5 get more gig tips! #205

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 205 of the Magic Guys. We are live from three different countries today. To my left, we've got Doug Kahn. Salutations. To my right, we've got Nick K. Welcome from Canada, eh? Hey, and I'm Josh Delbedo. Welcome to this shenanery where we today talk about some tips on getting you more work, but also we do this live so you can ask your questions in the flesh, through the digital flesh.

Who we got here today, Nick? I can see Scotty P, who I just saw on the weekend. What's up, Scotty? Who else we got there, Nick? Good to see you, Scotty. We have our good friend, Thomas Conger. Tim asking them questions. And we have a new friend, GP Magic. Good to see you, friend. Thank you guys for joining us. Of course, This is a live show, guys, which means you can put your questions in there on the chat, whether you're watching on Facebook or the YouTube.

And, of course, if you're not watching live or listening live, you'll be able to watch all our previous episodes on all your favorite broadcasting platforms. Yes, indeed. And look who has moved across the states from New Orleans to Las Vegas.

I'm here now. I'm in Nevada. the bird's looking live bird con is in his new, dig well his new workplace anyway which is this is my home away from home i don't even consider it work like i haven't when i'm off i just want to come back here that's how i feel, if you don't know i'm at trick supply it's one of the biggest inventories of magic in the country.

Putting the brick and mortar together you can tell just by looking in the background like that's just that's a magic shop Insane. He showed us a couple of things just for fun off camera and their props that I'm like, I've never seen them in my life. And he's like, yeah, we just have them. I'll do a product display. Look, my hands are empty. Now I have this giant fish. Like who you could just get a giant fish. You know, and we have more than one of them. We have probably seven or more.

Wow. Now I do fish magic. And I just grabbed that because it was there. I'm surrounded by all the things. Like I can immediately, like Nick, the amazing Nigel, I can already see him pulling that out of his case, like mid-show while he's looking for stuff. Oh, yeah. I'm not going to lie. I kind of want to actually use that thing now that I played with it. Like I'm just joking around, but it's kind of cool.

You know what? It'd be so great to do an effect where you ask somebody to like name an effect. Like something small, something that we could possibly fit in your hand. And they say like a fish and you're like oh something small this fish is small and then you like pull out this thing that's like a meter in length there's so much fun to be had with that.

This is you're living the dream this is this is so many goodies behind you maybe we should do a thing where doug nominates a product and we have a creative challenge we can come up with the most creative sort of thing with whatever property finds about the place that could be a good spitball episode where we actually spitball things within the store this is a good idea and we have we have so many old like buried gems here that i'm just looking forward to

introducing people to that's a great idea like i could talk about it get some maybe some videos submitted well maybe do that in the meantime maybe have a look around the inventory make a short list of like things that you're like what on earth could i do with this and then you can show us what the product is what it does and then we'll try to find in a spitball episode where we all congregate and try to figure out a really clever routine for that that's a great

idea and pull some weird crap out there's some weird things here yeah spitballing at trick supply that's a great episode yeah that's an endless like supply of content so and if you want to enter it you just have to obviously buy the prop and then you enter in the winning next week's episode anyone listening you basically get to you walk away with a free original routine because that's how we roll.

Yeah what's um doug what's like is there one or two things that you've had to adjust to being in vegas now that just the lifestyle culture or you can't get or food you know it's like the vibe the kind of it's not dissimilar from new orleans right like there's always something to do action kind of town this kind of town don't sleep first 10 days i was here i didn't stop you know if i wasn't here at the shop i was running out to fremont street or going down the

strip or you know trying to find a place to live which i think i found yesterday thank goodness great but yeah i'm still acclimating and like i said i kind of want to just be in this shop getting this.

Prepared to do its thing we're we're working to reopen the brick and mortar location and at the same time i'm learning where 20 000 items are in the warehouse it's a lot you know i think i spent three hours today picking magic mail out you know we we had a pretty good weekend in sales and you know it's a lot to kind of figure out bin 32 row four you know and go dig so you need to talk to maybe we should have a chat with trig watson about that yeah talking about

storage bloody hell he's i need like 20 trig watsons over here and then some minions to do the work so where you are now did you say that is a public store or you're working to open that right so it's been it's been a brick and mortar that's opened a few times the location opened like right before the pandemic so you can imagine trying to navigate that situation and then finding good guys to run it but here i am ready to do that just have to get the store a little

more organized to suit my needs and i also want to broadcast from the store doing live streams and showcasing you know the new stuff Some of the books we have and things I like and the only things the owner likes. And, and so I'm getting this organized to make that a little bit more presentable. Also, do you foresee maybe holding lectures or something inside the store?

Would that accommodate? So the store is a little small, but check this out. Day one, I found out that we're neighbors with a gaming store. They run like table games, like magic, the gathering. And so they have a wonderful space. That's lots of tables. There's like eight. Long, you know, you know how they do their tournaments. And, and day one, he's like, Oh, we're doing an auction tomorrow. I have 100 guys here come over.

And, you know, these are my nerds, right? I'm going to bring the gaming nerds. And, and I mentioned doing magic events at their store, and they're very excited about it. So that's a definite possibility. And, and yeah, there's also a great hangout. Like the local guys meet about a mile down the road. So like Alan Ackerman and Paul V. Hill, some of these guys, you know, they have a bar putters that they meet at every Wednesday. And that's a spot too, that things could happen at potentially.

Damn. Yeah. This is, this is exciting. And what we were, what we were thinking is to have a mini like Doug's pick of the week section in the podcast moving forward so that we can help support Doug's shop. But also you can see these cool things that he has access to now and can actually share with us to keep us up to date with like giant fish productions and such that you just don't see in your mainstream, like penguin email or whatever you're subscribed to. Exactly.

And this is why I'm here. I could have pretty much picked any magic company, but this company is unique in that it offers the ability to really help magicians find what they need and not just what the major companies tell them they need, but you know, what you're reading. Yeah.

And look, talking about helping magicians get what they need, the title of today is five get more gig tips. These are things we always need to be refreshing on, even if we've heard it before. It's like, I'll reread some books and I'll just, even if they're magic books, sales books, whatever, and I'm just re-reminded, oh, that's right. I need to do this, or that's how I'm meant to do that, that card steal properly. And so there's a couple of things that I think are new this week,

but also just they're refreshers. You need to stay on top of mind. So I'm going to kick off with this first tip. Now, this is something that I had to take on board myself. Okay. Social media. Here's the brain, like this is the mind blowing tip. Follow your clients back on social media. Now that seems so obvious, but for some reason, for the last 10 years of my full-time career, I just thought, oh, it's cool that my clients are following me, so they're going to see all the stuff I'm putting out.

And I just didn't follow them back for whatever reason. But. There's no need to be so special about the people that you have in your like following list because the moment I started following clients back, they don't have to see my stuff in order to see me and have me on top of mind because I can reply to their stories and their content and the fact that we are social friends actually gets people to book you again.

And it just happened a few days ago. I got a message and they're like, hey, we need to have you back this year for this business, you know 10 year anniversary i'm like let's go like now they don't have to email me look back for my thread from last year they just hit me up because we've been chatting regularly, by the way let's just pause this for a second we've done 205 episodes and this might be the first time this has ever happened matt sick mayor has super chatted

us ten dollars which is if i convert quickly, $50 Australian. And he says, Doug, I used to go to a magic shop in this plaza a few doors down. They closed the shop. Does that have anything to do with the shop you are in now? I know a guy who knows that information, but I'm going to have to get back to you on that. I am a Vegas noob. This is my second week in Vegas, and I've only been here three days before that a few years ago.

I would guess that that was maybe a Houdini store or maybe one of the Perry Maynard's Las Vegas magic stores. What are you looking at? Yeah, I like this color yellow. This is a nice look for our comments. Dude, Matt, thank you so much, brother. We're going to split that $3.33 each.

He does buy estate sales. It's likely that we've absorbed the inventory of some of the defunct shops that were in, this town you know one of the ways we accumulate magic is you know magic shops that aren't business anymore or estates and things like that so probably well cool yeah there you go but yeah look to circle back to your question dude yes i think i think it's you know following a client already but even following

potential clients could be a good idea like there's a lot of folks who say oh i want to book you for whatever and they go cool let's set up a friendship on my socials And then with me, I have a QR code on my, my card boxes and people will follow my content that way, but I politely follow on back. Just being like, Hey man, nice to meet you. I hope to be a service someday. That is it. Hope to be of service. And even when people can't afford

you, you go, no worries. I have to be of service to you in the future. You know? And I wonder if a good, a good tip is, cause it's not something I've been super on top of doing, but you know, you take a photo with the client and then when you do follow them back on socials, you start the convo by sending them that photo going, hey, it's great to meet you.

And that's great. And it also serves as a reminder for you. The next time you open up that thread, you see that photo and you're like, ah, that's right. So following them back, it's yeah, it just seems like and look, and maybe if you're trying to get gigs, like Nick said, maybe you follow the restaurants on social media that you want to be starting to do work at. Maybe that's the new email angle, right? You follow them on socials. Instead, you interact with them,

tag them in some restaurant type magic that you do. You could pick up a book like social media marketing for mentalists and magicians. You know, as we're talking about business, I'm like, wait a minute. We got a bookshelf over there. It's got a business section. I go over there and grab a volume off the book. So you're not sure what to do. Get a Volpe book. Or you could go Samuel Patrick Smith's way and just sell your act with posters. I think I'm going to do this. Oh, that's interesting.

Damn. Okay. I like it. So that's it. Try and get the plugs in and make some relative references. No, yeah. Keep updating your knowledge on all this stuff. Very important.

But yeah, tip number one, follow your clients on socials. I mean, here's a related tip to that. This is the same ballpark. This is an old school tip. And I don't know if it's relevant anymore. But when someone asks you for a business card, get their business card. Because you're going to hand them your business card. They're never going to

call you. But if you get their business card now, just like you're contacting them on social media, you use their business card to contact them and book that gig that you wanted to secure. So, hey, do you have a card? Oh, yeah, do you have a card? So try and get their information when they're trying to get your information. And now you have something to play ball with. That's actually super, you know what?

You just reminded me to do that because when I work with speaking bureaus, they deal with massive paid engagements big paying gigs the number one thing that it says on the email is like on the brief for that before i go out and do an event it says if someone wants to book you don't worry to give out your card get theirs and then we'll we'll send a whole press kit out to them right bloody hell all right that's that's going down as a tip get their business card like

business cards aren't as relevant anymore but the same information if someone wants your information get theirs you know yeah 100 digits. I love that so much. Nick, doing holy moly and, you know, working with these regular venues or even just the way that you transfer from meeting people there to doing maybe gigs for them, like what do you have in your brain source for tip number three? What do you think?

Man, when I think about the continual work you get, when you're in a niche market, okay continual business is key whether you're continually working for the same agent or the same client and what you need to do in order to be able to maintain that relationship is to be easy to work with and what i mean by that is that i have somebody who i've been helping get their career off the ground for a while now and i've been sweating them for showreels and so forth and they sent me a showreel and i said

great put it in a youtube link so i could share it easier, and then they sent me a file for where to download it on a private drive and i was like put it in a youtube clip and they were like i thought this is sufficient and i said i have to click on a thing have permission to get to it then download it then watch it you've just created a whole bunch of steps that are not necessary do what i say and i will help you get work but it's that type

of thing where if you want to make a process nine steps to book you, bro, just make it as easy as possible for that. Get your promo done. Make it as easy as possible for your agents to sell you. Be easy to work with. And then that way you can get continual work.

And leapfrogging off of that, or just like a subtext to that, a tip that I just was reminded by a friend, And if someone emails you, make it a rule that you respond to them within a 12-hour period, as in no one is left for more than 12 hours without getting a response. That way, it means that if you get an inquiry in the morning.

That same day, they're still getting a response. Like it should be earlier, but you should never leave it more than that 12 hour period so that people can book you easier, make it easier to work with. Agents aren't waiting three days to hear back about a date that's in six months time. And that's something I really have been conscious about because last year from doing the theater of magic so much, I was getting slack with corporate inquiries coming through and not prioritizing it.

It's only been this year that i've set that i've actually made an effort to to do things like this so yeah i'll say to your point man like i've got i've got gigs where you know i'm charging full rate and so forth and i'm getting the inquiry in at like nine o'clock and then by two o'clock the deal's signed closed and deposits been paid now that's because i'm diligent just like you said and i take the time to do that i told my agents like i know your rates

really high and it's hard to say and i said well i'm actually charging you way less than what i charge these guys and i'm getting the gigs and i think it's because of the service you provide same thing with one of the guys i've been working with i literally handballed him a gig that had no money in it for myself i wasn't going to take a commission so i just said deal with this then i'm getting emails going i haven't heard from him it's like i'm literally yeah it's like you can only do so much

and i'm not taking a commission it's like you've got to learn to help yourself i get it That's why I said prior, easier to work with, you know, if we kind of personify the next point that kind of leads into this, I think one of the most important things is be on time.

Yeah. I think that's still within the easy to work with category, but absolutely. Yeah. Be on time. I used to think that getting there 15 minutes before was fine, but it wasn't until I met Matt Hollywood, who like wildly successful in the corporate scene and his get there on time is get there an hour before.

And that's because if there's traffic, if you turn up to the wrong location by accident, if you spill something on your clothes, if you forget a prop, you've got more than ample time to get back there and still be early, you know. Number four, I'm inspired to say number four by Scotty P, who is in the chat and also came to watch the Theatre of Magic on the weekend.

So Scotty was coming out to see our show at 7.30, but he got into the city at lunchtime and he sent me a photo and he spent a few hours walking around the city, going to venues, giving out his business card and just straight up introducing himself, saying, hey, I'm a magician here in Brisbane. I'd love to give you my card in the chance that we can work together with an event you have coming up in the future.

I didn't really press him on it to see if he did do magic for them or not. I hope he did. But if you're sitting there at home going, how do I start getting work as a magician? If people don't know you exist, you can't get shit. So I was super impressed by him because I was like, you know what? No one else in Australia, no magicians in Australia walked around that day giving their cars out to restaurants. Well fucking done. So getting out there and...

Synapsysizing it, prospecting. Prospecting for work. Yeah, absolutely. Prospecting is the umbrella of... you need to set a certain amount of time a week or a day to doing that. Even I'll do that now, but it just might be in a different sense. But I definitely remember the days where I would be very nervous, but I would just dress up and I would just freaking go down a street of restaurants and I would give out my shit, do a quick card trick for them.

And they were never going to book you before you said anything. So now you've just increased the chances. Now they know who you are, you know, and they might just have that birthday party being booked at their venue. And they've just asked them, Oh, I want a magician for my party. Do you know anyone? And you've just given them your card.

Magic happens when you put the, the effort out there. So number four, set time aside in your week to prospect. Boom. Boom. Doug, you've changed locations. I decided the backlighting was too much. You know, it was a lot. So I just swiveled it around. Next week, this will all look gooder. But at least we have the fish. Yeah. You've just gone from crayons to perfume, as David Williamson would say. We can see you so much better now. But now we don't see the epicenter of magic

behind you. Satan's magnifying glass. The light is just... Hell yeah. All right. Well, look, before we get to tip number five, Doug, do you have a little, um...

Magic effect of the week to share. You know what? I was going to do this. I've been trying to put together, this is just an example. You said, do you have anything that you're excited about? And like, this is an item that I use a lot. There's Blue Illusion. It's Mark Mason's color changing box. I'm over here trying to put it together. Give me just a couple minutes and maybe I'll have a demo ready for you. I just grabbed it off the shelf because I was excited about adding it to my demo list.

So yes, but no, but yes, maybe. We'll see. Give me a few more minutes. Oh yeah, no worries. Well, I've got a quick little gig story. It's not a crazy, it's not a crazy like someone, I don't know. It's not a crazy, crazy routine, but it is an interesting note that happened. Let me share it. I'll edit that silence out. I was doing two shows last week, and it's funny how the different audience vibes really dictate like what jokes land, even though you deliver them the same.

Two different audiences find things two different amounts of funny and i came out to the first show, and the amazing nigel had intro'd me and hyped me up so much so i was like oh you really hyped me up i don't know you know these things aren't going to be very magical now tonight and i did the you know removing your thumb illusion and people laughed at that like reacted like more than they should and i was like oh well if you like that you're gonna love this and then i did the little trick,

you know, where you just pretend to take off your middle finger. They reacted hardcore at that again. And I'm like... What is happening? And then I just did like the little, you know, this little one. They react again. I'm like, oh my God, this is, this is no good because now I'm not going to know what you actually think is good magic tonight after you reacting at that. And it was a funny little bit. Then I go to do it in the second show. I'm like, that works so well. I'm going to do it again.

The second show, oh, you hyped me up so much, Nigel. Oh, I'm going to have to, you guys aren't going to find this amazing then. And they didn't find it amazing. They just sat there.

I'm like, hmm no you're right and we swiftly moved on from that but that was my little lesson and the other little note is earlier that week we've theater magic we had our first ever, private hired show by a by a company they had a team dinner for their like top employees so we had about 20 people they booked out the whole show but they just had 20 of their staff and we put on this show. And it's wildly different when it's a company of everyone knows each other in the show.

It's a lot of fun. I'll say the energy is insane, but people are a lot more chatty when they all know each other. They're very comfortable. And the clip that I put up earlier this week about someone telling me to find their card by choking it up out of my mouth, that was from that group.

And so that was just the kind of language they used throughout most of the show good times anyway that was that was my little my little anecdote was that yeah it's funny the different vibes of a show you have to really read the room and then the exact same thing won't work for every show i guess like the same thing it won't work for every group you approach for for roving but i hope that might have been enough time to uh segue back to you doug no you're wrong completely okay

nick you've you've been away on holiday living it up but um yeah any magic while you've been over there i've only done magic for for for one group of people it's because i was flying and and i've been reading uh like strong magic and so forth and i've just been tinkering my cards and the flights the flights from australia that i've done so far has been from like here to japan that was eight hours and then across from japan to canada was another eight so i spent

a lot of time you know in in the chair and i'm doing my thing and i actually was like i was asleep i was like laying down and i had my headphones on and this woman. And she wakes me up and she's like so yeah i told her that you're a magician like can we see something i was like sure so the two stewardesses literally worked me from my slumber just i could showed the magic. I was like, this is business class. What the hell?

Like, how does it run out? That's right. I saw you. Now they're with me in Canada. Ta-da! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! And were you like, all right, well, do you want to see my coin stuff, my card stuff, or my award-winning stuff? Yeah. I have this telly deck, and it's so beat up. It lives in part of this little package that I have here. It's got my neck brace in it and stuff. So this deck has gone to almost every country for the past, I don't know how many years.

And that's what I did the trick with. This thing is so beat up, this deck. Yeah. But it was nice to gift people magic. It's not too often they get to see it. Or that they're so excited that they hear you're a magician, they actually ask for it.

So that was that was nice it's nice hey that's that's really cool but in my experience flight attendants have they always love seeing magic whenever i run into one at like at the outside of the hotel like if i'm they're checking into the same hotel i'm gigging at or whatever once they're off duty they're like so keen to like be the one being entertained or yeah given attention too hey let me do this thing now yeah i'm so used to having multi cameras and a switcher this is my switcher now

that's excellent so again this blue illusion this i use this for my chameleon sandwich routine if you know you know it's a great opener for that and that's oh i did set this up wrong i'm sorry that's my bad it's it's a red deck blue box i hope you can see this okay as the box It changes to red. Oh! Now the box is correct. And that's the Blue Illusion color-changing box trick. So this is what I use to open my color-changing deck routine.

And it's an obscure item and something I use. And here's what I'm looking for when I come into this space. Can I suggest things that I use actively? And I go in the inventory, and sure, we got 12 of them here. Of course, I can suggest this and actively promote it and recommend it to magicians. So it's a great opener. And if you're looking for something, you know, to get a little pop off, that's a good one. Blue illusion. There, I did something.

Damn. All right. Excellent. Could you see it? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you did go out of frame at the very top there, but, you know, we know you're doing real magic. This is a little better. So as you open up the box, you show that you've got the wrong color deck inside the blue box. I'll try and keep it in frame. Just give it a shake. And now that box is red. It locks magnetically. So everything that's a moving part locks together. And then you go about your card magic.

Yeah. And so my question is, so that's all contained within the box? Yeah. It's a self-contained unit and it's a Mark Mason release. So, you know, it's prime, prime stuff. Okay. Now the creator is not Mark Mason. It's Yarden Aviv. And then, so let's say we're using it. Could someone roving use it? Like, can it be set up for a while or is it going to stretch out? I'll tell you this. If I have a critique of this, it's that a prop like this will wear out over extended use.

So this isn't maybe a stroller's prop. It's more of a formal presentation piece. You don't want to be doing this thing 20 times a night, you know, once a night's good, a couple of times a night, but you know, it's paper and it moves quickly. It'll wear out eventually. So that's my professional advice. Formal presentations, social media magic.

If you do it for your friends occasionally but maybe not putting in your pocket strolling all night so if i'm using it in my parlor show for example would i be able to have it preset.

Until i get to that effect or what i need to reach in my case yeah i guess what i need to do, it's is there anything no it's just ready to go let me see let's go back of that could you do a whole effect where let's say you did the whole routine with the blue deck you then change the deck and as you're putting like as in like the deck name is now red and then the action of putting the red deck back in the box you're like bang and then

you can just close it up and then put the whole deck away like so like for for me as i said what i do is i i start the effect and i pull this red deck out and i say oh man i got the wrong box and then the box changes and then i do the color changing deck and the deck changes the blue and then i say oh i guess i have the right box in the first place. And then I put it away. That's kind of my tagline for the routine that ends where it starts and,

It's just a subtle line. Yeah, I like it. I do like what Nick's saying too, like to do it the other way. Do the color changing deck and then at the end you go, oh, now the box is wrong. Okay, boom. Yes. Is that possible? Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. God damn it, I'm sold. Sign me up for one, Doug. We'll take you, Doug. Tell me where to order it. I'm going to hit you for international shipping and I'm going to charge you extra just because I can or beat me. That's fine.

I'm going to surcharge magic guys that you saw and so just just for clarity that effect is called blue illusion when we get professional i'll have links and stuff to share but we literally were putting this together three minutes before we were live we didn't even know if the mic would work and it's like yeah barely send doug a message on instagram or wherever you normally chat drop a contact or find me online i'm easy to find let me know if you're

interested i'll hook you up absolutely oh i like that i like this segment just for my own use because that you know already is like great that adds more magic to the show when did this come out probably i don't know 10 years ago eight years ago think people magicians forget about tricks after three or four years 100 when i went to magic live i got.

The effect where i've used it in many shorts now where you take the cards out of the box and then you look back at the box and it's a miniature box now it's like a tiny box and then there's a an effect bit that comes with it where you you flick through the deck they see a card you give them the deck the card's gone and then it's folded up inside that tiny deck like that's just a neat package of an effect and the guy showed it to me at magic live and i was like is this

new what why are people talking about this he's like no i mean this is an old thing it's just we've got some here like holy crap it's so old that it's the john cornelius's shrinking card box probably circa 1984 i had to put a date on it wow it's probably old when he recreated it although i guess miniature cards would have had to have been invented by the time it was released so yeah wow scott scotty p is saying here that your hat should also change to blue at the same time,

and it's funny that you say that because if I can find it as we're chatting here I was just sent well this won't play. Crown I've just brought out an effect which is a color changing hat cool like a quick change and it's a cap and they go like this boom and then it's a totally different color, I might share it on our Magic Guys Instagram story because I have the video it's just that it's not going to let me I would have to open up there,

I'll screw it. Maybe I'll do it. Nick, if you want to chat for a second.

Well, I was going to say, let's have a move into our fifth, tip here but one thing to reflect upon if we're going to talk about old effects you know as well as the old stuff that you find just like prop wise laying around single tricks there's a lot of good old books to keep your eyes out for that i think that a lot of people just sort of let go by the wayside and i see them being sold but people not realizing the worth in between the pages i like

to sometimes i even read books and i just want to purchase them to have but you know anything from burglas great great thing to add to your collection and revisit every now and again.

Yeah i saw a friend of mine selling the arts of astonishment like the the three level and i was just like what are you doing because i've just read him so many times i don't need it and it's like that's not the point you should they should always be there like i would never sell those books no no i mean not that there are any great risk of you know never being printed again but Even so. Yeah. All right. Let me see if I can get this up. I don't know if this might not focus.

Come on. Anyway, there's a hat in the background. It's very small. And you can see it change. I'll put myself into a big layout here. So it's by blank, it says. By dot blank. So the guy's holding a cap. It's all black. Throws it. Boom. Red cap. Interesting. You know I'm going to buy one because... I've been waiting for years for there to be a chunk color-changing hat. Yeah.

That's all. See you guys. The paint bag cap is an interesting effect as well when you start looking at that sort of type of hat.

Yep. Yep. Or what I've been playing around with recently is the predictions written on the stickers, like custom-made stickers for the sizing. Have you guys seen the ones with the LED that goes across it and you can put text in there? It Bluetooths to your phone?

That's pretty wild. Well, I had this idea of like doing a whole routine where it's like you got the kid up being like, you got to like a street magician kid and you like dress him up with like chains and whatever else to put this hat on. And then you do an effect where, you know, he's like, he's going to make the whole like crowd read his mind. And then like the princess print, like it just, the card prints across his hat and, you know, just like, it'll just send it out.

That's right. Everyone look him in the eyes and then you can see the writing there. And I just thought it would be a really fun effect to do. That is funny. This is the one I was talking about for anyone curious. I know I've showed this before, but you know, this is, it's called Brimz, B-R-I-M-Z. And then you get these stickers that would normally go on your hat, which is where they always are anyway. And they just go unnoticed until you're ready to do an effect.

Or as I like to do it, you wait until they actually one time say that card.

When you say name in any card if they name the one you know is on there then you roll into that routine good times all right look tip number five get more gigs i'm torn between whether it's like if you're not someone who has gigs and you're trying to get some or you're someone who does gigs and you're trying to capitalize on that to get more because that's kind of like where most of us are at right now and there's like so many little things you can do to did we

talk about working restaurants that's the spot to get a bunch of certainly family gigs if you get a you know place where you can network 20 tables a night and hand out cards and collect information get their contacts and i think that's the real value of having a restaurant gig being able to make you know book shows from it from it basically the yeah it's the golden nugget i was told which was To get work, you have to be seen working in whatever environment.

Street performing, that's also good for that. You know, if maybe not as networkable because people don't connect the dots that you would be as professional perhaps on the street. But I've certainly got some killer gigs from interesting people seeing me on the busk. A hundred percent. There's again, I'll bring him up again because he's done so well in the corporate market, Matt Hollywood. He was telling us that the way he got started was he had, and this is like the

extreme. I don't think I've seen anyone do this. He had five different restaurant residencies that he would go at and perform every week. So five nights a week. I don't know if they all paid him, but it doesn't matter. He's giving out his business cards for two hours, three hours, every single day. And he would say, without a doubt, at least one person would call him up from that week and be like, hey, I've got a party like next week or whatever.

And that essentially snowballed him into doing it full time, having like the better paying gigs because a residency isn't going to pay you, you know, your full amount of what you're worth or what you're wanting to charge. But it's certainly like we're saying, helps you meet those people that will book you.

And I always thought, Even if you can't find a restaurant to pay you because it is difficult because they're trying to make their own income, make an arrangement with them that if they have the right kind of people that will book you for your event, like you have to find the place that actually has the kind of people you want to do work for, make an arrangement with them that you come in and you perform for free, but you can do it like at your own time frame and when you're available.

So if you don't have an event on or you don't have anything on, you can go there for an hour or two hours, perform, give your cards away. Like it's, if you really want to make it as a magician, this is the kind of stuff that you do. And it's the stuff that not many people do. And it like, you're sort of guaranteeing your success. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

I was actually going to bring this stuff, but Alex actually coming with a question that rings kind of true of what I was about to say. So Alex Lam is, how do you price yourself in a way that doesn't undercut other magi, but also is not fair slash a scary price for the client, but also doesn't cement you as a cheap magician?

So those are all really good points. And one of the things for myself, especially is, you know, I work in these residencies and then you have these guys who are like, oh, I want you to come to my whatever. And they think they can get you for a hundred bucks. And it's like, bro, like times that by, you know, 20 and you'll show up type of thing. And that's not an ego statement. It's just that like, it's where you, as your career goes on and you sort of able to place yourself.

I think one thing you should probably find comfort in knowing is that if you're, if you're at this point where you're like hungry for this type of work.

The dollars just need to be something respectful you know like if you if you're in a position where you're hunting a whole bunch okay so in life there's two types of products okay there's push products and there's pull products a pull product is something that everyone wants if i have coca cola in my in my business it's going to sell itself i don't have to push it on anybody i don't have to push a tesla i don't have to push a toyota or mercedes-benz like you want those regardless

but when you're something that not everyone knows you become a push product when you need to be able to sell that product to somebody actually requires you to push it on on folks so to so to speak and you are effectively going to be a push product you need to push a price that represents that.

So it's also needs to be if you want work like if you think that you're going to go out there and go that's my price too bad that's a really bad way to have it so to answer the question of like how do I price myself out of blah? I approach my pricing range where I say, look, here's my rates. I know that's kind of scary and I wouldn't dare charge that for a private function. So tell me what you have in mind and I'll tell you what I can give you for that price.

And they'll go, oh, look, I could probably throw you this much. I said, look, for that much, I'll give you this. And if you spend a little bit more, I'll give you this. And they'll go, all right, cool.

Let's do that so you're kind of testing the waters of what people can afford right but i've been in the game for 17 years and i have a position where i can say this is what i do get paid and that's when you're underselling yourself for a lesser rate like if i'm going to provide the same service i would charge a corporate for for a private function for something like a like you know like a steak dinner that's just lowering what your self-worth is and that's not a good place you want to be

i think we can all agree on that fellas yeah i also think though you need to be in the ballpark of the working professionals in the area. And that's going to be regional too, sometimes like, you know, And not always that you should be charging that price, but you need to be aware of what the normal is and where you are on the pecking order. So let's be open about that for a sec. I'll happily mention the rates I've gone with when I started and stuff. We're 43 minutes into this episode.

Before you jump into that too far, the thing is we're talking about approaching restaurants, right? So you could say I started $300 an hour and away we go. But look, I think that if you're going to price anything on a regular basis, go like, look, some venues I've been paid this, some venues I've been paid that. But the way I've always got there is I start at 50 bucks an hour.

I show you I'm worth double that. And then in a month's time, we will, or in three months time, we'll then look at it and go, hey, I want to bump it up to blah. And if they're like, look, I'm happy to bump it up to blah because I've increased your sales by this much. Fair enough.

That's the type of thing. but if they just if they just say sorry man i can't do any better you go okay cool, you know like you're not gonna you don't have to walk away from the gig you'll go great let's let's review in another month's time and then you can use that to springboard off to other venues i perform here i perform there oh what do you charge and you tell them oh look. If you need me on a Thursday, it's going to be 70 bucks an hour. That's the cheapest I can do it.

And the reason is that you can walk away from that guy going, sorry, man, I've got a better paying thing. I have to walk away now. And you get the money that you wanted from him, then you can springboard it elsewhere. That's the idea. I was sitting opposite one of my guys who works for me, and he was working at my residency, and he was quoting for a gig less than what the residency pays him to somebody else.

And i shook him i'm like what are you doing like why would you charge less for what you would make at the residency this is what i was saying you need to find out what the professional rate is in the area you know because you're going to screw it up for everyone else working if you get it wrong and and it's the classic artist undervaluing what they're worth like we don't know what we're worth it's an intangible thing it's not like you know we fix cars

and you know like you have no choice it's it's so fluctuating and from city to city it's probably different you know brisbane's probably different to melbourne even though we're not that far away whereas it's different to the us it's but what we're all kind of saying is true in that you do need the first thing you should be doing is networking with the other professionals in the area and just gauging and that's it's exactly what i did with my my good friend mike

tyler he he was the guy i looked up to who was doing professional magic in my city. And I was like, Hey man, what, what kind of rate do you charge? And he opened my mind to realizing the possibilities. Like, I mean, the baseline is you have to be really good at your craft. Like you can't just, everyone can't just charge this premium amount. If you're not putting the time in that like is going to actually output that product, but assuming you're really good at your shit.

He opened my mind to actually what clients will pay because when you think about it, an event like a corporate event, which is where Nick and I deal with a lot. Paying like, I don't know, a client that has a hundred guests, they're probably paying like between 10 to 20 grand because they got to feed all of them. They got to hire the venue. And then you think that charging an extra a hundred dollars is like, maybe you're going to lose you the gig.

No, they just, as long as they know they're going to get what you're selling, most of the time, they're not going to budge that much. If it's a little bit more than, you're pushing.

And you'd be really surprised what clients will pay. But going the other way, if you go into restaurants, which was our fifth tip, the thing that's helped me so much in the past that a tip I was given is you got to do a trial night, a night where you actually show them because they have no idea what the hell magic in their restaurant means.

You do a trial night, make sure make sure that the owner is there to see it because don't just be like he's not there and the staff will tell him or it's like no the manager whoever's got to be there but then what you do is you do amazing magic at each table like you normally do and at the very end of each table you say hey if you had a great time like feel free to let the staff know because it'll help me come back and do this more often that manager will get 30 people leaving

telling them how good you were and you'll just solidify your spot in that venue. Can I say off the back of that, it's that also when you're going to be in a venue and you want to show your value, the value you got to bring has got to be about solving problems. So a problem might be that the food's going to take a while to get delivered. When you solve that problem by entertaining them, you've got a group of people, 30 people who are waiting to get find a table.

You entertain those people, you're solving a problem because that's money walking out the door.

So as long as you have a mindset in which you're walking around to solve problems for their customers that's when you're going to show your value and earn the big bucks yeah that's interesting and and don't be afraid to become like a host like obviously your main 90 they're doing magic but don't be afraid to to be like asking them as well like ah is there anything if there's anything i can do for you just let me know you know because you don't have to get their food or their drinks but you

can on behalf of them tell the waiter hey they want to get a new order and now go see them like you can play that role the ambassador of goodwill yeah the ambassador of fun yeah sometimes i'll get a fork i don't mind i'll go get a fork and oh yeah i'm on the clock anyway you need a fork man i got you absolutely man i'll pick up an empty glass doesn't bother me one bit and it's a type of thing when you're at a table you'll say oh look i see your beers are empty let me send somebody

over to get another a round of drinks, and then I'll entertain you guys a little bit more. They just bought a round of drinks they weren't going to buy, right? So if that's 10 people, everyone buys a drink, let's say it's 10 bucks a pop, that's 100 bucks in the bar that they weren't going to make, and the profit on that is pretty good for them. So- Yeah, 100%. Now, Scotty P mentioned, I'm new and I'm charging $500 per hour or $800 for two hours. I feel that's entry level for Brizzy.

But what I will say is, Scotty, that's fantastic. He's also great. Two hours. He's very creative. Two hours is, so $400 an hour is, I would say, very good. You are still on your way to booking your first one of them. So what the market will tell you is what they'll pay.

So you'll slowly find that out. And what Nick mentioned before, like when I still today, when I quote someone, especially if it is a private gig, you quote your shit, like you quote what you're worth and then you do add a line underneath. Let me know your thoughts. If this doesn't fit in your event budget, let me know what you had in mind and I'll try and I'll try and come up with an alternative option for you.

And that way just gives them the room to be like oh i just didn't think it would cost this much or whatever but like so many times you'll be so surprised when people just don't bat an eye and they're like yeah great can i book you for for five hours what's that how much is that i want that makes up for all the other times where it's not working out you know you book one good good one and then you know the five that don't come through it's okay because you book a good one in there yeah yeah

yeah but you know if there's anyone in brisbane and because pricing is always different in every city so if there's anyone in brisbane who's particularly interested in rates and stuff just private message me i'll go through the ranks same with melbourne hit up nick in the us hit up doug he'll tell you or he'll put you in touch with maybe someone in your same city that can help you out and together we will make this a magical world well one more one more point

i want to make about your rate is the motivation to increase it if you are getting gigs let's just say for the sake of round numbers i'm charging 300 bucks an hour and i'm flat out i got like six gigs this week that's great but it's also possible that you might be charging a little bit lower than you should. Or you can afford to charge more and work less.

And I did that progressively over the 17 years of my career to a point where, you know, it's my full-time gig and has been for a while and so forth. But that's the thing you got to kind of do. You got to start going, okay, I've got more work than I can handle. Let's bump it up. And if you're going to bump it up, my advice is to do it in a period where.

Gigs are abundant. So for us here in Oz, and I'll only speak on our behalf and not on every single person on the planet, I give myself a little price hike in Christmas time because I know that if I take a hit or do somebody a deal on a Friday or a Saturday night in the middle of the December Christmas period, I'm going to get double, triple, quadruple booked just because of the timeframe. Hey man, are you free? Seven o'clock on a Friday? Are you dreaming?

Are you dreaming? Really? Yeah. Are you free on the first week of December? Yeah. It's like, yeah. You know what? Call, if you called me now on the 10th of February, yeah, I would be available, you know, but, and there's some, and I've had people that go like, I'm going to book you for my Christmas party. And I'm like, if I was you, I would get a date. I would get a date right now. And I, and I go, I'm not being rude. I'm not being rude, but book me now if

you want to book me. And then they hit me up. Sorry, man. It's been a while. That part is in three days. I'm like Buckley's chance, bro.

I'm performing it. i'm performing at marvel stadium for this many people like it's and then what happens if i don't know if this happens you too nick you you so you you raise your price or you don't settle on lowering it and then you realize how many people book that rate and you're like oh this should just be my new rate forever and then you do it and then and then all of a sudden you have this extra time because every now and then people won't buy it but you're still making

more money because you've raised your price. And now the next time December comes around, you can push it a little bit more. Test out the waters, realize everyone still books you and you're like, okay, that's my new rate. And there's a story, there's a just super quick, there's a story when I did my personal training course, when I first finished school and I thought that's what I was going to do. They told us a story because they, personal trainers have a wild range of pricing,

right? How do you know who the hell's good, whatever. They told us a story. This guy started off by charging like dirt cheap, like $10 a session, right? You can imagine he booked out his entire week. Once he was booked out, he goes, okay, now I doubled my price. He lost half his clients, but making the same amount of money. Now he has half a week to fill up. He fills up his week again, $20, boom, doubles his price, makes the same money.

And he kept doing that until he was making a thousand dollars an hour and he's like now he has just like i i forget what he said he has like six he just he just has like six regular premium clients that book him every week, You only have to work six hours now, make six grand. And he's like, I can't wait until I can double my price again. No doubt.

And it just goes like what Nick was saying. If you're so flat out, like I remember like seven years ago, I was doing like 10 gigs a week throughout December. And I was like, yeah, oh, this is crazy. And now I'm like, how come my Decembers aren't, I'm not physically exhausted in December now. And I look back on it and I'm like, oh, I make so much more now, but it's because like, I only used to charge that much back then. And I had to do 10 gigs to make up that time.

Nick, you had a. Yeah. And to your point off the back of your up, that is that you sort of need to make space to allow the next generation of magicians to come in. Right. Like not everyone's going to walk in and start charging, you know, Nobito prices, for example. So what happens is, is the people go along.

Yes, we charge the big dollars, but we do them seldom. and they're in a realm that we belong in we belong there because we've done this for over a decade we've done tv we've done the high pressure gigs we've done the gigs where everything has gone wrong and we've shined through experience is not done through time but through experience itself through the actual boots on the ground in the trenches sort of experiences that we have so that's how you earn that worth you know

and like i said to to synopsize this for myself it's like when i perform at holy moly people say to me what are you even doing here like you're too good to be in this restaurant like what are you doing here yeah they're they are they are right and it's they're very kind words and i just go like oh i just come here to work on new stuff can i show you some new stuff and like yeah and then i do new stuff and i go great i'm off to canada

bye but before that we were talking about how people might try to get you on pricing i had a situation recently where one of my very close friends and agent was quoting a gig and he said, I got to drop two grand out of this quote. I dropped my, and I lowered my price considerably for this gig, right? And I just said, tell them they can have somebody for this much, and I'll get them somebody at that price point, which will save you 500 bucks. Or if it has to be me, this is my price.

Yeah, that's nice too. He called back an hour later and he said, now she's happy with that price now. She's happy with everything.

So this chick was just trying to squeeze him down just for the sake of squeezing it down, you know just to feel like they got a good deal some people are like that i don't particularly love working with people like that you know yeah i just i would rather not you know especially when you're doing if you're doing them a price and they don't like if people you can this is not going to happen every time i'll be very clear but there can be scenarios in

which you're performing and what happens is they they basically say like like go do this or can you stick around it's like dude like you paid me this pittance of a price you paid me as a let's just say if it was a grade you paid me like a d grade price magician and you're getting an a plus person like it's ridiculous i had i finished the gig one time and my time was up and i was like i was a little rabbi gig right i've known this guy for a long time i don't

do the gigs for him i always send to the people, but again clientele by mitzvahs i was in that realm cleaning up like i did it for too many years. And now I handball those gigs to my, to the guys who work for me. But one time I did it for him, you know, it's because I couldn't find it. Everyone was already booked. I was like, I'll do it myself. Rabbi, I'll come by. And they were so happy to see me again. I did all my stuff and the kids who were 13 and now 16 and all that sort of stuff.

And I'm like, okay, Rabbi, I'm done. He's going to stick around. And I'm like, Rabbi, I'm done. And he was like, oh, can I keep more knees out? And he gave me pamphlets to hand out. And I was just like, and I wanted to slap him in the face with them. Like, I was so like, are you for real? Like, are you for real? Like, I don't, I'm not a diva by any means, but brother, like, don't demote me from magician to like... A lackey. That's just not the place you need to be.

So be careful of that happening, you know, just for those out there, just be careful. You're not brought down to a level where you become a lackey. Like you're, you're there as a professional look professional, you know, you're there as the expert, be the expert, you know, bring your knowledge. Yeah. Look, and they're good problems to have. That means you're working a lot and that so forth. But so let's recap five, get more gigs tips.

Number one, follow your clients on socials. Number two, get their business card if someone's interested in booking you. Number three, be easy to work with. We can't stress that enough. Number four, set time aside every week for your prospecting, whether that is calling up places to go meet them, going into venues, giving out your business card, calling up charity events to see when you can, you know, appear at their gala dinner. And number five, to get work, you have to be seen working.

So go find those restaurants, those venues that have the kind of clientele that will book you. And freaking make it happen, people. I wish I had this when I was coming up. I might have made something of myself.

That's what we're here for, guys. Y'all go book some gigs. Yeah. And you know what? you know what's not going to help you get all these gigs is spending your time on social media and trying to post the latest trick you just got in the mail and hoping that goes viral. I will tell you, like I make videos every day. It's not getting me gigs, my friends. Okay. Maybe the clients that follow me are seeing it, but I'm not getting called up from, from fricking BMW going,

Oh, we just saw your viral video. We want you to have a car and do all this. No, no, That doesn't happen. Jason Ma will tell you.

Got 400 000 viewers followers and he's like how come i don't get hit up by sponsors i thought that's just what happens when you that's not the way to get a full-time living as a magician it's a good way to have that perceptual value there is value in having good social media presence but yeah the gigs aren't coming that way so yeah they're not coming in from the socials no the perceived value definitely because that is to get to to match what you are worth your

online perception has to match that in your promo videos and stuff like the advice i'm always given is the better your promo video is the better your career will be in that there's just less friction from when someone inquires that's.

Never met you before but it's not going to be the thing that that like the actual physical getting out there networking being really good at your shit actively finding places for your business cards to go networking with other professionals in the area is so important because like in melbourne with nick you know when i when i mentioned nick k to teller at dinner the the one thing teller had to say was nick's incredible you know he gets other magicians work like that's what he remembers from

nick k in melbourne and so that's not going to happen unless you know nick you know what i mean or you know the other professionals in your city and you can show them that you're good and maybe it's you say to them hey i'm a professional here to look i i'm i'm newer into the game if you ever have a client that needs like a second magician and but you just want i'll just come along i just want to show you that i can do good magic like that's the kind of ball you need to get

rolling anyway look i we could do freaking 10 hours on this stuff but we can't because we closed the shop at this time so i have to leave soon that's right You guys can. I have other guys here who are going to be like, why is Khan still talking? Yeah, that's funny. We got to get Doug home. He's been working all day. He's a working man. Oh, yeah. Even though he's always working harder than us anyway. There is some work being done sometimes.

Yeah, I love it. I can't wait to see what you do with live shopping and this crazy era we're moving into. There's so much to do. Yeah, stay tuned. Hell yeah. So guys, that's it. Look, yeah, Doug's living it up. I'm over here. What am I doing? I'm for a final word. That's it, yeah. I'll do a final word. And we have Nick who's just living it up on his vacay, doing his snowboarding, looking cool. I got the final word. Oh, all right. Hang on. All right, let's do it. Let's do it how we do it.

Let's give Doug the final words. When you do a podcast with other people working in the environment you're podcasting from, make sure you wrap up promptly. Now let's end this thing so I can get these fellas home. Peace, y'all. See you next time. Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now. But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.