It was a birthday party. And yes, I’ve done literally thousands of birthdays over the years, so I shouldn’t have been scared.

After running for office, crap, nothing scares me.

But I wasn’t looking forward to the show last night.

Why?

Well, it was about the hardest show to plan for ever. Just about 10 kids – seven of them 9-10 years old and three of them 3-4 years old. Plus parents.

And it was both a show and a magic workshop.

If you’ve done a lot of shows, you know there’s a major difference between entertaining 3-4 year old girls and 9-10 year old boys.

Plus the workshop had to work for both groups.

I’ll admit, I agonized over this for days, until finally I just set aside a solid 90 minutes to put together a workshop and a show that I figured would appeal as broadly as possible to all.

For the little kids, I kept in some of the goofier routines that make them laugh. For the older boys I nailed some VERY solid effects and tricks – including my very fun finger chopper routine that grab a grownup to take part in.

The workshop consisted of some tricks I handed out that were dead-solid easy (fortune-telling fish works wonders guys – for just about anyone!) along with a couple fun demonstrations.

At the end, Sylvia (the mom who hired me) came up to me with a great big smile and said, “You were great, I’m going to refer you to all my friends!”

That felt really good.

The lesson here?

It’s not that you shouldn’t worry… you should in fact take this business VERY seriously and do your best to craft your program to meet the needs of your audience.

But that’s half the battle.

The other half is once you make the decision on a plan to move ahead 1000% with total abandon to make that plan happen.

There are no guarantees in life. What does make the difference is the passion you throw into the challenges you face.

I had fun doing that show. And because I had fun doing the bits and interacting with the kids and the parents – my joy in performing caught on for everyone there.

It wasn’t me and them… it was us…

And we had a great time together.

So make some plans for 2012. Focus hard on what you want to accomplish. And throw yourself into the mix with total commitment and utter abandon.

No turning back.

–Jack

PS, I got a very nice plug on one of the magic boards today regarding my “Internet Marketing for Magicians” toolkit. Much appreciated … it’s the system I use to keep the leads coming in for family shows over and over on an ongoing basis.

It works. And I’ll give you a great deal for this weekend. Grab your copy before Monday January 2nd at midnight and I’ll drop the investment by half – just enter the product coupon code of HAPPY when checking out.

Click here for the link to learn all ’bout it.

Getting ready for a new year always involves some soul searching and redefinition. I’m doing a bit of that myself, trying to identify exactly how to narrow my focus to achieve bigger and better things this year.

Spending quality time reading quality content remains a key to that process. In that spirit, here’s a great little book I just finished – “Spin Selling” by Neil Rackham.

It’s not light reading… in fact, it’s pretty data dense. Rackham takes a very scientific approach to sales, particularly to those sales that involve REALLY big numbers and extended sales cycles.

Most of mine aren’t in that category, I’ll acknowledge. But the content is still VERY good and it’s backed up with tons of research.

The tip I’m sharing today deals with a new way of looking at that old framework: Features and Benefits.

Features are facts, data, or information about your products and services. For magicians, this could be “I pull a rabbit out of a hat.” “I do the Chinese Linking Rings.” or “I cut a pretty lady in half.”

Benefits are classically defined as what a feature means to the prospect – i.e., how it can be used or can help them. E.g., “When you see the rabbit appear, all the kids will go crazy with laughter and smiles!”

Rackham takes the concept of “Benefit” a bit further, however, and adds a new twist.

First off, he renames “Benefit” to the term “Advantage” – what this represents, in his opinion, is a competitive advantage provided by that Feature.

Next, he enhances the term “Benefit” with one more twist:

Benefit = Something that clearly shows how a product or service meets an EXPLICIT NEED expressed by the prospect.

This is subtle, yet extremely powerful.

For instance, in your initial conversation with the prospect you would ask: “What’s most important to you in hiring a magician for your event?”

If they responded, “I really want something that provides real entertainment for EVERYONE – grownups and children alike. I don’t want this just for the adults or just for the kids. Everyone has to have a great time.”

So…

Feature: You do a great Linking Rings routine.

Advantage: This involves a child AND a grown up in the routine with jokes appropriate to both.

Benefit: Both of them onstage – having fun, interacting – makes this truly magical and enjoyable for people of all ages. No one is left out.

See how the “Benefit” specifically addresses the explicit needs of the prospect? You are giving them exactly what they want, and it’s hard to go wrong there.

Just a little insight I thought was very much worth sharing.

Here’s to your best year ever!

–Jack

PS. Want the complete rights to use a buttload of proven and KILLER marketing pieces – Copyright FREE? Plus a whole lot more? Look no further… click here.

The correct terminology would more accurately be called:

“Model”

What I’m referring to here is one of the inside secrets that ALL top copywriters have in their arsenal of ammo. It’s called the “Swipe File” and if you don’t have one right now, you are missing the boat big time.

Here’s how to get one started:

1. Start collecting headlines. That’s right, headlines. It’s easy and fun. Keep your eyes peeled particularly when you go through the checkout line at the grocery store… the Enquirer, US, People, Cosmopolitan, all those rags have TOP-TIER writers cranking out high value copy for them. The key reason you buy that magazine or paper is the headline… if the headline fails to catch your eye, that magazine stays on that rack.

Buy a bunch of them next time you hit the local Safeway or Kroger or whatever. Or if you want to save cash, take a notepad and pen and just jot ‘em down.

2. Save your junk mail… ALL of it. Big mistake tossing that stuff in the recycling… instead, recycle those amazing openings, transitions, headlines, sub-heads, bullet points, and guarantees into your own copy.

Do NOT make the mistake of thinking a flyer on Vitamins can’t help you write sales copy for a magic show. Wrong-o! You almost certainly could take the basic structure of that letter… the opening, middle, and close … and rephrase it to pertain to your school show, banquet program, whatever.

3. Finally, save ALL your promo pieces… emails, letters, flyers, business cards, etc. If you are cranking out copy… and if you’re doing sales letters for your own business you WILL be… then make sure to keep a copy of everything you create and send out.

It’s SOOOOOO much easier to have something to start from when writing a new letter. One of the first things I do whenever I write copy is do a quick looksee to determine if there’s anything similar that I wrote before that I could use now.

Listen – I do a LOT of copywriting… not just for myself, but an ever-growing list of clients all across the country. I’m good… but I got good by doing exactly all these three things. They serve me well and are the foundation of my own copywriting toolkit… which makes it possible for me to crank out solid prose very very fast.

Three simple steps, but oh so valuable to your biz.

Keep moving forward my friend.

–Jack

PS. My friend John Kaplan has put together an amazing set of swipe files for magicians. It could well save you years of effort – and it’s all proven material he’s used to promote a huge variety of shows and programs.

You should check it out here.

It involves multiple websites (not just one) each targeting a slightly different niche or avenue of search by the consumer.

I talked a lot about using SEO and PPC to promote the sites. My bad for not defining these terms and one reader called me on it.

SEO – stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This is a series of steps you take to give you the very best chance of being found by Google (or Bing or Yahoo, but they’re not as important) when someone enters a specific phrase into their search engine.

For example, say someone types: “Newport Beach Magician”

Google’s job at that point is to analyze that phrase and then decide based on ALL the possibilities on the web, which websites would BEST provide exactly the information that searcher was looking for.

Doing all the work necessary to get your website onto the very top of the search listing based on a limited number of search phrases is the job of SEO. Note that I didn’t say “all phrases” – I said “limited number.” If you try to hit the top of the charts for too much, you will fail – it’s MUCH better to pick a very small number of target keywords/phrases and focus on becoming the best answer for those.

The process of doing this is admittedly somewhat arcane, technical, and prone to change. The basics continue to boil down to:

1) Great content that’s relevant to the search terms and is refreshed often.

2) Lots of links back to your site from high-ranking, quality sites … preferably relevant to your search terms.

Now onto…

PPC – Pay Per Click advertising. This refers to the sponsored ads you see on the major search engines, typically on the right hand side of the page. In this effort, again you choose a limited number of keywords/phrases and you place a bid amount for each one. When someone types in “Newport Beach Magician” an ad for your site (one you write and create) will appear in the sponsored ads section of the results listing. If someone clicks on your ad, they are taken to your site and you are charged for that lead based on the amount you bid.

There’s WAY more to both these topics, but the thing they DO have in common is this:

You need to have a firm grasp of what’s going on inside the minds of your prospects when they are looking for the services you provide.

The closer you can come to nailing the exact phrases they are searching on, the better a chance you’ll have in driving traffic to your site.

Knowing your audience is always a good thing.

-Jack

PS.. If you’re interested in this topic and want to learn more without having to spend years studying (like I did), you can shortcut your time with this (click HERE).

As I posted on one of the forums the other day, I am finding more and more that people are waiting until the very last minute to book entertainment. My theory is that with the economy, they are holding tight to that cash… until… at the last moment they realize the event is happening and they just aren’t ready.

Hence, the phone rings.

Now… I’m going to tell you my website strategy for getting that phone to ring.

It’s not the only way I get shows, but it does work very well.

It has several parts and it involves multiple websites.

I have a general purpose “family magic show” website that is aimed primarily at Moms (and Dads) and others who are looking for a family show for birthdays, scout events, picnics, etc. This site has been up for quite some time and it gets a lot of traffic simply through SEO and backlinks. This is the core site that all my literature points to – business cards, table banner, flyers, etc.

I have another site that is similar, but it exists solely as a landing page for my Google Adwords campaign. I never tried to optimize it for SEO, don’t really promote it in any other way. It’s there for my PPC approach. Period.

Another site I have is for SEO-only and it is focused on keywords around “birthday party” – it’s a birthday party magic show site. I don’t promote it via Adwords/PPC. I just have it there for the purpose of capturing SEO traffic on those birthday party related keyword searches.

Finally, I have another site that’s my “all-purpose” magician page. Yes, I know I’ve said you shouldn’t have an “all purpose” page… but I found that I wanted something to optimize to the SEO keywords around “magician” – and that’s what this site does. It has different shows/programs listed – schools, corporate, family, and birthdays to name a few. I never drive traffic to this page in any way other than through an SEO campaign.

So… there are four sites that I use to gather leads online.

Together, they all work very well. This past weekend I did seven different shows and I can point to getting at least 6 of them from 3 of the sites.

This is a perfect example of not putting all your eggs in one basket when it comes to marketing. You can’t rely on just one tool to get you gigs – you need a variety of strategies all working together to create a full schedule.

Keep moving forward.

-Jack

PS… my internet marketing course talks about SEO, PPC, and of course, the critical importance of knowing how to write great sales copy for your website… that’s the real key to generating some leads. It’s a great course and it will save you hundreds of hours of study on the topic. Check it out here.

He stared at me with ice-cold, steely pink eyes.

“Tough cabbage Hombre,” he said, “what you gonna do about it?”

Honestly, it wasn’t my fault. We’ve had a crappy Spring and the grass… well, it was darn nearknee high in some spots. Today was the first nice, sunny day we’ve seen … in ages! So I hadto get out there with the mower. And I didn’t have much time, I’ve got a gig tonight I’ve gotto ready for…

White rabbit, white knuckles… that hare was going to show no mercy.

“I’m trying to get ahead of the game,” he says,”so I make a quick stop on the West coast to hidesome eggs. And some moron in a Turban demolishes an entire state’s batch of candy eggs with his Toro!”

“But…”

Staring bunny bullets he grabbed his iPhone and made a quick call. “Boris, I need a new delivery for Washington State. Yeah, I know. It’s a rush job… It’ll cost me how much?!!!”

He looked me right in the knee…. he meant business…

“That’s fine. I’ll pay the freight.  Got it covered. I’ll pick it up in Wenatchee.”

He quit the call, switched to his calculator app, andran some quick numbers. Grabbing me by the t-shirt he pulled me tight to his face. Close. Real close.

I could smell fresh carrot on his breath.

“Look here Genie-boy, here’s what your little mishapis going to run me. Now I run a lean operation – tight margins. Just in time manufacturing. All that. Someone is going to have to cover the overage here to replace those baskets of eggs that now look like somebody’s bad drone day. And you know who that somebody’s gonna be. Right?”

Gulp.

So here’s the deal. I need to cough up a whole pile of green (and we’re not talking plastic grass) to make Peter Rabbit happy this weekend.

Hence, I’m going to run a quick sale on EVERY magic marketing bootcamp we’ve ever produced.  How good a sale?

Serious good. 50% off good.

All you need to do is make your selection and thenenter the coupon code:

EGGDEAL

Here’s the links to all the bootcamps along with their regular retail pricing.

No-Holds-Barred Bootcamp 2007 - $367.00

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcamp2007.htm

Bootcamp 1999 - $77.00

http://magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcampbox

Bootcamp 2000 – $77.00

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcamp2000.htm

Bootcamp 2001 - $87.00

http://magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcamp01

Bootcamp 2002 - $87.00

http://magicmarketingcenter.com/boot02

Bootcamp 2003 - $97.00

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcamp03.htm

Bootcamp 2004 - $149.00

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcamp04.htm

Bootcamp 2005 – $149.00

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/bootcamp05.htm

This deal runs through Sunday night at Midnight, so hurry on over.

Remember: Any bootcamp any number of them. 50% off.
Coupon:  EGGDEAL

Thanks for your help.

Me, I’m keeping a close watch on that top hat in thecorner… it’s starting to wriggle kind of suspiciously…
–Jack

There are three words you need to tattoo on the inside of your left forearm – to ensure that you see them every single day.

“Relentless Self Promotion”

I got this tip from my friend DJ Ehlert, so I give him 1000% credit for putting this incredibly powerful tip so succinctly.

“Relentless Self Promotion”

How much more will you achieve if you’re willing to go out there and make yourself known?

How many more people will see your talent, your passion, your drive to serve others if you just stretch yourself further than you’ve ever done so before?

How much more business will you drum up by actively putting your face in front of as many people as possible and then asking for the sale?

“Relentless Self Promotion”

I’m great at copy. And I’m awfully darn good with technology, speaking, and doing a solid job performing.

And I readily admit that this is one area where I’m nowhere near as good as I need to be.

But that’s gonna change, big time.

These three words are now foundational to my business.

“Relentless Self Promotion”

Make them foundational to yours as well.

Keep moving forward my friend.

–Jack

P.S. Here are not one, but THREE foundational programs you absolutely have to have backing you up in your quest for business success. Each one delivers the goods big time when it comes to building your business.

Make $25000 Doing Birthdays Part-Time
http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/birthdayPT

Internet Marketing For Magicians
http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/internetkit

The 90 Day Market Mastery System For Magicians
http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/90daydigital

No fuss, no mess, no waiting – each totally digital with instant access immediately.

So we trundled over to the local Ford dealershipand checked out several of the new models.

Me, being primarily frugal and interested in having something good at the most reasonable investment, inclined towards the Ford Ranger.

Rose, being primarily interested in somethingthat would do the job and look pretty cool, pushed hard on buying the F150.

I got the F150.  I could never say no to anyof my daughters.

I still have that truck and I gotta say, it’s been one incredibly smart investment. It’s pretty much run run run with nary a glitch for just about 10 solid years and well over100,000 miles.

Until this morning.

My daughter Margaret wanted to take it towork so her hubby could drive her car, and she discovered the dang thing wouldn’t start.It would turn over, but just wouldn’t fire up.

Great. My truck now sucks.

Now… before the internet… I would have facedthis situation pretty grimly. Because even though I grew up around cars (Dad and Mom bothworked at dealerships for years), I am not handy when it comes to the internal combustionengine.  I can face down WordPress, PHP code,and even javascript – but stick an oil filterbefore me and I get weak in the knees.

Hence… before the internet, it would havebeen 1) have the truck towed to a dealership and 2) face the music at the service counter.

And that may well still be the case… however, it’s not a foregone conclusion, because I discovered through some careful goo-googlingthere’s a simple little gimcrack called the “PCM Relay” – and it seems the symptomsmy F150 experienced were quite often causedby that little device.

And it’s just a little 10 dollar part youunplug and plug back in to the fusebox.
So I went to the parts store, spent 5 minutesunder the hood, and viola!  The truck started!

It doesn’t suck!

So… if you’re waiting for me to tie this intosome kind of business lesson… lemme think… I really just wanted to brag to y’all a bit about getting my truck started today…

Since I can’t find a lesson, here’s a tip thatIS auto related, and it’s another keeper fromlast weekend’s seminar with my friend Glenn.

******************************************

QwikTip: Offer both a Chevy AND a Mercedes

******************************************

Here’s the idea:  Make sure you offer at leastTWO different packages – a Chevy and a Mercedes.

Chevy – your basic, solid, “gets the job done”kind of deal that you know will make your customer happy. It’s for customers who can’tafford the ….

Mercedes – the high-end, glitzy, extra specialwith frill and sugar on top package. This hasall the bells and whistles and is definitely worth top dollar.

You can even call your packages “Chevy” and ”Mercedes” – your prospects will get this totally.  Especially if you say it kind ofin fun.

And odds are, when you put it this way, theyare going to choose the luxurious Mercedes version… because if they can afford it, even it takes a bit of a stretch, they knowthey’re going to be happier with the results.

Plus… by having two packages, you can close your sales pitch with “those are my packages,which do you want? The Chevy or the Mercedes?”

You’re giving them a choice of TWO positiveoutcomes for you, not a choice like “so, doyou want to hire me or not?”

********************************************
So… like my trusty F150, keep moving forward.

–Jack

P.S., I just sent out my April client newsletterand sure enough, it let to inquiries about newgigs.  Staying in touch with your customers hasnever been easier or more affordable.  And it’sthe best-value for this kind of service on the planet, just plug and play.  Check it out nowand start connecting today:

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/newsletter

Magic Marketing Center
15127 NE 24th Street, Suite #307Redmond, WA98052US

It has to do with handing out your business card.

All too often, when someone asks for a card, we simplyhand it over without thinking or any kind of commentary.I am just as guilty as anyone in this.

Here’s a different way to conduct that moment – and themagic is that it transforms a business card into somethingvery different and special.

When you hand over the card, pause… and then grab your pento write a little note on the back.  It can be a secret codeto give them a special discount on one of your packages. Or,another very cool idea is to say something like this:

“Here. I’m writing down my personal cell-phone number. If you ever have an event come up… or anything really… where you could use my help or advice, please go aheadand give me a call so I can help you.”

By writing a personal message – and even your cell number -on that business card, you have transformed it from onemore piece of round file fodder into a “letter” – somethingspecial and something worth keeping.

Methinks that’s a very cool idea.

Keep moving forward.

–Jack

P.S., Just released and going like hotcakes. A program thatreveals:

* 11 moneymaking secrets from marketing great Gary Halbert

* How to instantly increase the response to your marketing by 50%

* What to put on the outside of an envelope that guarantees it will get opened

* 3 ways to use postcards to create a cash flow surge

* A simple trick that will double your bookings

… And a WHOLE lot more. Check it out here:

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/warrior.html

Magic Marketing Center
15127 NE 24th Street, Suite #307Redmond, WA98052US

Keep moving forward.

–Jack

P.S., For a really solid grounding in using headlines, direct response marketing, and all the fundamentals, make sure to grab your own copy of the groundbreaking: “90 Day Market Mastery System for Magicians.” It’s a must read if you take your biz seriously.  Take a peek here:

http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/90daydigital