Kenn Kington Is a Real Stand-Up Guy

Like many comedians, Kenn Kington (of Crown Comedy: I Am Dad, I Am Confused, I Don't Understand) works both comic and corporate gigs. Does working in the corporate world produce fodder for comedy routines, or do people working in the corporate world need comedy to relieve the stress of their workday lives? It's something I've become curious about since interviewing so many comedians, so when Kenn calls for his interview, it's the topmost thing on my mind.

Which came first, comedy or corporate gigs?

Kenn:    For me, it was kind of doing a little of the inspirational thing 18 years ago. I was invited to do dinners, and they asked me to do the funny part. That was easy. I do about a dozen corporate events a year, but it's not so much motivation as it is the way that I perform and work is clean. They know that whether it's vendors or employees or corporate bosses, it's going to be hysterical and no one's going to walk away offended.

Mine is more the comedy in the corporate world, not so much the motivational speaking. I do a little bit of that, but not a lot. I think each person gets into it differently, and for me it came about because I was doing some inspirational speaking. People thought I was hysterical, and started asking me to come speak at businesses.

Probably 85% or more of my engagements for corporations are being invited to do some comedy so they can laugh at the end of a hard day. I always ask what portion content vs. comedy they want to go, and it's usually very heavy on the comedy side.

How does the word about what you do spread? Is it word of mouth or social media, a great publicist? How do you make yourself stand out in a more crowded field?

Kenn:    My wife has asked me the same thing, and I give credit to what I call the "magic time." There's a time about 35 minutes after the end of a show that I'm autographing DVDs and talking with audience members from the show. Inevitably, 80% plus of my opportunities come from meeting people during this magic time. They've just experienced my comedy and are saying, "Oh, my goodness, we need you to come for our deal in the next month." (or next year or two years, whatever).

I try to capture those contacts when they happen. I'll get their card and send them a link to the website, or they'll go to the site, and connect there. As my wife would say, "Mouth to mouth really is the best advertising." It may not be the best, but it's definitely the most memorable. So, yeah, mouth to mouth is the way it happens for me.

In 18 years, I've built it up to where that's really the way it happens. Somebody's seen my act and they pass it along to someone. They talk about the date night or comedy theater, and 30% of the audience is from the community. They're not normally part of the crowd, and that's who they're trying to reach.

I think what sets me apart is that a lot of guys are out there beating the bushes saying, "Hey, I want you to book me." We come at it from the other side and ask what the organization wants to accomplish. We come alongside the host and work with them to accomplish their goals.

That's where my business background in marketing comes in. We give them creative ideas to get the word out and help them see how they can mobilize their people to bring their friends to the event. That's really the key to what we do: we give people something to trust and something to invite with. We'll do custom video clips for specific venues, and we'll throw clips on the website, or give them links to the website. That way, they can invite their friends, tell them to watch the clips, and we'll see that 90% of the people who have a personal invitation and watch the clip will come to the show.

That's probably what sets me apart. As much as I love the actual performance, I equally love seeing people accomplish what they're trying to do with the event.

That is a really personal approach to marketing. In addition to partnering with the people putting on the event, you're also taking on some of the burden of promoting. That's a pretty unique offering.

Kenn:    I realized about three or four years ago that the people putting on these events, especially if they're pastors, don't have marketing backgrounds. They know their community and congregation, but they don't know the most effective ways to get an audience to their event.

So I've hired a guy whose entire job is to help people with PR. We provide the posters, postcards, links to the website, etc. He's really good at what he does. He knows how to put together a good printed piece that connects with the audience, and is something that people will want to give to their friends.

We provide all of that out of our own pocket, and I don't mind that because I know it will help the organizers reach their objective. That objective is usually their people taking those pieces and actually inviting and bringing their friends. I've done some research and found that in the normal evangelical church, less than 8% of the people who attend the church during any given year will actually invite or bring their friends to anything.

And yet the latest Barna Research shows that for over 85% of people who come to faith, the first step was a personal invitation to an event or program. So we've got less than 8% of church attendees inviting friends, but more than 85% of people who come to faith doing so because of an invitation. So my passion is to be a bridge for those folks and have an event where they can say, "I'm going, and I'm bringing somebody."

That creates a win-win situation for everyone then. If it succeeds for the church, they're going to bring you back, and if there's a bigger audience, they have a greater reach.

Kenn:    A packed audience for me is somewhere between 700 and 1000, but the number I look at is different. Whether your church has 1500 or 300 on a Sunday, if you do this event, I'm interested in the percentage of people who are introduced to a church because they came with a friend. If that number is around 28%, then it's a success, and that's what I'm looking for.

The people who caught the vision and bring their friends are really satisfied with the outcome, and are happy they brought them.

You mentioned your business background. At what point did you transition from working in business to doing comedy full-time?

Kenn:    It was 18 years ago when I was able to make the switch. Before that, I was in marketing and sales with two different companies. The long and short is that at 25, I was in the top 10 for sales with a Fortune 500 growth company. I was working about 80 hours a week and totally burned out. I had my midlife crisis at 25 and decided I wanted to do something else.

After about three or four months, I decided to give it a shot and it took about two years to make that transition into being able to make a living at it.

That's a pretty quick transition, compared to some I've heard about.

Kenn:    Yes, as long as you're OK with living below the poverty level. I went from a having a white collar expense account to doing every menial job you can do. I rebuilt computers, managed a gym, pressure-washed sidewalks, cleaned windows. It was a long two years!

What got you through it?

Kenn:    Something internal that every time I would have to go to a landscaping job for 45 hours a week and come home exhausted, then I literally went and did a show in front of 50 kids three or four hours a way, something clicked. I recognized that this is who I am. It's not something I want to do, but who I am.

I guess the turning point was at about the depth of frustration. I had a company call that knew me through the work force. They made an insanely great offer of six figures to open this up, go speak here, do that there, and I had to tell them "No." I want to keep doing landscaping and comedy on the side making nothing.

Two years is not that long if you know that there is success at the end of the journey. But if you have no promise and very little hope for something different during that time it's working out, it's definitely a check on your intestinal fortitude.

Did your wife have any unique "isms" to describe things during that time period?

Kenn:    Fortunately, I met her right at the tail end of those two years. So I went through most of the misery on my own. When we met, she was a teacher and was making much more money than I was. I literally had no money. A big date for us was going to KFC and a dollar movie. So I know for a fact she did not marry me for my money. And when I look in the mirror, I know she didn't marry me for my looks. I'm not really sure why she married me other than that she saw my heart somehow, and I'm very fortunate for that.

That and she has this incredible condition that produces great material every day.

How did getting married and eventually having kids change the material in your comedy shows?

Kenn:    There were a lot of people who saw my comedy in the first stage of my career and they thought when I got married I'd lose all my material. But I didn't. I just talked about it in the past. I could say that if people were single, I could feel their pain and knew what they were going through.

Now that I was married, I could also identify with married men. The only rule we have is that if I'm going to use something about my wife in a routine, I have to run it by her before I use it on stage. She has, I think, in 14 years of marriage, only vetoed a couple of things. She really is special from that standpoint.

She's a 4.0 student and she's beautiful. She doesn't have poor self-esteem, which is mandatory for being married to a comedian. She only has one glitch, and I'll say this in setting it up during my routine. I don't even call it a fault; it's just a glitch. Everybody has a glitch. She says these "Heather-isms." She'll say something like "I'm as loyal as a heart attack."

And it makes it even better when it provides comic material.

Kenn:    No doubt.

Can you explain the difference between the Ultimate Date Night and the Ultimate Comedy Theatre?

Kenn:    The Ultimate Comedy Theatre is an entire evening of comedy we take care of from beginning to end. From the moment you enter the room, there is a DVD playing clips designed to let people know this is going to be a funny night and this is going to be a blast. There's usually at least one opening act, and by the time they take the stage, they're usually laughing and having a great time.

For the Comedy Theatre, I'll do a complete set, then we'll have an intermission and I'll come back and do another set. I'll share a little bit of personal stuff in the set, nothing too personal or heavy. One of the greatest pet peeves I have is the "bait and switch," where comedians will make you laugh and then hammer you with whatever they think it is that you need the most. I just don't do that.

I think people came for comedy. I can share my story in a humorous way and plant the seeds without being overly dramatic. So that's the Comedy Theatre. It's very validating to the hosts. It's one of my desires that if you bring a friend, they walk out with you going, "That was incredible. What else do you guys do, because I want to come to that too?"

The Comedy Theatre is stand-up based, and I guarantee it's the funnest two hours of your year, because people are going to laugh hard and continually. It's just a blast.

The Date Night is really completely different and it came out of my home church. They said, "Hey, we want to do something for couples. We want it to be fun and interactive, and we want our folks to bring couple friends with them." So we developed this event around that.

Basically it's a dessert event. Couples walk in. We sell tables of four couples, so you're with at least three other couples, and immediately we play a version of the old Newlywed Game. It's a game of how well you know your spouse. But everybody in the room plays. It's a blast to see 300 couples sitting there playing this game.

We immediately send the women out of the room and ask the guys the first round of questions. The questions themselves are hysterical. They have choice cards with A, B, C, and D on them. Then the women come back with the desserts and they talk around the table. I go through the questions again and make comments based on their answers. They hold up their cards to show their answers.

Then we send all the men out and they go get dessert and something to drink and we ask the women questions. We end with any of the couples who got 100% right and they get to do bonus questions. That's hysterical to interact with. Then after that game we give away prizes.

There's another game on the table called "Everyone Counts," which is kind of from a cruise ship in-room scavenger hunt idea we saw on a cruise ship one time. Everybody at the table is doing this game, then it wraps up with what I call a comedy content.

I give them five tools they can use immediately in their marriages and illustrate it all with a lot of humor. It's probably 70% comedy and 30% content in that section. It's about two hours total but feels like 30 minutes, and is a lot of fun.

It sounds like a blast. I'm thinking my church would really enjoy that, but I don't see a lot of West Coast dates on your calendar.

Kenn:    I've been out to Fresno. One of my favorite places is Clovis Hills. We did a Comedy Theatre out there seven or eight times, and I've done a date night there once. I've been all over the country. I try to keep my calendar to between 90 and 100 dates. I don't go over that because I really do like to see my wife and kids. We're working more on the quality of dates, not so much the quantity of dates.

What about videos in the planning and development stage?

Kenn:    October 24 I'm filming a new project in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be the culmination of my "Isms" contest. The winner, as voted by visitors to the website, will be flown with a friend to Atlanta to watch the filming, during which I'll use their "ism." That will be a blast.

I'm still a little bitter than I didn't win the "ism" contest, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

I'm also working with an Emmy-winning production company on kind of a stand-up reality show. Kind of a stand-up meets Jon and Kate Plus Eight, but without the marital problems. It's called Stand-up Guys, and we're in pre-production on that. We'll probably film the first quarter of next year.

Is it going to be your family, or will it be others?

Kenn:    There are two other stand-up comedians working on it with me. I'm in Georgia, and I'm the 35 – 45 guy. There's a friend of mine in Texas who's the 25 – 35 guy, and another friend out in Los Angeles is the 45 – 55 guy. It's kind of like the different phases of life, career and family. Out of the 30 minutes it's on, probably 80% of it is stand-up. The rest of it is kind of the background stories of what's going on, what we're trying to achieve individually, and what life at home is like.

My buddy in California just got his kids graduated and out of the house, then literally a week later his mother-in-law and sister-in-law moved in. You don't have to write that, it's straight from real life. So it's a little behind the scenes with a lot of stand-up.

It's in the pilot stage. We're developing the shoot dates and doing the legwork for the logistics. We'll actually film shows in Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles, and also behind-the-scenes stuff. So we're working out the details on the logistics side of it now.

Speaking of real life, how is your daughter Kennedy?

[Kenn's daughter was diagnosed with cancer more than two years ago]

Kenn:    We're two months post-chemo. Her chemo regimen lasted two years, two months and two days, and she's just doing phenomenal. It amazes us how her energy has gone through the roof. She's in full remission and is absolutely loving life.

That was another long road to hoe in the middle of everything, and there are a lot of stories I'm going to share on the new comedy project, on the bonus part. We learned a great deal through that. I'm actually doing a project in December for families and people diagnosed with cancer. It's sort of an inside look at what to expect. The American Christian Counselors' Association is putting it together and I'm going to host it. That may be my favorite thing to look forward to.

I told my wife if nothing else, helping people when they're first hit with news of that diagnosis is one of the greatest things I can think of doing, so I'm looking forward to doing that.

©2009 ChristianCinema.com

For more of Kenn's comedy and to check his schedule, visit his website.