Latest / The Magic Guys / Jonah Babins on Building YOUR Magic Business #259

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Jonah Babins on Building YOUR Magic Business #259 · The Magic Guys

• 0:00
  They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys,
• 0:12
  ladies and gentlemen this is our most recent podcast ever and i say that every
• 0:16
  week but this one really is and it's episode 259 of the magic guys guys guys
• 0:23
  we can't wait to talk to our guests but before we do, to my left, we've got Nick Kay.
• 0:28
  Hey guys, I'm Nick Kay, and the guy talking at the beginning was my good friend, Josh Nabito.
• 0:34
  Thank you so much. We're here to talk to you about life insurance.
• 0:38
  Live your life carefree.
• 0:39
  No, we don't have ads, because that would mean, that would mean that we make money.
• 0:45
  Anyway, talking about making money, what a segue to our guest today.
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  But Nick, I'm caffeinated, but how are you?
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  I, on my first coffee, I had a metabolism booster.
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  I'm on my weight loss journey, which has gone great down from a hundred kilograms
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  to 101 this morning. So I'm pretty proud of myself.
• 1:03
  What's that joke our friend says? He's like, I'm trying to get back to my original
• 1:07
  weight of nine pounds, two or something.
• 1:12
  No, it's been good. I've been, I've been, you know, you, you've been my,
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  my Fitspo Josh with all your gym content, which has been really good.
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  But yes, we see the chat now lighting up as, as we've just gone live.
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  Friends, if you do have questions for our guests today, throw them in the chat.
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  It's been remarkable because we, we've been keeping him a little secret.
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  And then when we did announce him through discord and our social channels,
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  everyone got super excited and was messaging us being like, yo,
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  is this who I think it is? I'm like, it is.
• 1:41
  So without any further ado, friends, if you do have your questions, put them in the chat.
• 1:46
  Tim Askin's got those questions in there. Dylan Young, good to see you child.
• 1:49
  He's here. David Ung, they're here in the chat. A bunch of others are about to join.
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  There is so much knowledge I want to get out of this cap that I don't want to
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  worry about any more preamble. Can I please announce him so we can get in the show?
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  Let's do it but before he does bluetooth ladies and
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  gentlemen this no i'm just kidding we still we have no ads go
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  for it nick friends our guest
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  hails all the way from canadia he's an entrepreneur podcaster
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  uh known for his amazing sleight of hand and deep focus in theory along with
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  his performance psychology and what he specializes in i think is the business
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  of magic if it's one thing that he's great at he's all about building the ecosystems
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  around magic around shows podcasting and coaching programs that help our community.
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  Friends, it is my absolute pleasure to announce my friend and yours all the
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  way from Canada, Mr. Jonah Babins.
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  Unfortunately unfortunately in your
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  intro you did not mention that i am
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  the merlin podcast award winning podcast for an incredible podcast thing uh
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  you left i just wanted to point a topic okay So yes,
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  totally agree. But before we begin, go ahead, Josh.
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  No, I was just going to say the Merlin Award and the FISM Award for best podcasts
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  equally in value. Like they mean the same.
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  Now there's seldom a lot of people on this planet who do not know who you are,
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  Mr. Bavins. So please tell us who you are and what do you do?
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  Yeah. So my name is Jonah Bavins. I am obviously a magician.
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  I run the Toronto Magic Company with Ben Train.
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  So we do mostly corporate events, handful of public shows and
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  the smattering of other things and then i run the
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  discourse and magic podcast since 2016 holy
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  goodness and and then i coach magicians in the six-figure magic mastermind to
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  scale their business to 100 200 300k and beyond and that's that's a lot of things
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  already i wish it was less things so there's and that's us that's U.S. dollars? That's U.S.
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  Dollars. Far out, Nick. We are slacking.
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  Speak for yourself. Moving on, Mr. Babins.
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  I want to talk about the Toronto Magic Company only because it's what I know
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  about you the least. So let's explore that.
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  I understand you're the co-founder and that you guys produce magic shows and
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  you book performances of corporate events around Canada.
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  I mean, is it just another name for an agency?
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  It sounds like it's a lot more than that. So please tell What is the Toronto Magic Company?
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  The Cliff Notes is now, in retrospect, it's actually poorly named.
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  But originally, it was to...
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  Produce public magic shows around Toronto. So in our beginnings,
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  we were producing about 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
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  14 public shows a month, which is an insane number of public shows.
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  And we did it for a very long time. That number went up and down and it never
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  profited any money. I mean, it made a bunch of money, but mostly just shifted
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  it around in people's hands between venues and ads and whatever.
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  So it made a little bit of money, but it wasn't enough to support the two of us.
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  And then when the pandemic came, I actually lived with Ben still.
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  So when the pandemic came, we started doing virtual shows.
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  And it was like, hey, can you get off the Wi-Fi so I can do a virtual show?
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  And we were like, actually, let's do it together. So we started booking all
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  of our virtual shows as a duo act.
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  And before the pandemic, we were booking our own private and corporate stuff
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  separately. and the Toronto Magic was just our public shows.
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  And then finally through doing that, we really just transitioned the Toronto
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  Magic Company as being the company that houses the two of our gigs.
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  And I book Ben out and myself out, but sometimes if I'm busy,
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  he'll do the calls and we've got a small team to help us do all that.
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  And now it's just slowly becoming more and more corporate events and less of
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  the privatey stuff just because that's the way the cookie crumbled as is.
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  So, yeah, I mean, the Toronto Magic Company sounds like we're a big theater
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  company that, you know, produces magic shows around Toronto. Now we produce,
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  one magic show it happens three times a
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  year in toronto sells out instantly and everyone's like
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  can i come see all of our seo is people trying to buy tickets to
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  shows we don't have so yeah poorly named
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  at this point but once upon a time it was it was fitting and how many magicians
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  are in this troop if i can call it that two it's me and ben we have some we
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  have like a team of people that help with our like ads and like an assistant
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  and people that do graphics and video and some other side stuff,
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  but it's just the two of us.
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  Every now and again, we'll book out someone else, but I don't want to be an agent. It's a racket.
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  That job sucks. So it's just the two of us.
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  Amazing so just the two of us anyone we try yeah oh if doug was here we'd have the perfect harmony.
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  You know what just to sprinkle throughout this episode little bits of advice.
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  Is touring a show if you're a corporate magician is it important to put on public
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  shows like to create awareness or are they separate good good question i think
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  there's a lot of merit to doing public shows,
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  but it has nearly nothing to do with generating good leads for other events.
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  They're rarely a buying audience.
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  Like we tried every which way to turn a hundred people in an audience to a booking
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  or three bookings, and it just does not go that way.
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  It's good to produce public shows because people come out to see magic with a love of it.
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  So it's an audience that is rooting for you
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  to succeed and it's fun if you do it often enough
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  you can produce you can like make new
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  material and great material in an environment that's really rooting for you
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  it's fun because the people in your circle that want to support you can without
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  hiring you for an event for an amount of money that they may not want to spend
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  it actually is useful if you're already booking shows as like a hey well why
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  don't you come out and see what it is and then you know, you'll know it.
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  But overall, as like a general way to bring in bookings, I found it to be incredibly
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  not effective. It's just not a buying audience.
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  Like, it's not the people that maybe there's a birthday coming up, maybe.
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  But like, if I'm trying to book a corporate gig, what are the odds the person
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  in my audience is the one in charge of doing that? It's just low.
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  So it's different, right? Yeah. What about the other way around?
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  As in, is it worth putting on shows for the fact that you can invite past clients.
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  Yeah. I just did a session in the Mastermind, actually, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a bit,
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  basically saying that every magician, every working magician should do one public
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  ticketed show in their city every year and announce it.
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  Make it a small enough venue that you're absolutely confident it's going to
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  sell out without having to run an ad or anything.
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  Invite all your family and friends. Have a big, crazy announcement about it.
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  Invite all your past clients. Invite all your potential clients.
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  Submit it to local listings. things you'll maybe break
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  even or make a little bit of money between the fact that
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  half the tickets are going to be maybe a quarter of the tickets whatever
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  is going to be free for the people in your like direct booking thing past clients
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  and whatever and you want to hook them up maybe you'll make a couple hundred
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  or a thousand or whatever it is but you get to try new material get good video
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  footage it's like news like it's something you could be like oh my gosh everybody
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  great news I'm doing this thing.
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  And then ideally you announce that it's sold out and you do it again in six months or 12 months.
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  So I think the racket of doing this thing monthly to me was just a bit too much
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  of a grind for what it produced revenue wise.
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  It's good fun, but it didn't really move the needle, but doing one a year.
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  And that's kind of what we do right now. Like we're doing basically one a quarter,
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  but it's at a very small venue.
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  It's a hundred seats. We do two back-to-back shows. It's sold out in pre-sale.
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  We're going to do it again in three or four. The next one's coming up in like a month and a bit.
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  We do it again in three or four months. And our hope is that it just sells out
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  instantly. And we get to give stuff to past clients. Friends and family get to come.
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  People who want to see it, who are in their network and who are fans of ours get to go.
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  And then that's it. I don't have to spend my life posting on social media,
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  getting people to like buy a ticket to a show. Like too much of a grind for me.
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  I mean, that's the dream to have it sold out in advance, right?
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  The secret is small venues and do it less often.
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  Anyone can sell out 20 person show once a year right like just do that,
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  Yeah. Now, you know, you mentioned creating material or working on material,
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  and we've had the pleasure of, you know, sitting opposite each other over meals
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  and chatting about this at depth.
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  And when we last spoke, we talked a lot about avoiding the puzzle mentality
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  in magic when you present something in such a way that just makes people want
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  to look and figure it out.
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  And we had a very deep conversation about how you can separate a trick from a magical experience.
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  Can we kind of delve into that and just share that beautiful knowledge with
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  our audience? Before we do, I just want to shout out Nick that both times I've
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  been to Melbourne, which is a dope city.
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  He has been such a legend. The first time he was like, I want to show you around
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  and have an amazing time.
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  And he took me for a good time, helped me have just meet all the cool cats and
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  show me what's cooking. and took me a tour of all the lookout points that he's made out with girls at.
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  But no, he really gave me a good time. And then this time, I was like,
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  bro, I have to catch a flight. I have to leave at 5 a.m. And he was like,
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  I'm going to grab you, and I'll take you to the airport. It's like an hour-long drive.
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  So before anything, we got a chance to hang out, but that's because you're a
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  legend. So shout out to you for being such a good dude. I appreciate it a lot.
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  There you go. I think, oh, there's dollars dropping in the chat.
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  Someone's giving you money, I think. I don't know how this stuff works. Okay.
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  So the puzzle mentality, I think the hardest part of magic is to make it enjoyable.
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  And that is a very hot take. But I think that most of the time,
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  when you learn magic for the first time, if you're young and you start doing
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  this, immediately you realize like people are just like trying to bust you and
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  they're trying to figure it out.
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  And the reason why is there's just this dynamic, which is like, I know you don't,
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  I have the answer you don't I'm smarter than you are and that is the hardest
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  thing about magic is to make it fun to make them laugh and play and be a part
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  of it and I think the same feeling you know to use the language you mentioned like.
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  A puzzle, like a puzzle can make you feel a weird kind of way when you have
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  a riddle that you don't know the answer to.
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  It's a, it's uneasiness that sits in you. So the challenge of magic in general
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  is to just make this stuff somehow enjoyable and you use, and I know that's
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  a hot take because we think magic is fun.
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  It is fun, but you need to use everything in
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  your tool belt to make that possible you got to use your personality you
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  have to lower the the importance of
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  the method in their eyes like you see Danny
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  Ortiz being like I don't know how like I don't know like and
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  that's part of him being like don't look at me like let's all just have
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  fun together not knowing this mystery like we
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  all have to figure out the different pieces that we
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  do to make it not just feel
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  annoying right and even professional magicians who
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  are good at this still have people be like oh magic makes
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  me like you know whatever and you you recognize the demeanor
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  that i'm sharing when i say that and it's because it has
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  that ability to like cause discomfort so
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  i think that's the the hard part about magic is
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  to perform and have people love it
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  obviously people will freak out and yell and scream or whatever but
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  that's our job is to make it surprising and
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  fun and you know maybe the fact that a trick goes
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  full circle is a stronger thing than
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  just you not knowing how it works so that's kind.
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  Of my thinking on it it's just how do we make it fun so they're
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  not just pissed off i guess you know
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  you share a lot of knowledge about how to run one's business and so forth i'm
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  curious do you actually consult and share a lot of information or guidance with
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  regards to writing shows and helping people with their performances as well
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  yeah every now and then in the mastermind we have people share like clips from their show and we help.
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  Punch it up as best as we can as a community not just me solo I will tell you I am good at.
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  Writing jokes. I'm good at making things a little bit more fun and funny.
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  I'm not an expert in like writing a show.
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  Like I think it's hard enough to string eight tricks together in a way that
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  makes sense and write transitions and whatever to have the show,
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  like have a message or a point.
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  Like you actually need like 10 years under your belt of doing this kind of thing.
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  Cause it's not easy. Like it really is not easy. And I'm certainly not an expert in it.
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  I mean, like Rory Adams is way better at that and go and book some time with
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  Rory to have him help you do that.
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  Like I'm not the best guy for that. But certainly I think one thing that I am
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  good at is I can feel that like four or five seconds or sentences,
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  sentences rather in a presentation or in someone's trick where no one's laughed
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  and nothing incredibly interesting has happened where I just start feeling it.
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  And I'm like, we can't, we can't do this. Like we got to have had pause,
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  rewind, there's got to be a joke in this like five straight sentences that you
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  said, there has to be a joke, there has to be a break, there has to be something
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  that is super interesting.
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  So I'm not like, I have a, I definitely have a tool belt of methods and ideas and whatever.
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  But the skill that I can help consult on quote unquote, of people's magic is
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  really like, okay, that was good.
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  But sort of adding that fun factor, right? Like it wasn't that fun?
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  And I just think you can do magic and people will be like, that was awesome.
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  And that is really different than crushing.
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  Like the room is in stitches. I like to think about it as.
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  Keeping one of those inflatable balls up in the air, right?
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  Like, okay, another laugh. And they're with me and they're with me and they're
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  with me and they're with me. And like that vibe is not easy.
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  It's like a comedian in a comedy club crushing.
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  So like, that's the stuff that I can really feel. Am I the best in the world at helping with it?
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  No, but I feel that. So I'm able to be like, like put our hands on the brakes.
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  Like you just had four straight sentences with no joke. and like, it's irking me.
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  So, you know, we got to do it. So we do that sometimes, but I don't,
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  if someone wants to hire me to consult on their magic show, I will say,
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  hell no. I'll send them to Ben Train.
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  He'll do that. He's helped a lot. He consults on TV and stuff,
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  but I'm like, no thanks. I'm not, I'm not your guy.
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  It's great that you can still offer the help with the, with the cohort that
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  you have in Discourse and Magic. So let's explore that.
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  For the folks that don't know what it is, give us an overview and we'll delve
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  into it. Person magic or the mastermind?
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  I think let's, well, maybe let's
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  start with mastermind because we have mentioned it a couple of times.
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  So the mastermind. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
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  No, please go ahead. Cool. After you, sir.
• 17:24
  Thank you. The mastermind is the community of magicians that I help to grow their business.
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  So it's helping people, you know, the first really phase of it is to grow from
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  five figures to six figures.
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  And then from that, it's to scale up from there. and it
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  is really a combination of like coaching
• 17:44
  from me because I think a lot of this stuff really is the
• 17:47
  mental game and someone telling you that you know you got to
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  do this and like helping you through it and helping you through the hard parts
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  and through the the hiccups um a whole piece of it is content like there is
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  no how of like how do you run an ad how do you send a bunch of cold emails how
• 18:03
  do you do a sales call how do you you know all of these things and then the
• 18:08
  last aspect is community.
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  It is really something special to have people help each other.
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  And also, it feels really,
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  it's real that you can do it when you
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  see a bunch of other people doing it while like all
• 18:22
  by your side all together you're like got it this
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  isn't about catching a lucky break you know every week we do this thing where
• 18:28
  we share our wins and like people are saying got gigs from this got gigs from
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  that this work that work and you get to look and be like this stuff actually
• 18:36
  works so if you're going through a lull period maybe send some cold emails didn't
• 18:39
  get any answers instead of you being like, oh, I'm doomed.
• 18:42
  You know, you're like, oh, I can see it works. I can see it's happening.
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  Maybe I had a bad week with it. I can ask the guy like, yo, you just booked
• 18:52
  a gig from sending a hundred emails. Like what happened?
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  Like, give me the lowdown. Send me the words you sent.
• 18:57
  Like, tell me what it is that, that, that you did. So that's what it is.
• 19:01
  It's a community of magicians and we help each other grow and,
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  and we help people scale really, really fast.
• 19:08
  It's the thing i'm most proud of in the world that i've
• 19:11
  ever made on average a magician we
• 19:14
  track people's monthly numbers on average a magician in the
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  mastermind adds about 50k us per year
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  every year that they're in the mastermind so that
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  is just crazy numbers again i i feel
• 19:25
  it's crazy and it's begun to take a
• 19:28
  life form of its own the community the way that people support each
• 19:31
  other and you know the content we have a yearly event in in
• 19:34
  mexico which is super fun so it's
• 19:36
  a community helping each other scale our magic business yeah i
• 19:40
  got a few questions around that because like with regards to
• 19:43
  content and advertising and so forth like you do
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  this on a global scale and what i'm curious about is that
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  you know when you is is it very much
• 19:52
  uniform across the planet like the way that you would advertise in milwaukee
• 19:56
  would be different to you approaching audiences in melbourne or do you find
• 20:01
  that it's very much melbourne and milwaukee are the same actually it is anywhere that isn't America is
• 20:11
  ad costs are generally cheaper. So for something like running ads.
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  That is something that actually benefits you more being outside of like America, North America.
• 20:20
  There are some unique quirks that in certain places in Europe,
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  for example, the GDPR laws are a bit different.
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  So you can't quite do cold emailing in the same ways you can't do other places.
• 20:33
  There are gig websites like the barks of the world that exist in some places and don't in others.
• 20:38
  The places where it's really a challenge is A, if they don't speak English.
• 20:43
  I can't really help them because AI is not there yet.
• 20:46
  So it needs to be an English-speaking country for me to be able to support them.
• 20:51
  And then B, if their country doesn't run on the same engines that our countries do, then I can't help.
• 21:00
  For example, in China, no one's using Google.
• 21:03
  People aren't really using Facebook in the same way.
• 21:06
  They have like WeChat and they have like their own different apps.
• 21:09
  And that's true in a lot of different Asian countries and a lot of other places around the world.
• 21:14
  Like, I don't know what Google is like in Russia.
• 21:17
  Like, I don't know. So in general, it's tended to be the same.
• 21:23
  There's some exceptions if it doesn't function on the same infrastructure.
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  And I'll be honest with people and tell them like, hey, dude,
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  I don't know like what what it's like in your country.
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  So like if you don't, if you guys don't use email or Google,
• 21:40
  then I really don't know that I can help you. You know what I mean? Right.
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  Now, I think the one thing we can probably all agree upon is that being good
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  or great at magic is not nearly enough to get you making a living off this.
• 21:55
  And there is a lot more involved.
• 21:57
  And I'm sure that you've seen so many magicians that you've helped along this journey.
• 22:01
  And I'm curious, what are sort of the most common mistakes that magicians are making in this realm?
• 22:07
  Yeah, I mean, I think probably the biggest mistake, which is an invisible script.
• 22:13
  So it's something that we don't realize that we're
• 22:16
  telling ourselves is that exactly what
• 22:19
  you just said if i'm only really good the stuff
• 22:23
  will come my way and every now and
• 22:26
  again that opportunity comes about but it is almost never so i think the number
• 22:33
  one biggest thing is that and i think other than that people don't realize that
• 22:40
  it's a i hate using this word it's such a marketing word but like.
• 22:44
  Funnel, you know, or let's even just forget that word and say like, it's a machine.
• 22:49
  Like we need inquiries to come in and then we need to sell to those inquiries
• 22:54
  and then deliver those people a product.
• 22:55
  And like all three of those things have to work. So how do you get inquiries
• 23:00
  in a million different ways to do that? How do you sell to those inquiries?
• 23:04
  You know, maybe not a million, but there's plenty of ways to do that.
• 23:07
  Plenty of options and packaging.
• 23:09
  You'd be the high price guy that does less gigs and low price guy that does
• 23:11
  more gigs and you could have it like many ways and then how do you deliver the product,
• 23:15
  also you know many different options but I think it's just
• 23:18
  this amorphous thing for magicians I think we're artists and like artists aren't
• 23:22
  like good at that like we're just not good at thinking about the business in
• 23:26
  those terms so maybe if we end up circling something specific about sales or
• 23:31
  leads or whatever like I'll have a more succinct answer but I think magicians
• 23:35
  just don't know like I love asking people.
• 23:39
  When someone applies for the mask mind one of my questions is like where do you get your leads from.
• 23:43
  Right it's just like you should be able to answer that question even if you say
• 23:46
  it's a split 30 30 30 or it all comes from here or whatever
• 23:49
  like you should be able to answer that question because you need to know what
• 23:51
  button to push if you need more of them like you
• 23:54
  you have to know what it is to do more of if
• 23:57
  you need more of them and when people are like i don't know just
• 24:01
  word them they just sort of come like for me i'm like
• 24:04
  awesome you're gonna be a great mastermind member because you already
• 24:06
  have a good show and you already know how to sell and if we just pour gas on this fire
• 24:09
  you're going to be great but also i'm like cool you do
• 24:12
  not understand how this business works and you've never
• 24:16
  like properly run a business where you have to handle all
• 24:19
  three parts of those things and i'm definitely going to be able to help you
• 24:22
  so yeah you just got to know know your numbers know the data know these different
• 24:26
  places that they come from so i think i think for a young magician who's looking
• 24:30
  to get into the game or possibly go full time i don't imagine that it would be great to jump,
• 24:37
  I mean, I'm just assuming this and happy to be corrected.
• 24:40
  Should they be jumping on your platform immediately? Or would you prefer that you say, okay.
• 24:46
  As a young magician or someone looking to get in the game, I believe you should
• 24:50
  focus on these things first.
• 24:52
  Yeah, I'll tell you. And then when you're at this point and you really want to elevate, come see me.
• 24:57
  So let's explore that first portion before anyone should be approaching yourself
• 25:01
  to hit those big six figures.
• 25:03
  What's the advice you want to give to the young magicians wanting to go full
• 25:06
  time or wanting to make this something that's a properly financially viable option?
• 25:11
  I used to run a program called Gigs, which was helping those guys grow.
• 25:14
  And I closed it for a couple of reasons. And one of those reasons was that like, it is not easy.
• 25:20
  That first step is like not easy. Like it really isn't.
• 25:23
  You kind of have to either work really hard or catch a bit of luck or like,
• 25:27
  you know, a bunch of things to actually believe that it's possible.
• 25:30
  But I don't run that program anymore. And you're right. To apply to be a part
• 25:34
  of the mastermind, you have to be making at least 20K a year in your magic business,
• 25:37
  which to some feels like a small number.
• 25:39
  For others, it's like, oh my gosh, Jonah, why would you do that? Whatever.
• 25:42
  But it's because like, I really like, I don't want to teach the basics over and over again.
• 25:47
  I want to help people grow, and it's just zero to one is different than one to 100.
• 25:51
  In terms of what they should do, number one most important thing is beg,
• 25:55
  borrow, and steal to get proof.
• 25:57
  You need photos, videos, and testimonials of you doing the thing that you say
• 26:00
  that you can do. I don't care how you do it. Perform for free.
• 26:04
  Go to a bar and do magic. Offer to do magic at a restaurant for free.
• 26:09
  Anytime there's an event anywhere, offer to do magic. You have something that
• 26:12
  I don't, which is if a lead comes into me, I can't do it for $500.
• 26:17
  Like I can't, my whole business falls apart. I can't book the date off.
• 26:20
  I can't, like, I literally am not able to do that.
• 26:23
  You, if you're just starting, you can be like, it's free, but I need you to
• 26:28
  give me an honest review afterwards. And I need photos and videos,
• 26:31
  or it's exactly the cost of my photographer that I have to bring.
• 26:34
  It's $250. And I give all the money to him.
• 26:37
  Like, how's that for a deal? And like, there are people who would be thrilled.
• 26:42
  By that offering to have a magician who is probably good enough,
• 26:46
  you know, like pretty good.
• 26:47
  You can do some good magic to be able to do that.
• 26:50
  So I think the first most important thing is beg, borrow, and steal to get proof.
• 26:55
  That above all else, you will always stay exactly where you are until you can
• 27:00
  prove that you're worthy of being paid.
• 27:02
  So your currency when you're starting is photos, video, and testimonials.
• 27:05
  Do not waste your time with anything else.
• 27:06
  Second question is then okay Jonah that's the like
• 27:09
  sales part maybe how do I get leads the
• 27:13
  answer is everything everywhere all at once the fact that you're free means
• 27:17
  that it's or free means that it's a lot easier you can post it on your socials
• 27:22
  if you live in one of those cities that's lucky to have one of those gig sites
• 27:26
  like a gig salad or bash or bark like go on there pay for leads.
• 27:31
  Again, you will beat out my guys who I coach in your city because you're $200 and my guys are $2,000.
• 27:39
  You will beat out a percentage of them and go and take a $200 and give it to
• 27:43
  a photographer videographer, cold email.
• 27:45
  That's how I got my start. I will quickly tell a story.
• 27:48
  I know we only have limited time, but when I was young, I saw this or this magician
• 27:54
  came to the camp that I was at.
• 27:57
  And I was so offended because I was a counselor at that camp,
• 28:00
  and the director did not ask me to perform.
• 28:02
  So it was a show for the staff, and I just stayed home. I was like,
• 28:05
  I don't want to go. I don't want to see this guy.
• 28:07
  I don't want people to come to me and be like, hey, how'd you like the show?
• 28:10
  Do you know how he did his trick? I didn't want to do it.
• 28:12
  So I was like 16 or 17 at the time, and I was pissed that the director didn't pick me.
• 28:17
  Day after, I found out that the show was so bad that they had to give all the
• 28:20
  staff their money back, and that was wild, and it just made me go,
• 28:24
  oh, if this guy can do magic and suck and make money, like they didn't give
• 28:29
  him, they didn't take the money from him. He's still, his check's still cleared, right?
• 28:31
  I was like, well, I'm probably good enough that they're not gonna have to give
• 28:35
  the staff their money back.
• 28:36
  So the next year I wanted to do what he did. I wanted to perform at camps.
• 28:39
  So I did what anybody does when you don't know how to do something.
• 28:42
  I asked my mom and I said, how do I do this?
• 28:46
  And luckily enough, my mom not only has had some entrepreneurial chapters,
• 28:50
  but she did before this current generation where everyone's like,
• 28:55
  you got to post on social media and go viral or whatever.
• 28:57
  So she's like, well, why don't you get in contact with all the camp directors?
• 29:01
  And I was like, okay. So me and my mom together wrote the worst pitch email that is imaginable.
• 29:08
  And we sent it out. I lied.
• 29:10
  She sent it out to 100-ish camp directors and six of them booked me for that
• 29:19
  summer. and I offered them exactly like I'm saying right now and often they couldn't refuse.
• 29:23
  I was like, for $700, I will come up to your camp for a week.
• 29:27
  I will do workshops with the campers every single day till I hit every cabin
• 29:31
  and I'll do a camp-wide show and I'll do a staff show.
• 29:34
  And they were like, this is crazy. Other magicians are charging $1,000 to just come up and do a show.
• 29:39
  You're going to be here for the week servicing us in all these different interesting ways.
• 29:44
  And I think I made like,
• 29:46
  $4,000 that first summer. And I worked like 30 days.
• 29:51
  Like, I mean, I worked a lot to make those fourth, like, and I mean,
• 29:55
  work, wake up, workshop, workshop, workshop, break, workshop, workshop.
• 29:59
  And half of those nights, a camp wide show for 300 kids or whatever.
• 30:03
  And that was when I learned cold email. And I was like, Oh, if you email the
• 30:07
  right people, they may be able to help you.
• 30:09
  And if you have a good enough offer, and then it got better and better,
• 30:12
  because I would reach out to them, I'd be like, hey, here's the nine other camps
• 30:15
  in Ontario that I've performed for.
• 30:18
  Would love to do it with you. And they're like, well, this guy's because they
• 30:20
  all know each other. All the directors know each other. So that's what I learned
• 30:23
  cold email. And I learned how to do that too.
• 30:25
  So reach out, reach out to 100 restaurants, like every day, wake up, fire off another 10.
• 30:29
  It's called the 10 mile march every day, 10, 10 new places for you to email
• 30:33
  and follow up with and like do everything you can.
• 30:37
  Beg, borrow and steal. You have something I don't have, which is First of all,
• 30:41
  if you're new, you probably have time to be able to do those things.
• 30:45
  And then the second thing on top of that is that you can offer them an offer
• 30:49
  that they would be outrageous to say no to.
• 30:52
  Hey, I will do magic every Friday in your bar for three months.
• 30:56
  Totally free. The only catch is I want to be able to bring a photographer for some of them.
• 31:01
  Pretty good offer so yeah you know it's
• 31:04
  so important that i give away anything for free without getting something in return i
• 31:07
  think that's so important you know and it could be something as simple as like
• 31:10
  when you're performing away and people say like do one more do one more look
• 31:13
  i'll do one more but you guys have to follow my instagram fair they go fair
• 31:17
  and i go all right well you know it costs nothing but it's a little something
• 31:20
  it's something for nothing and i think that's a really nice ethos to have you
• 31:23
  know and it's just a kind gesture that they do in return and they feel good
• 31:27
  about themselves in the end for doing that.
• 31:29
  The 10 mile march is super interesting. I had the question in my head,
• 31:34
  like what should people do each day to outreach?
• 31:37
  And for those who are, let's say, making a living from magic and they're not
• 31:41
  trying to get a restaurant residency, like do you give the same advice,
• 31:46
  like hit up 10 companies to promote your work for their corporate gigs?
• 31:51
  What do you suggest, you know, everyone? So one of the things that happens when
• 31:56
  someone joins the mastermind is we have,
• 31:59
  problem solve their strategy for the first thing they're going to start doing.
• 32:03
  What they do in six months is not the same for what they do the first few months.
• 32:06
  And I'm really transparent with them. And I say, look, you either have time
• 32:09
  or money to spend. So if you have dollars to spend, then you can go fast.
• 32:14
  If you have time, it will take a little bit more time to work, but it won't cost you.
• 32:19
  Like it won't cost you as much to do. So if you have dollars to spend,
• 32:23
  there's a lot of things you can do to go fast.
• 32:26
  You can run a Google ad, you can run a Facebook ad, you can buy leads on some
• 32:30
  of those gig websites like Bark and get memberships to those sites.
• 32:34
  Those are things you can do. And like, if you do it right, you can book a gig tomorrow.
• 32:39
  Like if you, if an ad is working correct, you can book a gig tomorrow.
• 32:41
  You can buy 10 Bark leads and book a gig today while you're listening to this.
• 32:46
  If you're like, I don't have dollars to spend and I only have time.
• 32:49
  The answer is the same as what I said for
• 32:52
  the other people that are starting I think still bang
• 32:56
  for your buck the best possible use of your time is cold email outreach but
• 33:01
  I think at a certain point when you're really serious about it after you've
• 33:06
  done the 10 mile march for two weeks or three weeks and you get it and you've
• 33:11
  seen oh when I write this it works better when I write that it doesn't there are softwares,
• 33:15
  to help you do this at a much higher speed, help you collect the emails at a
• 33:20
  higher speed. With AI now, it's unbelievable.
• 33:23
  And to help you send those emails. And the cold email softwares don't just send
• 33:26
  it like a newsletter blast.
• 33:28
  It'll send an email, follow up in three days, follow up three days later.
• 33:32
  If they reply, it'll let you know.
• 33:35
  It does all these things with your inboxes so you don't go to people's spam.
• 33:38
  So these services are worth paying a little bit for, not a lot.
• 33:42
  And you can send hundreds and hundreds of emails every day. Do it right.
• 33:47
  The goal is not here to spam people, you know, but it's to reach out to the right people.
• 33:52
  You know, I always mention this to mass members, anybody who I'm helping,
• 33:56
  is like there are only so many ways to get gigs, like gig sites, ads, SEO, content.
• 34:06
  Cold outreach of some sort, referrals agents
• 34:10
  rebookings like we're running
• 34:12
  out like we're running out maybe there's one or two that i didn't content on
• 34:16
  another platform like those there's only so many ways so the secret really is
• 34:21
  not to do nine of them half-assed because none of them will work if you spend
• 34:28
  an hour setting up an ad it won't work.
• 34:31
  It won't work. You have to learn, watch some YouTube videos,
• 34:33
  hire someone to help something like it just won't work to do.
• 34:36
  Same thing. If you send 30 cold emails, you're going to be like, cold emails, a scam.
• 34:40
  Jonah lied when it was on the magic guys podcast. Like no, man,
• 34:43
  you have to do more of them.
• 34:44
  So the answer is not to do a little bit of all of this.
• 34:48
  It is to pick one of them and like, give yourself 30 days of legitimately doing it.
• 34:54
  All I ask is at the end of the 30 days that you're willing to say,
• 34:57
  if you and I had a talk and I said to you, how would you rate your effort on
• 35:01
  doing this in the last 30 days that you either give me an eight, nine, or 10.
• 35:05
  If you give me a four or a three, you didn't try it.
• 35:08
  There's no way that you can say that does not work for me. Impossible.
• 35:13
  So everything, I always joke, everything works.
• 35:17
  Just some work for you and some don't work for you and some work for where you
• 35:21
  live and better or worse, but everything works. posting content on Instagram works.
• 35:26
  It's not the grind that I want to be in. It doesn't work as well as I think
• 35:32
  SEO works, for example, or cold email works in terms of dollars per like effort
• 35:37
  per dollars. But like it works.
• 35:40
  All I ask after 30 days of you posting on Instagram advice, tell you,
• 35:44
  how would you rank your effort?
• 35:45
  Do you tell me nine or 10? What is nine or 10? It's like three a day, man.
• 35:49
  Like that's the thing you're doing. So put out a hundred posts in a month.
• 35:54
  I promise you, you will learn so much. One of the videos will pop off.
• 35:59
  You will, you know, say, oh my gosh, someone inquired about this thing. And like, it'll work.
• 36:04
  So the answer is everything. And I'm not trying to be vague.
• 36:08
  I can give even more specific answers, but the answer is everything works.
• 36:12
  Pick one, get some guidance, either by watching a bunch of YouTube videos,
• 36:16
  buying someone's course about how to do it, getting help, hiring an expert, whatever.
• 36:20
  And like, put your head down and do it and everything will work.
• 36:23
  All right. Well, if we want to talk about specifics, I'm sorry,
• 36:26
  Josh, I was going to ask, like you've dealt with a lot of magicians and you've
• 36:29
  seen their growth patterns from 20K to in the hundreds of thousands.
• 36:33
  The question I have is that what's common among the magicians who have managed
• 36:40
  to get that growth? What's the most common thing that they all had in common?
• 36:43
  Are they bold? I'm hoping that's what it is. I bet you they're bold.
• 36:47
  Is that bold? Yeah, bold. Oh God. I'm ruined.
• 36:50
  You're saying the ones that have made it to the top, Like, what do they have
• 36:53
  in common? Is there a common trait you're noticing?
• 36:56
  I'll give you the good news. I'll give you the bad news for the common traits.
• 36:59
  The good news is almost all of them,
• 37:03
  They will answer the question, and it actually goes back to what I was just saying.
• 37:07
  If you say where to get your leads from, they're going to give you one really
• 37:10
  clear answer that's where they get their leads from, not 12.
• 37:14
  And I think it's really exemplifying that question of, like.
• 37:20
  Doing, can you do not a bunch of things poorly, but one thing really well.
• 37:25
  If you can send cold emails really well, you can send tens of thousands every
• 37:29
  month, and you can learn what copy works.
• 37:31
  You can learn what markets work you can crush it same as if
• 37:34
  you're running ads or doing seo or anything like
• 37:37
  that david who's here in the chat has been a you know member of the
• 37:39
  mastermind he's crushing it you know he's doing
• 37:42
  an incredible job and so i would say the first thing for
• 37:45
  people that are up at the top is that they
• 37:48
  can generally answer one thing and by the way when
• 37:52
  you're earlier in your career you don't have the luxury
• 37:55
  necessarily to only do one but as
• 37:58
  time goes on you will start to see the forest through the trees and
• 38:01
  go oh this one really works for me the
• 38:04
  metrics and the economics really work this one
• 38:06
  has always been a grind and doesn't work for the market i'm after
• 38:09
  and so on so i think that's the first thing second thing similarly
• 38:12
  it's generally one market like one
• 38:16
  market there's like the rule of five ones right of like there's one
• 38:19
  market that you perform for there's one way
• 38:22
  that you generate leads there's one price that you
• 38:25
  sell your product that there's one way that you
• 38:28
  sell the product like this stuff is really so
• 38:32
  so so so critical is that one general market one way that you acquire but then
• 38:37
  the third one and this is annoying but i'm going to tell you is they live in
• 38:43
  pretty well populated areas if you live in the middle of nowhere you.
• 38:49
  It's just a lot harder. I agree with that. It is.
• 38:54
  The people, the magicians that I coach that are in, you know.
• 38:59
  Nowhere land in the middle of America where it's nothing for miles in every
• 39:04
  direction or whatever, they have to drive eight hours to their bookings.
• 39:08
  And that means they have to be the master of many, many, many areas to be able to do it.
• 39:15
  And they're in competition with the other smattering of magicians that are there.
• 39:18
  The ones in New York City they Uber to their gigs man
• 39:21
  like there's so many gigs there's
• 39:24
  so much going on I was in New York the other day hanging out with
• 39:26
  a magician and I got a sales call and I pick up
• 39:29
  the phone I'm chatting with this woman whatever and it wasn't a fit and I hang up the phone the
• 39:32
  woman beside me looks over and she's like hey do you have
• 39:35
  a card like you do magic and I'm
• 39:37
  like this city is crazy and I just said to her like
• 39:40
  hey just work with this guy he's an amazing magician I
• 39:43
  live in Toronto like like he's he's amazing he's the
• 39:46
  best in the city and like that doesn't happen if
• 39:49
  if there's no one at the coffee shop you're at man like it
• 39:52
  doesn't it just doesn't happen so the people at
• 39:54
  the top are good but i think they're good because they do it a lot they
• 39:58
  generally have one market that is 80 plus
• 40:01
  percent of their bookings whether it's schools or corporate or
• 40:04
  kids party kids parties you can do it you can make 250
• 40:07
  000 a year doing kids parties it's not impossible you know they have one lead
• 40:12
  acquisition channel 80 google ads seo you know a huge social media channel cold
• 40:20
  email and they're just working that working that same thing you know.
• 40:25
  What about a unique selling point is that an important thing
• 40:29
  factor like in competitiveness depends
• 40:32
  when in your career i think early on you know one of the things that i'm lucky
• 40:39
  enough to be able to do is to help magicians through these different plateaus
• 40:42
  so like there's a plateau around that like 90 to 100 km where you now have to
• 40:49
  start think about thinking about using,
• 40:53
  automations and hiring help and now you actually have
• 40:55
  the bandwidth and the budget to like invest in someone to like make an actual
• 40:59
  pretty website and not something that you made you know on your own in a weekend
• 41:03
  with like weird web builder or something like all of these things that you have
• 41:07
  the ability to do so do i think a unique selling point matters at some point
• 41:12
  yes at some point that stuff matters.
• 41:16
  But I think what matters more is you going incredibly deep on the market that you perform in.
• 41:24
  And it's not just because of all the obvious things like you become recognized
• 41:30
  in that market and talk to each other and they rebook you and all of that.
• 41:35
  That's all great. But the real reason is after doing enough of them,
• 41:39
  you start having these ideas of, oh, I can sell this thing.
• 41:45
  I've never tried that. Let me try it. And you're like, whoa.
• 41:49
  People really responded to that. They really responded.
• 41:53
  Like camps is just a really good example.
• 41:55
  They really responded to the fact that I could do workshops and a camp wide show and a staff show.
• 42:01
  You realize the things that those people really need and what you sell now scratches
• 42:07
  an itch that no one else scratches.
• 42:09
  I'll give you a lovely example of weddings. I know a lot of listeners here in the UK.
• 42:12
  UK is crazy. Everyone wants a magician at their wedding. I don't know what's
• 42:15
  going on over there. It's a crazy place. But when you're chatting about a wedding, check this out.
• 42:21
  First time you ever done a wedding, you're like, oh, yeah, I can do magic for
• 42:23
  cocktail hour. You know, here's my price for one hour. Here's my price for two hours.
• 42:28
  Well, that shows that you have no freaking clue how weddings work because it's a cocktail hour.
• 42:33
  So it's an hour. Maybe it's 90 minutes, but you should tell them I perform for
• 42:37
  the hour. Maybe it's an hour. Maybe it's 90. That's how much it is. Cool. Level two.
• 42:41
  You're chatting to them at the wedding and you're like, by the way,
• 42:44
  during the cocktail hour, are you guys off taking photos?
• 42:48
  They're like oh my gosh how did
• 42:52
  you know that's incredibly smart and you're
• 42:55
  like well listen every time we do weddings it's the same
• 42:58
  thing the people that hire us that love magic they never get to see it because
• 43:00
  they're off taking photos so what we do is after the cocktail hour when everyone
• 43:05
  goes and enters the main reception before your guys's grand entrance there's
• 43:09
  about 10 minutes we bring over your photographers and videographers we do some
• 43:13
  custom magic that's specifically for you guys.
• 43:16
  That way you get the experience. You get a 10 minute micro show just for the two of you.
• 43:20
  And we have your team there to capture it so that you can remember it for the rest of your life.
• 43:25
  And now they're like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable.
• 43:29
  And when you compare that to the magician who's done eight weddings in his life
• 43:33
  and he goes cocktail hour, yeah, like $600 per hour.
• 43:36
  They're like, okay, well, one hour, that's how much we need you for versus the other guy who's like.
• 43:41
  You know, it's $1,500 and you get this and this and we do this.
• 43:45
  And because this happens, we do that and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
• 43:48
  And all of a sudden you are the best wedding magician within 200 kilometers
• 43:53
  of where you are because you just get how they actually work.
• 43:58
  You get how they function.
• 43:59
  And I have a million examples of that across lots of different markets.
• 44:03
  So unique selling, you know, proposition. Yes.
• 44:07
  But like, if I'm honest, when someone's looking for
• 44:09
  a magician they're looking for a magician still and like
• 44:12
  i think we win in sales like if
• 44:15
  your website and my website both have photos of us performing and
• 44:18
  people reacting like we're good like the fact
• 44:21
  that i'm the blue haired guy or the whatever guy like doesn't really help if
• 44:25
  i perform just for your market it does help and then it doubly helps in the
• 44:30
  selling phase when i'm able to offer something that the other people didn't
• 44:35
  even think of nobody else even brought up at all So I think market specific,
• 44:40
  and you can have one or two or three markets, you know, it's cool.
• 44:43
  But I think the market specifics is much more important to me than a unique selling proposition.
• 44:48
  That almost is a unique selling point. Like the email they got from you is unique
• 44:54
  because you have this extra product.
• 44:57
  So you kind of answered it, but in like a marketing way, which is interesting.
• 45:01
  To me, it's audience focused, not magician focused, right? Like that's the way I think.
• 45:07
  I think it's exactly that. I think it's when you have the inquiry come through
• 45:11
  and you have this moment of discovery where you quite simply,
• 45:15
  for example, I got together for dinner
• 45:17
  with some folks I'm emceeing their wedding for in a few weeks' time.
• 45:22
  And we met up at a pub next to their apartment and we had a chat.
• 45:26
  And I was like, okay, so ordinarily you do this, we're not doing that.
• 45:29
  I'm like, okay, and this, you're not going to do that either.
• 45:31
  And I'm like, what do I need to be there emceeing for? They paid my full emcee rate.
• 45:36
  We don't want to do speeches. No, we don't want to do that. Like this is our
• 45:39
  second time getting married.
• 45:40
  We've done this crap before. And I'm just like, and because I approached everything, um.
• 45:45
  From the from the person with experience from this
• 45:49
  professional realm where it's like here's what would ordinarily happen you
• 45:51
  know and you have that moment of discovery with any inquiry so you
• 45:54
  say we have a corporate event coming up wonderful how many
• 45:57
  people are coming great and what do you have planned for the rest of the evening
• 45:59
  well it's mainly awards okay
• 46:00
  i would suggest that you get me at the very beginning of your
• 46:03
  event just to help me break the ice with everyone there you
• 46:06
  got it and when you have that little moment of discovery it's
• 46:09
  what you're doing in that moment is you're just loading a
• 46:12
  gun full of bullets that you can shoot back with to like
• 46:16
  nail this sale that's one good question not
• 46:20
  only reveals all the things that they need and how you can help solve it but
• 46:25
  also it shows them that you know what the hell you're talking about a great
• 46:29
  question for the corporate event thing is is it just employees or they're plus
• 46:35
  ones exactly and they're like oh they're plus ones.
• 46:37
  And now I get to tell my plus one story. My plus one story is that my dad used
• 46:42
  to own a store. And when he did his yearly Christmas party, he never invited plus ones.
• 46:46
  And the reason why is because no one would want to have fun because they'd all
• 46:50
  be babysitting their partners.
• 46:51
  And when dinner was done, no matter how much you want to be able to stay out,
• 46:54
  all the partners were pulling on the shirts and saying, let's go home. I'm tired. I'm bored.
• 46:59
  And they don't want to be there because they don't know any of the people.
• 47:01
  So what we do during Mingling Magic, aside from the entertainment,
• 47:04
  is we prioritize helping plus ones meet each other.
• 47:07
  And when we do that right, when dinner's done, they stay because they build
• 47:12
  relationships. So we want to do mingling during cocktail hour,
• 47:14
  but we also want to do mingling when people sit at the table.
• 47:17
  Cause if you can get people to connect with a few people sitting at their table
• 47:19
  that they didn't already know and have a laugh and have a good time,
• 47:22
  they stay, they stay and they don't leave immediately after dinner.
• 47:26
  And now that the people like, Oh my gosh, like this is crazy.
• 47:30
  I didn't realize it, but yeah, our last five holiday parties,
• 47:33
  since we started inviting plus ones are just not fun anymore.
• 47:36
  Why? Like I didn't realize. And like, you're able to tell them because you do
• 47:40
  it so, so, so much. So amazing. Amazing.
• 47:43
  I think it's, I remember reading in, what book was it? Oh my God,
• 47:47
  a Brian Tracy selling book or something.
• 47:49
  They call it the power question. And it's like, if you can ask the customer
• 47:54
  a question that either they've never been asked before, or it makes them think
• 47:58
  in a new way, then all of a sudden,
• 48:01
  even though it's a question you've asked, you become the authority in it, right?
• 48:05
  And so- I'll give you two banger questions and then I'll do a soft little pitch
• 48:10
  just because we ended up talking about sales calls. But the banger questions are these.
• 48:14
  I love to ask, what would make this event so awesome that if you called us Monday
• 48:22
  morning to say, Jonah, that was the best thing we ever did, what would it have to accomplish?
• 48:29
  Oh, my gosh. Amazing. You're going to get everything you want in that one question.
• 48:32
  I'm going to go, if people laugh and have a good time, they're entertaining,
• 48:35
  they mingle with each other.
• 48:36
  Cool. Awesome. Noted, noted. it. And then I go, what would make you call me
• 48:41
  on Monday and say, I want a refund. That was a nightmare.
• 48:45
  And then they go, you know, I guess if it was inappropriate and you're like,
• 48:53
  Perfect. Now, when I describe our stuff,
• 48:56
  I get to tell you about how interactive it is and that it accomplishes XYZ and
• 49:01
  also that it's 100% clean, you know, like and share that that's what we do.
• 49:08
  We actually solve both sides of those bounds.
• 49:12
  I'll add my little soft pitch. I don't actually have the stuff set up yet,
• 49:16
  all the automations, but next week I'm running a workshop called,
• 49:20
  something sales calls, a sales call blueprint.
• 49:22
  For anybody that wants to go through
• 49:24
  this entire process, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be rad.
• 49:27
  So if you find me at Discourse and Magic on Instagram, send me a message with the word sales.
• 49:31
  I'm going to send you a message and say, cool, give me a day or two because the link isn't ready.
• 49:34
  I haven't announced it yet, but I'll be announcing in the next couple of days.
• 49:37
  And if you want to come and learn all this stuff, like, please,
• 49:40
  please, please, would love to have anybody in your audience there. It'd be rad.
• 49:44
  You know the the the brilliant thing about those two power questions you just mentioned is what
• 49:50
  will really surprise magicians when you ask those questions is the
• 49:53
  thing that they would find repulsive and
• 49:56
  want a refund might be something you hadn't even thought of
• 49:59
  like it could just be they could say something to
• 50:02
  you like oh if the magician was only walking around doing
• 50:05
  card tricks for example like that to
• 50:08
  them could be their yeah you know bad experience
• 50:11
  and now you know and now you know to you know and also
• 50:14
  you may also go cool i am
• 50:17
  not your guy 100 i am
• 50:20
  a calm like if he was if it was all about the jokes and it really wasn't mysterious
• 50:25
  you're like got it i'm a comedy magician so there's magic but it's also fun
• 50:30
  and funny if that's not your vibe let me connect you with someone he's a spooky
• 50:35
  mentalist he wears eyeliner you'll love it's intense you'll love him You know.
• 50:41
  The gig for Asahi, the, uh, the, the booze company at the MCG arena here.
• 50:47
  And I was like, this, the, the, the briefing was mischievous magicians,
• 50:52
  two of, so myself and LJ friend of the pod, we go out there to do the gig.
• 50:57
  And I, and I asked the organizer, I'm like, how are you?
• 51:01
  Mischievous do you want us to be on a scale to one to 11 and then she's like
• 51:05
  what's 11 and i go oh i'll call your ceo a cunt and she went maybe a two and
• 51:13
  i'm like that's i can do it too but the fact that you have that little moment
• 51:18
  like you know what i mean like it yeah it's great.
• 51:20
  Yeah and that's in the sales script that jrna will will show
• 51:23
  you like can i call your ceo a
• 51:26
  c-bomb oh no god i will not say that just kidding
• 51:30
  hard to say that and to be like our shows are completely clean
• 51:33
  they're like yeah but what
• 51:36
  i what i was also going to add about when someone tells
• 51:39
  you they don't like something in magic there's another really interesting question
• 51:42
  maybe i don't know if you've explored it but if if
• 51:45
  someone for example because i've had this says we want
• 51:49
  a magician that doesn't do card tricks an interesting power
• 51:52
  question is oh well tell me
• 51:55
  what you would change about card tricks because sometimes
• 51:59
  they're like what they
• 52:02
  think a card trick is is 21 cards on a table
• 52:05
  yeah for five minutes you know and then
• 52:07
  you're like oh you don't you haven't experienced like
• 52:11
  in your head you're like oh you just don't know what like actual card
• 52:14
  magic is you've just experienced you know
• 52:17
  and then you can still do card magic but you can explain don't worry there's
• 52:20
  no dealing cards on a wet table where people are bored this is very different
• 52:25
  you know and then you can move past that so that can be something really interesting
• 52:30
  too like tell me what you would change about the thing they just said they don't
• 52:33
  love it such a good question.
• 52:35
  Boom, that'll be $200 a month, everyone. What do you think about the aesthetic
• 52:41
  of magicians that, you know, a lot of them have like a particular type of image?
• 52:45
  Like, have you ever dealt with someone who's like, my image is this,
• 52:49
  and they just want to wear torn t-shirts and so forth, but I want to be worth $400,000?
• 52:54
  Like, do you have anything to say about that? Like, do you think it's like, no, don't do that?
• 53:00
  I mean, look, do whatever you want. I'm not in charge.
• 53:04
  I think like you first of all it's hard to know you kind of just have to see
• 53:10
  what the market thinks if the market doesn't mind if you look a certain way
• 53:13
  then like whatever then do it.
• 53:17
  I i i've dealt with it and i just say exactly what i said to you which is like
• 53:22
  i think you should if you want to do more corporate gigs you probably look more
• 53:25
  corporate if you want to do kids shows you shouldn't look so spooky like you
• 53:28
  know you're gonna be making your life a little
• 53:30
  harder but you do you man it's an art like
• 53:33
  if you want to take a hit to the business by
• 53:37
  running doing the exact art that you want like i think a
• 53:40
  lot of us to be real don't do exactly the
• 53:43
  art that we want to do that we would maybe do in a public ticketed show in a
• 53:46
  theater that we do at a corporate event because we're gonna have to meet them
• 53:49
  in the middle so like if someone wants to draw that line somewhere else for
• 53:53
  themselves that's cool with me it might take a hit to the business like whatever
• 53:58
  like that's cool with me if you definitely want to do it like go for it man you know hmm.
• 54:03
  Yeah, I have an interesting question because you've spoken, like you've had
• 54:08
  over 300 episodes on your podcast and you've spoken to hundreds of magicians
• 54:12
  on that very same podcast.
• 54:14
  And I'm just curious, what do you find that the best of the folks you've interviewed,
• 54:18
  what do they have in common with regards to the success of their businesses?
• 54:22
  Yeah, so many things to try to unpack from this.
• 54:26
  The first is the reason why I have taken, took a hiatus, which is now back Discourse
• 54:33
  of Magic podcast is back. Everyone rejoice.
• 54:35
  But the reason why I took a hiatus from it was because everyone just said the
• 54:39
  exact same thing all the time.
• 54:40
  Nobody, it wasn't like mind-blowingly surprising how to be creative.
• 54:45
  It's set aside time to be creative, have a shop and spend time in it.
• 54:49
  Like, you know, not that mind-blowing. Like how do you get good at magic?
• 54:53
  Well, you do it and you watch the footage.
• 54:55
  Like how many more people need to tell me that, perform lots and watch all the
• 54:59
  footage and write like how, I really like, How many more times have friends that help you do it?
• 55:05
  So that's the reason. It's almost like the same things over and over again.
• 55:08
  That being said, I just want to share a really important distinction that a
• 55:13
  lot of magicians don't think about, and I've just been really had the front
• 55:18
  seat at, which is the magicians that you look up to,
• 55:23
  you, everybody listening, are probably not the most successful performing magicians around.
• 55:29
  They're just not. The guys who are creating the incredible magic that have set
• 55:35
  aside their life to build incredible stuff, that's their superpower.
• 55:40
  There are a few that are everything.
• 55:44
  There are a few that really are that.
• 55:47
  But some of the biggest names that you know in magic, like, are not the most successful ever.
• 55:54
  My favorite example is, like, Eugene Berger did bar mitzvahs.
• 55:58
  Like Eugene Berger did bar mitzvahs. He lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago.
• 56:04
  Now Eugene Berger is amazing. He is the best.
• 56:07
  He is a one of a lifetime generation, but like his business advice might not
• 56:13
  be the business advice that you're after.
• 56:16
  So I mentioned that only to say that like the people that are at the top,
• 56:20
  the question is at the top of what?
• 56:22
  So the podcast is funny because it's not a magic business podcast. It's an interview show.
• 56:27
  I asked about people's stories. I ask a little bit about what their path looks
• 56:30
  like. And a lot of them have really different paths.
• 56:33
  Like a lot of them are consultants and a lot of them are writers and a lot of
• 56:37
  them do like many, many, many different things that you could do.
• 56:39
  But I would just say like, be mindful, only take advice from the people that
• 56:44
  you would switch places with.
• 56:46
  And as a performing magician, I would switch places with Eugene Berger any day.
• 56:51
  But I'm willing to bet that some of the people in my community like run a better
• 56:55
  business in terms of performing magic for corporate gigs than he ever did.
• 56:59
  I don't know. I don't know his numbers.
• 57:00
  Maybe a Chicago cat knows it, but like, and I don't mean to be bagging on him.
• 57:04
  He's amazing. Like I love everything he's ever done.
• 57:06
  But yeah, the people that I interviewed in the podcast are not necessarily the
• 57:11
  most successful magicians.
• 57:13
  They are, to be honest, the way I do the podcast, which I'm sure is similar
• 57:17
  to you guys is like, I just interview the people I'm interested in chatting with.
• 57:20
  And like, generally the way that you get interviewed on my podcast is I have to like you.
• 57:25
  And then I have to be interested in the thing that you're known for at that moment.
• 57:30
  So like if I know that you do incredible memorized deck
• 57:33
  work and I like obsessed with it like okay that's like there's like a good chance
• 57:36
  that we'll chat about that kind of thing if in that moment that's the thing
• 57:40
  that I'm the most interested in so I just use it to follow my path and my journey
• 57:44
  so not everyone is like the best magic business operator you know ever some
• 57:49
  were the best at building gimmicks or,
• 57:52
  this or that or whatever but.
• 57:55
  That's why we've never been invited on the pod, Josh. Just sort of.
• 57:58
  Because I know enough about magic podcasting. Okay. I don't need any more.
• 58:04
  Jenna doesn't like us. Who cares about what we do?
• 58:07
  You guys are my Australian nemesis. You robbed me of an award that I flew to lose.
• 58:13
  Man, what a loser. Going all the way there.
• 58:16
  I flew there to lose the award. And I went to congratulate you guys.
• 58:19
  And none of you were even there. You guys weren't even there.
• 58:22
  Man, I got to sit on the couch and won. Yeah.
• 58:26
  Being given the this invisible award all it's
• 58:29
  done is put pressure to like not quit it now that's
• 58:32
  all it does good it's good pressure by the
• 58:35
  way it's so good by the way originally and you
• 58:38
  guys got the email about it it was like we're going to be presenting the awards
• 58:41
  you're going to come on stage you're going to accept it it was 13 straight seconds
• 58:47
  just jay on stage be like podcast award is magic eyes newsletter award is daily
• 58:52
  magician that award is that award Ward, thank you. And he leaves. And I'm just like.
• 58:58
  Like, if I knew that there was no physical award giving, even though I didn't
• 59:03
  win, I wouldn't have gone there. Okay?
• 59:05
  Fism is painful. Have you guys ever been to a fism?
• 59:09
  No. No. We've been. We're told we need to go, and you're the first ones to say. Don't. No.
• 59:16
  Let me tell you what fism is like. Fism is like when your dad catches you smoking
• 59:22
  a cigarette and he makes you smoke the whole pack.
• 59:25
  Okay? You wake up from 8 a.m.
• 59:28
  To noon, there is back-to-back eight-minute close-up magic sets for five days.
• 59:36
  And then from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., there's the same thing but stage.
• 59:42
  So all day, every day, you're watching back-to-back-to-back-to-back act.
• 59:47
  Best case scenario, one in four is great.
• 59:52
  Wow. That's best case scenario. So if you guys are people that see a lot of
• 59:57
  magic, which I think you do.
• 1:00:00
  It's like work. Like it is work to sit there at FISM and watch eight straight
• 1:00:06
  hours of magic, 75% of which is not great for five days.
• 1:00:13
  And then there's like lectures and all this stuff, whatever.
• 1:00:15
  So FISM is great, but don't watch.
• 1:00:19
  Watch all the people that someone tells you to watch. If they're like,
• 1:00:22
  this guy's great. Go watch it. Leave.
• 1:00:24
  Go hang with your friends. Go get a pint.
• 1:00:27
  Like don't think that you have to watch everything. both fisms i went to i tried
• 1:00:31
  to watch it all and every day i'd be like this was harder than most days of
• 1:00:37
  work that i've had to just consume this so wait till it's in a city like and
• 1:00:43
  just go and have a pint with all your magician friends and don't worry about
• 1:00:45
  watching the competition.
• 1:00:47
  That's so interesting why why how does
• 1:00:50
  a low quality act get through to fism you know
• 1:00:53
  i don't know enough about how it works but there's regional
• 1:00:57
  competitions and whatever so if not enough people
• 1:01:00
  in your region compete then you get
• 1:01:03
  through but look i will say when i say low quality i
• 1:01:06
  mean in comparison but it's just like how many coin matrices can you watch like
• 1:01:12
  you go from saying i have no idea how they did that to being like i don't care
• 1:01:18
  how many more coins could be
• 1:01:20
  vanished on a black tablecloth back to back until you're like, whatever.
• 1:01:26
  Something, something, black art, something, something. Whatever,
• 1:01:29
  like, whatever. Like, you know. So they're not bad.
• 1:01:34
  To get to FISM is incredibly difficult. It's just you're watching all the best up against each other.
• 1:01:40
  And like, at some point, three quarters of them are not memorable.
• 1:01:45
  And you're like, oh, it's a long day.
• 1:01:47
  It's a long, long day, you know. So good fun to hang with all your buddies from
• 1:01:51
  all over the world, but watching all the competitions all day,
• 1:01:55
  every day is like, is work. It's work. Wow.
• 1:01:59
  Uh what about magic live are we
• 1:02:02
  gonna see you this year at magic live is sick man i
• 1:02:05
  don't know i used to never go because i was always on that summer
• 1:02:08
  camp tour which i don't do anymore but i have an event that
• 1:02:11
  i'm scheming with some friends so i may get
• 1:02:14
  there a bit late or something you know i'll try to stop in
• 1:02:17
  but usually i'm at like one to
• 1:02:19
  three conventions a year i did magi fast already
• 1:02:22
  which was a hoot and then magic live i'll
• 1:02:25
  i'll try to be there no no promises i usually decide in
• 1:02:28
  the in the last inning depending on if nothing else comes and pops in the calendar
• 1:02:32
  no matter no matter when as soon as i book a convention that's when everyone
• 1:02:35
  wants to hire me like every time if i don't book it it stays empty if i book
• 1:02:40
  it declining gigs every single day for that for that weekend so i don't know
• 1:02:45
  i'll figure it out but i'll probably be there for a day or two great.
• 1:02:49
  Awesome that's how the universe works and we
• 1:02:52
  love it but i think that's all we have time for
• 1:02:55
  i mean if you want to give me one more juicy question so i
• 1:02:57
  don't add end on a ram hajard about this
• 1:03:00
  we can't do that give me something else you know
• 1:03:03
  well what is the ceiling what is
• 1:03:06
  the floor to ceiling range in which magicians can
• 1:03:09
  actually book gigs at price wise like magicians
• 1:03:12
  have in their head you know a number they think they're worth but
• 1:03:15
  sometimes it just takes hearing what someone else
• 1:03:18
  can book a gig at that actually makes you go oh shit well
• 1:03:21
  i perform similar to them maybe i can charge that
• 1:03:24
  much as well like give them something to be excited about in their
• 1:03:27
  career for a regular guy
• 1:03:30
  who is not world famous yeah let's go not not famous we're not oz perlman like
• 1:03:39
  not you know knock the top hundred people off of the charts like i would say
• 1:03:46
  the floor whatever the heck you on. I don't know. There's no floor.
• 1:03:49
  The ceiling, like, it really starts tapering well, well off after 10K for an
• 1:03:58
  event. Like, there are people that do 15s and that do 20s. Those are the, like.
• 1:04:04
  A minuses of the world and not that
• 1:04:07
  they're not good they're just not famous some of the best magicians are
• 1:04:10
  the ones that are those people because they're like
• 1:04:13
  working you know and they work to get that good
• 1:04:16
  so like the 10 to 20 range
• 1:04:19
  is like the best of a regular hard-working person
• 1:04:22
  who didn't i don't want to say catch a break because i
• 1:04:25
  don't think that some of those really famous people like caught a
• 1:04:28
  break like they work hard man to get those
• 1:04:31
  opportunities but like that stuff is a bit
• 1:04:34
  out of reach i would say zero to 10k is
• 1:04:38
  like a realistic band for a realistic person you
• 1:04:42
  know that that that you could do and that's
• 1:04:45
  like 10k for or even 8k for example that's uh that's a stage show that's a an
• 1:04:50
  appearance fee that's a it depends it depends you know like uh it could be anything
• 1:04:56
  you could get you could get like we get often 7500 for mingling show mingling
• 1:05:01
  So mingling during the cocktail hour, a show after dinner,
• 1:05:05
  and then mingling to the rest of the night, you know, with everyone,
• 1:05:08
  maybe 150 person event, you know, or something like that.
• 1:05:13
  So like, that's a reasonable thing that you could get.
• 1:05:16
  But again, in your market with a crap ton of proof, with lots of reviews and case studies, maybe.
• 1:05:25
  And testimonials and all of these different things where they are,
• 1:05:29
  what they're paying for is not the magic.
• 1:05:32
  They're paying for the peace of mind that you are for sure going to crush it.
• 1:05:36
  Like they just don't want to gamble on it. If it's important enough event,
• 1:05:40
  they just want to gamble on it. And yes, there are less events that want to
• 1:05:45
  spend $7,500 on their magician than events that want to spend $1,000 on their magician.
• 1:05:51
  There are less. You are in a smaller pool of competition to do that.
• 1:05:55
  But it is possible. You know, you can do it. Not impossible.
• 1:05:59
  Hell yeah. I love it. If you represent well enough and you are a professional,
• 1:06:03
  like I remember the wedding I did probably at two or three weddings ago,
• 1:06:06
  maybe four now, but they said, we booked you before we booked anything.
• 1:06:10
  And I was like, really? They go, yeah, like we booked you before a venue.
• 1:06:14
  We booked you before flowers. We booked you before cake.
• 1:06:16
  Like we just knew that it was going to be- Yeah, but those people are lunatics.
• 1:06:19
  That's not how you plan a wedding.
• 1:06:21
  That's a crazy way to plan a wedding. Like, okay, we're getting married.
• 1:06:25
  Here's the date. We got to start magician.
• 1:06:27
  Let's start planning after we have that locked in. Yeah, well, I did magic.
• 1:06:32
  I emceed their wedding as well. So it was like me doing magic,
• 1:06:36
  emceeing, make sure everything's cool.
• 1:06:37
  And I was first one there, last one to leave.
• 1:06:40
  It's a privilege they paid for and it was a great day
• 1:06:43
  for all like we had a blast they checked his availability first
• 1:06:47
  and then got engaged a venue and a
• 1:06:49
  date to get married yeah yeah then he's like oh he's available
• 1:06:52
  okay let's get engaged 100 look if you want to if you want to follow jonah all
• 1:06:58
  these details are below to the discourse and magic channel uh i'm gonna type
• 1:07:03
  hi in the comments for anybody that is here if you want to follow it on youtube
• 1:07:08
  because the the things coming on YouTube.
• 1:07:11
  But yeah, man, we're on all podcasting places, Discourse and Magic.
• 1:07:13
  We've interviewed every famous magician you can think of and 200 more.
• 1:07:18
  And all of the solo episodes are just me teaching business advice about different
• 1:07:25
  things you can do. And then follow me on Instagram.
• 1:07:27
  I'm getting wild posting content on there like all the time with tips and stuff
• 1:07:31
  for business. Get in the newsletter.
• 1:07:33
  I'm sending emails three times a week all about like magic business advice.
• 1:07:37
  And again, message me the word sales if you want to come to the workshop I'm
• 1:07:39
  doing next week on Instagram is the easiest. And I'll send you some details.
• 1:07:44
  Oh, this is so good. Well, look, let's give them one more piece of advice to go on with their day.
• 1:07:50
  We're going to do it as the final word. We let our guest end the podcast with
• 1:07:54
  one little thing to the viewers. So we're going to do that now.
• 1:07:57
  And hopefully we have Jonah back for some wisdom.
• 1:08:02
  Final tip, business tip. While you're on the phone with a client,
• 1:08:05
  Do not ask them, what's your budget?
• 1:08:12
  Thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now but we'll see you again
• 1:08:19
  on the next episode of the magic guys.