From Layoff To Laughter: Improvising Your Way To CEO With Leanne Linsky
Ever dream of chucking your corporate job and chasing your comedy dreams? Leanne Linsky, founder of the innovative comedy platform Plauzzable, did just that – and she's here to share her hilarious and inspiring journey. From rising through the ranks at a Fortune 500 company to facing a life-changing layoff, Leanne found the courage to pursue her passion for stand-up, even starting late in life. This episode dives deep into the challenges and triumphs of the comedy world, the birth of Plauzzable, and how this platform is empowering comedians and fans alike. Get ready for a laugh-out-loud conversation packed with lessons on resilience, following your dreams, and the power of taking control of your career path.
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From Layoff To Laughter: Improvising Your Way To CEO With Leanne Linsky
I'm excited to introduce our guest. Her name is Leanne Linsky. She is from out in the Great Pacific Northwest of the United States. She is the Founder and CEO of Plauzzable, an online comedy platform. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
It’s great to have you. We were talking here before we hit record, and you're getting ready to jump on a water taxi after we're done. That's fun. We don't get to do that often in the Midwest.
Any day I can take a boat to a meeting, it's like, “What is my life? This is amazing. It feels like I'm on vacation.”
We're glad to have you here. Leanne, we talked ahead of time. We start every episode of the show with the same open-ended question. We want you to walk us through your professional career, but more than that, leadership lessons learned along the way that have allowed you to do what you're doing. Tell us about Leanne and your journey.
Leanne’s Leadership Journey
I'm originally from the Midwest. I am from Illinois, outside of the Chicago area. I grew up in a funny family. Everybody had a great sense of humor, but I never knew I'd have anything to do with comedy. I ended up going to school for business and got a business degree because I figured no matter what I do in life, I'll be working for some business. That seems applicable, and it gives me a lot of freedom.
I went to community college for my first two years and graduated. I transferred to the University of Nevada Las Vegas. I got to move to Las Vegas, and what a great place to be in your early twenties. I graduated from UNLV and got a job doing accounts payable for a home builder. A year later, I went to another home builder, a Fortune 500 company. That was moving into the Las Vegas market. I ended up staying with them for several years, and it was incredible.
When it comes to leadership, I hit the jackpot because I can easily say it is the best work experience I've ever had in my life. I'm still friends with everybody there to this day. We were good friends. Sometimes, when we talk about my work family, that term is often overused nowadays in such a way. I am close to these people to this day. We've been to each other's weddings, funerals, and births of children. We've all gone through these major life milestones together, and there's this cool bond that I haven't found anywhere else.
One of the biggest lessons that I learned there about how to show up in general is who you are when nobody's watching. As a construction company, we're like, “Don't be above the shovel, or don't be above the broom.” If you see something that needs to be done or garbage on the job site that needs to be picked up, bend down and pick it up. Be that that person.
How you show up is who you are when nobody's watching.
We were not allowed to say, “It's not my job.” If we didn't know something, it's like, “I don't know, but let me find out.” That is something that I didn't experience after I left the company. I was like, “How is it someone can end the sentence with, I don't know, and walk away? Don't you want to find out?” how do we grow as people or in our roles if we don't go, “That's interesting. I don't know the answer. I'm going to go figure it out.” I didn't hear that anywhere else. I scratch my head like, “What?”
One of the most valuable things I learned there is that everybody wants to grow. We knew that we weren't going to get ahead unless we took the initiative on ourselves. It wasn't like, “I don't know. No one told me.” That's where it stops. It's like, “I don't know. Maybe somebody else does. If they don't know, why don't we find out? If it happens again, I can handle it right away.”
Our division president there, Steve, was incredible. Talk about a fantastic leader. He always referred to us as a friend. He never said, “This is my staffer.” I cringe when I hear people say that or this is my employee. He treated us like humans. He would introduce, like, “This is Leanne. We work together.” From the runner all the way up to any other VP or fellow president, that's how he treated people as people. Everybody had input into process improvement. He's like, “If you own that process, I empower you to make it better.” We were rewarded for how we could make our jobs easier and better.
Another lesson that I learned there that is valuable to this day is to do it right the first time. Go out of your way to do things right the first time. When customer service issues would come up, how would you handle it if this was your mom, sister, brother, or dad providing you like them? I’m making a huge assumption. How would you handle it if it were them? Why would you treat our customers any differently?
We all look back on that time. We often talk and reminisce about how we get lucky to work with a group of people like that. It was a huge company. We acquired another corporation during the time I was there. We all know what happened in the home building market in 2008. We saw it coming sooner. I started out in accounts payable, and I went to market research.
From there, I went into the construction field. I was a construction coordinator. I became a backend superintendent, taking the house from drywall to finish. I went into customer service, and I became an area manager in customer service. All through that time, they had put me on a comradery committee, and there were three of us. The other two looked at me, and they were like, “I don't want to do this.” I told the president, “I don't want to do this. I have other jobs to do.” He goes, “I don't care. You're doing it.” It was something I did in addition to any other role that I had. I said to him, “I want to do it my way.” He's like, “Whatever.”
I went from hosting and coordinating our quarterly meetings to hosting and coordinating huge events for 500 and 1,000 people at different times. It grew, and they became fun. I loved it, and we had a ball. What it did is it put me in a position where I got to know everybody. When I left the company, my title was Manager of Cultural Development. That was back in the early 2000s when we weren't talking about company culture.
We saw that in our company, we were winning the JD Power Awards every year, especially in our marketplace. What we found is that if we ranked high on our employee satisfaction surveys, our customers rated us the same. There was a positive correlation between those two. They're like, “This is important.” When we acquired another company, they had a completely different culture and personality to the company. That's when we went through this process, and this role was created. It was my job to bring these two personalities together.
It was remarkable to see the things that came up, the lessons that were learned, the leadership, and how there were many differences and similarities, how two different facing companies could be successful but run differently, and how to bring those together. There are some of the best lessons ever. I was laid off in 2006.
Finding Culture Fit
There are great lessons learned on that incredible journey. Culture comes from the top down. You talked about Steve, your divisional president, and how he drove this culture down. One of the things I loved about your story was you were there for several years. You talked about 7 or 8 different roles that you move through. One of the signs of positive companies and leadership is when people have that mobility, whether it be across like it's not a promotion. It's across into a different function, and be able to move through those things.
Here's my big question. Culture is a huge piece of everything. You're talking about the relationships and the friendships that still exist with those people and how they're focused on those things. How did they get people that fit the culture? How can you hire for that? Was it a situation where you'd hire people, and some people would say, “This isn't for me. This is friendly. I'm not curious to ask those questions and find out.” They left. Talk for a minute about that aspect. How did you find a fit for the culture? When you didn't have it, what happened?
In the second half of that, people tended to weed themselves out. If they were like, “I don't like all of this. We're all friends, and we all hang out.” They tended to leave on their own accord in a good way. They're like, “It's not for me.” We had a lot of longevity in the company, and there are people still there. How did we find these people? This is such a great question. I cannot teach people to care. Finding people who care is huge because I can teach them a job. How did we recruit? We were not maybe the highest paying company, but we weren't the lowest paying company. We were a fun company, and people were valued.
I see a lot of talk about culture. We force meetings or gatherings. It has to do with those things. Those things are things unless people feel that way. They have to want it. I worked for another company. They're like, “We're doing trivia night.” They would be like, “I don't even wanna hang out with these people, let alone play trivia with them.” You cannot fake it. It has to take part from the top.
If your leadership doesn't want to spend time with the team, why does anybody else? Ours, there wasn't a hierarchy. When we hung out, it wasn't like, “I'm the president of the C-Suit.” Everybody else sits at a different table. No, that's not how it is. There is cross-communication at all levels and jokes, fun, and silliness. Let it go. Show up without having an agenda, be a real person, and talk about movies. Our president, Steve, used to show up on the job site and take a group of guys to movie night. They'd watch movies. We wanted to hang out with each other.
Finding people to answer your question is what we found is we hired from people we knew. Referral is a big thing because if people are like, “I vouch for this person. They get it.” Bring that person on because they're already a fit. When you have the right fit, almost anything is possible. People can grow because they're accepted. There's this profound sense of belonging.
Improv CEO: When you have the right culture fit, almost anything is possible. People can really grow because they're accepted and there's a profound sense of belonging.
People are motivated by money, especially in a competitive market in certain jobs. There's also something to be said about a sense of belonging on a team. At the end of the day, if you're coming home miserable, no amount of money is going to make you happy. When you can go to work and feel that your contribution is valued, people like you, and you don't have all this other drama happening, that goes a long way. Find people through your networks and people that you know.
I remember one of our VPs. We were all on a company trip, and we traveled together. We did all kinds of stuff. It was insane. We went into a sandwich shop of all places. We placed an order, and the girl behind the counter was friendly. The way she asked questions was like, “Do you want to check in something?” She asked us a question. Eric and I looked at each other. We're like, “We need to recruit her.”
This is a person making sandwiches. We're a Fortune 500 company. We're like, “She would be great in our service department because she gets it the way she treated us from the minute we walked in the door, and it was a sandwich.” We felt good about our decision to have lunch there. Think about what she could do for someone who bought a house.
I can walk into any store or any business. How I'm greeted makes a huge difference in how I feel about patronizing that business. They tell people, “Greet people when they walk in the door.” You have someone yell, “Hello.” I was like, “I know what you're doing. I've worked in retail.” There's a difference when you approach somebody, look them in the eye, and say, “Welcome. My name is Leanne. Let me know how I can help you.” I don't care what your title is. This goes for not being above the broom. If you see that someone hasn't been acknowledged, don't tap someone on the shoulder and say, “Go acknowledge.” Acknowledge yourself, be a leader, step forward, and set an example.
Transitioning To Comedy
I love that aspect of how that organization helped break down the walls. You said not things that you guys would do outside of the office, and you said titles were irrelevant. It was inside the office. Titles are necessary because we have to know the role that we play in the organization. That's where it stops. It's about our role. It's not about who we are as a person and humanity but about the fact that we can do this together. In ‘06, you said you got laid off because they saw things coming in the housing market pick up.
At that time, I was the manager of culture development. I had a huge annual budget. We had doubled in size. We had been hiring up until around that point. It started slowing down. We were hiring 60 people a month. It was bananas. I created this system where we onboarded everybody one day a month. We'd have cohorts. These people all became good friends because they all started their first day of work together. We'd put them through a 90-day training program.
I got laid off. I was shocked. I didn't see it coming, but I could have. Looking back, you're like, “Yeah, I guess I could see that. It would make sense if you're going to make cuts.” I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life because this is all I've known. I thought I would be here till the end. Honestly, I loved it. They gave me time. We didn't announce it right away. They said, “Take your time.” I continued to go to work every day. I put together all the budgets for the following year, set things up, and did whatever I could. I honestly didn't know what to do.
During the time that I worked there, I had done a lot of public speaking. In 2001, I took my first comedy writing class because I was like, “I want to incorporate more humor into what I'm doing. I want to write a monologue like Johnny Carson and do it in one of the events I was doing.” I was doing a lot of video production and creative things at all these events. I loved it.
After that, one of the other city presidents approached me. We're chatting in my office, and he's like, “Have you ever considered taking an improv class or some comedy?” I was like, “No.” He's like, “The second city has a training center out here.” I was like, “What? I didn't know that.” Being from the Chicago area, I'm familiar with the Second City. I was like, “I had no idea they had a training center out here.” His wife was an actor in California. He's like, “Yeah, you should check it out.” I was like, “Yeah.”
I saw an ad in the paper. It came up several times that week. I'm like, “This is weird.” I called. They're like, “Yeah, we have classes.” I signed up for classes. I took all of them 2 and 3 times each every class they offered for the next several years. I was fully into it. I was in an improv group. We did shows. Everything on my nights and weekends, I was all in. That was my life. Anytime I could incorporate humor or what I was learning into what I was doing by day, I did that. It was cool.
Here I was. I was laid off. During my vacation time, I would travel. I went to New York for two weeks and studied at Upright Citizens Brigade. I came back, and I was like, “New York is everything.” I would travel to LA every weekend and take classes there after the Upright Citizens Brigade opened a training center there. I was doing all the things and having a ball.
I get laid off. I don't know what I'm going to do. I had five months' notice. We didn't announce it until the last 30 days. I had a week and a half left at work. I got a phone call from a guy I met at the theater in New York. He's like, “What's going on?” I said, “I lost my job, and I have no idea.” He's like, “You always said if you didn't have that job in your house, you would move to New York.” I'm like, “I still have my house.” He's like, “You don't have that job.” I was like, “No.”
He was younger. He's like, “I'm graduating school. I'm going to spend the summer in New York. Why don't you go?” I was like, “Okay.” He called me back the next day. He's like, “I have a sublet. Are you coming?” I was like, “I got to think about it.” He said, “You have one hour.” I went outside the office, walked around, went back in, called, and said, “I'm in.”
A month later, I packed two suitcases. I had put all of myself in storage, rented out my house, and moved to New York City. I fully immersed myself in the comedy scene, taking classes, getting into ensembles to perform, and doing all the things. I went back to Chicago for a month and a half. I studied at iO Chicago.
They found out I was going to move to New York because I had made that decision. They gave me a going away party. They paid for part of my next class at iO Chicago. They're good people. I'm fortunate that, one, I left when I did, and two, that they're all still in my life. I went and did all things in New York. I got jobs. A successful musician always said, “I never took a job that I would love more than doing music because I knew if I got a job that I love too much, I would never fully go in on my music career.”
I thought about that when I moved to New York. I'm like, “I made a big leap.” When I took jobs, I was like, “I'm not going to take a job that I'm going to love more than comedy.” That's what I did. I ended up taking some interesting jobs. In those roles, I learned many other things because I wasn't working for a Fortune 500 anymore. I also wasn't working in a situation where everybody cared about what they did to the level to which I was used. That blew my mind, but a lot of great lessons.
What I love about the story in the transition into comedy starting in ‘01, but it comes in ‘06, is you immerse yourself in it. You were an adult, you'd been in a career, and it's amazing how many adults say, “I'm too old for that.” Even if they're in their 30s, they're like, “I'm too old to learn something new. I'm not going to do that.”
The best leaders are learners. When you immerse yourself in something, and you go after it, incredible things happen. Some people could sit back and say, “How lucky Leanne is to see where she is now.” Maybe you have had some luck on things. We all need people and opportunities. I'm a firm believer that we create our luck by working hard, learning, and growing. You did that. You're intentional in it.
Sometimes, bad things happen. I look back now, and I'm grateful for being laid off. At the time, I don't know what to do. I don't know if I laugh. I don't know what I cry. It seemed traumatic because that's all I knew. During those times, I had gone through a divorce and experienced those things. Those things catapulted me like, “I'm going to go out there and say yes to things. I'm going to go all in on my career. I'm going to take these comedy classes instead of nice holding myself back.
When I was laid off, it was a couple of months before my 36th birthday. It was May 1st. I moved to New York in 2006. Two months later, I turned 36. I'm with all of these young people right out of college. I've already been married and divorced a couple of times. I had a several-year career. We're all doing this bananas comedy stuff on stage. It was the best thing I could have done. It was incredible. I was living in New York. It’s a masterclass in life right there.
I stayed in New York for several years. I wrote a one-woman show. I hosted and produced a weekly open mic for several years. I hosted and produced a weekly standup show. In my last year in New York, I produced 42 standup shows that year alone. I did commercials. I worked with agents. At the time, I was like, “I'm not doing anything.” I look back, and I'm like, “I was doing a lot.”
I moved to LA, and people were like, “Leanne, did you move to LA for your comedy?” I guess you could say that I moved there for a man that turned out to be a joke.” Here I was at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. I moved from New York to LA, and I thought, “This is it.” That turned out to be one of the most traumatic decisions of my life.
I decided to stay in LA. I’m like, “I'm going to figure this out. I started producing shows there. I started a podcast. I did 100 with my now husband. He's a different guy that I met after I got up on my feet. We've been together ever since. He's amazing. He was a big influence on me. He's well-educated. I had always said to myself, “When I turn 50, I'm going to consider going back to school and getting a master's degree.” No matter what I'm doing in life, I should ask myself the question, “Do I want to go back to school?” At that point, so much in the world has changed. How do I stay relevant?
My 50th birthday was approaching, and I was like, “I think I want to.” Before that, when I moved from New York to LA, I found myself spending so much time on the freeway, and I was hardly spending any time on stage. I'm like, “This is terrible.” In New York, I feel spoiled because I have many opportunities. If I'm going to the grocery store, it takes three hours. How do I fix that problem?” I also miss the comradery and the people I met in New York terribly. I miss them so much.
In 2014 and 2015, I was like, “Maybe I do things online and do it with Skype.” Everybody laughs at Skype. I was the director of marketing for a company in New York. When I moved to California, they had studios and stuff in LA. They're like, “Great because we had a team in LA.” It worked out great. I could work remotely. I was using Zoom, and I was like, “I'll use Zoom.” All this life got lifey because I have to find a new place to live. I got here.
I set that idea aside, but it continued to roll around. I met my now husband. I was producing shows. I was doing all the things. My 50th was approaching, and I still had this idea. I started doing it before COVID. I used Zoom. I was doing online open mics. I was like, “There's something to this. How do I scale it? How do I get this thing moving?” In the meantime, while I was doing podcasts, I went back to school and did a couple of years of training to be a life coach because I had spent many years on the stage talking to people. I wanted to learn how to talk with people. Coaching is incredible training for that. It’s one of the amazing game-changers for me.
I went back and got my Master's in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of California Irvine during COVID. That's where I could take my idea of doing comedy online and figure out how to build a company and create this product to solve a lot of problems I was having and wanted to solve, but also in the industry, comedians in general, how could I empower them and help unite a fragmented industry? That's where I came up with Plauzzable.
Birth Of Plauzzable
This is the birth of entrepreneurship. We find a problem that exists, and we say, “There's got to be a better way.” What were some of the problems that comedians were running into that drove you to create Plauzzable?
The first one was I wanted to be able to connect with people that I didn't live near. I wanted to reconnect with people on the East Coast. I didn't want to have to drive forever to get five minutes to work out some jokes. We're always looking for stage time. We don't write a joke and know that it works. We have to put it up in front of people in real time to know that we get that reaction we're looking for. You can't get that on social media. You can get likes, but I can like a zillion things on social media and not have watched a video. As a comedian, it's not the same as getting immediate laughter.
The problem I was solving was using existing technologies, which was great to get us through a pandemic and to connect people, but it wasn't created specifically for online entertainment. There's a bunch of nuanced things that would frustrate, especially comedians who are counting on immediate response.
How do I fix those problems? As I look at comedy in general, most people don't realize that comedians typically don't get paid. When we do, we don't get paid a lot. Most comedians often pay to play. They have to work for a club. They have to frequent the club every night. There are a lot of hoops to get through right before you get passed at a club. There are many years that get involved. Even if you start getting paid, you're only getting paid, maybe sometimes with a burger, a beer, $10, some gas money, or splitting some tips, but nothing sustainable until you get at a certain level.
I want to solve those problems and put control into the hands of the comedians in a way that they don't have now without having to give away everything for free, like with music. We want to listen to that song over and over again. When I write a good joke, you hear it once, and you don't need to hear it three more times. It's one, and I've burned it now.
Not all comedians write fast. If I am putting all my material out for free on social media, when you come to see me, you're going to be disappointed if you see exactly what you have already seen on Instagram. A lot of people will put their crowd work or something on there. There's a whole other thing in the industry about crowdwork comedy. Some people are great at it. They make a living off of it, and other people feel differently.
How do I set this up and give people opportunity? Forty percent of the open mics are located in New York and California. If you're not in those two big areas, what about all the people in the flyover states? All the people in between who are talented may not have that many opportunities for them or people in other countries. How do we bring that together?
What I did with Plausible is I created a platform that you can think of as a two-sided marketplace. You think like an Etsy. You have people who create things and people who buy things. With Plauzzable, on one side, you have the comedians, and on the other side, you have the fans. A comedian can come in. We provide them with scheduling tools, virtual stage, and ticketing services. They get their whole comedian profile like you do on LinkedIn.
You can go in and see all of their experience, bio, photos, and upcoming shows that are happening on Plauzzable. We put a space in there if they're performing in person. You can see where they're performing in person and have a link to get tickets because comedians don't have a lot of money, and not everybody has a website. You have a webpage. You have all of these things. They don't have to have out-of-pocket expenses. If they want to produce, they can go on and schedule it.
In a club, you have to ask for permission. You have to pitch your show. Sometimes, you have to put a deposit down on the room. You have to guarantee X number of tickets sold. In TikTok and Instagram, you have to have a minimum number of followers. On YouTube, you have to have a minimum number of subscribers before you begin making any money. That's a lot of hoops. In Plauzzable, go on, put on your show, you sell one ticket, and you're making the majority of that ticket revenue done. If you have five people show up, you're good. If you have 100 people show up, you're good. One of the things I learned at my best job ever is to give people permission to go out and do good things.
What I love about it is that you solved a lot of problems. It's something you're passionate about. You use modern technologies to get there. I do like this last piece you're describing because it's still in the hands of the comedian to see how much they're going to make out of it. I don't say to make from a financial basis for the reputation and everything else. That's the whole purpose behind being intentional in our leadership from what we do. You have to be intentional in leading yourself first.
Plauzzable is an incredible platform, but if I don't use it effectively as a comedian, it's irrelevant. You still have to go after it. Plauzzable has been growing. Your comedian base has been growing. I assume the fan base is growing. Can I go on to Plauzzable and search for comedians, see all their shows, and buy tickets to watch?
You can create your free fan account. You can look through the talent directory. You can sort by types of comedy and see who pops up. Maybe you want to hear all about relationships, dark humor, puns, and wordplay. Maybe other people want more serious topics. You can sort by that. You can go through all the shows listing shows you might like. It's in chronological order of what's happening now versus farther out. There's a lot of free shows on there.
There are open mics. Open mics are a space where anybody can show up and ask for time on stage to work out their material. Anytime you see an open mic, it's not necessarily a show. It's where the community comes together. People are encouraged to work out new things, get feedback, and have a good time there. It’s fun.
An open mic is not necessarily a show. It's where the community comes together and people are encouraged to work out new things, get feedback, and have a good time.
It’s a great platform. That is awesome glad you've done that. It seems like you're in a sweet spot where you take all your experiences and things you've learned and put them into Plauzzable. You feel like you're making an impact, having fun, and being funny in the process.
I'm lucky and grateful. At the time, it seemed like, “What am I doing?” It doesn't seem like a linear path when you're in it. I can look back now and be like, “Every failure, every hard time, or every challenge, and all the other successes that I've had along the way add up to something, but I needed a lot of those things to happen to grow and be pushed into the right direction.”
I love both those words, grow and push because that's what it takes.
Sometimes, we need a kick in the pants.
Leanne, we close every episode with the same question. It's a quick tip thing. What is something our readers can do to lead more intentionally and effectively?
It goes back to, I don't know, but I'm going to go find out. In leading that, Steve would always say to us, “That's a great question. How are you going to fix that?” Putting it back into the hands of the people on our team and giving them permission to figure it out may not be what I do or the way I would do it, but that's okay. That's how people learn and grow.
Improv CEO: “I don’t know, but I’m going to go find out.”
Leanne, thanks so much for being here with us. Readers, you'll find all of her connection pieces down in the show notes. You can check out Plauzzable and find her online. Leanne, it has been great to have you. I hope our paths cross again. Get out there and keep helping people laugh.
Thank you so much. It's been a great time talking with you.
Thank you.
Important Links
Plauzzable - Instagram
Plauzzable - YouTube
Leanne Linsky - Facebook
Leanne Linsky - LinkedIn
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