Start Local to Get Global: Tips from The Winningest Poet Ever

Ed Mabrey, the winningest poet ever, has been in the industry for 20 years and graciously shared his experience with us at Poe Life Podcast. However, he dropped so much knowledge that we’ve got to focus on only one aspect for this post. Otherwise, we’d be writing a book (...hm maybe there’s an idea there).

Look, this is one of those insights that you just have to learn directly from the source.

How to start local and become global

Below is all in Ed Mabrey’s words (with some slight modification to fit the page rather than in conversation).

You start local to get global. But when you’re local, you’re still thinking globally. So, pre-COVID, you go to your local open mics. You go to the host and say, “Hi, my name is so and so. I would like to feature.” They say, “Okay, I need to see you perform.” Right? No problem.

After several times of showing up, people are looking for you. They’re excited when you step up. Now you go to the host again, “I would like to feature.” They go, “Great. Excellent, let's set up a date.” And as soon as you set that date up, you are contacting the next venue.

You keep doing this until you’ve done those dates and go, “Okay, now that’s my city. Now the next city.” And you can go to venues and say, “Yeah, I’ve done a circuit in my city. Here’s my footage. Here’s my video.”

Side note: How do you get this footage?

Standing outside, hold your phone up to people’s face and ask them if they’ll give you 10 seconds about what they thought of your poem tonight. They give you 10 seconds, click, thank you, move on to the next. You get a handful of those, and that’s your Instagram or your Twitter feed. Make sure you show them love when you post it.

When you get to that next city, do the same thing. You repeat that until you hit all the major cities in your state. Now you start leaving that state. Saying “I’ve maximized my state.” Then you go to all the states. You have merchandise. At this point you have a website, basically a one page thing to just show me where you are. You interact with your audience and then interact with your clientele. You work with your customer to automatically reschedule shows.

Keeping the momentum going

As soon as you finish a show, you ask the host, “Did you like my show tonight? Great. How about we do this again in six months? I’ll put it in my calendar. I’ll email you in the morning.” It’s an email reminder saying, “Thank you very much for the show. Loved it. Enjoyed it. I dug down in six months for this particular week of this month. I’ll check back in three months.” If you do that for every spot that you go to for a month, now you have built an income in six months. Now you can start budgeting and planning.

Or you can say, “Let’s do it in a year.” or “You know what? I have more poems. What’s your biggest show you do?” They could say they have an anniversary show. “That’s a show I want to do. What do I need to do to show you that I can do that show?” Or you can say, “Hey I’m very political, I want your Black History Month.” Or, “I’m very romantic, I want your Valentine’s Day show.” Or even do the opposite, “When does everybody hate coming here?”

Ed says, “When I first started touring, I was the person who went to the East coast in the winter and West coast or Southwest in the summer because it was easy money. No one else wanted to do it. And I was like, ‘I don’t care about snow or heat. I came up in the Midwest.”

And those shows can make more money because the people who come out are more dedicated because they came out in bad weather. If you do that, you can increase your merch sales, show acumen, and connections. Make a Rolodex. All those people are inevitably connected to people are buy your merchandise.

Then you send them thank-yous. And say “Hey, have you ever heard of such and such? They’re not really on the circuit but my friend runs it. It’s really dope. You should check it out.” And that’s what’s called fallout shows.

Monetizing through sponsorships

Now, you have 20 or 30 shows set up for the next year or six months, and you can contact somebody where you live. “Hey, I heard you have some clothes for your brand. I would love to have a t-shirt and wear it everywhere I go. And I’ll give a quick 30 seconds on the mic talking about what ya’ll do. Are you willing to help me get my tour?”

Now you have a sponsorship endorsement package. You say the proper name, give the info, add your website info, add your tags, and in return they’ll pay you this particular statement. They’ll literally be able to see that you’re doing your part because they’ll see the photos posted with the t-shirt at the show.

Eventually, you’ll go to the sponsor and say, “Hey, really appreciate you guys, but now I have a brand and my own merch. So now we’re going to change the nature of our relationship.” And maybe the sponsor really liked the relationship and wants to know more about your merch and how they can get on board.

What’s next?

So now you’re booking gigs six months in advance, 12 months in advance. Now you want to start looking into college gigs. The educational level of skillset is speaking in schools. Now you get an agent, a manager, an entertainment lawyer. Maybe you’ll need an account manager since you’ll have so many 1099s coming through, and you’ll be writing off hotels and everything else. Soon you’ll be moving from Greyhound and Megabus to Amtrak and renting a car or flying everywhere you go.

Ed’s route was: Slammed a lot. Won a lot. Became the “winningest poet in the district.” People came to see Ed because it was like, “Every time we see him, every time we hear about a slam, eight times out of ten, if he’s in it, he wins. So let’s see what he’s about.” But from a business perspective, it’s the entire process above.

Start local.

“If I could go back and do anything differently, I’d have believed in myself a lot sooner.”

– Ed Mabrey

Ed Mabrey, actor, author, and speaker, exemplifies the modern-day renaissance artist. From the page to the stage and the script to the screen, Ed captivates, motivates, and promulgates the performing arts. He is the winningest poet in the history of Poetry Slam—4 World Championships, 5 consecutive Regional Championships, and over 500 wins in his career. Ed tours the country professionally as a poet, comedian, and professional speaker. Also, an Emmy award winner, Ed has been on Seasons 3, 5, and 6 of Verses and Flow (TV One), as well as appearing on broadcasts on ABC, FOX, HBO All Def Digital, Crackle, CNN, and C-SPAN. Ed was a speaker at 2015 TEDx Dayton and 2017 TEDx Evans Street. As the 2019 APCA Spoken Word Artist of the Year, Ed has performed at over 100 colleges and universities around the country teaching workshops and conducting seminars. Find Ed on social media: @edmabrey