question.

I know and yes,

you heard me right?

If you were to rate yesterday,

how much did you get done?

How far did you advance toward your goal or maybe in

your mind you're saying what goal?

Many of you have told me you aren't sure whether what

you're doing is the right thing for your business.

You're confused that you may be focusing on the wrong things

and wasting time and money and you compare yourself to others

and feel like you're just not keeping up.

Sound familiar?

Maybe you find that you're busy all day long,

but when you finish up,

you haven't accomplished much of anything at all.

I've been there too until I started working with what I

now call the power of purpose.

I made a free video for you that explains how to

boost your productivity and get results using the power of your

purpose. Isn't it time to make all the effort that you

put into your business and your life do for you what

you've intended.

Now full disclosure,

this video does lead into showing you my brand new inspired

daily planner.

But listen,

you don't need the inspired planner to get all the advantages

out of the power of purpose that I show you in

this video.

So if you're interested in discovering a new way to work

through your days so your time is intentional and your results

are real,

I encourage you to go over and watch this video and

you can find it at gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash planner.

That's gift biz,

unwrap.com forward slash planner now,

in the four plus years that I've been doing this show,

I've come to know a lot about you and truth be

told it's pretty easy because we're a lot of like you

take great pride and can talk all day about your products

with an interested party in one on one conversations.

You can talk about what you make,

the story of how you got started and the intricacies of

your creation and production methods.

These all roll effortlessly off your tongue,

right? But then you reach a roadblock talking about these exact

same things in a public environment.

Now that's an entirely different story.

The idea of speaking in public is petrifying to most.

Yet. As a small business owner,

this is essential to getting the visibility necessary to grow.

Whether it's networking,

exhibiting at a craft show or doing Facebook lives.

You aren't going to go far without the extended exposure that

these activities bring and if wholesale or corporate accounts are part

of your sales strategy,

you'll need to present your business and product in a public

forum here to many,

I won't say all but many of you will decide to

stay small and continue selling only to family,

friends, and maybe friends of friends,

but the truth is this is only going to get you

so far to grow.

At some point,

you have to display and present your business and your products.

This is where today's guest comes in.

I've turned to a comedian for some guidance on this issue.

Now you might ask,

how is this going to help me?

You may think comedians naturally have what it takes to deliver

one liners and tell stories that end up in that explosion

of laughter coming up.

You're going to find out that that's not necessarily true.

Larry doesn't make tangible and tasty things like we do,

but he creates art through entertainment and his profession relies 100%

on putting himself in the public eye.

Let's turn to him now and find out how he can

help us deal with our anxiety around speaking out in front

of people we don't know.

Really excited to introduce you to Larry bloom with funnier by

the Lake comedy now.

I have no idea what's going to be happening here,

but I know it's going to be a lot of fun,

so buckle in and get ready.

Larry has been writing jokes and making people laugh his entire

life growing up North of Chicago in Wilmette,

Illinois. What interest in talent Larry lacked in sports.

He made up for it with a passion for the standup

comedians and actors from movies and television of the sixties seventies

and eighties Larry was a remarkably horrible high school and college

student. You guys can guess.

I'm reading from his bio that he provided me,

so I'm just going with that and he often says that

if those years were a book it would be titled fear

and loathing on campus.

I told you to get ready.

Larry's standup comedy Springs from a lifetime of experiences and a

view of the world seen through a comedian's filter in which

humor can be found in everything and nothing is off limits

unless it's not funny.

He can be seen performing on stage throughout the Chicago area

and through funnier by the Lake comedy Leary has made it

his mission to bring live comedy to the North shore of

Chicago. Larry,

I am so excited to have you on the show.

Thanks. So I've warned you.

And so you have to be ready for my traditional candle

question, which we use to start every interview.

And that is if you were to share with us what

your all about by way of a motivational candle,

what color would it be and what would be the quote

on the candle?

I don't know what a motivational candle.

I'd have never been motivated by a candle,

but if I had to pick a color it would normally

be blue,

like kind of medium,

kind of cool.

Blue would normally be the color that represents.

So I guess that's the color that comes to my mind

I guess.

Okay. And then the quote,

which is like my favorite quote,

which is actually from Hunter S Thompson,

it's a part of a longer quote,

but it's basically buy the ticket,

take the ride,

which basically means whatever you do,

good or bad,

you've made that decision,

you're in it and you got to go for that ride,

see what happens.

There you go.

I like that.

How would you relate that to someone who's starting a business?

I don't think you can start a business and actually not

have that sensibility because if you go into a business thinking

I'm going to do this and it's going to go this

way where I want it to go this way and you're

not prepared to just take those steps and see where they

take you and see what blows up in your face and

then you still have to deal with and you still have

to go down that road or pick the roads to go

down based on what happens.

I mean you shouldn't even be starting a business.

The people that start with these concrete expectations are almost doomed

to failure.

I mean I think you know,

cause you run a business,

I mean there's just absolutely no day.

That's just like exactly the way you expect it to go.

Right. And I also think you're right because when people start

a business,

they think everything is going to be smooth.

If they've planned enough thought about it,

enough took enough classes,

whatever it's going to be,

that everything is going to be perfect from the get go.

And then the second that they meet with resistance or something's

not going quote unquote according to plan,

then they think,

I'm not cut out for this.

You know,

or it's not going to work for me.

Where where you're saying take the ride.

It is going to be a ride.

There's going to be bumpy roads,

there's going to be smooth roads and that's what you've kind

of bought into when you bought the ticket.

That's exactly right.

Good. I'm on the ride with you Larry.

Okay. Take us back.

How did you get into,

now I know comedy isn't all that you do,

so feel free to share what you want to talk about,

but I know we really want to focus on the comedy

part as well and give biz listeners.

I wanted to do that because that also more relates to

what we're talking about here with you.

If you're a Potter or any type of a maker.

Creating comedy is also making,

I thought this was going to be a fun and interesting

twist to other things that we're all doing together.

Okay, so Larry,

take us on back.

Tell us how this all happened,

How, what happened to the comedy part of my life?

Whichever way you want to go with us.

Well, I mean we're talking about comedy,

we're talking about funding by the Lake.

Like you'd read in my bio,

I've always written jokes and I've always been funny people my

entire life were like,

you should be a standup comedian,

but I was always enough of just a student of the

arts that I knew that it wasn't like when you're at

a party and you're standing in a group of four people

and you say something funny and then other things happen and

people say stuff and then you say something funny and everyone

thinks, Oh,

you should be a standup comedian.

But that's like a huge difference between standing up in front

of a room full of people and having to say like

30 or 40 or 50 things in a row that are

funny. Plus when I was younger I just did not have

the personality or fortitude to get on stage and do anything.

But then I had an opportunity a handful of years ago.

I used to run a business groups.

I used to be in front of a groups all the

time. There was a standup element to that always.

I would always write jokes for those actually.

Yeah. I was more excited about writing the jokes to the

stuff that actually the business part of it,

so I was really accustomed to doing that in front of

large groups.

I used to like the MC comedy nights.

I had done that because that was low risk and you

don't expect a lot from,

the MC just introduces me.

Maybe you throw in a joke or something,

but they don't expect you to be the comedian.

Then there was a business group I was in and they

were doing a comedy night.

I asked the venue owner if I could emcee it and

he said,

well, the people who run the group,

we're going to do the emceeing,

and he asked me if I could do a set.

Now, just to put it in context,

I was actually at that point,

I was in my mid forties and my dad had just

died like a few weeks before kind of suddenly,

and he probably had plans for six months out in the

next year.

And so I was really,

living in a life is short kind of a sense and

I, I just didn't think I could say no because I

couldn't say I want to do it next year cause I

was just in a place where next year sometimes it isn't

available to you.

So then I went on Facebook and I posted,

I've just tentatively agreed to do stand up comedy at this

place in a few weeks or whatever.

And the response was like,

yeah, you have to do that.

Oh come and see that.

That's what people were like very excited for that because they've

been telling me to do it for a long time.

And then part of the reason I even posted it was

like if I post it,

I cannot back out at this point.

It's a public thing.

I mean I can,

but I'd feel awful.

I'd never live it down in my own head and the

thing that I did that was completely ridiculous was like I

had been speaking in front of groups so I was really

comfortable and I knew how to write jokes and perform jokes,

but I had never done like open mics.

I'd never done anything in standup comedy like in pure standup

comedy and the request was that I do 15 minutes,

which is insane to do the first time I normally go

to open mics.

You do three minutes,

you five minutes,

you do eight minutes,

you do four minutes and you kind of work on what's

called your tight five.

That's what you wore.

You people worked for years to get their tight five to

go out and be a comedian and I agreed to do

15 minutes and I didn't know any better to know how

dumb that was,

but I wrote 15 minutes and I did really well,

which was kind of amazing.

That is so crazy.

I want to talk about that some more in a second,

but I also want to underline the point that you're talking

about here that way back when you were young,

people were already saying you were funny.

Like that was innately something that was part of you.

And I think it's so interesting for all of us to

reflect on what do other people see in us that we

don't allow ourselves to see.

Because it might be a little uncomfortable.

It might be scary.

You might not identify with it really,

but it already is naturally you.

That's what I'm hearing from you in the story.

Yeah. Though I knew I was funny.

I mean that was sort of like my stock and trade

and that also got me in trouble and also got me

out of trouble a lot of times and just that,

Hey, you know,

I'm not a big guy.

You know,

physically I'm not a big guy.

So you play with what you got to kind of survive.

So I've always been funny.

I always think of there's a North shore magazine or Chicago

magazine article with a,

it was an interview with a Harold Ramis from like the

nineties they asked him when you were in high school,

I think he went to sin or something about it.

He was like,

when you were in high school were you the class clown?

And he said,

ah no I wasn't at the class clown,

but I was the class clowns writer.

I identified with that greatly.

Yeah, well we've known each other for a long time.

Larry, and I've seen you as the meeting leader in network

meetings before.

I've seen you with your breakfast groups groups that you've created

and you are so comfortable and you are hysterical in front

of the groups.

And dare I say,

I think,

and this is a question for you,

you were always really relevant and I think that's just what

a comedian naturally does.

You are really relevant to things that were happening at the

time, like in the news and all of that.

But you also always almost crossed the line.

You know,

like you had that gasp of factor.

I don't know what you'd call it,

like I can't believe you just said that type thing.

Do you do that intentionally?

Is that part of your thing?

It's interesting because when I ran the chamber morning breakfast that

you were always at,

that wasn't my group.

I just led it and so I would bring it to

a point and then yes,

and bring it to a line and kind of inch over

it. You know,

breakfast of champions,

which was full on my group to run and it was

mine to do whatever I wanted.

I could be a little even more outspoken,

but I didn't know what we were there for.

But yeah.

Here's the thing,

and this is,

I was just telling the story the other day,

which is not going to say the word on your podcast.

No, you can't or I have to do an E.

That's fine.

My wedding speech,

I dropped the F bomb and I did it because it

was part of a story about how when I first met

my wife,

when we were introduced and we were out with another couple

who introduced us,

I was on my best behavior.

Like normally I talk like Joe Peshy,

like in casino,

and I was like,

I'm not going to swear,

I'm going to be a mention about this.

And I wasn't.

And we were sitting around drinking and Deborah,

who became my wife when she was talking,

she like dropped the F bomb really casually.

And then my friend's wife was talking and I interrupted her

and I said,

I look back at Deborah and I said,

wait, did you just say Athens?

She said,

unapologetically. She was like,

Oh yeah.

And so in my wedding speech,

I tell that story so that at the end of it,

the is so I could say unequivocally with all sincerity,

you had me at F,

that was the joke and it got a huge laugh.

And then people still talk about it today and they're just

like, I can't believe you said F in your wedding speech.

And I say,

how many weddings have you gone to?

Oh, Dustin's like,

all right,

tell me any other wedding speech you remember.

And they can't.

That's the only one they remember.

Oh there you go.

Yeah. That's why one part of my other business,

which is marketing and branding is always like be memorable.

That's it.

You gotta be memorable.

And so my style,

my sort of,

the thing that I do is communication is words that that's

what I'm all about.

And when I'm at a big networking event or something like

in one of these chambers where there's a hundred people in

the room,

I mean you got to say something people are going to

remember or it's just in and out one year.

Yeah. But you also said something really important too,

which is know your audience and know why you're there.

Because when you're talking about with the chamber you were a

little more reserved,

like a little bit of a filter was there.

You crossed the line of tad like a toe across the

line, but you treated it differently than you treated your own

event. Yeah,

exactly. So knowing your audience is important.

Yeah, and like I just was booked at a show,

a comedy show down in Bloomington,

normal and central Illinois.

That's where I used to live.

I went to school there and I went down there.

I agree to do the show cause I still knew some

people down there so I wanted to go down and do

it. But there were just all sorts of jokes I have

not been able to do like up here on the North

shore that I was able to do in Bloomington normal that

they just hang it up and then vice versa.

There's stuff that I could just couldn't do down there that

it just wouldn't relate.

Right. Yeah.

I guess I would circle this back to people who are

listening know your customer and when you think of email language

that you're using,

images that you're presenting,

et cetera,

you want to make sure that you're speaking with things that

will be received well.

But to Larry's point,

I think that also captures attention.

So really,

really good point there.

I see this a lot that when I go to these

networking things and the people that have,

they've got their nuggets,

you got to leave with a nugget and sometimes it's like

you have to do this so you shouldn't do this.

I don't like when people speak in absolutes like that.

That's why you really do have to know your audience and

your audiences or your customer base.

Actually your audience is your potential customers and then once you

actually have them like in front of you at a trade

show or on the phone and like a call or even

just a networking and you're doing your pitch,

I mean you have to respond to,

you have to look at their face like how are they

responding? Is there a face opening up because they like what

you're saying and you can go a little further or is

there a brow offering and you know what?

They're getting a little upset.

You just don't have your pitch and you just lay it

out and then just walk away.

I mean the people that are responsive or sensitive to who

they're talking to,

they're just more successful at least from that point.

Right. Well like when you're doing your comedy,

you can see that cause you're live right in front,

you can see what the audience's reactions are.

Well, like the first two rows,

it could be 500 people in the room.

You really only see like the first 25 Okay.

All right.

Got it.

But I think also like for some of us,

if it's emails,

you can see what email opens you're getting or how much

interaction you're getting on Facebook.

You know?

So I think your point is really,

really well made,

Larry, is it's not just throw the information out there and

then move on to the next bit of information,

put information out and then go back and analyze and see

what's really resonating with your audience and then do more of

that. Yeah.

And I was in my other business,

which is,

you know,

branding and marketing and web development.

I've always told people,

you know,

your website needs to be responsive to who's,

it can't just be just your information,

some pretty pictures in your information that just you like to

see who's coming to this.

There might be three different types of people that are going

to come to your site.

That could be B to C,

there could be distributors,

there could be reps who want to work with you and

you have to appeal to them and speak their language,

take the work away from them.

And again,

it all sort of ties together and just knowing who you're

talking to and being sensitive to that.

Yep. And I'm so glad you brought up your website.

This is going off course a little bit.

We're going to get back onto comedy in a minute,

but Larry,

I have quoted you at least two or three times in

different podcast episodes.

Okay. What do you say about your website?

Well, I used to have a marketing thing that was,

is it the,

what type of employee is your website?

Yep, exactly.

Yeah. What type of employees?

Your website,

does it sit at home all day doing nothing or does

it generate leads and help you succeed or grow?

The whole point is that it should be as close to

a human representative.

It can't be because it's a website,

but if you can just cover all those bases about just

not just throwing the information in front of people,

but actually thinking about who's coming to the site.

There's different channels of people and there's different conversations with each

of them.

Get them to the right conversations,

the right information.

Your conversion rate is going to be exponentially better because they're

getting right to the information that applies to them,

like within a click within a second or two instead of

like they have to weed through everything that you've got on

there and figure out.

That's the whole thing.

It's like what people never seem to understand.

Even big companies with big budgets,

they just seem to miss the boat on like you took

the web out of it.

The technology.

Yeah. You would never set up an office or a retail

store or a restaurant or something where people came in and

had to figure out how you could help them.

No. Yeah.

They come in and you find out what they need and

then you respond to them accordingly.

Right. And what I remember you also saying is your website

is one of your best employees.

Is there 24 seven It's the first point of contact,

probably 90% of the time now.

Because even if it's somebody you know,

a relative,

it could be someone you went to high school with,

whatever you write into them,

this is what I'm doing now.

They want to do business with you or they're interested,

they're still going to go to your website and check you

out. And you may never even have known they've been there.

Right. And that's the thing.

I have an article on my LinkedIn,

you know,

one of those long form articles and it's something called,

I don't get business through.

My website is a big fat lie that people tell themselves.

And it's because people are like,

I don't get business through it.

Like they think,

well it's like,

but no,

it's part of an aggregate and you don't know if you

don't have a website or if you're not tracking like the

activity and conversions.

You don't know what sent people away.

You don't know what people didn't do.

You can only try and get them to do what you

need them.

Do. People think,

I don't get business through my website because people didn't search

whatever I sell,

find me and then give me money.

As opposed to like,

well maybe they found you some other way.

Maybe they heard about you,

maybe they met you,

they go to your website and whatever.

They're uninspired.

The whole idea is it's supposed to inspire and motivate people

to do whatever you need them to do,

which is give information or give money or make a purchase,

whatever the case may be or download information hopefully.

Right. Yeah,

and I think the point is we need to take control

of what actions actually happened by making sure what you were

just talking about a little bit earlier,

that when people come to the site they can self select

what's important to them.

And it's very obvious where they should go next and that's

all under our control.

It's not up to them to figure it out.

Yeah. And people don't like the word manipulation because they think

it's kind of negative and it's kind of sleazy,

but it is a manipulation.

You do have to manipulate the people in a certain way,

not necessarily in a bad way,

but just you need to get them to do what you

need them to do to become your customer and what they

need to do to become the customer,

to make it as easy,

less the least time,

the less clicks,

the less thinking involved.

They found your website somehow they're on your website,

make it easy for them to become your customer.

Right. Or else they'll go somewhere else.

If it's too confusing,

they'll go somewhere else.

Yeah. Even if it's somebody that knows you and likes you

and they might not do business with you or go away

from your website,

not even out of malice,

just because they got distracted and they didn't come back.

And then they had somebody else on the list that they

were checking out and they went with that.

And I always tell people,

you can hope that they come back to your website or

they come back to your website to get your phone number

to give you a call.

You can hope they come back,

but you have to depend on them not coming back.

So you have to do everything you can to make sure,

whether it's your website,

whether it's offline,

you know,

printed collateral,

whether it's you setting up meetings,

whatever. You have to do,

whatever you can to make sure all that happened.

Yeah. That you get the most out of that one shot

that you can because it might be your only chance.

Exactly. Yeah.

Alright, let's go back.

I want to go back to the funny,

we're going to reenter the funny Larry,

so we're back to,

you made this commitment.

It wasn't exactly the best time,

but probably it was because if you weren't in that mindset

about time is limited because of your dad passing,

you may not have committed.

Right. And I guess you might say yes,

you for sure know you would have tried to delay it,

right? Yeah.

Again, I can get it to you.

Well, I probably would've been like,

well maybe cause it was only a few weeks away,

so I went,

well maybe I'll do it the next one and maybe the

next one would have never come.

So I do have to say that on that night there

were three comedians.

There was me,

there was another member of this business group that was like

an amateur comedian and there was a hired professional comedian who

was like the headliner who did 20 minutes or something like

that. And I went on first and I just crushed the

hell out of it.

I'm smiling here,

Larry. That's awesome.

That's not a brag.

That's not a humble brag.

Whatever. I mean that is like I tell people all the

time, you know what if I did those,

it actually I wrote 15 minutes and went about 16 and

a half minutes and I have the,

I have a recording,

I didn't even think to record it.

A friend of mine was there with his phone and recorded

it. So I do have it,

but it's like if I did a horribly,

but I just had like two or three jokes land in

that entire 16 minutes,

I would have been completely hooked.

So the fact that I did really well is great.

But I think even if just a couple,

cause it's also a comedian's personality is,

is we're all very needy for that instant gratification,

that instant approval.

But I will say that evening I went up first and

I've just crushed it.

The second guy who was like an amateur,

he was horrible.

And the headliner who was the paid comedian,

he bombed so bad.

He bombed so bad that he had actually set up a

video camera to record the entire thing.

And he said he had sent me my clip and he

never did.

So. Wow.

You were the winner of the night for sure.

Well, yeah,

I didn't really judge it by winning or losing.

I just,

I did really well and that really was great.

And the funny thing is that same comedian,

a couple years later after I'd already been doing funny by

the Lake,

we're doing a ton of shows.

Like I've booked like over 200 paid spots a year for

comedians now and different shows.

And a couple of years ago that guy started calling me

and he didn't remember that.

And he gives us,

yeah, yeah.

Would it be on one of your show that I'm a

comedian and like okay,

some of your clip,

whatever and send me his clap and I just kept blowing

off until they stopped calling me.

That's called karma cause he never sent me my clip.

I asked him a few times,

he just blew me off.

So, Oh yeah,

there you go.

But I think a good point here also for everyone to

think about is even if you're not prepared,

think back to Larry's story.

Like if you have an opportunity that comes up and you're

like, that's too advanced for where I am in my business

right now,

or I don't have everything in place yet to do.

It may be an opportunity that will never come again.

So take it even if you're not sure and then just

make it happen.

Which is what you did Larry.

Yeah, you definitely had experience already because you've been up in

front of people not to that level yet.

Right. But you had not with the more structured now 15

minutes versus the five,

right. The tight five you talk about,

but you took the opportunity and just by your own ambition

right now,

you probably wouldn't have done it when never would have happened.

I'm sure I wouldn't have.

And I shared what had just been like,

Oh, you know what,

there's not enough time to write.

I've never done it before.

I'll do it the next time.

They do accommodate.

And actually I don't think they ever did a comedy night

after that.

So that group,

so I would have never had that opportunity.

Well there you go.

And then I love the fact that you posted about it,

that you had no choice then,

but to be accountable and to go through with it.

Yeah, I was interested to see what people would say and

people were just like,

that is awesome.

I will go to that.

You have to do that.

But people were just like completely positive about it.

And then at the same time I just thought if I

post it and then people are like,

Hey, whatever happened with that.

And I was like,

Oh I decided not to do it and I would have

felt bad.

You would have been disappointed in yourself.

Yeah. So it would have been disappointed because that's not necessarily

my personality.

I usually try and rise to those challenges.

So what did you do to prepare?

Oh for that first where do you go from there to

get yourself psyched up?

Obviously there's content creation,

all of that.

But walk us through what you had to do to get

ready for that.

I have,

I'll tell you,

you should do,

which I didn't do cause I was dumb like I had

mentioned earlier.

Okay. If you live in Chicago or New York or California

or Texas,

I really almost anywhere,

but especially as Chicago,

you can go to an open mic,

comedy open mic in every night of the week there's this

plenty. That's what you should do.

You should start writing some jokes and trying it out at

open mics and the community is pretty welcoming at least as

far as I found it.

And find it open mic where they're going to give you

four minutes or five minutes,

something that's kind of easy to kind of wrap your head

around. You write some jokes and then that's what you do

and you do that like a whole bunch of times before

you actually get booked on an actual show.

I did it the opposite.

I had absolutely no idea.

I just went home and I just like,

you know,

I have a lot of jokes about like living on the

North shore that I just kind of told just like in

passing and conversation and stuff like that,

just to make people laugh.

So I kind of had that as a starting point and

then I did some topical stuff that was going on in

the news and then my first step for like the first

year, so it was actually,

it was pretty dirty,

it was pretty blue and it was just fun writing those

jokes and saying him out loud.

And a lot of it was just like I'd written stuff

based on like conversations I'd had.

Everything is from like my personal experience.

I had a bunch of that and I just kind of

put it together as a set and then I've had to

write a whole bunch of stuff because I had to do

15 minutes as a long time.

I mean at least it was back then.

Well for joke after joke and story,

I'm just thinking probably a lot of the jokes that you

have are triggered by something someone's saying or a situation that

you're in.

But then when you're having to do like a show on

stage, you don't have those triggers.

You have to figure them out for yourself.

So there's timing.

How do you flow one into another?

Like there's all of that behind it.

I'm thinking,

Well there's some of it a lot.

I wish I can remember the comedian,

I've seen this quote before and I just saw recently and

I can't remember who it was from,

but I agree with this quote and wish I could live

up to that standard,

which is the comedian was saying that your material is your

fallback. So like you go out there and like every time

I go to a new venue,

a new town,

I learned about the town,

I drive around it or walk around it.

I learned about the venue,

I look around,

I look at the people in there,

I look at what's on the walls,

what they're serving,

all that stuff.

And that gives you a whole bunch of stuff to talk

about and joke about it.

And then you've got your material.

I mean there's been times where I've just been,

you know,

the word is riffing,

just riffing or winging it.

Basically just kind of talking to the audience and responding to

who's in the audience,

what's going on in the venue,

what's going on in the town,

whatever. And then it gets like 10 minutes in and you're

just like,

hi, I should do some jokes now.

You want me to some jokes Because you were in the

flow for the first part.

Then you go to material if needed.

Yeah. And then usually kind of like goes back and forth.

The only time I really stick a hundred percent to scripted

material is like sometimes there's a show that they do at

one of the Xannies around Chicago and it's sort of an

audition show and I've been on it a few times and

you get six minutes and the whole thing is like,

it's gotta be,

you can't go over the Booker wants to know if he's

going to book for six minutes or 10 minutes or 20

minutes that you can stick to your time.

That's the most important thing.

A second to making the audience laugh.

And that's the only time where it's like you really practice

it out to the second to make sure that you're going

to get through it.

Usually a little shorter because you have to allow for like

laugh breaks and stuff like that.

So you know,

like they get six minutes and like I'm going to write

something, it's gonna be five minutes.

Exactly. So that I know I will not go over six

minutes. That's the only time when that's a big issue to

it. But other than that,

it really is like,

and again it is like that in business as well where

you have your pitch and you can't just like sit down

and just like do your pitch and like not kind of

react to respond or maybe like see when people are kind

of getting confused or whatever.

Or if somebody chimes in,

you have to be prepared.

I mean that's why I don't really like improv,

but improv is a really good thing for people in business

because it helps them with that point where they're doing their

pitch or they're having a sales call or whatever,

and then someone just shifts the conversation or throws a monkey

wrench in there.

And you have to be able to go from that point.

Right. You know,

I could see this could relate a lot of people in

our audience.

I really,

really am pushing them to do networking because a lot of

people are going to get business right from their local area

and when you talk about networking,

you talk about the elevator speech.

I actually call it an introduction message.

People get really nervous about having to do that,

so if you have something already structured that could be like

what you're saying Larry.

The fallback as you were talking about this,

I know that I do this with my introduction message when

it's my turn to stand up and say whatever I'm going

to say about my businesses is I will try to improv

like you're talking about spinoff of something that someone just said

right before me or something that has to do with the

event before I get into my spiel because it just also

lightens the mood I think,

versus just getting up and being so wrote,

I'm Sue Monheit,

blah, blah,

blah. Right.

It gets people's attention.

It goes back to what I said earlier.

You're in a room with 50 or a hundred people and

I've always said that you have a hundred people in there,

man. If you're like the fourth person to introduce yourself,

nobody's going to remember you.

Right, and just personally,

I always say that I get a handful of people in.

I just start playing the movie,

Goodfellas. In my head,

I was like,

I can't even,

I went to a chamber,

local chamber event a few months ago.

I woke up late,

I got there late and I forgot my phone.

I didn't even pitch my business.

All I said was like I woke up at 10 after

seven and I left home without my phone.

So I'm really looking forward to actually listening to all of

you and learning what you do.

Oh, that's fine.

Well, and that gives you a little peek into Larry's humor,

you guys.

Then you know what the next month,

because we have those things that just every month,

the next month somebody made a comment to me like,

Oh, did you remember your phone today?

Wow. You know,

they actually remembered that.

What else did they remember from that meeting of people introducing

themselves? You probably know,

you know?

That's a really good point.

Don't worry.

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Okay, so a couple of things I just want to highlight

from your story so far.

The things you should do,

not necessarily that you did do right,

is to start practicing.

Even if it's raw,

even if it's uncomfortable,

because those first times that you do whatever it is,

maybe it's a craft show,

maybe it's going to networking events,

maybe it's doing comedy on stage,

I don't know,

whatever it is for you.

The first one,

go back and listen to my first podcast,

like I want to cringe,

right? I would never get to where I am now.

If you don't go through that really rough and raw stage,

you've got to do that.

Everyone has to put in their time,

so consider it that way and it might be a little

bit easier and then prepare.

Like Larry,

you're saying,

you know you were preparing because you knew that was a

fallback. I love that.

I'm going to use that because it's a great way to

think about,

you've always got that ACE in your pocket,

which is your material or based on your situation,

whatever it is.

So great points there,

but, so then how did you,

and I'm thinking back to this event again,

how did you get yourself prepped emotionally to get on stage

to actually follow through with what you went to do in

the first place to get up there?

You know what?

I have no problem,

no stress about speaking,

performing in front of a big group.

I'd been doing it for awhile just in business,

so I had no problem with that.

I mean,

again, some people they just can't do it.

I don't understand that.

I understand fear.

I don't understand the fear that they can't overcome,

but some people are just like,

I can never do that.

It's the majority of people actually.

Yeah. Most people,

I guess it never really bothered me.

And I did a string of shows at a Xannies in

old town Chicago,

which is,

that's like the Mecca.

That's like the place you want to.

I mean it's really cool to be asked to be on

that stage and I was driving down there with somebody who

had been accommodated longer than me and I actually hadn't been

in comedy that long and I was doing ended up being

like a series of like four shows over a month or

something like that,

or a couple of weeks or something like that.

He said,

Oh, the first time I did Zane,

he's here.

I was so nervous and I was just like,

I didn't want to make them feel bad,

but my head,

I'm just like,

I'm not nervous at all.

I'm not intimidated by it at all.

Which is weird.

You're right that most people would be intimidated.

There's all sorts of things.

Luckily you know now you got the internet,

you can go to YouTube and you can find all sorts

of videos about people who can help you,

like give you some devices for the challenge of getting up

and speaking in front of people who if you're not someone

who's comfortable doing that.

Again for business people,

even if they don't want to be in comedy,

they can go to,

again like in Chicago you can go to second city and

you can take it.

Most of the people go take classes at second city.

Don't end up being actors or being on SNL or being

standup or working standard comedians.

A lot of people just use it just to be able

to function in business to get that skill of standing up

in front of a big group and having that confidence.

It's sort of the buy the ticket,

take the ride,

not being shaken by a heckler or in business.

Somebody throwing out some weird monkey wrench question can,

I guess if there's one thing that I overcame that I

was just talking about with somebody else recently was the point

where I used to script it and practice it and if

I was driving into the city,

I would just go over the set,

you know,

the 10 minute,

12 minute,

15 minutes.

I would just do it over and over again until I

knew it wrote,

I just know word for word,

but the problem that a lot of people have that I

had early on is if you get thrown off like somebody,

a waitress drops a bunch of glasses or some heckler chimes

in or something happens.

Going back to the place where you left off.

When I developed that skill and it only came from repetition

and doing it wrong and watching other people,

the time when I developed the skill of like I'm doing

my side,

I'm doing some bit.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden I think of something

else or somebody chimes in or a heckler says something and

then it gets us all thrown off.

Alright, go off on something like five minute kind of ad

lib kind of thing or kind of like crowd work or

something like that.

And then where was I?

And then you just go right back to it.

When I developed that skill that gave me such a different

confidence level of like I don't sweat getting booked,

I'm out now I'm just like,

okay, where is it?

What time?

What's the date?

I don't worry about it at all.

Like I don't have to worry like how much time do

I have?

Okay, I need to know those 12 minutes.

I need to know this 15 minutes.

Cause now I know like whatever happens happens.

Right. So something made me start thinking while you were talking.

So tell me what you think of this idea Larry.

So I'm thinking,

okay, so you obviously on stage comedy get interrupted.

Like you just said,

I could also see this applying.

Let's say somebody is in a corporate meeting and they're meeting

with a company they've wanted to do business with forever and

they come in with a presentation and they might get thrown

off because someone else walks in the room.

It's not going to be structured the way they heard intended,

you know,

like um,

million different things could go different.

What do you think about this?

It's more important to understand and know what your objective is

with the audience versus the material you're presented.

So what I mean by that is for you Larry,

your intention is entertainment.

Good time.

It's not that you get every single joke out in order.

So let's say you got totally thrown off and you just

abandoned your script and you ad lib the whole time or

improv the whole time,

I guess is the way I should say it.

The end result is still that you are providing entertainment.

People are laughing,

engaged for a business meeting.

The difference is you're delivering the information or getting information from

your potential customer that helps advance towards a sale regardless of

whether you get out every little tidbit in your presentation.

So it,

by looking at what the goal is versus your content delivery,

that could be helpful.

What do you think about that idea?

Well, yeah,

I agree with that.

Yeah. I mean,

you have to focus on the goal.

The goal is what you want from the customer,

the potential customer or the audience,

right? So that's the goal.

So like in comedy it's like,

Hey, if I just go out and I do my,

uh, if you think of the movie the blues brothers,

you remember the movie the blues brothers,

we've all seen it 200 times.

Okay. They go to the country bar,

right? And John Belushi's characters like,

okay, let's do our standard set.

And they just start going into one of their blues tunes

and the audience just starts throwing beer bottles at him and

booing and throwing stuff at them.

And then actually the venue cuts off all the electricity and

the lights to the stage and their instruments.

What do they have to do?

They're like,

well, do we know a country song?

And they start playing like the handful of country songs that

they know.

That's a really good example of that.

So again,

what's the goal?

The goal is to entertain the audience and get paid at

the end of the day.

That was their goal in that.

So my goal when I got on stage is like,

yeah, I got some bits I love doing the,

I have a set,

I have like a fail safe that I can always use.

Then I know it could take seven minutes,

15 minutes,

a half an hour or whatever,

however much I want to draw it out.

But if I get there and other things are happening and

there's other things to joke about and there's people in the

audience that are worthy of your attention to make everyone laugh,

you have to do that and then to get the best

end results.

So yes,

as you're saying,

if you go to a business meeting and somebody throws some

questions or a comment or again,

let's say you've got it all down,

but then three people,

real important people come in late,

they've come in 10 minutes late,

you might have to double back.

You may have to kind of integrate the previous stuff with

the stuff from the point where you're at.

Okay, that makes sense.

I mean,

because your goal is to make sure everybody in your shot

understands what you're selling them so that they want to buy

from you and you do have to adjust.

It always goes back to like knowing your audience and knowing

the room.

Yeah. Knowing your material so well that you can adjust it

and change it as you need to.

But then being really,

really in tune with what you just said,

the audience,

how it's been received,

et cetera.

Right. So like if like I just said,

you're in a meeting and you're doing a pitcher presentation and

a few people come in and they're actually really important.

They need to know what you just said.

You have to make it interesting for the people who are

now going to hear it again,

you kind of have to break it up.

You have to kind of present it in a different way,

whatever, but you have to make sure that like the people

who just walked in who need to hear what you just

said, they get that information,

but you don't lose the other people in the room.

They don't check out mentally because now you're just repeating yourself.

You starting over and your pitch,

right. You have to kind of,

I mean it's a skill.

There's a nuance to it so that in the end you've

kept everyone's attention.

You've given everybody the information they need to hear and sometimes

it's not.

I stand up and I pitched to the room,

my sales presentation for 10 or 12 minutes or something like

that. I just go through it and I sit down and

I don't care that a few important people came in late

and they didn't hear it.

Well, I don't care that I just repeated a whole bunch

of it and then everybody was annoyed at me.

Like it can't be like that.

You have to focus on the goal.

That's a great example.

Okay, so what's happened from that first night?

Where's funnier by the Lake comedy progressed and where is it

today? So after that evening,

at that venue where I did my first set,

yeah, the venue had actually asked me at that point if

I wanted to run a monthly open mic,

a comedy open mic.

So that's what I did that for at that venue for

almost two years I read,

it was an open mic slash it was like a hybrid

of a book show and an open mic sort of.

And I did that for awhile.

But as I was doing that,

I was actually finding other places for myself to do comedy.

If I started to get booked places,

I was up in the suburbs of Chicago and the Chicago

comedian, he gave me some really good advice.

He's just like,

Larry, do you have a good show here?

You do this really well.

Nobody knows you're here,

you gotta go into the city.

You got to meet all the comedians and the producers that'll

get the comedians to come up to your show.

That'll get the producers to book you.

And that's what I did.

As soon as I started going into the actual community and

not just stay being up here hoping people heard about me,

that's when everything started to change.

I had to do a couple of things,

which is one,

I didn't start when I was like 21 or 25 I

had to kind of calibrate my expectations.

I have a house and a mortgage,

kind of an expensive life,

so I couldn't just ditch everything and just start bumbling around

and doing comedy wherever for gas money and for meals.

So I really do think,

and I've run a lot of business.

I've run my main business for 22 years.

I used to run a business for a division of Eastman

Kodak, so I know how to start a business.

I know how to develop a business.

That's sort of where I lean to.

I see the opportunity,

so I thought,

you know what?

At the time there was just no like live standup comedy

and the North shore North suburbs of Chicago.

There had been,

but we were just in a place where they're just,

there was not happening really except my show in the little

suburb I was doing.

So like a year into it,

I developed funnier by the Lake comedy.

It's sort of a sub entity of my main company to

start looking for venues and also private events to bring shows

to showcases too.

And then also just to get myself booked on like private

events and fundraisers and stuff like that and also different clubs.

You made it off a presence for myself and for funnier

by Lake as a hall.

You made your own stage really in a market that needed

it because I know we love comedy up here.

I want it to monetize it because it was starting to

take a lot of my time and so I needed to

monetize it.

So that's how I find venues.

So we'll do things like we've got like these long running

like dinner and a show comedy showcases that we do at

different venues,

primarily in the burbs.

I just started a couple of things in the city of

Chicago. I just started one a couple months ago on the

North side and I got one starting this month in the

South loop,

but it was primarily in the burbs.

So that's how I have a partner in some of these

and that's how we get,

we monetize it.

Basically we go,

we sell the show basically the due to a venue and

hopefully we do it every month and we either do it

by a flat fee or a split of the door or

however we work it out.

And so that actually generates money and it creates a stage

for not just me cause I don't perform at every one

of those.

A lot of times I just produce but it creates a

stage for up and coming and existing comedians.

And then also it gets me out there and then other

producers hear me and then I get booked on stuff.

Just my shows that I can just go to hang out,

do my set and I don't have any other responsibility whatsoever

there. I tell my jokes,

I get paid and then I go.

So timewise,

I won't ask income wise,

but time wise,

how do you balance that then with your other business?

It was kind of a struggle,

like how do I do these two things at the same

time? And there was a point a couple of years ago

where all of a sudden I realized like I had somehow

naturally balanced it where I wasn't like interrupting my main business

to do stuff for funnier by the Lake.

There's a to be done for funnier by the Lake for

every event.

Cause you know my,

I'm a marketing person so that's a big part of what

we sell to the venues,

which is like,

Hey, we do all the marketing collateral,

the design,

we do a lot of the promotion online.

So there's a lot for each event and all of a

sudden, and I don't even know there's,

I can't even say how by design I did it,

but all of a sudden it just sort of like organically

I was doing my main business here and I was doing

funnier by Lake stuff,

like at a separate time.

Just didn't interfere.

It's and somehow it just kind of shook out that way.

Perfect combination somehow.

But the investment in time and funny about Lake has been

paying off because that's actually been growing and it's exciting and

it's fun and it's been growing as a business and I've

been getting lots of different opportunities from that.

Again, either for funny by the Lake as like setting up

shows places or me just getting booked basically and private events.

So if you were to look into the future and create

the best outcome that could possibly happen for funnier by the

Lake comedy,

what is that?

It would be that I had multiple venues every week doing

shows, whether their dinner and shows at restaurants or just straight

up showcases and making that being my primary source of income

would be great.

Now it's growing,

it's getting there.

We're doing bigger venues with bigger names now.

We have a place in Buffalo Grove,

suburb of Chicago,

the performing arts center,

which is a newly rehabbed,

the 320 seat theater.

And we do that.

We fill that up,

we make some money,

we make decent money.

And even after paying the comedians and doing whatever we need

to do,

there's a place opening up locally.

Again, it's going to be a 300 seat theater and they

want me to do the booking basically.

So, and then production for the comedy end of that and

then that more of those things it turns into that's my

livelihood at that point.

Yeah, I can totally see it flipping,

but I think to what you were just saying when we

were talking the balance,

you'd still want that marketing aspect in there.

My main business,

was 29 years old,

had tumultuous couple of years and I haven't really just personally,

which took away from my business and I ended up really

just working at that business part time.

So now I was working at that business part time and

working at funny by Lake part time as well.

And I had to take care of somebody.

So that was just taking a lot of my time.

So, um,

I started the business when I was 29 and now I

have to decide do I rebuild that,

that business or do I put all the energy into funnier

by the Lake or do I do something else?

And it probably ended up being a combination of all three.

Do I have the energy I had at 29 to go

after business through my main company doing marketing and branding,

consulting and content and web development.

I don't know if I've got that energy like I used

to. I like doing the projects.

I like when they come to me,

do I have the energy and the interest to pursue it

like that or do I shift more of that over to

funny by Lake Barre?

It's funny because I've been doing this other business for 22

years and when people introduce me,

you know,

like networking things,

they always introduce me as a comedian Because that's so you

Larry. I mean it's so natural.

I knew you were from your other first,

but there was always that element of humor to you in

your personality overall.

I totally get that.

Well when they know that I do or that I have

funny by the Lake,

you know,

I get booked at clubs and I do private stuff and

I am a writer and all that.

Knowing the two businesses I have,

when they introduced me to somebody,

like at a networking event or just out when we just

run into people,

they don't say this is Larry Blum from ATI creative consulting.

No, they'd say Larry bloom,

he's a comedian and he does a funnier by the Lake.

They always introduced me as that.

It's almost like where do I put my energy and then

what do people even want from me at this point?

Think of me as the latter.

Not the former.

Yeah, But you're good at both.

And to your point from the very beginning about being on

the ride and changing and not knowing what comes,

it's not only what comes to you,

but what you want to do.

And I think that's what I'm hearing from you is you

know, where is your passion now?

And I know like a lot of your listeners,

it's all about taking your hobby and monetizing it or turning

it into a job or a career,

a business.

The interesting thing is a big part of why I'm becoming

more successful with funnier by the Lake is because I'm not

just trying to book me at places and I'm not just

trying to book shows and just bring comedians.

I'm taking what I've done for 30 years basically,

which is the branding and the marketing,

all of that.

And I'm bringing that into the package of what we offer.

So like when we go to a new venue,

when we decide to do a show,

I brand the show,

I name it based on the venue.

So like,

you know,

we do show it to max and Betty's,

we've been doing,

we're at the end of the year a traditional Jewish deli.

So the show is called the comedy notch.

That makes sense.

Yeah, Yeah.

No, it's beautiful.

You're combining two things that you do well and that you

have been passionate about and come naturally to you and that

makes you very unique onto yourself with that combo together.

Yeah. And then you know,

so I brand it and then I do all collateral materials.

I design it and then you know,

I give that to the venue and we can either actually

create a printed materials for them to use or they could

do it themselves,

but they don't have to worry about the design and the

branding and they also don't have to worry about how to

promote it.

I also consult on how to promote the shows.

I promoted through my own channels through funny by the Lake,

but then how to get them to do it right as

well. And that's what a lot of people,

especially younger people,

they just don't know just because they're younger,

they just don't have that experience.

So when we're bringing that show to a venue,

cause all I deal with it,

bring it to venues is all these restaurants they might have.

What's the day of the week that you struggle?

What day is that?

Tuesday, Thursday,

Sunday, whatever it is.

Yeah, let's do a show there.

Instead of having an empty restaurant,

let's bring 50 or a hundred people in there and then

capitalize on that,

promote it before it happens,

promoted while it's happening and promoted after it happens.

And then now,

yeah, they've paid us to do the show,

but they've just got exponentially marketing value out of that.

Absolutely. And so I guess my,

the point I started out with is your audience is trying

to segue into taking a hobby or craft and turning it

into a job or a career or some sort of business.

And it's like you don't just shut off what you had

done previously.

And I always think back to,

there's a book that I recommend to people who when they're

in between jobs and they might be kind of worried or

flailing and,

and there's a book I recommend all the time.

It's a very quick read.

It's called how Starbucks saved my life.

It's about a guy,

he's in his sixties everything came very easy to him.

He was in marketing and advertising agencies very high up his

entire, he was kind of born into privilege and he was

always at the top of these firms and then it all

fell apart.

Like the firm he was with got sold.

And his friend who started it was no longer there.

And then he got laid off and he had nothing to

do. You used to dress up like he was going to

work and he would go to Starbucks every day and just

sit and he didn't know what to do.

And then one day one of the young women who was

like the manager,

Starbucks was putting up a sign,

it was going to be like a job fair Starbucks and

she joked,

you want to fill out an application?

And he said,

yeah, actually I do.

And so he did that.

He ended up working at Starbucks.

And the thing that always reminds me of it is down

the line,

he started using all the stuff he had known as being

a marketing and an advertising person to help the Starbucks to

create events,

to help people who work there with their presentations.

And so he didn't just shut off everything he had done

previously. He used that in the new phase of his life

and his work.

And that's what your people have to know.

It's not like,

Oh, I'm not just chucking my job as an accountant to

do a gift business,

because you know what?

That experience as an accountant is actually going to give you

an advantage over somebody who's really good at the gift stuff,

but has no idea how to manage the finances of a

business and that's going to give them such an edge.

And again,

to me it's like I get a lot of credit for

how I produce and promote the shows and it's because I

have a system to do it.

And I have a system because I've been doing this for

decades. Marketing and creating messaging and branding and creating effective collateral

that looks like it's,

you know,

the, when people see it,

they know this is a real thing.

I want to go to this thing.

It's not some ramshackle thing that someone just threw together.

Right. I mean this last comment that you just talked about

in terms of what's your experience,

what else do you bring to the table?

It might not look like it connects,

but it can be so powerful in terms of your advantage

going forward because people don't have the same experience that you

do. So that is golden.

Larry, thank you so much for that.

So how can any of our listeners who want to know

more about you or if they're in the Chicago area perhaps

they want to come see you perform.

Yeah, I'm a really accessible online through funnier by the Lake,

so I've got funny about lake.com

it's got all the information about what we do as far

as like events coming up and also services that we offer

because one of the things that we offer is helping people

like punch up their presentations and their pitches and their content

to make it interesting.

So that actually might help your constituents of the podcast.

All that can be found as well as clips of me

doing some comedy in my bio and all that@funnierbyblake.com

you can also follow funny by the Lake on Instagram and

Facebook just look up funny by Lake or the links are

actually on the funnier by Lake that com website and then

also you know if you're a business and you're local to

Chicago, the Chicago area and you want to actually be a

part of it and you're not funny,

you can actually attach your business to sponsoring shows.

You can actually sponsor shows which gets you pulled into our,

what I always referred to as shameless promotions.

I'm a shameless promoter,

so if anyone wants to be a part of a show,

get some exposure for that.

Just even be a part of like the industry of what

we're doing.

They can actually sponsor shows or if they have a venue,

doesn't have to be a restaurant,

doesn't have to be an entertainment venue.

We've done shows in all sorts of weird spaces where we

can set up a show and then that again is just

an amazing marketing tool.

It gives you a reason to promote your business and get

people who don't know your business in the doors.

And again,

it's something what I preach is it gives you something to

promote weight before it's happening,

while it's happening and after it happens.

So those are all things that you can learn about it

funnier by lake.com

Perfect. Yeah.

And I saw you actually at a yarn shop perform at

one point.

Yes, We did like a Friday afternoon after hours.

That's a good example because I knew the owner of that

shop and I walked in there and I always look at

every space and see like,

Oh, could this be a space we could do something?

And the hook for her was she really needed help with

getting people to know that our business existed.

So they had this community thing where they're doing it on,

I think on a Friday or Thursday.

I don't know what the day was.

It was a Friday night.

Friday. Yeah.

And so my kind of pitched her was like instead of

just doing hors d'oeuvres and drinks that people come in here

for five minutes and wander out.

Let's do a show here and then,

Oh by the way,

let's think of a cause a local cause,

a charity and we'll make the show taking money for that.

So now you've got like three reasons for people to come

here. It's part of this community event.

It's to get people in your doors in general to watch

comedy and it's to support this cause that you want to

support. I don't know which one you are at.

We did two there.

The first one was packed.

It was packed.

That's the one I was at.

And you know,

it wasn't a huge,

huge venue either.

So if you're a brick and mortar and ears perked up

at this idea,

you don't have to have a huge location either.

You can just pack the area you have,

I would say Nan,

she must've had like 40 60 people there.

And it was a small venue.

Yeah. And again,

it doesn't have to be like a place where you've done

events. You don't have to have event lighting or sound.

We actually could bring lighting and sound.

It's not a big deal.

It's just if you have the space to fit a few

dozen people that you move some stuff out of the way,

you put some chairs down.

You know what?

When people go to those things,

they're kind of prepared.

You know,

people come in,

they stand on the sides.

I used to do a show in Highland park at the

tea house that Billy Corgan owned.

I did it for almost three years and there weren't a

lot of seats in there,

but we filled the place every time and people gladly just

kind of stood along the sides and watched the show.

Right. You don't have to be intimidated by like,

well, this isn't an event space.

No. If you've got space,

if you have square footage,

we can do something.

We can create a quote unquote stage area and we could

make it look and actually be a show and everyone will

have a good time.

Oh, gift biz listeners.

I want you guys to go back and listen to this

last five minutes,

like rewind and listen right now and you're going to see

Larry pointing out not only with his business but also this

outside venue,

multiple ways that you can add additional areas of monetization to

your business.

So this was fabulous in terms of a perfect demonstration.

Lots of great ideas.

So rewind,

come back forward.

Larry, thank you so much.

This has been absolutely fabulous.

I'm so glad we had an opportunity to get together and

chat. Well,

I appreciate you having me on.

Thanks. Okay,

gift biz listeners.

I encourage you now when an opportunity comes right in front

of you,

say yes,

go to those networking meetings,

sign up for a farmer's market or a craft show that

you've been thinking about but just haven't conjured up the courage

to do.

It's all out there waiting for you and you can see

just by Larry's example that you not necessarily ready when you

say yes,

don't wait to be ready.

Say yes and then prepare and make yourself ready and I

guarantee you miraculous things will happen up next week.

We're looking at a product development success story.

Do you have an idea brewing in the back of your

mind but have no idea how you'd ever get from that

idea that you're thinking about to actually holding in your hand

the product that you envision?

If so,

then you absolutely must listen in next Monday.

Meanwhile, make it a great week and I look forward to

being together again.

Then bye for now.

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