Latest / The Magic Guys / Turn Your Magic Into a Career #280

Transcript

Turn Your Magic Into a Career #280 · The Magic Guys

0:01
They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
0:11
Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? It's episode 280 of the Magic Guys.
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You know what? I was going to edit the intro to say they are a magic guy.
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And today he is the magic guy.
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But obviously I'm here by myself. What a weird episode to be doing.
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Like me being on screen and just there's no one to bounce off of and look at
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is super weird. But I have you
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guys in the chat and you'll be glad to know the air horn is back, baby.
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And I've tripled it up. So now it hits three air horns at the same time.
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But I'm not alone. I've got my friends in the chat. What up, Scotty P?
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What up, Pasha? What up, Tim Askin? you guys, the real magic guys that we serve here.
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And look, I'm doing a solo episode because Nick and Doug are in Las Vegas or
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at Magic Live. I have massive FOMO.
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But, you know, I'm here, I'm working, I'm doing gigs, I'm doing the part,
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I'm making videos, you know, I'm busy.
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And I thought, you know, this is probably a good chance for me to take the wheel and just share.
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All the advice I can possibly think of to help you succeed to be a professional
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magician, if that is something that you desire, which again,
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I will bring up that it maybe shouldn't be everything that everyone desires.
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But if you do, like me and you're a crazy person and can't think of doing anything
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else, I want to, in this episode, just fill it with as much advice as I can to help you succeed.
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I have scattered advice all over the internet, but in 2026, I just want to put it all in one place.
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So to start off with, I put in the Discord, if you have any specific questions,
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to put them in the chat. So I want to answer, there's two speakpipes in here now.
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I'm going to answer them and then I'm going to get into the framework of what
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I think will put you in the best place to make as much money as you can from
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being a magician. So first question comes in from our man, Sean.
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Thank you so much, Sean, for putting your question in.
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Hey Josh, hope you're good this week and not missing Nick and Doug too much.
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My question for you this week is, as a amateur magician, how do I know if and
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when I'm ready to move out and try and get myself some gigs and paid work?
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Yeah, look, easy. Simple but easy. Easy, not simple. You know what I'm saying, and I think you do.
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It's a tough question. How do you know when you're at that point where you can
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start making money from gigs? And a mentor of mine told me, well,
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you'll know because people will ask you how much you charge.
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So you go out and perform magic as much as you can in any situation you can.
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And, you know, at the beginning, you'll get comments like, oh,
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that was really good. Or, wow, that was really impressive.
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But eventually when you get to a point, people will say at the end of that,
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they'll go, that was really great.
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Oh, you should have him at such and such as party. Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a card? And if so, how much do you charge?
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Like people will ask you how much you charge.
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And that's when you know that you're at that place.
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You're at that place where people see it as a value, as an asset, and they want to pay you.
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And so, yeah, the audience will tell you, like, if you're approaching people
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to perform at events for free and stuff, eventually you'll get someone say oh
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and before we book you in like yeah what are your rates so that's
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really how you'll know is the simplest answer,
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our next question ah great that
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you guys made it in here tim scotty link you'll be happy to know scotty.
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The air horn's back baby you're gonna wake up everyone trying to sleep but if
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you are listening to this and you get annoyed by the air horns,
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I always say this to everyone, just listen to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts because
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it edits out most sound effects and you won't hear it.
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So there you go. All right, next one comes in from Gautam and I know his question
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pretty much asks a whole series of things. So I'll try to answer them all as precisely as I can.
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Hey Josh, thank you so much for doing this episode. I think it will be really
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helpful for the professionals out there.
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My first question is, do you believe magic is a commoditized service now?
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Like comedy is subjective. Some people may like your comedy,
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some may not. But magic is much more objective.
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If you execute the method correctly, you will generally get the reaction.
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For a lay audience with no reference point for what good magic looks like,
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if someone below average and someone with years of experience can both get the
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same reaction, will the audience perceive them as equally good?
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If so, does that make magic a commoditized service?
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The second question is, what are the key inputs and controllables in the magic business?
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Every business has like input-output system. For example, if you do 100 outreaches
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a day, maybe two, three people respond and then you take them through the funnel.
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What are the key inputs someone can consistently improve to create somewhat
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a predictable outcome in this industry?
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Third would be how important is branding? I've seen your content.
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I think it helps you build a strong brand persona and positioning,
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which can also help you charge a premium.
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How important do you think branding is? And if you had to create a blueprint
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for someone just starting out, what exact steps would you recommend to put them
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in a good position in their magic career?
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Thank you so much for this episode. Cheers.
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Gordam's not messing around.
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You've basically just asked me everything that I want to cover in this podcast.
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Us. But to answer everything up to the blueprint, because the blueprint of how
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to be a successful magician is like, what will lead me into everything else I want to talk about.
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So great setup, bro, is I'll answer everything else first.
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So the first thing you said is, is magic subjective and is therefore it a commodity?
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And how can people know like who's a good magician and who's not a good magician
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if they have no knowledge in magic, right?
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So I guess that is separate to being that's like an external thing it's not
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really something that we will,
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like can control their perception and make money as a magician like that's just
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an outwards thing but the reality is.
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People can tell, well, they can like feel it, right?
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They can feel when someone really is smooth and knows what they're doing.
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And it doesn't fumble and is really confident and, you know,
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can do the same effect as another magician. But this guy really like draws you
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in with their presentation and fools you because they've learned the effect properly.
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And they're not doing like, you know, for lack of a better word,
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like a shitty top change.
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Everything is so well hidden that it feels like a completely different effect
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because they're just so good at it, right?
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But then you also asked about branding, like how important is branding?
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And branding goes back to that exact point you just brought up.
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So if magic, people can't tell who's good and who's not good,
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they can definitely tell when it comes to branding.
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Like they'll think that a magician is better and feel like their performance
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was better if their brand awareness is way bigger.
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Perfect example is we all know how to do the two card Monty,
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but David Blaine can perform it for Jeff Bezos and get paid hundreds of thousands
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of dollars to be at an event and do that same effect.
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And Jeff Bezos will freak the F out because of branding, because of everything
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he knows about David Blaine up to this point.
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This trick is just the tipping point for everything he already thinks and feels about David Blaine.
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So in this day and age, like branding is everything and it is what will help
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you rise above the rest, no matter
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how many magicians are in your city or who's charging what the branding is what
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will like help a client choose you or think of you or,
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you know think of the quality of your magic so.
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I hope that answers that question. And then the last thing you asked about was
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key inputs. Like, you know, if you ask 100 people to book you,
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two people might, that kind of thing.
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Definitely like in sales, it's a numbers game. So I, in the beginning,
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used to be very heavy on cold outreach, which is what you're talking about, which is like.
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Walking into restaurants to give out your business card or to call up every
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agency, you know, right?
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Or like when I would do a stage show in my local city, I would get a hundred
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leaflets printed out at my day job promoting the show and I would walk and do my own mail drops.
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Like I went to hundreds of houses and literally put these letter drops in because
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I knew that at least, you know, a small percentage would read it and attend.
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And these days I try to work smarter, not harder now like you know 12 years into it,
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working smarter in the beginning all you have is time so you use your time to
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work as hard as you can and that so that kind of stuff I would do back then,
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and they're great points to bring up but I think yeah if you have the time then
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put in that time and and obviously every you know a classic,
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sales term is every no leads you closer to a yes So you should be excited by,
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the rejections and the no's you get because you're so close to getting a yes
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soon. That feels like a...
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It deserves one of those. Scotty, 90% of all my business came from direct exposure. Yeah.
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And Tim, I think showmanship helps too.
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Know your character and the branding that goes with it.
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100%. Like character is something that you'll build over time.
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Once you know who you are, it's way easier to sell who you are. Absolutely.
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And yeah, direct exposure in magic is so important because people don't even
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know that they like magic until they see magic.
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And then they're like, oh, holy shit. Magic is so great.
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I always thought magic was like pulling a rabbit out of a hat at a kid's birthday.
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But now seeing you at my best friend's wedding, I want a magician at my wedding.
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Absolutely. So all these things you're talking about are all super important.
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But now what I want to bring it back to my friends, and please please keep the
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chat going if you have things you want to chime in or, you know,
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questions that you want to ask as well.
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But what I wanted to share is like the breakdown, I guess, of if I had to become
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a professional magician today, starting again, like what would I do?
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Okay. So first things first, I would first question, do I actually want to be
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a full-time magician? Okay.
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This does need to be said, because not everyone should. In fact, if I had.
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Like another reasonable way to make the same amount of money I make now,
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but without doing magic, and it was something I still medially enjoy doing,
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I would probably, if I'm honest, I would probably do it so that I can keep magic as.
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Just a pure art form and something I can just enjoy for my life and take my
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time learning the things I want to learn, and I would probably do that.
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But for me, nothing brings me more joy than seeing the wonder and joy from other people, right?
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And that I can work on my own terms. I'm not my own boss.
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So my success is directly predicated on my own ability to get myself work and,
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holding myself accountable. And that can be very difficult for some people, some artists as well.
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We can be lazy because we're an artist not a business person so something i
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had to realize very early on,
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is if you want to become a full-time magician you are now a business person
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as well and you are also a content creator,
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a videographer an editor a marketer you are everything to then be at it on the
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weekends go and do the thing you love doing so much So you do have to do a lot
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more than just be a magician.
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That's not the only thing that it entails. Sorry to tell you that.
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But, oh, I thought I had a, there we go.
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If you want to hear that sound, strap in. All right. So let me just talk about
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this. So my first paid gig, my first paid gig, I had a day job and I was performing
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at work for my colleagues and people who would come in.
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I would open the meetings with doing some magic. And someone said,
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oh, do you want to do that?
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But at my wedding, which is like he was having like a backyard wedding, very casual.
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But he's like, man, that'd be dope. can you come and perform on my wedding?
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And very close to that, someone else said, oh, I'm having a 20-year wedding
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reunion. I'd love to have you do some card tricks at the table there.
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Like, how much do you charge?
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And so back to Sean's question, like that was the point I knew,
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oh, okay, I can charge for this now.
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I had no idea how much you could charge to do magic, so I charged like 100 bucks.
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But for me, to make $100 on a weekend on my day off was, you know, in an hour.
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Was insane so that was like my
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first two gigs i think i charged like a hundred dollars for each one and,
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i don't know how i knew this knew to do this but i had the foresight to give
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half of that money to my friend to come and be a photographer and take photos
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at this event so straight away i was already kind of thinking of like.
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Knowing i want to build a website and things like that and show social proof.
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So I already would give 50 bucks to my friend and he would come and photograph.
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And so funny to think about now, because those photos are so cringe to look at now.
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I still had hair back then, but it helped me. And already I was kind of thinking about that.
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So when you're first starting to get into magic, the easiest way to get gigs
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is by people seeing you at gigs or seeing, you know, photos or videos of you at gigs.
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That's how they think of you. Like we were saying in the chat,
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you know, direct exposure.
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So in the very, very beginning that would happen. Then I would hit up,
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we have a charity called the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Australia.
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And I knew they had like gala dinners and I would hit them up and say,
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hey, can I come and do magic for you?
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Here is, I'm trying to think of the other one, the very first one I did,
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it was like related to a flower, this something dinner. Anyway,
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still related to fundraising and cancer research and stuff like that.
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And in my first year, I only did charity events, but that helped me get these
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like stunning photos and stuff from their professional friends.
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Photographers and videographers a little bit of video footage back then and
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it helped me design my first basic like i'm talking basic website but it gave
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me something from nothing you know like in the very very beginning,
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so back and back then i didn't know what kind of magic tricks to perform and
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that's something you'll very quickly realize by just performing a lot to people
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is like what's actually good,
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and what's just like what have I wasted my money on right you'll find out very
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quickly that a lot of the classic plots and magic or gimmickless routines that
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you can do with your eyes closed are actually gonna,
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like be better received by an audience because they can feel how comfortable
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you are in presenting the magic and and not fumbling or worrying,
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if you've reset your wallet properly or you've lost your special sharpie or
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whatever like the thing that you can do a thousand times is probably the thing
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you should be performing,
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in these settings okay scott's saying i have pictures of doug with hair yeah
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buddy that is that's the gold you know to look back on those photos is uh is so.
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It's so funny such such a different time you know okay If I was starting today,
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though, so I would email as many charities as I could to give my time and to
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start performing for free,
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to start building up that direct exposure, right?
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Gathering photos, that kind of thing. And some of you in the chat who I've talked
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to to do this before have been doing this exact thing, which is amazing.
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In 2026, when I'm recording this, there is another thing I would also do simultaneously
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to start getting work, which will actually lead to almost instant work.
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And that is to find in your city, the automated agencies, automated website agencies.
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And, you know, back in the day, if you wanted to get work for,
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like, if you wanted to perform for big companies like Google or whatever,
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it would have to go through an agency.
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And to work with an agency, like they're usually in demand. They don't always
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take on new entertainers.
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And they basically work on behalf of this Google client or whatever big client
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to siphon out the bad or unreliable entertainment.
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So the people on their books are people they trust and have worked with before.
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And so everyone's trying to get onto these agencies' books so that they can
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get put up for big events.
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That used to be how it went. And there are still agents out there that are really
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great and important to work with.
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And especially if you're like a keynote speaker or like a very high paid entertainer
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and you need to be represented by agencies in order to get these big clients.
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But if you're just starting out, there's a great version of this,
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which is these digital agencies, which are just all automated.
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You basically sign up for free most of the time to these agent websites.
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You list yourself as an entertainer in your city with the specific thing you
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offer, a photo of you, other photos of you performing, if you have it,
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a bio that now ChatGPT will help you write.
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And you can list your starting price. And if you're a beginner,
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you can literally say that in the description. Like.
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This is my first year in, you know, I've been training as a magician for five
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years. This is my first year venturing out into paid events.
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So therefore, my fee reflects that.
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And that will attract a client that is looking for that kind of thing,
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right? They don't have a budget. It's not a high risk environment for them to
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trial someone new. Maybe it's like a.
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School carnival and they just want someone, like they just want to tick off
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their list. that, oh yeah, we found a magician and blah, blah, blah.
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So in Australia, there's like, as an example, there's one called Crowd Pleaser.
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I think there might be one called Gig Salad in America.
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That's a bit more established, but definitely Crowd Pleaser, even Bark.com.
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These are ones in Australia that you can go up on today, set up a profile and
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bang, you are in the gig market.
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I know Alex Lamb Sam and Scotty P have done that in Australia and they've been
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getting gigs all year now, booking in events from doing this.
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Now, the trick is the problem with these are eventually what you'll find is
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that it is a commodity market, like Gautam was asking.
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So lots of people do list their services on there. And so people tend to go
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on those websites if they're looking for like the average price to pay for a
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magician or a cheap price so you're not going to get high,
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paying gigs on there or like what am i trying to say you're not going to get
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like the top quality events but goddamn as a way to start i wish this existed
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12 years ago like this would have been fucking gold.
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Okay, so today, if you don't do this already, but you want to make money as
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a magician, like today, go on and make a profile, make something,
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share it with me, put it in the discord.
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If you have more thoughts on it, or you've made a profile, you want us to check
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it out, or you're not sure if you've done it right or whatever.
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I have profiles on those automated sites, but a lot of them will say what your
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pricing starts from, like starts from $400, starts from $500, whatever.
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My price says starts from $1,500, which is not an enormous amount of money to
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pay in a corporate environment. In fact, that's like clients actually look at
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that and say that's very cheap.
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But my point is, if someone trying to book a magician for their birthday party,
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that seems like an absorbent amount of money to pay out of their own personal pocket.
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So I, for me, I will put my starting price very high so that they're not having
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to contact me and we do this whole dance.
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They can just see, okay, I'm not the right one for them. They're going to go
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down and look for these newer guys and that just stops that problem.
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But occasionally, I will get events from these automated sites.
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So even the pros out there who think they don't need it, I'm telling you,
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there are still these little nuggets of gold where you'll get an email.
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Oh, someone has inquired.
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I think something goes on in their mind where they look and see,
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oh, this guy's double the price of everyone else.
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I wonder if he's twice as good. Yeah, this would really impress our clients.
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Let's, fuck it, let's book this guy and see what happens. And that happens so
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much. And then people are like, wow, you are worth way more than what I paid. And anyway,
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the psychology of money is such a bizarre thing. However, that's my tip.
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If you're just starting, you need to get yourself on these automated agency websites.
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All right. Good to see. Yes, Scotty P, all my gigs come from Crowd Pleaser. Now we're talking.
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That is exactly what I'm saying. You're picking up what I'm putting down,
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baby. Dylan Young, what's up, Dylan?
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Free Josh Nobito lecture. That's right. This is for you guys.
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This is really to see, like, can I hold court while Nick and Doug are away, you know?
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So I would say, like when it comes to making money as a magician,
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there are a few places that it comes from. And surprisingly,
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that place is not social media, ladies and gentlemen.
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Out of all the places you would think you're going to make money as a magician,
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it is not from Instagram.
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And now there are a small percentage of people, the top percentage, the, you know, 1%.
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They will disagree because they do make money from Instagram.
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But that's because they're content
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creators. They've been doing it like specifically with that goal in mind.
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You know, the Jeremy Tans of the world, the Jason Mars of the world,
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the now Adam Axford of the world, the Harrison Kramers, you know,
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that's a totally separate thing and a very narrow mind focus to go for that goal.
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And even then you're not making a full, like that is not your full-time income. Any of those guys.
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Jeremy Tan will tell you, he's still doing cruise ships all year,
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right? That's his living.
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But he also now makes money from having a million followers across platforms to sell products.
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But again, it's not the full income.
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Jason Ma, we all love Street Magician Dude. My brother started the podcast with
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me and he does not make his full-time living from content creation.
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So as popular as you think these videos are and they do help with branding and
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they are an important place in the pipeline. And if you're not online,
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you don't exist. Like all these things are important, but it's not actually
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how you make your income.
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If you're going to be a professional magician, right? Lucy Darling, famous online.
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She does that so she can sell out her theater shows. Okay.
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All right. So that just has to be said. The actual ways that you'll find you
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get gigs is from obviously direct exposure.
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So, you know, the better you are at interacting as a human with other humans,
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like the better you are at being a showman and entertaining an audience,
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the more referrals you will get.
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So referrals are going to play a big part and is a good way to tell if your
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product is good. Because if people who have seen the product in first person,
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are booking you, then you're probably doing something right.
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Okay, so referrals are going to be a big player.
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Working with agents is going to be a player as well.
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I would say for me personally, and all of this is only just from my personal,
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point of view, agents probably play a 20% role in my overall work as a magician.
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Like every year, maybe 20% of my bookings come from agencies.
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Advertising, right? I spend a ton of money on Google ads because currently that's
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the thing I can pay for that, that, that I can just push that button and that
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will give me leads the more I want to pay for that.
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And as long as the work coming in is more than the ads on the money I'm spending,
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like if it makes money, it makes sense, then I'll do that.
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So currently that is something I do, but I only do it because my website is fucking great.
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So that like, if I spend all this money on AdWords and it just sent people to
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a crappy website, I'd be just wasting money, right?
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So over the years, I just will spend more and more time constantly updating
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my website, little tweaks and rewriting things and adding new footage.
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And every year I make a new promo reel and committed to it because I know it all helps, right?
26:51
The better your promo reel is, the better your career will be.
26:55
That should be on a t-shirt. Well, that's not the right button.
26:59
That's the right button, baby. I'm losing track of myself.
27:02
Oh yeah. So Google ads. So referrals, working with agents, the automated agencies, AdWords,
27:09
and the last one, which is probably maybe even the biggest way that magicians
27:15
will get work and this might surprise you but one of the biggest ways you'll get work as a magician.
27:22
Is actually from other magicians,
27:28
having a network of your fellow magicians in your area or other states so that
27:34
when you get an inquiry that accidentally came to you that's actually for someone
27:38
on the other side of the country and you know someone,
27:41
Having a network of magicians, getting along with your fellow brethrens and
27:46
shooting each other work with no gain in mind other than trying to help your
27:51
fellow magician get work because you're already booked,
27:55
will pay for itself tenfold.
27:57
Like, if you can work with another magician, they know you're competent and
28:02
good, and you've given them work before,
28:06
then it's a no-brainer that this sort of cycle will help everyone.
28:11
It will raise everyone up.
28:14
There's like such a toxic mentality in some cities where people are trying to
28:20
keep everything to themselves. And they think that if they give a gig to someone
28:24
else, now they're at a loss.
28:26
And they're going to suffer for it and they'll never see that client again and,
28:30
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
28:32
But all of that is, what's the word? What's the word? Bullshit.
28:39
The amount of times I've given someone a gig and then either they've given me
28:45
a gig in advance, which is just what happens in the circle of gig life or,
28:50
and this happens so often as well,
28:53
is that client.
28:55
So let's say it's like a real estate company.
28:58
I've worked with them before and they want to work with me again,
29:01
but they can't because I'm booked already.
29:03
So I give it to my bro, whoever, Jason, I give it to Jason to this year.
29:09
He does it great. Next year, that client, very high chance they'll come back
29:14
to me and be like, oh, thank you so much for recommending Jason.
29:18
He did such a great job at our event.
29:20
And because you were busy last year, I thought I'd try and get in early this
29:25
year to see if I can still book you because I don't want to miss out. So.
29:32
That is such opposite to what we think sometimes that we're going to lose the gig.
29:37
Actually, it's going to help you either way. Either you've just made the bonds
29:42
between you and the other magician stronger,
29:44
or you've shown this kind of scarcity mindset to the client where not only were
29:50
they not able to book you, but you're so confident with yourself that you supplied
29:55
them with another magician instead.
29:59
So they see you're so booked in demand you also helped us,
30:04
with nothing to gain shit we got to book this guy again next year,
30:09
and so it's really like that i mean i have a client that has booked magicians
30:13
like for over 10 events and what happens is they try to book me first and then
30:19
if i'm not available they go okay well who do you have for us this year you
30:22
could recommend we've had such and such and is there someone else you can surprise
30:26
us with to book I'm like, yeah, you can book this person.
30:29
And then the next year, they'll be like, oh, how's our luck?
30:31
This is going to be the date of our event. Can we have you?
30:34
I'm like, yeah, you can have me. And so if I was to put a stop to it and say,
30:38
no, I'm booked. And also I can't recommend anyone.
30:42
What do you think is going to happen? Like, do you think they're just not going to have a magician?
30:46
Because if you think that you are living in crazy town, they are still going to find someone.
30:52
So either you're going to be the one to help them find someone.
30:56
Which just gives you all the aura points and good graces to help both parties,
31:02
or you're going to say no, and they're still going to find someone.
31:06
And if they like them, they will probably stick with them for the following
31:10
year. And so they should.
31:14
Wow. I think I just had an out-of-body experience then listening to all of that stuff.
31:19
Hell yeah. Tim Askin, repeat customers. That would be my fifth thing on where gigs come from.
31:27
Referrals, agents, Google ads, other magicians, and then repeat customers.
31:33
Repeat customers is kind of like referrals. Like when they come in,
31:37
you realize that you are doing a good job.
31:41
And like when I look at my calendar of events that I had booked in,
31:45
if I was to only rely on new gigs i would not have a sustainable business normally
31:50
it's like somewhere between 50 to 70 percent are events that are,
31:55
like repeat clients or someone's referred me it's never like just all new people
32:01
who have found me on google ads or whatever so yeah,
32:06
google ads is not going to like source you a full-time living especially not
32:11
in the very beginning what it does is you get those new inquiries.
32:15
You do a fucking amazing job, right? Follow them back on Instagram and stuff
32:20
and keep in their pipeline, stay on top of mind with them.
32:25
They book you again and you get this snowball effect. Every year you get new
32:28
inquiries, but you also have now more people you've worked with that can rebook
32:32
you and you get this snowball effect so big that then you can really start to work smarter.
32:38
And not worry about it so much.
32:41
And even though we're on a, like a contract basis, like, you know,
32:46
we're, we're living gig to gig.
32:48
It's, it starts to create some continuity and like predictability on,
32:52
on, on how many gigs you'll do or how much you'll make.
32:56
In the last three years, I've made like very similar amounts because it's just what happens.
33:02
Like technically, for some reason, people could just choose to not book me and
33:07
I'd have no work for a year, but it doesn't happen because of this snowball,
33:12
that goes on. Let me check over to the comments here.
33:15
Scotty Link says, over the years, I've established many annual events.
33:19
That's amazing. And also, like, these days you can use, like,
33:24
not ChatGPT, but I would say Claude is probably better at this.
33:28
You can program with Claude, like, if you haven't done this yet, you can ask Claude.
33:34
To go into your emails and be like, oh, what events did I do last year that
33:38
are coming up soon that I should email and get in touch with?
33:42
So that's a good way to start getting back into this cycle.
33:46
But yeah, definitely when you do an annual event, put a reminder in for,
33:50
you know, four months before that event next year to get in contact with them
33:54
again. These are all things that are good problems to have, right?
33:57
Because it means you have work as a magician.
34:00
And we've got Pasha. He says, if they don't get a magician, they'll get something
34:03
else And then the following year, they may never get a magician. 100%.
34:09
And also, if I ever refer a magician, I will always make sure I refer someone
34:16
who is better than me, like where possible.
34:20
Because I don't want that client to then go and book someone who's worse than
34:24
me because I have some kind of an ego and I don't want them to have someone
34:29
that they could want to have again.
34:30
And if I send them to someone who I know is new and should have no business
34:35
doing this particular clientele of corporate gig and they do a bad job,
34:41
that client isn't going to come back to me and go, oh, we want to book you because
34:45
you're so much better than such and such.
34:48
They're going to think magic is terrible and they're not going to book a magician again.
34:53
So again, it is opposite to what we think, right?
34:58
We think if we recommend someone who's better than us why would they want to
35:01
book us again it is not the case you we want to make sure that the brand of,
35:07
the magician at an event is always seen as a positive and like we should always
35:13
want the client to see the best possible magic that they can right.
35:20
Okay. So that's the first thing. I'm going to give you a little tip here,
35:25
a little tip that now that we're kind of halfway through this, I can't, wow.
35:29
First of all, I thought I would be done in 20 minutes, but we're like almost
35:34
40 minutes in and I feel like I could talk for another three hours.
35:37
So Pasha, who's better than you? Yeah. Look, anyone who's like,
35:41
you know, I would happily recommend Pasha. I would recommend Mike Tyler. I recommend Jason Gray.
35:46
These are just friends of mine in Brisbane, you know, the amazing Nigel,
35:50
there's so many, there's so many, but I just, what I wouldn't do is find someone
35:53
who's a hobbyist that I want to like set up to fail, you know,
35:58
is what I wouldn't do. Here's a little tip. When I work with a client,
36:01
that is not the end of my relationship.
36:03
So when I'm at an event, the right framework to have is treat every gig like
36:08
it is the audition to be booked again.
36:12
So you're there to perform and you're getting paid, but that shouldn't be the end of everything.
36:19
When I'm there, I'm performing, but I'm trying to make it, I'm trying to give
36:23
off the environment that, first of all, everyone's having an amazing fucking time.
36:29
But also, I want to create these different textures throughout the event that
36:33
whenever someone looks over and sees, they realize, oh, he's doing something that I didn't see him do.
36:41
So an example of that would be card to ceiling. At every event,
36:46
I'll take some magician's wax, some Michael Amar magician's wax,
36:50
and I'll have a look at the roof.
36:52
Most of the time now, I know the venues that I've done so many times,
36:56
and I'll know which ones have a ceiling that I can use.
36:59
But I'll always take a little balled up, balled up card to ceiling wax,
37:02
stick it on my belt or just on a half of a playing card, fold it up,
37:07
squish together in my pocket.
37:09
And that's one texture I'll create at an event.
37:13
So at some point, do an ambitious card or whatever, they sign the card and eventually,
37:19
boom, one, two, three, throw it up in the air, boom, the card sticks to the ceiling,
37:24
there's a bang when the card hits the roof, that gets everyone's attention,
37:28
and if that doesn't, everyone screeching and reacting and pointing up to the roof.
37:34
When people look over, when the client looks over, they see everyone looking
37:37
at the roof, they go, oh, what the hell is that trick? He didn't show me that.
37:41
Or when you come to perform to them.
37:45
You don't do that trick. So like, oh, you didn't show us that thing. So wow. Okay.
37:50
So that's one example of what I'm talking about with this, with this texture at an event.
37:54
So that's one thing. So the client looks over, they see people interacting and
37:58
looking up like, oh, he's doing a good job. And that's an interesting, like visual.
38:03
Then you might do something with flash paper and you're like,
38:05
on the count of three, everyone cheer and the thing will change in her hand.
38:09
Ready? One, two, three. Wow.
38:11
Again, you're causing arrakis. They look over, they see a fireball go in the
38:16
air and everyone cheering.
38:18
That signals that you're doing a good job, like if the client looks over.
38:21
But again, you're showing a different visual at the event.
38:27
So now imagine you haven't seen the magician yet, but you look over and you
38:30
see people looking at the roof.
38:32
And now you see a fireball go off. That's pretty crazy.
38:37
Because then when they see you perform to them, they don't see those visuals.
38:41
So what it's signaling is that, wow, you have so much magic to share with everyone.
38:46
Like I only saw one of the five, you know, 10 other things you've been doing,
38:51
and they realized they could have you back again because no one's seen everything you do.
38:56
Like sometimes clients can think you do like whatever trick you show that client,
39:01
they think that's the trick you're going to show to everyone and like that's,
39:05
the only thing you do and once everyone's seen that that's it and they don't
39:08
need to book you again but if they see,
39:10
people looking up people looking at fire people looking at the ground maybe
39:14
because you're doing haunted deck.
39:16
They see people freaking out because you're waving this fork around and you're
39:20
doing some kind of fork bend you know that really signals to them that you have
39:26
this variety of effects that you have to come back and perform again at their event.
39:31
And so something I'll always mention when a client rebooks me is I'll say,
39:35
oh, I'm excited to come back. I've been working on this new magic and I can't
39:39
wait to share that with everyone again.
39:41
Or I'll say to the client, oh, here's something new I've been working on.
39:44
And I'll show them one thing I know they haven't seen.
39:47
And then the rest of the stuff I'll do at the event is all the same stuff I've
39:51
done forever, but no one's seen the same version of the routine that I've done
39:55
because I'm always mixing it up and so just for reference I'm not sure.
40:02
There are like two main sets I'll do at an event, but I'll particularly make
40:05
sure I add in one canter ceiling, one particularly big fireball, right?
40:12
One fork bending routine. I'll only take one fork with me and I fucking am not
40:17
built to do liquid metal like as a sleight of hand artist, but God damn it,
40:22
it gets a good reaction and it just gets a different thing people will talk about.
40:26
And then I'll do horn to deck, but not on the ground, just on someone's hands,
40:30
but still the visual of everyone putting their hand on top of mine,
40:34
this sort of team building visual, and then them lifting their hands up makes people want to see it.
40:40
Like the amount of people that will say to me, oh, can you show us the fire
40:44
trick? Like I loved what you did, but I didn't get to see the fire trick.
40:48
And I'd be like, oh, book me next year and make sure I show you that. Like I won't show them.
40:53
I'll leave that little seed of like, he must have done something incredible
40:57
with fire. I have to see what that is.
41:00
And so like at a gig, that is your rehearsal to get booked again.
41:06
Okay. After the gig, some people will put a client into like a mail chimp,
41:12
like a, like an email list. And that's great.
41:14
And I used to do that and I probably should do it, but I don't.
41:18
What I do is I'll follow that client back on Instagram or something,
41:21
and I'll have more of a personable,
41:24
contact with them so now i can comment on their posts that they put up and their
41:29
stories and build somewhat of a,
41:33
superficial friendship like i say superficial because it's on instagram but,
41:38
i'll keep in contact with them that way but so after the event i'll email them,
41:42
and i will email them saying like you know thank you so much for having me here's
41:47
a thing about the event if i wore For my meta Ray-Bans, I will now send them,
41:52
a montage of their guests reacting to the magic.
41:56
I will then send them a link to a page on my website which teaches five easy
42:02
to master magic tricks that uses items you have at home already.
42:06
I'll say, look, show these to your kids, to your friends. Like everyone should
42:10
know a party trick. Here's one for me.
42:13
And then I will invite them to the Theater of Magic. Okay, here's a code for
42:18
you to come to see my show anytime you want.
42:21
And then at the very, very bottom under my signature, it'll say,
42:26
P.S., if you get a chance, it would help me so much if you left a Google review.
42:31
I'm trying to get myself up to 150 reviews or whatever the number is.
42:36
I'll bump it up a bit more to what it's at then.
42:39
And so they've just seen me like give, give, give, give, and then a small ask.
42:43
And they will naturally want to help you out because you've just not only done
42:47
a great event, but now you've just like given them all these things,
42:49
these extra value points.
42:51
And that really helps people like think positively of you instead of you just
42:58
sending an email saying, hey, thanks for booking me.
43:02
When can you book me again and leave me a review right so it's not like,
43:07
there's a bit of an imbalance there's too much asking so that's like my real
43:11
100% what I do after an event when I do a gig,
43:18
Pasha 107 reviews perfect yeah so like I will say to the currently what I say
43:23
is because I used to say I'm trying to get to 100 reviews,
43:27
I say I'm trying to get to 120 reviews right and,
43:31
real quick here's my thoughts on reviews they're helpful yet they're not like
43:35
the only and all be all so i will always ask your clients,
43:39
and the problem is now that i have so many repeat clients i can't ask the same
43:43
client to leave me a review because google reviews only lets one person leave
43:48
one review for one place you know.
43:51
But where reviews are super helpful is for somewhere like on your website.
43:57
So I make my website on Squarespace, which I don't even have to mention because,
44:03
they're not a sponsor. So I don't have to say this.
44:06
But there's a plugin you can get for Wix and for Squarespace or whatever.
44:11
And it will show in real time your latest five-star reviews,
44:16
like on a little carousel.
44:18
And that's what I care about. I care about when someone goes to my website,
44:22
are they going to see recent reviews on my website?
44:27
If they say a year ago, it's no good. It has to be within the last month or so.
44:33
And so I won't follow up people to get Google reviews. I will ask them once.
44:40
So while I don't have a thousand reviews, I will always have one recent one coming in.
44:46
And so that's what I care about on your website.
44:49
In real time, it shows your latest five-star reviews, and that just helps put people at ease.
44:56
But the other thing it does is it's putting fresh content on your website,
45:01
which Google loves. It loves that a website is constantly updating and putting new stuff on it.
45:08
So if your Google reviews are going up on your website as new stuff,
45:14
it does help with things like SEO and in that kind of space. It will help with that.
45:21
Tim Askin's saying, a professional relationship. That's probably the right word
45:25
I should have used before. Yes, with clients, I'll keep somewhat of a professional
45:30
relationship so that you can keep in contact, right? And you can remember who they are.
45:35
Pasha's asking, have you ever gotten in trouble for leaving a cart on the roof?
45:39
The answer is no. Even at a heritage
45:41
building, the staff never look at the roof for some reason, right?
45:47
I've never been in a michael lamar situation where i'm getting pulled up my
45:51
security at the airport because i put it on the roof there no at gigs i've never
45:57
ever had an issue so there's that.
46:01
Okay, I'm just looking at a couple of my notes here because I know so much to
46:04
share with everyone in such little time.
46:07
Learning contracts, invoices, and insurance. Okay, so that's super easy.
46:11
Insurance, find somewhere that covers magicians, right?
46:15
In Australia, duckforcover.com is the go-to, right?
46:21
D-U-C-K-F-O-R cover.com. Easy, insures me every year, no problem.
46:28
Contracts, ChadGPT can help you with contract templates these days, really.
46:33
But what I, the effort I go to is I just, I don't have a physical attachment.
46:39
I just, in my email at the bottom, I have a performance agreement,
46:42
which is just a bullet point thing for them to fill out.
46:46
And then a few clauses at the bottom. If you, I mean, if anyone's interested
46:50
in this stuff, they can just hit me up and I'll, and I'll show you,
46:55
but it's essentially just like, it's all just in the email.
46:57
So I'm like getting, gathering all their information with a few clauses like,
47:02
you know, if I have to cancel for any reason, I'll do my best to find a replacement
47:08
that you're happy with, or you can choose to just get a refund.
47:11
You know, I give them, I just put those things in the statements.
47:14
So learning contracts, but it is important to learn pretty early on.
47:18
And then the other thing is invoices. So I've changed over the years with when
47:25
you get a client to pay you, right?
47:27
You either can just send them a...
47:31
You know, some people would just make it up in like a Word document or in a
47:35
spreadsheet, right? They do an Excel thing with an invoice or on Word or a PDF.
47:41
So that's super easy and to keep track of it.
47:44
Normally these days, I would use something like Zoho has a great setup for Z-O-H-O,
47:52
has a great setup where you can just, it has a template, you create your invoice,
47:56
and then it keeps a log of all of it.
47:57
So when you do your tax, you can export that list and it's fine.
48:00
But I am exploring this year using this automated cloud-based system called
48:07
Henry, H-N-R-Y. And it's like specifically software made for sole traders.
48:15
And what it does is when a client pays you through this Henry system,
48:20
it withholds the tax for you and just gives you the money you can immediately
48:25
spend so that you don't have to think about how much should you put away,
48:30
the temptation to use it throughout the year when times are tough,
48:34
or there's some big investment you want to use the money for then,
48:37
and then get caught later on when you do your tax. So it's just a system that like sets that up.
48:43
It automatically will put money aside. If you want to put money aside for business
48:47
expenses and use that separately, like it will start sending the money wherever
48:52
you want. So that's been very helpful.
48:54
And so that's something I'm currently exploring this is all boring shit I realize
48:59
like talking about invoice and stuff invoices and things pretty boring but like
49:04
it's just the stuff that will,
49:06
stop you from getting stuck and then the last thing I'll say is that like you
49:11
will get paid whatever you think you're worth like the biggest thing that holds
49:15
us back is not thinking we're worth a certain amount of money.
49:19
So like the difference between one year to the next for me was literally just
49:26
my decision to charge more money.
49:30
When i wanted to so like i'll give you a little a little i won't go through
49:34
like what i make and earn now because no one asked so you know advice is,
49:40
is asked for not just given so why would i just boast about whatever i make now which is not.
49:46
That impressive in the world in the world of entrepreneurs and stuff like that
49:50
but as an artist like i'm very happy i can support my life and travel and perform and save and whatever.
49:56
But so in the beginning, this is like the process I went through,
50:01
like what I made every year to the point where I could do magic full-time.
50:06
And I say this because all of these figures are really just based on me deciding to charge more.
50:12
And so therefore, miraculously, I earned more money. Who the fuck would have thought that?
50:20
And also like doing magic full-time is a slow process to get there you shouldn't,
50:26
I would not give the advice to leave your day job and like I wouldn't say to
50:30
do a Jack Rhodes and take six months off to try and make it full-time right
50:34
he is a monster and he did his own thing,
50:37
but what I would say for in general for like to do this at scale,
50:42
is and what I did is I had a full-time job.
50:45
I started to, I started to set up working with agencies and other magicians
50:49
and they would throw me their gigs that weren't as great, but I would do them and that kind of stuff.
50:54
And I would do that on top of my day job. So these luckily, luckily for us,
51:00
gigs are normally on weekends.
51:02
So I would work through the week doing 40 hours of a shitty job I hated.
51:06
And then I would do two days of really the best, you know, the best,
51:12
most fun jobs ever getting paid to do what I just spent a whole week doing, which is.
51:17
A real mindfuck when you earn the same amount of money on a Saturday as you
51:22
just spent earning, doing 40 hours a week at this day job, making someone else
51:27
rich, is a real mindfuck.
51:29
But you have to push through it until it's like a sustainable thing.
51:32
So I started with just doing gigs on the weekend.
51:36
Then when gigs started getting crazy and I had a residency at a restaurant,
51:40
which again is another thing I could talk about. But these things will sort
51:44
of, you'll find opportune moments for this to happen where you get a residency and stuff.
51:50
Anyway, I secured a residency. So I knew every week for this whole year,
51:56
I was guaranteed to make $400 for doing magic at this RSL club,
52:01
you know, every Thursday night.
52:03
So that allowed me to now change my job to like part time. And I started working four days a week.
52:10
And then when I secured a Wednesday night residency, okay, great,
52:15
I can move to three days a week.
52:17
And this all happened over a two-year process. This did not happen straight away.
52:22
So it took two years to leave my day jobs and just try doing this full-time.
52:28
So in my first year ever of doing gigs, well, I mean, the very first year was
52:33
like nothing because it was like, as I was saying, I made like a hundred bucks
52:37
and I would give half of it to my photographer.
52:39
But In the real first year of giving it somewhat of a go, I made $10,000, okay?
52:45
And that, like to look on as a hobby, that is crazy. Like, wow,
52:49
I made $10,000 from my hobby.
52:51
Obviously, not livable, right? I can't live on that.
52:56
And then I, and then I, and I think I was charging $300 an hour,
53:00
but I would take any gig. But like, if someone asked me my price,
53:04
that's what I was hoping for 300 bucks or 450 for two hours is like something like that.
53:10
Okay. So then when I decided to charge more money and I started charging between
53:16
four and 500 for a gig, all of a sudden I went from earning 10 grand a year
53:21
to earning 30 grand a year.
53:24
And so that was my second year and now that is what I was earning at a day job at a you know low.
53:32
Like a like an entry-level day job would earn something like 30 to 40 grand,
53:38
back when I was doing starting out doing this which is probably equivalent to
53:43
like 50 grand now I guess with inflation but anyway,
53:46
the weekly the weekly wage I was now earning from magic like an entry-level wage.
53:51
And I was like, that's enough for me to give this a go.
53:54
Then I decide to, and by the way, stuff is starting to snowball now, right?
53:59
People are starting to rebook me again, but also I'm learning,
54:02
oh, you can actually charge more because you are worth it, right?
54:06
And so then I decided to charge $700 for the first hour, $1,000 for the second hour.
54:14
Boom. Now third year, $50,000. Now I'm like, oh my God, this is almost $1,000
54:21
a week before tax, which is something you learn and blows your mind that you
54:25
have to give a portion of it to the tax man.
54:28
But now you're earning 50 grand. You're like, holy fuck. So then I start pushing
54:34
the limit and I start going, okay, fourth year in, I'll do those $700 gigs.
54:39
But what I'm going to pitch is it's $1,000 and you get up to two hours of magic.
54:44
So now it's like this package where like the minimum price is a thousand,
54:47
but you can have me for up to two hours if you want.
54:51
If you only want me for an hour, that's fine, but that's your choice. You still pay for it.
54:56
Boom. Now I hit 75,000 and now I have to register for GST.
55:03
And so now I learn all this stuff about adding 10% on to every invoice that
55:08
the government gets separate to your income tax and more money,
55:13
more problems, and it gets crazy, right? And you start learning about all that stuff.
55:17
That's fourth year. Fifth year in, I'm trying to remember. Yeah.
55:21
Am I getting my numbers right 30 10 50 75.
55:27
Then it was like that then after 75 i hit my first 100 000 and that just felt
55:34
insane and then 100 000 kind of stuck for a couple of years it would like,
55:39
inflate a tiny bit 120 i think the first time i hit 150 i was like holy shit,
55:45
And so now doing magic, you know, full time for 11 years now,
55:49
it's like this whole scale of like a journey, right?
55:53
What can you charge to, as opposed to like, how much time do you have to do
55:57
gigs? Because you have to physically be in all these places.
56:00
You can only be in so many places. So at what point do you decide to up your
56:04
fee to get maybe less work, but you earn the same amount because now it evens
56:08
out and it's a fun game, right?
56:10
But so in five, it took five years to earn a hundred grand, which normally at
56:19
a job, if you're at a job for five years, you can get to that kind of place,
56:23
of a level within five years.
56:25
So like, it's not the best business decision to be a magician,
56:30
but like if you put in the hard work and you can't fathom doing anything else,
56:34
then there is a path for it.
56:37
And so now I don't worry about will I make money because there's just such a cycle set up now.
56:42
I have such a great community of magicians I work with. We have,
56:47
instead of a residency at a restaurant, we have a resident show that I perform
56:50
at. I work with all the same agents.
56:53
I send them gift cards at the end of the year and I try to give them work as much as I can.
56:58
Obviously i pump out content on instagram which gets me no gigs but it does
57:03
get me rebooked by the clients that follow me on those platforms from gigs i've done before,
57:09
and and the more i get into being my own character of a performer the more i start to realize,
57:17
that gets me more referrals and more work because,
57:20
if you really find your character and like the thing that gives you that pizzazz
57:27
then people can't book that anywhere else than booking you like once you become,
57:33
you are the magician people want and not a commodity it's over charge what you
57:38
want you know it's crayons to perfume at that point and you're having a great time you know so.
57:46
Just look at the comments here before people, before we wrap this up,
57:51
Tim, so I'll just rapid fire a couple of things here. Tim, cancellation policy.
57:56
So I will state, you know what, let me just, I won't bring it up.
58:01
I was going to read it verbatim, but it's basically like if I cancel,
58:05
I will do my best and you can choose that I'll either find someone that will
58:10
do a better job than me or I will refund your money.
58:13
I literally give them those two options if I cancel.
58:17
If they cancel, I say, if you cancel the event for anything other than COVID,
58:23
which I just, I mean, I should change that now, but that's what I put in before.
58:28
If you cancel the event, then you can rebook me for a different date if I'm available.
58:36
So basically, yeah, I do state that I don't give a refund just because you cancel.
58:43
But they can use it as a credit to like they can change their event date and
58:47
I'll do my best to still be available for that date,
58:50
is what I do obviously there are situations where I might still give a refund
58:55
but like the basis of it is that I say look if you cancel,
59:00
that's on you and you can use that as a credit to book me later on so that's
59:04
what I do and honestly it's come up,
59:06
like it hardly ever happens fortunately relief.
59:10
Fortunately, it ever happens. Do you take credit card payments? I do.
59:15
And that Henry software I was talking about, the invoice they get has a button
59:19
to pay via credit card if they want.
59:22
Zoho that I was using before that also has credit card options.
59:26
And although you lose some of the money by them paying for credit cards,
59:31
sometimes it's just so much easier for the client to be how to do that because then,
59:36
they can pay for you using their their work credit card instantly instead of
59:41
having to send your invoice to the accounts department who only process invoices
59:46
every 14 days and have to set you up,
59:49
as an account and you know and sometimes that that's just what they do but,
59:54
sometimes companies will just like it's so much easier for them just to pay via a credit card.
59:59
So if they want to do that, then I will absolutely let them.
1:00:04
Hitting close to home with that story. Dude, I know a lot of people listening
1:00:08
to this are like, I know this stuff or I resonate with it.
1:00:11
And that's kind of the point. Like the kind of the point for this is if you
1:00:15
do all this stuff already, I mean, you should be doing it already,
1:00:18
but you can now reflect on like, am I doing it enough?
1:00:21
Or like, could I do this more, right? Could I reach out to that one client a
1:00:25
bit more often what is my aftercare like with my clients do I do anything you know.
1:00:33
Pasha deposit percentage. I don't ask for a deposit percentage, actually.
1:00:38
What I do is I say this amount of money is due before the performance,
1:00:45
but the invoice I send them will actually say is due within the month.
1:00:50
Like if they book me for an event in three months, I'll give them an invoice
1:00:53
that says it's due in three to four weeks. I just haven't found it to be a problem
1:00:59
yet that clients don't pay or pull out or whatever.
1:01:02
I find in most cases that clients prefer to pay you in full before the event
1:01:08
so they're not worrying about it or having to chase any payments up.
1:01:12
So for me, I get clients to pay the full amount and they're just happy doing
1:01:16
that because like they want me to be there and they're not worried that I'm
1:01:21
not going to turn up because I've seen the 107 reviews,
1:01:26
whatever it is we brought up, and it's not an issue.
1:01:29
So that is what I do. They just pay the whole thing. If it's a wedding and it's
1:01:33
like in a year, okay, maybe I'll get them to pay 10% or something like that.
1:01:39
But again, it's very, very rare.
1:01:42
So you guys are most welcome. I'm so glad I could just like spit out some knowledge for you today.
1:01:49
Solo episode. Next week's going to be very different to this week.
1:01:53
And then we have a guest, a very cool, very cool guest coming up later this month as well.
1:01:59
And yeah, I'm glad I could keep it honest for you. Thanks, Scotty.
1:02:01
Fantastic job. Very honest and real.
1:02:04
Yeah. And look, the magician should know that we are now in the second half of the year.
1:02:09
So now is the time to really strap in and get ready for your busy season.
1:02:14
So, any clients that you worked with for Christmas events last year are already
1:02:21
booking their venues and their bands and all that kind of stuff,
1:02:26
so this is the time you should be hitting them up.
1:02:31
Every Saturday in my November is booked up with client events.
1:02:35
And so December, that'll be the case probably in the next month.
1:02:39
So this is the time to really follow up on anyone you've worked with last year
1:02:43
to rebook you again for this year. So holy crap. All right, I'm going to do
1:02:47
a final word, even though this whole thing has kind of been a final word, but let's do it.
1:02:54
So my final word is kick ass. If you want to be a magician, don't half ass it.
1:02:59
You owe it to yourself to give at everything.
1:03:02
Learn how to do this as a business. Reach out to other fellow magicians.
1:03:06
Learn the thing. We have Google at our fingertips.
1:03:10
We have other magicians at our fingertips to ask and learn from.
1:03:13
No one should be trying to gatekeep knowledge because the more we can share,
1:03:18
the more we lift everyone up and the better perception people have of hiring
1:03:23
a professional magician at their event,
1:03:28
thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now but we'll
1:03:34
see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.