Ventriloquism and the Psychology of a Rabid Fan
In this episode, I tell you my true story about Ventriloquism, that delves into the psychology of a rabid fan, and how you can use those insights to create better content and better offers for your membership site or online course.
Welcome to episode #38 of the SubscribeMe show from SubscribeMe.fm.
1000+ Video Views: My Amateur Attempt at Ventriloquism
My recent attempt at Ventriloquism, after 9 years, has gotten me over 1,000 unique video views on Facebook, and a ton of comments and likes and engagement (893 views via my FB profile at the time of publishing this – see below – and 200+ views elsewhere).
But getting likes wasn’t my goal. I was trying out something to promote this very podcast, and it worked: I got a whole bunch of new listeners because of that.
So check out the video below (and the picture further below).
I’m your host Ravi Jayagopal. SubscribeMe.fm is the podcast to listen to, to learn about creating membership sites & online courses, making, marketing and monetizing digital content, WordPress, eCommerce, digital marketing, and tools, techniques and tips that you can use to create a long term, profitable online business.
I am the co-founder & co-developer of DigitalAccessPass.com, arguably the best membership plugin in the industry, fondly known as DAP.
In case you don’t know, Ventriloquism is where someone has a puppet – or a dummy – on their lap or on a stand next to them, they talk without moving their lips, they make the dummy’s mouth move, and through a combination of a funny script, good comedic timing, and decent lips-not-moving skills, it makes it look like it’s actually the dummy that’s speaking. Obviously, everyone knows it’s not the dummy that is speaking, so it’s critical that you have a funny script and a good sense of timing, and you can make people easily suspend reality, and actually start to look at the dummy entirely when you are speaking.
Back in 2006-2007, when I was still renting DVD’s from a video store called “Blockbuster” – remember those days? Yeah, barely a few years before that I used to rent cassette tapes! Oh my god. VCR. There’s something I never thought I would hear again, and worse yet, hear myself uttering those 3 letters! If you’re too young to know what a VCR is, I’m hoping you’re old enough to know how to Google stuff! So Google it!
Anyway, in 2006-2007, I watched a movie called Dummy, starring Adrian Brody. It’s about this really introverted, unemployed, depressed guy, who has major social issues. And one day he discovers that he has a knack for ventriloquism. It’s a really cute, feel-good movie. And at the end of the movie, as part of the DVD extras, they show the ventriloquist who helped Adrian Brody with the vent skills and the dummy scenes and the dummy humor and stuff. Turns out, the guy is the world famous ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham. And he goes on to show behind the scenes with the dummy, and even gives a quick ventriloquism tutorial on how to pronounce words without moving your lips, timing, the script etc. That’s it – I… was… hooked. So listen to the episode for the rest of the story.
Listen to the episode (at the top of this post) for the rest of the story.
From left to right: Stanley, WilsonTheWiseOne, WickedWilson, Ravi, The-girl-has-no-name (was a gift to my daughter and she never gave her a name), and finally, Charlie
Friends don’t let friends go without telling them about SubscribeMe.fm. So please let a friend know about this – the link you can share, is http://SubscribeMe.fm.
If you want future episodes to be automatically downloaded to your device as soon as they’re available, then subscribe to the show on iTunes at SubscribeMe.fm/itunes/ , or on Stitcher at SubscribeMe.fm/stitcher/ .
Thanks again for listening. I’ll talk to you soon.
Cheers!
– Ravi Jayagopal
PS: The audio player above is powered by CoolCastPlayer 🙂
PPS: Don’t forget to join other SubscribeMe listeners and a network of folks all interested in the same thing: Membership sites and online courses. Join the group at subscribeme.fm/group/ and that will take you to my Facebook group.
Check out the full podcast below…
