In August 2008 Marc Hogan was bet £1 that he couldn’t become a stand up comic in less than 12 months and perform a one man comedy show at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in August 2009 for 21 nights. He won the bet!

People of Hemel Hempstead I salute you.

I started performing comedy just under 2 years ago. I’ve performed for 21 nights at the Edinburgh festival, survived the King Gong show at London’s Comedy Store, and even survived a mauling from the Lion’s Den in Kings Cross, but I have never seen a drunker crowd than last night in Hemel (and I’ve been to an Irish wedding, so I know a drunken crowd).

Let me try to set the scene for you…

There was group of girls out for a birthday party. The birthday girl had brought her mother. Mother you should be ashamed – your daughter looked like she’d been drinking since January.

A fight broke out half way through the night between 2 other women simply because a girl asked a couple to stop snogging each other’s face off!

I asked them to “get a room” the truth was they had – it just happened to have 50 other people in it!

Despite all this, over the talking, roaring and heckling, they did laugh at my jokes, and laughed very loudly at my fellow comedians Stevie Grey and Trevor Lock.

However, even Trevor a very experienced TV and stage comic looked shocked at this crowd.  I don’t think he’d ever seen anything like it!

For me the highlight of the night was when “Steve” who had obviously been taking magic mushrooms all day, decided to rearrange the chairs around him, halfway through Trevor’s set!

So does comedy still scare me? The answer is a definite yes. Did last night’s gig kill me? Well except for a few heart stopping moments …No.

So all I can say is this, perhaps there’s something at work or at home you’ve been putting off doing something because it’s scary or difficult. So I’d like you to remember Key 6 “Take risks…little ones”. Chances are it won’t kill you unless it involves a crowd of people from Hemel Hempstead….

As for the promoter remember Key 4 “If at first you don’t succeed, review!” I know with a few subtle changes and a bit less alcohol, this could be a great comedy gig.

All in all, another magical evening in Hemel Hempstead….

Click here to watch Marc’s showreel. If you would like to find out more about Marc, visit www.marchoganlive.com or to book him for a speaking event please contact your favourite speaker bureau.

In August 2008 Marc Hogan was bet £1 that he couldn’t become a stand up comic in less than 12 months and perform a one man comedy show at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in August 2009 for 21 nights. He won the bet!

Last week I had the pleasure of performing “Funny Business” at the Hinckley Business Association dinner.

It was a really enjoyable evening, and the range of companies involved was really inspiring.

Geoff Waters wrote a really nice review of the event on his blog, and you can check it out here.

All in all, a great evening with a lovely group of people, and if  you’re looking to make business contacts in the Leicester area, I would strong recommend joining the Hinckley Business Association.

Click here to watch Marc’s showreel. If you would like to find out more about Marc, visit www.marchoganlive.com or to book him for a speaking event please contact your favourite speaker bureau.

In August 2008 Marc Hogan was bet £1 that he couldn’t become a stand up comic in less than 12 months and perform a one man comedy show at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in August 2009 for 21 nights. He won the bet!

I’m appearing at what should be a  Great Comedy night with TV’s Trevor Lock tomorrow night (Thursday 22nd) in Hemel Hempstead.

All the details are here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123659581003676

I’m only compering so you won’t have to listen to me much!

In August 2008 Marc Hogan was bet £1 that he couldn’t become a stand up comic in less than 12 months and perform a one man comedy show at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in August 2009 for 21 nights. He won the bet!

In order to motivate people to change their behaviour you have to look at 2 very important factors: skill and will.

Will focuses on the individual, in essence, “if I change my behaviour, will it be really worth it?”

Skill is broader. “Do I have the abilities, skills, and more importantly the resources to change my behaviour?”

So how do we make it worth it?

1) Firstly use Inch Pebbles: break behaviour down into small easy to reach steps. Explain to your staff why it’s important!

2) Encourage the behaviour you want, discourage the behaviour you don’t. Create a reward scheme, change the bonus structure!

3) Get your Stars (previous Blog) to show the others how to do it.

4) Keep repeating the message, share good news, let them see how their behaviour is changing things! Place reminders in key areas.

5) Constantly review performance, and provide support.

6) For those who are not changing, speak to them, shadow them, walk in their shoes!

If you have done all of the above and still some people are failing to make a change they need to be fired (I’m JOKING).

Every time I work with a company in this situation, generally the reason an individual or group is failing is not because the “will” is the problem. If you’ve done your job properly most people will want to adopt the behaviours and make the project / change programme a success.

When people don’t adopt new behaviours, it’s because they don’t know how to achieve the goal or worse, they don’t feel they have the skills and resources to do the job.

Identify key actions.
These are not behaviours or qualities; they are the actions you want people to do. So you want to hit a million in sales, well that’s a goal or a result. Now what are the actions to do that? Well, action 1 might be to get all your team to make 10 cold calls a day. You must give your people clear actions if you want them to achieve, and of course measure and encourage those actions!

Train your individuals.
Train your individuals in the behaviour you want. It could be 1 day of training or a six-week training programme.

Look at your resources and tools.
Is nobody filling their sales reports online simply because it takes 3 hours to do? Can you make it quicker and easier for them? Can you give them faster computers, better broadband, or reduce the information they need to input?

Are they overworked doing other tasks?
Are you inadvertently encouraging that behaviour through bonuses etc? I worked with a group of sales people who saw their job as seeing customers, not filling in reports. Their bonus structure completely backed this up. So we changed it to readdress the balance, and guess what, when their bonus depended on it, they filled the reports in!

Are other departments and mangers on board?
In most modern matrix management structures we have more than one boss. Is a boss in another department encouraging one behaviour, while you’re pulling your hair out to get them to do something else? Which behaviour is more important?

You have to work on the Skill and Will to change people’s behaviours. When I accepted the bet to perform in Edinburgh I may have had the will, but I certainly didn’t have the skills! That’s why I sought out experts to help me.

The will (is it worth it?) becomes important when setbacks and failures occur, but trust me if the goal is worth it and you give people the skills, and encourage the will, then your team will achieve.

Click here to watch Marc’s showreel. If you would like to find out more about Marc, visit www.marchoganlive.com or to book him for a speaking event please contact your favourite speaker bureau.