10.4.2013 – Cruise Ship Speaker.
Did you know that there are only 15 professional ventriloquists left in the UK? That’s the amazing fact related by Steve Hewlett.
I met this amazing ‘vent’ over coffee this week and later saw his act which was amazing. He’s been striving for more than 20 years to become an overnight sensation!
Steve is a master of his craft, funny, slick, practised and passionate about his ‘dolls’ and his work. It’s probably a lonely life but for his travelling companions, and I’m sure he must wake up some mornings and ask whether he is suffering from schizophrenia!
However, more than a ventriloquist, Steve is a specialist, a niche product. He’s only got 14 other competitors in a marketplace where there is still demand for this dying art.
I worked as a Punch and Judy Professor for 20 years – a family tradition – and people used to laugh at the fact that I was a puppeteer, until they heard that Mr Punch and Mrs Judy had bought me my first house and established my property portfolio which now allows me to do what ‘I’ want to do.
Demand for my services outstripped supply. Steve, and me, operated in a niche. How do you differentiate either yourself or your product so that you are not viewed as ‘just another XYZ’? Seek to be different, strive to be unique – one of a kind.
