My Top 5 Stand-up Comedy Success Tips

The term “success” has a different meaning to everyone and that includes success when it comes to stand-up comedy.

In my eyes, your stand-up comedy act or routine is a salable product—much like a television or a computer. The more craftsmanship, quality and dependability your stand-up comedy act represents, the more salable (and valuable) your stand-up comedy act is.

If the stand-up act you are trying to sell to an agent, comedy club manager, booker, corporation, etc. is the equivalent of an 8-track tape player, then you will have a difficult time selling that act for decent money, if any at all.

Here are my top 5 stand-up comedy success tips that apply no matter what level you are at in the world of stand-up comedy:

1. Work on being very self-aware. Many comedians are NOT self-aware. They will develop stand-up comedy material that has personal value to them or that they adore and think is hilarious, but audiences simply don’t care for the material and respond accordingly.

Then, it somehow becomes the audience’s fault for not recognizing how brilliantly funny the material is.

That is not being self-aware. If the audience is not laughing at your stand-up comedy material, then it’s not stand-up comedy material.

The love, respect and laughter response you get from an audience is the lifeblood of stand-up comedy drive and desire.

2. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! Until you have built up your reputation and your ability to perform frequently enough to try to new material on stage, I strongly recommend that you rehearse your stand-up routine out loud every chance you get.

If you want to know why most new comedians can’t make any headway in the business of stand-up comedy, it’s because the only time that they “rehearse” is when they are at the next open mic gig.

That’s the super long road to stand-up comedy, I can assure you. Musicians who are masters spend countless hours of practicing and rehearsing to get to the level of proficiency they command on stage.

It’s no different for comedians who kill on stage.

3. Get in front of audiences at EVERY possible opportunity. Especially at the beginning, you simply cannot get enough stage time in front of audiences.

But the big mistake that many comedians make is that they limit themselves to comedy club performances only.

If a comedian is working blue or uses profanity in their stand-up comedy act, then they have severely limited their ability to get stage time to comedy club type venues right off the bat.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the freedom of expression that comedy clubs offer and very much enjoyed my adult material and using a bit of profanity in my act when I was actively performing.

But comedians need stage time, which includes getting in front of ANY possible audiences they can get in front of. Well, you just can’t do that with a dick joke act.

Your freedom of expression will increase proportional to the impact of your act, your popularity and your ability to promote yourself. Until then…

4. Record and evaluate each performance you do for areas of improvement. Bad stand-up comedy is not like fine wine that gets better with age.

Yet I have seen open mic comedians do the same lame material for years in hopes that one day, audiences will finally snap to and realize just how funny the material is and will laugh accordingly.

See #1 above. It doesn’t quite work that way in real life.

Simply listening to an audio recording or watching a video recording of yourself over and over is not good enough. You need to be aware of what to look at and how to make small, yet important changes to your act that make a difference.

5. Constantly work on your confidence. Probably one of the most powerful weapons in a comedian’s “arsenal” is maximum confidence. Let me put this another way…

Max confidence = max stage comfort = max audience response

With maximum confidence, you are able to deliver your stand-up comedy material with ease. You are able to confront hecklers without hesitation. You are able to handle interruptions to your act without flinching.

How do you work on your confidence? You do what most comedians refuse to do which is…

Feed your brain the food of success. Go to the bookstore and get books on confidence building, speaking confidence, etc. There is a fairly new online course that has been recommended to me by several of my clients called Step Up and Speak that looks quite promising and completely applicable to stand-up comedians (stand-up comedy IS a form of speaking you know).

Many people don’t know this but most successful people WORK at being successful, confident and sure of themselves. It doesn’t come naturally—not at all.

Luckily for you…

Most aspiring comedians will look at these success secrets and go…

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. That’s all well and good, but how do I get super funny on stage now?”

And my response would be…

There is no magic pill when it comes to stand-up comedy success. Unfortunately, people will spend more time, money and effort looking for that “magic pill” than they will learning and applying the tried and true tips and techniques that I have just described.

Do what everyone else does (or doesn’t do) and see what happens if you don’t believe me.

It’s been said before and bears repeating:

A comedian’s worst enemy can be found in any mirror.

Cheers,
Steve Roye
The Professor of Funny for Money

About the Author/Founder of the SCP Blog

Steve Roye is the author of the Killer Stand-up Comedy System and is a globally recognized expert in the field of stand-up comedy material development and presentation strategies -- for entertainers as well as speaking professionals.

Please check out the Featured Articles page for direct links to articles on this blog for pro comedians, comedy entertainers, and speaking professionals.

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