Being a comedian may seem like the most fun and happening job description in the world, but the constant belittling and failures that come your way are surely not what success feels like. It is not a flowery, rosy journey after all.
First, you have to stand against the societal pressure and norms that still don’t take comedy seriously and consider being a comedian a time pass. Then, you have to put yourself up on stage, in front of a crowd that holds the power to either make you or break you.
And, you have to go through this every day, all the time till you become a “successful” comic artist. Like we were saying, it’s not an easy road, but as someone once said that if you want to achieve success, then never doubt your dreams.
So, what does it take to be a successful comedian? It takes more than having a good sense of humor. It takes years of hard work, practice, patience, and lots more to study the art of comedy and be good enough to draw crowds to your show.
However, again, there are no set rules, but there are some quirks that you can incorporate into your life to become a successful comedian.
Vigour To Be On Stage
Success doesn’t come easy, you’d face many failures but how would you even know what lies ahead of you if you are not willing to put yourself out there? You don’t know if you’d get a standing ovation or be booed off the stage unless you have the strength to go before the mic.
You need to begin first to know if you can succeed. You’d be nervous, you’d fumble, you’d forget lines and you’d not even get enough laughs – but that’s all okay as long as you can take it as a learning for the next time you decide to be on stage.
Remember, success isn’t instantaneous, it takes time and persistence, so don’t give up easily and put yourself up there to know what you can do!
Artful Comic Timing
One of the first things you hear when you enter the entertainment industry is that comedy is all about timing and it takes years for a person to perfect it! Your humor might be spot on, you might have to best writing team at your disposal, you may even have shows and comedy fests keeping you busy but to sustain it all, you need to perfect your skill and artfully work on your comic timing. It is one of the things that get the comedian going.
Think of it this way, you may have the funniest joke in your set but if you don’t time and place it perfectly in your set, then it’s all a waste. To get the perfect timing and understanding about it takes time – so, practice, work with other people from your field and take their honest views and critique and work it in your set and script before you put on a show for the audience.
Expertise To Self-Promote Yourself
Promoting yourself and your work is very important. This is what sells the tickets to your show or gets your views, likes, and shares on social media. So, you have to promote yourself and put yourself out there for people to see your talent and know about you.
Take up small gigs, perform at local venues, participate in comedy fests and open mics at the clubs and coffee houses – basically let people see you. Take good videos of your performances and pick out the best bit from them and post them on social media channels like YouTube and Instagram and spread it everywhere.
Put the word out – give out advertisements on social media, newspapers, local news channels, and radio stations. If you have a show coming up, then ask your family and friends to spread the word as much as possible about it.
If you are posting a video, ask them to share and post it on all their handles. Talk to people in your field and ask them to shout out about your work on their platforms – do everything you can so people know about you and what you are capable of.
Skill To Network
Networking is an important skill that every comedian must possess. This is something that will not just give your career a push but will help you make acquaintances in this industry to hep through with later. So, if you are performing at some comedy club or cafe, talk to people, don’t be a recluse.
Comedy fests are great places to make new connections. You meet both new and known talents there and can network with them all. You can also find agents and sponsors at such events – the opportunities are endless.
When you make such connections, you can collaborate with your fellow artists, ask them to be an opening act in their upcoming shows, or even run your set through them before performing them on stage. Their experience and reviews can help you greatly in improving your material.
Talent To Use Social Media Influence
Social media is a great tool to help you keep updated and connected with friends. It’s also an even greater tool to help you spread your talent and show it to the world! All great talents in recent times have become social media prodigies. They showed that you don’t always need to be in front of the crowd or audience to showcase your comic side.
All you need is a good quality camera and a little social media skill to advertise and broadcast your funny side. The best part about this is that this way your talent isn’t geographically limited.
People from anywhere in the world can see and watch you being your comedic best and make you are “trending” topic online – that’s just one of the many beauties of social media. So, don’t be afraid to use it and make it one of the tools in your arsenal.
Originality And Uniqueness
We know it is earlier said than done but, in a room, full of hip-hoppers, you need to be a classical dancer – figuratively, of course! There are many comedians out there, there are all there to make it big, they all are doing almost the same things as you are, so you need to do something to make yourself stand out.
You need to be original and unique. See and study what everyone is doing, understand what is working for them, and what is not, see how you are doing something similar or different from that, and amend it to make yourself unique.
If your audience feels that you are just like everyone else in the lot, then you have nothing that is going to attract them to come and see your show or watch your videos and other content. Your uniqueness is going to attract and give you people as an audience and let’s be honest, what’s a comedian without his audience? Find your voice and stand by it.
So, explore and understand what makes you stand out and incorporate that into your material, and well, be the classical dancer in the herd of hip-hoppers!
Perseverance
Following your passion comes with hardships and many ups and downs but that’s a small price as compared to the joy you feel when you make it big. There are going to be good days and there are going to be worse days but then if you are determined to make it as one of the best comedians in the world, no failure should be big enough to stop you. You need to be perseverant while working hard and diligently.
As Josh Shipp once said, “Perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose, and when you are stubborn to make it big, then nothing can stop you from being successful”.
Professionalism
Although a fun one, being a comedian is still a job and you should always remember that. While it is needed to be funny, merry, and laid back on the stage, the same does not apply when you are off it and dealing with your other commitments.
You should be at your professional best while you are dealing with your agents, sponsors, or the management holding your show. While mishaps and mismanagements happen, you should be serious while dealing with it all and not take it as a joke.
These things speak of your character and not your job. So be funny when you need to be but always put your professional boots on while you are dealing with other aspects of your profession.
Prowess To Stand Failure
There is a popular saying – behind every successful man, there are a lot of unsuccessful years. It is a fact universally known that no one strikes gold on their first attempt, you need to strike and strike until you succeed and this means lots of time, hard work, and the determination to never give up.
To be a comedian you need to have a lot of patience because you would have to face many failures and downs before you see any ups.
There will be failed jokes, poor audience turnout, and scarce laughs – but you need to have a tough skin and take them all as lessons to work harder and not crib over them. Let’s be real, you can’t always make everyone laugh, you can’t always get a friendly crowd that is easy to please.
So practice every time you see your set failing, try harder when you watch the audience not laughing as you expected, and only then you’d emerge as a better version of yourself and experience success.
Competence To Create Opportunities For Yourself
You must have heard it a million times, but hear it once again – don’t wait for opportunities, create them! If you don’t see any opportunities coming your way, then step out and make them yourself.
If there is a dearth of comedy clubs in your area, then talk to coffee houses and bars in your locality and ask them to host open mics. If you see less crowd in the audience, advertise about the show you are putting up.
If you think you don’t have enough people to perform, ask, and look out for talent around you and get them on board. You need to pave a way for yourself, no one else is going to do it for you if you wish to be successful.
Willingness To Be More
So you became a comedian and have taken stand up artist for some time – what next? To be successful, you need to be always hungry to be more. You need to sharpen your skill and work towards improving it always and while you are at it, don’t be shy to explore new things because the moment you turn monotonous, that’s the moment you start losing your fans!
So, what can you do? Well, you can start by practicing and venturing into multiple and different forms of comedy.
There are many forms of comedies – stand up, acting, sketch, improv, writing, podcasting, try your hands out in everything and see what works for you and then dive into it, give your audience and fans to see different sides of you and let them decide if them like it or not.
Ability To Have Fun
While it is important to be professional off stage, it is equally important to have lots of fun while you are standing on that wooden floor! Your audience won’t enjoy your material if you don’t have fun while you are presenting it.
Embrace, empower, and appreciate every moment while you are on stage. Learn and see but don’t let your nervousness show, even if your set fails – it’s all okay! Just put your best there and don’t forget to have fun.
So, these are just a few things that you need, besides your obvious sense of humor to make it as a successful comedian!
