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 time, I talked about how we use “Inch Pebbles rather than milestones to change a groups behaviour. The reason for this, is that unfortunately a lot of people can be indifferent or downright hostile to change, my 7 year old niece is the same when we try to get her to wear a dress.

We’ve tried cajoling, bribing, arguing and even demanding; unfortunately all these methods lead my niece to either digging in, or changing her behaviour for a very short time. However, when her best friend shows up wearing a dress, she suddenly wants to wear a dress (which is now in the wash)!

Why is this?  When I was preparing for Edinburgh I realised that the comedian’s job is to spot the flaw, the ridiculousness, the absurd and if possible slip in a gag about male genitalia. (Oh Marc, you’re being so coy!)

It’s the same in work, most people’s first response to a new idea, is to find the flaw, why it won’t work, and possibly thinking that the manager (you) sounds a little something like “a concrete rock”.

Luckily in every team there will be someone who likes your idea or is exhibiting the types  / some of behaviour you want the rest of the team to adopt. These are your stars!

Study that person, shadow them, how are they doing it, have they adapted your proposal to make it work? Your job now is rather than revolutionise your team is to scale up success.

So find your stars, see how they do it, and get them to show others how to do it. Of course what most company’s do is to try and change people’s behaviour rather than the system they are using, which is often why things fail.

The truth is most people want to “fight the system”, and “stick it to the man”, because “I’m not a number, I’m a free man”.

We’ll discuss this next time, and we won’t be using a carrot or a stick…

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 at a keynote I was asked how I would change a team’s behaviour.

As they described the situation it quickly became apparent that the change in behaviour required was huge and the milestones were massive.

When you request huge change from people the instant reaction from most people will be resistance!

It’s like asking a person who has never gone to the gym in their life to commit to 2 hours in the gym every day, it won’t happen.

However if you ask them to do 5 minutes exercise at home 3 times a week, you are much more likely to change their behaviour.

When Walkers crisps decided to change the oil they fried their crisps in to a healthier alternative they knew that if they changed the oil overnight their customers would resist the new flavour (much like new Coke) so instead they introduced the new oil over a period of years so people didn’t notice the difference in taste and over came any potential resistance.

So rather than huge milestones why don’t you settle for “inch pebbles”, and get people to change in increments?

On my comedy journey I discovered that a beginner stand up comic starts with 3 minutes of material, before moving upwards – which is why it can be 5 years before they do a one-hour show.

Now I know I did it much quicker than that, but that required massive change, and for most people that can be so daunting that they just refuse to budge.

How many times have we sabotaged our best intentions by setting ourselves unrealistic goals and huge milestones?

Over the next few blogs I’ll share some more ideas with you on how best you can change people’s behaviour and perhaps even your own!

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!

If you live in the UK you have probably already cast your vote for the UK election (what do you mean, you haven’t?). I’m not going to bore you with my politics, but the one thing that fascinates me about this election, is the power of a great speech.

I know the Sun “Newspaper” (a matter of opinion) back in 1992 claimed they were the ones who persuaded the electorate to vote Conservative, and maybe that’s true. But this year, Nick Clegg who nobody knew (not even the other parties – they thought Vince was the Lib Dem’s leader) managed to put 10 points on the Lib Dem poll rating after one assured performance on TV.

I don’t know any newspaper that managed that after one article. So whoever wins, remember a good performance on a stage, or in a meeting  is far more effective than any email or report.  So rather than email your boss your new idea, go and knock on his door for a quick chat instead (and wear a shiny gold tie).

News just in:

Sun Page 3 Model “NIKKALA, 26, from Middlesex ” is encouraged to hear that 12 Labor big-hitters could be  out. She said: “In ’79 the Conservatives won with a 5.3 per cent swing.  Tony Blair did it in 1997 with 10.3 per cent. So the swing to the Tories  doesn’t need to be huge. I predict nine per cent.”

Thank God for Nikkala , she may not know how to spell, but she really does have an understanding of government. She should be careful, Silvio Berlusconi will want her as an M.E.P.

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!

A little while ago Marek Kriwald from Parliament Communications, introduced me to  a new presentation concept from Tokyo called “Pecha Kucha”.

The concept is simple, you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images.

So a whole presentation should take no longer than 400 seconds (6 minutes and 40 seconds).

I like the idea at networking events but like Marek, I’m not sure if I’d like it to become the industry standard.

At an average corporate event you have six 45 min to 1 hour presentations. If we went to the 20×20 format that could mean 54 presentations in a day! Or of course we could have all 6 presentations in the first forty minutes and the rest of the day at the bar (which one would staff prefer, I wonder?).

However there is a useful lesson to be learned from this discipline.  If you have a slide – why is it up there, and what is the quickest amount of time you can talk about it and best explain it?

I love the cinema however it’s very rare that I don’t think it could have been 20 minutes shorter (or in the case of Transformers 2, two hours twenty minutes shorter!) however, I’ve seen brilliant and interesting 2 hour presentations and dreadful 45 minute ones.

The amount of time isn’t everything, what’s more important is interesting and audience relevant content!

Something to think about… You can find out more about Pecha Kucha here.

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!

Tonight we have the first ever UK Election televised debates and they have the potential to really affect the election outcome

As a public speaker and comedy performer I know getting the audience “on side” is vital. It doesn’t matter if you are playing the comic looser e.g. Johnny Vegas, the nice guy – Michael McIntyre or Mr Angry  – Frankie Boyle (I’ll let you decide which party leader is which) the audience has to trust that you believe in your material. So it’s massively important that they believe their policies will be good for the country.

I’ve seen amateur comics be booed off stage before they open their mouths because their body language screams fear (which if you’ve ever stood in front of 300 drunken students is completely understandable).

So tonight we will see three men whose performances tonight could very well help decide the balance of power for the next 5 years and they will understandably be scared (although at least the audience won’t be drunk).

One of the 7 Keys I teach corporate audiences when I perform “Funny Business” is “Take risks – little ones”.

They will have spent weeks rehearsing and preparing, tonight is about showing character, believing in their material and being confident enough for the occasional ad lib and show they actually understand how the audience and the wider public really feels about the UK today

I know in many organisations, managers and leaders can be scared to discuss the truth or how they really feel. This can lead to the same old clichés being trotted out or the use of facts and figures or jargon to hide the truth.

For the three leaders tonight, fear will help keep them sharp, but if it overcomes them and they don’t say what they really believe or worse still, say nothing at all, the simple truth is they will lose what little credibility they have.

Something to think about the next time you have to make a presentation about your team, or department’s performance…

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!

In the UK, election fever is now at Swine Flu levels. Finally all the 24 hour news channels have got something interesting to talk about rather than the millions of people dying in Africa everyday or the terrible suffering in Haiti, because let’s face it, that’s a bit depressing and the sun’s out!

Of course the election is important but what fascinates me is how it’s being carried out.

If I see another picture of Samantha Cameron or Sarah Brown I’ll go insane. I don’t care how nice their wives are, I’m not going to vote for a Prime Minister based on how pretty or supportive his wife is!

Besides in the hotness race Nick Clegg’s wife, Miriam clearly wins. She’s hot and Spanish (the Lib Dems never were Euro-sceptics).

My wife is clever, and hot, which is why she married me – opposites attract!  Which also explains why these 3 nice women all married politicians.

I also love the fact that Miriam isn’t on the campaign trail. The only person we ever see with Nick Clegg is Vince Cable, like a proud Dad at a school presentation.

I love Vince, he reminds me of my granddad (without the whisky breath), and he talks a lot of sense.

Besides if we take this wife thing to the obvious conclusion there is only one way to go. It’s only a matter of time before we have the political sex tape.

Cameron of course practices safe sex – he uses a non-dom especially made in Belize. Brown always removes the false eye when in full on seductive mode, and Clegg, well he spends 20 minutes beforehand deciding on what position to take.

I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for but a little bit of me wishes that Peter Mandleson was Prime Minister. He’s Labour but more conservative than Margaret Thatcher, plus he’s not bloomin’ married!

Not only that, but everyone is scared of him (even granite Gordon). If Mandleson were leader we wouldn’t need Trident, they’d all be scared that he’d turn into his vampire bat form and wipe them all out with his imperious gaze.

I know you wouldn’t choose an employee because of their partner, or choose a girlfriend or boyfriend because you liked their dad so, if you are going to vote, please vote for someone because of their policies, their character, or even their Cabinet but not because their wife is nice!

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!

On Wednesday my nephew asked me, “If you could travel back in time to the year 2000, what advice would you give yourself?”

This got me thinking.  So here is my top 10:

1.) The internet will catch on, buy shares in Google now, and buy the domain facebook.com.

2.) Do not go and see any new films by George Lucas – you will be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

3.) Do not buy shares in RBS, Northern Rock, Lehman brothers, or Enron.

4.) On Friday 29^th December 2001 wear a really good shirt and aftershave, trust me, she will make you happier than you have ever been.

5.) No matter how scared you are, have faith in your abilities, and know things will always get better.

6.) Keep going to the gym and for God’s sake stretch!

7.) Back up your computer every week, especially in September 2008.

8.) Don’t buy a motorbike it will really hurt.

9.) Tell your friends and family you love them, you may not always have the chance.

10.) I know you will probably ignore all of the above, but trust me on points 1, 4 and 9.

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!

Movie sequels, I’d like to see (some are mine, some are other peoples):

1. The Post Graduate

2. Slightly Lowered Expectations

3. Pretty Old Woman

4. When Harry Left Sally

5. Malcolm XI

6. My Right Foot

7. The Matrix Reformatted

8. Casino Royale with Cheese

9. Sex Lies and You Tube

10. Lunch at De Beers

11. Harry Potter and the Unsustainable Adult Career

12. Brokeback Mountain 2: Saddle Sore

13. Three Men and the Social Services Investigation

14. Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Childhood Memories

15. 301

16. Bigger

17. The French Connection UK

18. Eight

19. Ferris Bueller’s Unending Drudgery

20. Terry’s Clockwork Orange

21. Das Re-Boot

22. From Dusk Till Shaun

23. Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

24. Tango and Cash Back

25. The passion Of The Christ II: Die Harder

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!

After accepting the bet from fellow speaker Jim Lawless I had less than 12 months to become funny. Apparently most comedians perform for between 3 to 10 years before they’ll attempt a 1 hour solo show at Edinburgh. Not even Sir Ranulph Fiennes has had to face a comedy audience baying for his blood when he attempted a challenge.  (Although admittedly I was unlikely be attacked by an angry polar bear.)

In May 2009 after 8 months of blood sweat and tears I performed my very first one hour show at another comedy festival. I’m not going to lie to you, it was pretty scary, in fact it was more terrifying than trying to stop a Toyota, but I survived it.

Or I thought I did. Apparently when you are working on a show you should call it “a work in progress”.  Professional reviewers don’t review “works in progress”, but I didn’t know this.  So I was a little distraught when I read my first review a day after the show.

It was scathing. My heart almost broke as I read it. Imagine your worst ever annual performance assessment from your manager – and triple it!

“That’s it!” I told my wife, Kirsty, “This is just too hard.” I had put everything on the line to take on this challenge, my career, my reputation (not to mention the thousands of pounds it costs to put on a show at Edinburgh).

I was very close to packing it all in until Kirsty emailed me this quote from Ambrose Hollingworth:

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear. The timid presume it is lack of fear that allows the brave to act when the timid do not. But to take action when one is not afraid is easy. To refrain when afraid is also easy. To take action regardless of fear is brave.”

It stopped me in my tracks.

Was I going to let one man’s opinion derail 8 month’s work? Was I going to let one man who had never actually performed comedy on stage decide whether I should perform at Edinburgh or not?

Or could I learn from the experience? I swallowed my pride and emailed the reviewer.  He gave me some ideas about how I could improve my show, and I went away and I worked…

Was I scared? …Yes, but if I managed to put on the show it could change my life.

Now 6 months after performing my Edinburgh shows I still look back on those 21 nights and smile. Yes, there were a few more tears and tantrums along the way, but I managed to do something really difficult that earned the respect of my fellow comics, and has changed my life in ways I cannot describe.  Perhaps most importantly I won that pound!

Now I spend my time sharing my story with business audiences.  I tell them about the 7 key things that I learned on my journey and how they can apply them in their lives to help achieve their own goals.

Often after my talks audience members will tell me their stories.  How they have been so afraid of failure that they have not tried something new, even when the benefits were clear.   Or how they haven’t suggested a new idea to their boss in case he told them that they were stupid.  Then they tell me that after listening to my story and learning about my 7 keys they were going to take action even though they were afraid.

Just remember all it takes is courage…  my question to you is, what have you been putting off?

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!

Funnily enough a great comedy performance is very similar to a great business presentation, both require confidence, creativity, planning, and a little bit of showmanship.

However, it still amazes me how many people think that comedians are making stuff up on the spot. A great comedian only appears to be making funny stuff up instantly.

Most comedians start out by performing a 5-minute slot and then depending on their talent or how frequently they perform they will move to a 10-minute slot after about a year! After 2 years of hard work they finally move up 20 minutes! They’ll probably stick with that 20 minute set for at least 6 months, honing their material and tweaking their delivery to ensure they maximise the laughs, peppering it with the occasional adlib or topical joke.  This is why performing a 1 hour show in less than a year was sooooo darn hard!

I often coach executives who have to give a speech.  I’ve found that it’s nearly always the same few mistakes that stop a speaker giving a great presentation.

1) Not writing from your audience’s perspective. Who are your audience?  What’s your outcome? What do you want them to learn or remember?

Solution – Write down in a single paragraph the 5 to 7 most important things you need to tell your audience – an audience won’t remember any more than that anyway. Then look at how you can deliver that information in a way that they will understand and find interesting.

2) Padding for time. Conferences often want speakers to talk for an hour. This forces you to fill a presentation with information that may not be relevant or useful, rather than do a brilliant 30 minutes that everyone finds interesting

Solution – Challenge timings. If you only need 20 minutes, ask for 20 minutes and give your audience an extra coffee break!

3) Running out of time. Worse still is a speaker who has to rush their big ending / conclusion as they’re overrunning!

Solution – Write out your speech, 500 words is about 3 minutes of material. Record it and see if you are within your allotted time.

4) Not knowing your material. So many speakers don’t rehearse thoroughly enough, and end up reading their slides to remind them! Why bother being there? The audience can just as easily read your slides as you can. Slides should illustrate your point, not be a word for word reminder of your speech.

Solution – Rehearse! When did you last see Jack Dee get up on stage and read his notes before he told a joke? Why should an audience be bothered to listen to you if you can’t be bothered to learn your own presentation! If you need a crib sheet that’s ok. But it should be only one sheet with a maximum of 7 points. As I said before, the audience won’t remember much more than that anyway.

5) Pointless graphs and slides. Please don’t use graphs or slides that are so overloaded with information that no one can read them, let alone digest the information.

Solution – Edit, edit and edit again! Over the 11 months I was preparing for Edinburgh I dumped nearly another shows worth of material, as it didn’t fit or work with the rest of the show. It’s the same with slides; you must keep asking yourself, why am I showing the audience this? How can I make this more impactful?

6) Not learning from past mistakes. Every year you basically present the same information, all you do is change the dates on the slides or add in this quarter’s sales figures.

Solution – Record every presentation you make, and more importantly listen to the recordings, no matter how painful it is (trust me, it’s better that you find it painful, rather than your next audience!). What would you change to make it better? If you don’t know ask someone else’s advice – preferably a speaker who you’ve previously heard and enjoyed!

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.