How do you call yourself ?

[Nathalie Van Renterghem]

In your texts on flyers, website,.. how do you call yourself when it comes to applied improv in business? Trainer? Coach? Consultant? Improv trainer? Improv consultant? :-) Communication coach? .. We realize that this depend probably a lot of the region and country you're in, and how these words are used there. But still, we thought it might help us to hear your expericences. What we experience is that when we use the word "improv" either in our title or short description, that scares people, or they think it is too "light". On the other hand, we don't really like to call ourselves "communication trainer" (which is widely used here) as this says all kinds of things and nothing.
Second question: how is "the thing" you do mostly called (by yourself)? workshop, course, seminar, training,.. ?

[Andreas Benkwitz]

Hi Nathalie,
as a beginner I'm struggling with that question for quite a while. I see two things these days as the first questions for anybody individually to answer: As who do I want to present myself and what is the market I want to get? I see two marketing strategies: first is to go mainstream with all the other trainers, call yourself "communication blabla", avoid dangerous territory and get a little part of the big cake. Second one is: call it improv and highlight the benefits in the most serious and sharp way possible. You will lose some people, but get others who want the edgy special stuff. You get a bigger part of a smaller cake. Maybe. I choose the second path these days, but I'm also promoting myself as a soloimprovisor and I present myself a lot with improv gigs. So I hope for myself that this adds up to a reasonable credibility as a performer, which hopefully leads some people to understand and buy the transfer I'm proposing. So I guess, the more you ground your credibility on really performing as an improvisor, the strategy to call it improv might be helpful for you. If it's just something you use as a trainer/coach etc. it might not help you enough. And I recommend finding your own words. Like Avish's slogan down there, which I really like. And Karen is right: Compare what kind of terms others use.
Cheers and all the best

[Karen Dawson]

Hi Nathalie - great question, and I'm sure you're not alone with your curiosity.

I'd suggest checking out some of our AIN colleagues' websites - that will give you a sampling of the language different folks are using.

I'd recommend starting with:
www.oyf.com
http://fratellibologna.com/
www.improvlady.com
www.troje.nl/

I hope you find that helpful!

Karen
See what you find

[Avish Parashar]

This is something I have struggled with in my 5+ years in business. In my experience, no one is sitting at their desks thinking, "hmm, I need to hire someone to come in and do an improv workshop," so emphasizing the improv hasn't been the best thing. On the other hand, it's what differentiates most of us, so it needs to be in there...My goal is to do more keynote speeches, so I am calling myself an "Opening Keynote Specialist" If that entices people enough, then they can find out about the improv.

For my one-sheets and websites, I try to stick to the benefit I am providing - "quickly making the most of life's unexpected setback" is the current one. Improv is the tool, and I get to that in the marketing, just not the first thing (benefits first, features second.)

Avish