Today I sit down with my friend and fellow speaker Damian Mason. Damian quit his sales job in 1994 to become a Bill Clinton Impersonator. I met him in the mid-2000’s when he and I were both impersonators performing for a meeting in the Agriculture niche. Most recently, he has also become a top speaker on Reinvention. Damian and I met up recently at the National Speaker’s Association conference and I wanted to pick his brain about the business of speaking. He generously shares a lot of specific advice on how he got where he is and how you can step up your game.
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Damian Mason Show Notes
We cover a lot including:
- Being a member of the National Speaker’s Association
- His first and helpful tip about dressing for success (or at least not recess)
- Being as professional as your peers or looking like you don’t belong
- The pros and cons of being an Impersonator
- Being in touch with your material and knowing when it has run its course
- Keeping things relevant by looking at you act as a product
- Products need a buyer who will reap a benefit from giving you their money
- How Old Spice reinvented itself with the advent of Body Wash
- Reinventing means you change your product, customers or your image
- The difference between rebranding and reinventing
- How Oldsmobile dropped the ball when they repositioned
- How comics like Damian Mason can rebrand (new jokes, new image, new audiences)
- Niches and why you should find one
- Why great comedy usually has a point of view, commentary or an edge
- How you can be funny without even creating a premise
- Why your job isn’t writing jokes
And a whole lot more!
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