Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you.
Speaker 2Hey, hey, rock stars. Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Back with another podcast, because we are podcasting every day. Doing what I love, helping performers every day turn their talent to a performance, and their performance into an experience for their audience. That's what I do, folks. Thanks again for tuning in. Let's get to it. What's your brand? When people see your name or see your podcast, or see your poster, or see your profile, what's your branding look like? And I know this may not seem like something to think about right now. And it doesn't matter where you are in your career. A lot of times people associate branding with a product or a business. And guess what? If you're going to get paid for what you do, you're a business. So you need a brand. And by brand, I mean you don't have to go all out. And have someone design your logo. And my wife would kill me for saying this, because she's a graphic designer who specializes in logos and branding. But you don't have to use a graphic designer to come up with this, especially if it's your first one. But let me frame this out for you, okay? When you go to your social media profile, do you have a certain way that your name is designed on your profile page? Like on your cover? Or even on your Instagram photo? Or wherever? Wherever. It's like a certain design when your performing name, your stage name, is displayed. What's your logo look like? Do you have one? If you put up a poster, how would your poster look right now? Again, it's a head-scratcher. It's something that I didn't really think about a lot. Unless, you know, I was going on like a ticket with a couple other performers and they'd throw my picture and my name on the poster that the club was already making. But what about my own materials? What about my own brand, my own look, my own logo? Something that sets me apart and just kind of elevates up a little bit and it adds a certain professionalism to who you are as a performer. So, some things to think about when you're, you know, developing this. Because, listen, you need to have a brand. You need to have something that shows a little bit of what you're doing. You need to have something that shows a little bit about your personality. So, again, when you look at a band, it's probably the most favorite. ACDC. They have a logo for their band. You're with me now, right? Okay. Think about any great band, any great artist, really. They all have a certain style to how they design their name or, you know, their actual, the font and everything like that. Like, I'm talking design, like graphic design type stuff. And this may not seem like a big deal. And it may not seem like something that you need to look at. And, truthfully, it may be easier just to let them throw your picture and your name on a wall. And that's fine. But then you are just like everybody else. What's setting you apart from the get-go? When I look at a poster and I see some performers that are coming up, if it's just, like, regular fonts and a picture, I may not be as enticed to come out. As the poster sitting next to it that has this, like, stylized logo for the performer's name, a really, really great picture that maybe has a, you know, a decent background. It looks professionally done. Maybe they're showing off a little bit of their personality in their photo. Your promo pics, by the way, they don't have to just be headshots. They can display your personality. They can show a little bit of insight into who you are. And they should. Because think about it this way. Okay. And the same goes for how you design your name or your poster or your, you know, your tickets. Whatever type of materials that you're putting out that's a visual representation of you, you've got to put your personality, your flair into it. Don't let someone just slap something together for you. Like, that's probably one of the biggest mistakes you can make when you're looking at, you know, how you're going to brand yourself as a performer. Luckily, you can always rebrand down the road. If you grow to not like it. Hey, I've rebranded this. I rebranded this podcast. I rebranded myself as a performer a couple of times. And it's kind of fun, actually, when you get to the point of rebranding. And it's really fun to initiate your logo and your branding and your promo pics and kind of like how you're going to play everything in together. So a couple of tips I'll give you is, one, use a good design. Like designer. If you can't afford to pay somebody to create your name logo, I'm calling it a name logo because it's going to be your name, but in like a special font or special design or things like that. Your stage name, of course. Not like your birth name. Unless your birth name is your stage name. That's cool. I always recommend a stage name. But regardless what it is, it's going to be your name with some style to it. So a couple of tips just to kind of. Get you going, get you started is one. Find a really good designer. If you can't afford somebody, that's perfectly fine. There's a really cool website that I actually use for all my graphics. My wife uses it a little bit, too. It's called Canva, C-A-N-V-A dot com. And they have a free one that you can use. It's limited access. Like, it's not really limited. You actually have a lot of access to a lot of cool fonts and little icons and stuff like that that you can add some style. But what is really cool about having the paid version, even if you just do the trial and I don't get paid for this, by the way, like I'm not an affiliate or anything. This is just me helping you out with a free tool. If you if you do the trial, you can actually download it with a transparent background so you could put it on a T-shirt. You could add it on top of a picture. You could add it to a poster, things like that. And then you can move into merchandise as well. So that's what's really cool about having your own brand is this is the second tip I'll give you. Is don't be afraid to move into merchandise and it doesn't have to be spending hundreds of dollars to get a whole bunch of T-shirts to sell people. It can be something like a beer koozie with your logo name, your name, logo, whatever on it. It could be a poster of you that you sign with your logo on the bottom and you sell them for like a dollar or two. Like it doesn't have to be post, you know, large posters and T-shirts and sweatshirts. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but I would definitely recommend after you've created some sort of logo for yourself. Don't be afraid to get into merchandise because it may seem cliche. It may seem you may think, oh, who am I to have merchandise at my level? Who aren't you to have merchandise at your level? Like, why wouldn't you have merchandise if you sold one beer koozie? Wouldn't that be amazing that someone wanted a beer koozie with your logo on it? Like, come on. Why wouldn't you have merchandise? You're cool enough. You're great enough. I don't want to say good enough. You're great enough to have merchandise. You just, you know, you may have to put out a little bit of money to get it, but you could have it. Second, when you look at photography, take good photos. And that may seem like, duh, but when you're using promotional shots, your promotional shots, one, should not be selfies. Two, should not. Should not be photos that you took, you know, hanging out at a bar in terrible lighting. Three, should not be photos that you took while getting ready for another show. They need to be photos that you have intentionally had done for the purpose of promoting your talent. So, again, when you're going to a new venue and they're like, hey, we're going to put you on a poster, you have a brand, a logo, and a specific promotional package that they can choose from. They don't have to. You don't have to go find a photo. You don't have to send them the latest selfie on your phone, and you don't have to tell them, oh, yeah, just throw my name up there. You have a package. It elevates you a little bit higher, and you don't have to be stingy about it. You don't have to say, you must use this or I'm not performing. Like, that's a whole move right there. That's a whole status. But what you do need to do is you do need to provide it to them and say, hey, listen, this is my logo. This is my promotional pictures. Maybe have three or four for them to choose from. And, you know. Send that to them when they book you. This is also a really good package to start your media kit or your, like, your sample, like, your promotional package. Not just your, not just your, hey, here's my promote me package, but your, when you're promoting yourself to try to get bookings, this is a really good start to your package. I mean, I would much rather entertain the thought of hiring an entertainer or a performer that. appears to be a little more professional by having a professional looking logo professional looking photos and these professional looking photos you don't have to buy this 600 camera or hire a professional photographer most smartphones nowadays will do the job you just need a decent background and you need someone to take them for you or you got to get one of those like phone stands and click it yourself type of deal like i have an s10 plus that can take pretty good pictures when you mess with the settings a little bit so grab a friend that maybe knows a little bit about photography go to go somewhere where there's a decent background maybe there's like a wood plank wall somewhere that's really rustic looking and you play country music so you throw on your cowboy hat you go against this wall and you have them snap a couple of pictures boom that's it i mean if you want to pay somebody if you if you have the money pay a photographer by all means or if you know a photographer by all means get the photographer if you know a graphic designer or can afford a graphic designer by all means get the graphic designer but if you want to do this yourself and you're looking for a free way to just elevate yourself a little bit higher and and make yourself appear more professional then grab your smartphone go to canva.com and get this thing done it's that easy it's not hard to you know to just to add a couple fonts to your name and maybe add a exclamation point here just one fine thing to do is to go to canva.com and get this thing done it's that easy it's not hard to you know to just add a couple fonts to your name and maybe add a couple fonts to your name and maybe add a couple fonts to your name and maybe add a couple fonts to your name and maybe add a couple fonts to your name and maybe use two to three different fonts that complement each other nicely i would recommend using like one that you can fill in a different color maybe two colors and three fonts or three fonts and two colors some that's what i find to be like the magic combination so don't be afraid to get a little crazy with it but don't get like too crazy because then it looks really really busy if you're not sure what to do you can always go to canva.com and get this thing done so if you're not sure what to do you can always go to canva.com and get this thing done so if you're not sure what to do you can always go to google band logos and i know you may not be in a band you may not even be a singer truthfully but if you google band logos it'll give you some pretty good ideas of what a logo should look like or you can just google logos text logos would be really cool too you can just google that and look at a whole bunch of images and it'll you'll get an idea of what you know what looks good don't forget to add your own personality though don't just copy something else and add your name add your personality to it if you're like i don't know what to do i don't know what to do i don't know a little kooky a little weird add some polka dots if you can if you know if you're country find a font that's a little more rustic if you're you know a circus artist find a font that's maybe like curvy and fun like there's a whole bunch of different stuff you can do with you know creating your logo and everything but the best thing add your personality to it and you don't have to spend a crap ton of money to do this if you do want a little bit of help with your logo i'm happy to be on canva together and probably get you slapping this together in a half an hour jump on my calendar uh beingonstage.com slash calendar i'll talk you through canva talk you through your logo and we'll get you going let's elevate you up a little bit higher i'll even give you some advice of where you can get some good merchandise for yourself so cha-ching giving it all away for free what anyways appreciate you listening in thank you so much to all of our new listeners by the going up i appreciate you and i greatly appreciate the emails and the comments i look forward to chatting to you guys with you guys i get going i get all tongue-tied i look forward to chatting with you guys on the phone and i'll see you on instagram or on facebook or wherever or i'll just see you in podcast land keep on shining
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