7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #4
#4 – Just because your process is boring to you doesn’t mean the result will be. The details of the process aren’t important to the audience, who only care about the end result. But the process is critically important to you, the producer of the effect. You have to be judicious about which methods are best for your capabilities. You have to be realistic about what methods are either within your current capabilities, or learnable with the kind of investment that you’re willing to make. What’s more – despite your best research, you may invest time and effort in learning a method that doesn’t produce what you ultimately want, and not know until it’s too late. Yes, it will require some tedious practice to develop the skills to execute the methods so that they feel like magic to the audience. They don’t really care, of course, but you do — because those ten thousand hours of rehearsal of that little movement with your ring finger will elevate the audience’s experience from “process” to “magic.” What about you? Were you in a business that invested in building a given process or implementing a given solution, only to find out afterward that it wasn’t what you really wanted? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #3
#3 – If it doesn’t look like magic, it still needs work. The most important thing to your business audience is not how hard you worked on the technique. The most important thing to your audience is not whether your back-office software is the coolest. The most important thing to your audience is not how many degrees your team has, or where you all worked before, or which group is providing your capital. The most important thing to your audience – at least in the context of creating the sensation of magic – is that you deliver an amazing business experience in a way that makes it look natural and effortless. If they can see you struggle to execute your business process, then they may respect your effort but they will not experience “magic.” If it doesn’t look like magic, then it still needs work. Your goal is for your audience to experience the final effect and have almost no perception of the process or method that got them there. Every bit of method that your audience perceives is a bit of lost impact. What about you? Can you think of a brand who makes it look easy? Apple used to have that mojo, but it seems to have dissipated. Who is the top brand in the world today that makes delivering high value look like a natural gift? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #2
#2 – Mystery is valuable. It’s one of the primary rules of magic: don’t reveal the secret of the illusion. If you tell the audience your secrets, then the wonderful moment you created for them only seconds ago will lose a lot of its impact. Mystery, in the context of magic, is not about lying or deception. Magic is not about “fooling people.” The whole point is to create an experience that doesn’t seem possible. That unexpected mystery is a captivating element that engages interest and it should not be squandered. Mystery is too valuable to be squandered. In business, if you create an experience in working with you and in experiencing your product or service that surpasses expectations of what people generally consider possible, then you will have created a rare and beautiful mystery. Don’t spoil it by letting the process become the narrative. Keep your secrets secret, and let your customer focus on what you made them feel, not how you made them feel it. What about you? Certainly the secret formula to Coca-Cola is a classic example of a valuable business mystery. Can you think of any others? What about your own business – without exposing it, do you have a secret that helps you preserve some mystery for your audience? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #1
#1 – Audiences will pay to be amazed. What does magic have to do with business? I mean, David Copperfield is nearly a billionaire, but he’s certainly the exception. Why would anyone think magic has any relationship to business principles? The truth is, the art of magic is loaded with important concepts for sales, marketing, customer service, brand engagement, and entrepreneurship. In this series, we’ll discuss seven ideas just to get you thinking about the power of this metaphor! Here’s the first one: Audiences will gladly pay to be amazed. When a person buys a ticket for a magic show, they expect the show to create wonder and amazement. If they don’t leave having experienced the impossible, they will feel shortchanged and dissatisfied. Fortunately, the bar isn’t set quite as high in other industries, but the principle remains the same. The person who buys your product or service may not expect to be amazed with an impossible experience in terms of physics, but they still want it and will react positively if and when you exceed their expectations. Give them an amazing and wondrous experience, and they will become your fan for life. Handle it just right and you may create something even better than a raving fan: a raving and replicating fan! What about you? What product or service have you experienced for which you gladly paid a premium to enjoy? Was it an expensive concert, or a special cruise? Why were you willing to pay the extra cost? Let me hear from you in the comments!
Entrepreneurship and Magic Radio Interview
I recently sat down with Roger & Stacy Vaughn as their guest for their business radio show, “Veterans with a View” on The Better You Network. Enjoy this conversation about entrepreneurship, business, and making a career out of an unusual passion! Click here to visit the show page and listen!
Radio Interview on Atlanta BusinessRadioX: Building a Speaking Career
On the BusinessRadioX network, host Jim Beach interviewed me on his “School for Startups” program. The topic, “How to Build a Speaking Career,” was suggested by Jim after we met at a Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce event, and that premise formed the backbone of the hour-long talk. In this radio interview, I took a basic four-step approach to addressing the topic. Identify a problem Create a credible solution Present to an audience that want to hear In a way they like Along the way, though, Jim was very interested in the components of my “5 Kinds of Amazing” keynote, so you’ll hear about how I line up magic experiences and business competencies to teach businesses how to use lessons from the magical theatre to increase their audience’s brand engagement. 5 Kinds of Amazing Talent – Expertise (highly developed skill, deep knowledge) Science – Process (natural laws with a surprise) Magic – Empowerment (breaking the laws/process) Telepathy – Communication (how close can you get to mindreading) Predictions – Trendspotting (anticipating/creating the future) UPDATE: Alas, many years have passed and the audio is no longer available online. We shot a bonus video, too – you can watch it below or go straight to the YouTube page. BusinessRadioX features business professionals interviewing their peers, drilling down on the critical issues, and delivering practical information to an engaged audience.
Recent Interviews and News Stories
Atlanta speaker, mentalist, and magician Joe M. Turner is the South’s most-recommended magical entertainer and speaker based on LinkedIn and Google results. This post contains links to several interviews and media appearances in recent weeks.
