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Randy Charach - Secrets of A Millonaire Magician
Randy Charach - Secrets of A Millonaire Magician
The contents of this book reflect the author’s views acquired through his
experience in the field under discussion. The author is not engaged in rendering
any legal or accounting professional service. The services of a lawyer and
accountant are recommended if legal and accounting advice or assistance is
needed. The publisher and author disclaim any personal loss or liability caused
by utilization of any information presented herein.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means
graphic, electronic, or mechanical without permission in writing from the
publisher. The original purchaser is authorized to make one printed copy for his
or her personal use.
Published by:
Synergy Promotions Inc.
5525 West Boulevard #157
Vancouver, BC
V6M 3W6
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 2
"Anyone with talent will find the lessons to be learned from Randy of
the greatest importance for the formation of a successful career."
Peter Reveen, Hypnotist and Manager of Lance Burton, Las Vegas
"DO NOT READ RANDY'S BOOK", "Unless you want to make a lot of
money in show business!"
Stan Kramien, www.stankramien.com, Beaverton, OR
"Thank you Randy, for sharing this valuable information with us, I am
sure many of your readers will soon become millionaires too."
Gary "Darwin", Magician and Author, Las Vegas, NV
“Randy Charach’s book is the best of its kind I have had the pleasure
to read. Even as an old pro, I did learn a lot from it indeed!"
Ted Lesley, Magician & Mentalist, Germany
"I predict that your book will become - THE classic text on marketing
and promotion.”
Richard Webster, www.psychic.co.nz, New Zealand
"Randy sees the bigger picture beyond the show and fills the needs
of his clients to make some big bucks!"
James Cielen, Magician, www.DoveMagic.com, Las Vegas, NV
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 3
"A realistic guide through the entertainment business world.”
Anthony Blake, Magician & Mentalist, Spain
"If you want to make money in show business, Randy can help you."
Jeff & Tessa Evason, Mentalists, USA and Canada
"I am sure this book will cause entertainers both now and in the future
to reap vast rewards."
Dondrake, "Black Art Breakthroughs", Las Vegas, NV
"Secrets is truly dynamite and provides a great leap forward for any
performer in the live entertainment business."
Banachek, www.banachek.org, Houston, TX
"You have managed to lay out all the ground work. I think everyone
should own this book."
James Dimmare, Magician, www.dimmare.com, Los Angeles, CA
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 4
$100 reward if you received this document illegally
Upon initial opening of this document a unique hidden signature was
encoded and instantly sent to our database for registration. It is illegal
to distribute this document by any means, electronic, print or
otherwise. To report a violation: mailto:legal@charach.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 5
Dedication
Thank you to Marvyn Shore, who edited this book and a previous
book ‘50 Ways to Leave them Laughing’ with painstaking diligence.
There are too many people in the entertainment world to thank, and
in fear of missing someone, “thank you”, you know who you are.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 6
Foreword by Gary ‘Darwin’
I met Randy when he was about 12 years old. He would come to Las
Vegas and visit his Uncle, ‘King’, a wonderful retired Magician. Little
did we know that Randy would one day become a young millionaire
magician.
Randy paid his dues. Let’s assume you’ve paid your dues, and you
are, or are ready to become a professional magician. You have read
the best magic books, watched many videos, went to many lectures,
acquired lot’s of props, gone to conventions, and have performed a
couple hundred, or even a couple thousand shows. But this is when
most magicians fall short; they don’t study the business of magic.
Thank you Randy, for sharing this valuable information with us, I am
sure many of your readers will soon become millionaire magicians.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 7
How to use this Book (from a technical perspective):
This book is in Adobe Acrobat “PDF” format. If you can read this,
then you already have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your
computer. If you receive any error messages, like “invalid color
space”, you need to get the latest version. It’s free, just go to:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
I'll give you some tips below so you can conveniently navigate the
book and find what you want fast. This book is best viewed at a
minimum desktop configuration of 800x600 pixels and 16 bit color.
Hyperlinks:
You will see throughout this book many World Wide Web addresses
that are underlined in blue.
Example: http://www.marketingmagician.com
If you are connected to the Internet, and the web address has the
standard http:// or www: format, you will be able to click on the link
and it should take you to the web page listed. If it doesn’t, then
simply type the address exactly as it appears into your web browser.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 8
At certain points in the text you will be able to click on underlined
blue text that will whisk you away to another part of the book
related to that text. To get back to where you were after you review
the related text, click on the back button of your Adobe Acrobat
Reader.
When you are in the Table of Contents section of the book, you can
click on any of the topics and you will be taken directly to that section
of the book. Again, click the back button of your Adobe Acrobat
Reader to return.
Email Addresses:
This makes it very convenient for you to email anyone listed in this
book. You do not have to be connected to the Internet to write the
email, but you do have to connect before you send it.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 9
Using the Adobe Reader:
There are two ways you can adjust the size of the page to suit your
personal reading preferences. You can either use the icons at the
top of the screen or the sizing bar at the bottom of the screen.
Icons:
The icons at the top of the screen make broad changes in the sizing
of the page. Pick the one that you like best by clicking on one of
the icons.
Sizing Bar:
You can also use the sizing bar at the bottom of the Adobe Acrobat
Reader screen to set precise sizing of the page. Click the arrow to
the right of the percentage box as shown below.
Bookmark Panel:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 10
the actual page you are reading. To close or open the panel and click
on the icon shown. It acts like a toggle switch opening and closing the
side window.
If you want the window there, but it is too big, you can drag the
vertical resizing border to the left. Hold your mouse button down
overtop of the border until it turns into a double arrow and drag to
the left.
Turning Pages:
2. Use the scroll bar on the right side of the screen. Note that when
you click on the scroll button, the page number you're on pops up in a
little box.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 11
3. Click on either side of the page number box on the bottom of your
screen.
4. Click on icons at the top of the page. The single left and right
arrows move you one page at a time, and the left and right arrows
with the vertical bar take you respectively to the beginning of the book
and the end of the book.
Click the back button at the top of your Adobe Reader to return to
the last page you were on.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 12
Index
Lesson 16 Television
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 13
Lesson 17 Consulting & Acting
Lesson 18 Theatres
Additional Resources
Conclusion
Notes to Reader:
3. Some of the links to other web sites and additional support items
are ones that I own and/or am affiliated with. Therefore, I may profit
from additional involvement. The links are included because I believe
in the products and services behind them and feel that they are
appropriate and relevant recommendations.
4. I have optimized the print size, font, and page spacing and layout
for screen viewing. This will also be useful if you decide to print all or
some of the pages out as you can write notes in the extra space. The
Acrobat tutorial contained in this book will be helpful, please read it.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 14
(Back to Index)
Introduction
What’s in a title?
I must tell you straight out that I carefully considered the title of this
book. It is far from my nature to flaunt wealth and carry on about how
much money I make, have made, can make, or have at my disposal.
My focus is on who people are and not on what they have.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 15
I was born in 1963 in Vancouver, Canada. My parents were and are
of average income and wealth. When I was born, my father was
selling siding for houses door to door. He has taught me a lot over
the years about human nature and selling.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 16
those years I averaged 300-400 personal appearances as a magician
and for six of those years I also appeared as Ronald McDonald in
Canada.
I will explain in detail how I prospered financially and how you can do
the same. None of it involves getting rich quick. If you desire
financial prosperity then be patient and be willing to work. There is
no magic formula or selling of the soul involved in my teaching.
There is, however, a lifetime of experience contained in these pages.
Just one out of the hundreds of ideas you will be exposed to can
greatly increase your bank balance and enable you to have more
freedom in your life. Certain philosophies, tools, systems and
businesses may not be right for you at this time. Your goals and
desires will evolve and change. Without question, you will return to
this book and revisit it with different perspective in the future. Follow
through with what appeals to you now. Keep your mind open to the
other information and realize that success is not an end goal but
rather an ongoing journey.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 17
How can I benefit the most from this book?
Read the whole book once in its entirety. After you have gone
through it once, read it again and take a lot of notes. Go through your
notes and make some decisions as to what specific course of action
to take. Immediately implement some of the techniques and
principles. Use the resources.
It is all laid out before you. No guess work. I am giving it all to you.
Do not underestimate what you have before you. It all works. If you
disagree with something I say, fine. Realize though, I am detailing
advice and information that has placed me in the position I am in
today. My life is rich with an abundance of material wealth. More
important than money, I am prosperous in the sense that I have a
wonderful family and countless friends and associates from all walks
of life.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 18
It is a genuine honor when I am asked to share my knowledge and
experience with others. Thank you for allowing me into your life while
I assist you to succeed and achieve your goals.
PART I
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 19
Lesson 1 - Millionaire Business Practices (Back to Index)
Are you likeable? Do you have genuine concern for the welfare of
your customers and suppliers? Do your actions demonstrate your
concern for providing excellent service and value? Do you pleasantly
surprise people by delivering more than what is promised? Do you
send thank you cards and show appreciation to those who support
you? Or:
Are you grumpy and money hungry? Overly friendly (also known as
being a “glad eye” or “glad hands”) and use old salesman techniques
like flattering people on their ties or shoes as a matter of habit
because you read somewhere that it builds rapport? Do you use
whatever tactic available to make a sale? Do you take the money
and run?
Be honest and don’t feel bad if you don’t like your answers. You can
change and improve your practices over time. There are people who
make money without being kind and conscientious, but they do it the
hard and unpleasant way. All else being equal, they will make less
money for shorter duration and ultimately will be unfulfilled on many
levels. It is actually quite easy to be nice, caring and fair. If it does
not come naturally to you then try harder. Do not be phony. Simply
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 20
adopt a more caring attitude bit-by-bit, day-by-day, and the rewards
both financially and for your well-being will present themselves. The
transformation will come naturally as you apply gentle and mindful
attention to your actions.
Magician A
• Great show every time
• Always shows up 30 minutes before show time
• Is pleasant before, after, and during the engagement
• Charges $1,000.00
Magician B
• Great Show most of the time, sometimes just a good show
• Always shows up 5 minutes before show time, often in a panic
• Usually friendly, but moody, so you never know
• Charges $200.00
You have a $100,000 budget for special events for the year as the
marketing manager. Who are you going to hire? Would the money
you are going to save with Magician B, be worth the aggravation and
uncertainty? No!
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 21
The example I give above is not based on speculation. The numbers
are not exaggerated. This is based on my actual experience. Not on
just one occasion, but time and time again. Do you get the point?
You can charge higher fees and get more bookings by being great to
deal with. You become the “Go To” guy or gal when it comes to
booking a magician. Your clients brag about you and covet your
time. They don’t even consider booking another act regardless of
cost. They throw incoming brochures or sales letters of other
Magicians in the garbage. They have a special file for you if you care
to see them. When possible they plan their event date around YOUR
schedule.
Does this sound too good to be true. If it does, cancel that thought
right now! Do not underestimate the power of building relationships
and profiting from them. Sweet deals, favors, preferential treatment
and a whole lot more can be yours. It all begins with you, your
business practices, and your attitude towards others.
People form their opinion of you, consciously or not, within the first
few seconds of contact. It is crucial to your success to present
yourself in a professional and likeable manner.
There are certain specific traits that successful people share. Some
will come naturally to you, some you will learn. Some you will not
agree with, or like, and will resist. These are the ones you need
to work on the most.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 22
You see, the ones you are uncomfortable with are the ones that have
been holding you back. They will be the hardest to understand or
accept for a combination of reasons. Be willing to step outside your
comfort zone if necessary. You won’t find anything radical, so don’t
worry.
Here is a list of some of the traits I want you to think about now.
Many more will come up and be discussed as you progress through
this book. You will also be asked to refer back to some of these
principles as we apply them in practical scenarios that you will be
dealing with.
1. Always tell the truth. You don’t need a great memory if you
are always honest. You lose all credibility when you are caught
in a lie.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 23
not please you. You must also understand how the other
person wants to be “done unto” and act accordingly. Find out
by asking questions.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 24
The situation is much worse if you are late for a show. It can be
a catastrophe if you miss a flight when traveling to a show.
This happened to me once many years ago, and since that day
I have always made sure that I allow ample time to arrive early
for any scheduled appointment. It is imperative that you do the
same.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 25
they know. You can learn something from everyone. Be willing
to reciprocate with your information, but you will seldom be
asked or given a chance to talk by most people. You have two
ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion and prosper.
There are two other important principles to share with you in this
lesson. They go hand in hand and are crucial to your success in
business. You will notice that I live by these rules throughout this
book. Look for them as you progress through these pages and make
notes as to how you can apply the same principles to your business.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 26
services as you monitor the needs of your clients. Learn and develop
new skills as a performer and as a businessperson.
One more thing. I have chosen not to expand greatly upon spiritual
concepts in this book. Not that I do not want to share them. I am “an
open book” when it comes to sharing information and my personal
views. Let me just say that it is my intention to inspire a burning
desire for you to share your gift as an entertainer above and beyond
concern for material wealth. On that note, please share your talent
by way of donations of your show to worthy causes without regard to
personal reward. Also, find other ways to “give back”.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 27
Lesson 2 - Planning for Success (Back to Index)
There are many tools you can use to help formulate your ideas into
action. You will now be provided with two simple, quick and effective
tools I have used and developed over the years to help me. They are
provided with a template for you and a real example from my
business.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 28
Idea Map Template
It will only take a few minutes to create your map. It is an excellent first step in
planning. Print this page out and use it.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 29
When I was doing children and adult shows, I would squeeze in as
many as 55 shows in the month of December alone. Now, I only do
adult shows and do an average of 20 in that month. Here are the
details and the Idea Map I use to make an extra $50,000 - $60,000
each December:
Idea Map
E-Mail Fax
Corporate List of
Products
Xmas Prospects
Strolling Stage
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 30
Goal Setting Template
Goal Setting Worksheet Today's date:
1
What is the first step? Target completion date:
3
What is the third major step? Target completion date:
4
Next step? Target completion date:
5
Final step? Target completion date:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 31
And the Goal Setting Worksheet, used in conjunction with the Idea
Map:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 32
I usually get an 8% response rate for the offer detailed in the
templates on the previous pages - 80 interested parties. Since many
are repeat clients, and the others are highly targeted, the booking
rate is a high 25%, which translates to 20 engagements. I pre-sell an
average of 1,000 gift items (resource information in lesson 22) at a
$10 profit each, to the combined group of companies.
Imagine when you add the revenue from this stream of income to
commissions you could earn by booking other acts (resource
information in lesson 22) for Children and Adult parties. Then add
high profit items that you sell to the companies and organizations that
use the items as gifts for their staff and customers. All the
businesses interrelate and you profit from their combined synergy.
The customers love you, because you are a one-stop shop for much
of their holiday party needs. Your diversification is a benefit to your
client.
To break this down for you further, let me give you some more
specifics. I will not stray too far from the topic of this lesson. The
actual marketing methods will be covered as they apply to each
revenue stream and are interspersed throughout this book. Also, you
may choose not to expand into businesses other than performing
magic. You’re crazy not to, because even a small side business will
catapult your income to astronomical proportions. With the three
income streams: performing, booking, and supplying gifts, I
consistently earned over $200,000 just in December alone
(performing: $50,000, booking: $50,000, gifts: $100,000). Each
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 33
business would not have been as successful without the support of
the other.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 34
Business Plan
Road Map. Once you have started your business, a business plan
can be an invaluable tool to help keep you on track and moving in the
direction you want to go. As you become more occupied with your
magic business, it is easy to lose sight of your objectives and goals --
a business plan can help to keep you focused. A business plan can
also serve to help others to understand your vision, including
suppliers, customers, employees, friends, and family.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 35
Sales Tool. Perhaps most importantly, a business plan can serve as
a sales tool. You may need outside financing to build your business,
and a business plan is the tool you need to convince investors to
come on board. You may also want and need concessions from
suppliers or customers -- a business plan can help you get them.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 36
Business Plan Outline
Development (2 pages)
Ramp-up of business, steps needed to get the business up and
running
Operations (2 pages)
Plan for production and delivery of product or services, product cost,
margins, operating complexity, resources required
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 37
Management (2 pages)
Background of key individuals, ability to execute strategy, personnel
needs, organizational structure, who will execute plan
Offering (1 page)
Proposal / terms to investors (indicate how much you want), the ROI,
structure of the deal, possible exit strategies
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 38
Your 3 Step - Magic Marketing Plan
The first part of the marketing plan defines your shows, products and
services and their features and benefits in detail. This is where the
‘USP’ (more on that next) comes in. You illustrate how you
differentiate yourself from the competition. The more clearly and
succinctly you describe your shows, services and products in your
marketing plan, the better you’ll communicate with your target
customer.
Okay, if you have been doing some research into marketing prior to
now, you know about USPs. A marketer, by the name of Dan
Kennedy, is one of the most well known writers to discuss USPs. He
covers the subject beautifully with great examples in almost all of his
courses and books. The concept has been around in one form or
another for at least a century and it is a key concept to marketing.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 39
USP stands for: Unique Selling Proposition, which:
You can have several USPs. Write down all the benefits you
currently provide and ones that you think will be appealing and can
provide. Create statements based on the benefits and use some or all
of them in all your marketing communication. You may choose one
main one to use as a slogan on all your marketing materials. It
certainly will be included in your marketing plan. Often this is where
you will create them too.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 40
better chance of being hired. You should, however, be competing in
a market that you know, through research, can afford your fee and
therefore you are likely to be competing with similar priced acts. Do
not base your USPs on low pricing. You would only do that if you
wanted to be a “Hundredaire Magician” and not a “Millionaire
Magician”.
Note: Do the best show you can and offer extra service to increase
the value. Compete in and target the highest paying market that your
quality and type of performance will permit. Price yourself at the top
of that market.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 41
• When do they start planning?
• When do they book?
Seem like a lot of work to you? If you are lazy and want to be a
millionaire, buy a lottery ticket. Let me know how you make out!
Your target customer must not only know your show is available for
hire, but must also have a favorable impression of all the benefits of
your show and dealing with you. Communication includes everything
from the way you answer your phone to the font you use on your
business card.
Find out where your customers surf on the net, what they read and
listen to. You need to know this to get their attention. In addition to
where to place your message, consider how frequently customers
need to receive it. This part of the marking plan should spell out your
promotional objectives. It spells out specifically what you want to
achieve. You will determine your budget, where to advertise and how
to measure your results.
To help you devise your own business and marketing plan, here is
the table of contents taken from a complete plan I recently put
together for a consulting client. So, take the information I have
provided regarding Idea Mapping, Goal Setting, Business Plans,
USPs and Marketing Plans and do some work in planning your future.
The investment of time will pay off. It is much harder to think about it
than to actually just start writing.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 42
Use the following as a basic template and adjust items to your
particular case. My guess is that you will only require a small portion
of the following items for the scope of your immediate projects. I
have used many variations of the following structure and they are
usually less detailed for my own purposes.
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE TEAM
MANAGEMENT TEAM PROFILES
OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE
ADVISORS
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
HUMAN RESOURCES REQUIREMENTS
THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
BUSINESS SUMMARY & HISTORY
INDUSTRY OVERVIEW
• Consumer Trends
• Seasonal Factors
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 43
POSITION IN THE INDUSTRY
• Legal Issues
• Competition
• Use of Technology
PRODUCTION PROCESS
• Land and Equipment Requirements
• Inventory Control
• Time Frame for Product
• Contingency Plans
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 44
FINANCE CONCLUSIONS
• RISKS
• Business Risks
• Marketing Risks
• Operational Risks
• Human Resource Risks
Summary
The two hours you invest early on will save you countless hours and
expenses later.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 45
Lesson 3 - Your Executive Office (Back to Index)
Create the most comfortable and effective office environment that you
can and continually strive to improve it.
Your Phone
You need a separate phone line solely for your business calls.
Situate your phone in a quiet room where you will not be disturbed.
Answer on the second ring when possible. If you answer on the first
ring you seem too anxious and beyond two rings it seems that you do
not care. Smile when you answer the phone (this will project a
friendly tone in your voice) but don’t be phony (no pun intended). Say
“hello” and identify yourself by name or company name. Don’t get
cute, fancy or too long. Use the same principles for your voice mail.
Use a headset to keep your hands free when talking on the phone.
You can type notes pertaining to your conversation on your computer
during conversation with your client.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 46
Your Desk and Chair
Your Computer
Use the fastest and best computer that you can afford. Your time is
valuable and investing in good equipment will save you money in the
long (and short) run. If you're not sure as to whether you should use
a Mac or a PC, or have been considering switching, I have the
answer for you. Use both or Windows only. Up until two months ago
and for the past ten years or so I have been using a Mac. I recently
purchased an IBM computer with Windows 2000 Professional for
business. I never thought I would be saying this, but I like using the
PC. It is as easy to use as the Mac. I only use the Mac now to check
how my various web sites will look like for Mac users. There are more
programs available for windows; they are more readily accessible and
less expensive. Much of the software I use for Internet marketing is
not available for the Mac. The voice recognition software I am using
at this moment is not available for the Macintosh. Did you get that? I
am not even typing right now. Don’t even know how to type
(properly)!
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 47
Anyway, bottom line, as much as I like the Mac, I think you should
use a PC as your only or primary computer.
To protect your privacy, use a PO box that looks like a real address.
Using a PO box, that is obviously a PO box, can give the impression
that you are hiding. When possible, I do advise that you include your
physical address on most of your contact information. It adds to your
credibility and solidity.
Automation
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 48
your conversations and use forms and systems so that important
details do not get missed. You can avoid a lot of problems and stand
out amongst your peers by paying close attention to details. If you
are not naturally a detail-oriented person, do not worry; the systems
will take care of this for you.
The program that I have used for the last ten years and that I highly
recommend is FileMaker Pro. I have compared FMP to Act,
Maximizer, and many other database management programs and am
convinced that nothing else comes close. The downside is that the
program does require customization, so you need to either spend
time and do this yourself or hire someone to do it for you. I have
spent thousands of dollars hiring high- priced FileMaker Pro experts
and the money has been well spent. Another caution; even though
they may be a wiz on the technical side, it is still up to you to tell them
in detail what you want to achieve. Every time you make a change,
Ka-Ching…. Ka-Ching!
The cost of FileMaker Pro is currently $249.00, available for Mac and
PC, and well worth the money. For a discount, go to: FileMaker Pro
Discount
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 49
Three important aspects of your business that require
systemization are:
The marketing system ensures that you get bookings. The Booking
systems makes sure you show up and deliver as promised. The
billing system helps ensure that you get paid for the shows you do.
Do not wing any of this.
To be clear, we are not talking about systems you use to actually get
bookings right now. We are talking about organizational systems that
need to be used in conjunction with your booking and various other
systems. Ultimately, as you grow and expand your business you will
have many variations of systems that work in conjunction with each
other. Build one at a time as you need them and integrate them as
you progress.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 50
Lesson 4 - Promotional Material Magic (Back to Index)
When you go out to perform, do you present the exact same show
every time? Do you say the exact same words, delivered the same
way – every time? I hope not.
If you do not alter your performance to suit your audience, then are
you also assuming that every audience is exactly the same? Of
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 51
course they are not, and therefore it stands to reason that you adjust
your performance to suit your audience.
Okay, this is where the rubber meets the road. What I am going to
tell you now is something that is rarely done, yet it separates the high
income earners in our business from those who are unable to fill their
calendar as they would like to.
You need to have separate printed material, web sites, video demos,
stationery, sales letters, guarantees, bonuses, headlines,
presentations and offers that are highly targeted. While the pieces
must vary according to your target audience, there should be
consistency within certain areas of your message and design. In
other words, you are still selling “you” and your unique identity, but in
different packages in order to appeal to a variety of buyers. You
should create templates and then make adjustments based on your
individual campaigns.
So, just as you plan your show based on your specific audience, take
the same approach to your marketing, and you will find yourself in
higher demand and at higher fees. You can start now by examining
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 52
your current material and breaking apart varying messages to
different audiences. Separate incongruent components and create
individual pieces accordingly.
Does this mean that a catch-all web site, video or printed piece is not
needed at all?
No, actually, you need that too. There are certain buyers of your
services such as agents, event planners, and speaker bureaus that
are experienced in booking talent and want to see the whole picture.
You target these types of buyers with a general piece AND provide
them with individually targeted marketing devices that they can
present to their less experienced clients.
Look, you better believe that if you are ever competing against me for
a job, and your material is not targeted, I will get the gig and you will
not. And believe me, my fee will be substantial. Why? My material
will touch the very nerve of the buyer and they will want me
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 53
regardless of cost. This is not theory. I challenge you to compete
with me and frankly, hope you win a few. Why?
There are many ways to make money on the web. For each of the
variety of ways to prosper using the Internet, there are hundreds of
choices, variations, and schools of thought on each and every detail.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 54
As for what specific pieces of information to include by way of
promotional material that varies depending upon the venue. This will
be covered separately as I teach you how to get booked in each
individual market. Let’s go now to video demos, sales letters and the
World Wide Web.
Video Demos
With your video demo, you should take as long as necessary to sell
your prospect. That is, if it doesn’t take you very long!
There are many schools of thought regarding video demo length and
content. There is no real definitive answer because different viewers
have different tastes and varying attention spans. Arguably, a video,
like a sales letter, should be as long as it takes to convince the
subject to take positive action in your direction. Avoid being boring at
all costs. Be sure that you use exciting footage masterfully edited in
order to convey your message in the least amount of time. Think
television commercial, think sound bites. Your goal is to convince the
viewer that you are the answer to their problems, again, in the least
amount of time. Your video, like your show, must leave them wanting
more.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 55
than the average viewer. This has a lot to do with the amount of work
that you put into your performance, plus the expense and labor
involved in producing the video itself.
If you wish to pursue the college market for example, use whatever
means you can, your existing video, a sales letter, a showcase, or
even a free show if necessary, to get at least one or two college
shows that you can tape. Colleges have video production facilities
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 56
and you can offer free performance in exchange for them shooting
your show and editing the tape.
This approach will save you thousands of dollars, get your foot in the
door in this market and provide you with a marketing tool that can aid
you in securing many more bookings in the future.
Here's another way to get a free, quality, demo tape. Every major
city will have some type of group of budding television and film
producers. In Vancouver, there are several, including a group called
Women in Film. Despite the name of the organization, men are
allowed to join as associates, and I am a member. Do some digging
and find such groups where you live. There are many talented and
creative people willing to work for free just for the experience and
résumé credit. Many of them own their own cameras and have
access to the other equipment needed to produce your demo.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 57
Your goal is to have a different tape for each market you are going to
pursue. Tightly edit footage from real live performances with real
audiences. Never use canned laughter, and if you shoot in a studio,
which has its advantages because you can control the situation, be
sure the finished product does not look staged.
Like all other forms of marketing and advertising you should test
different formats for your videos. Here are just a couple ideas, but
the variations are limitless:
If you have only one television clip, then the whole tape is that one
clip. Then keep adding clips as you use this tape to get more spots.
Ultimately, your tape will be packed with as many spots as you can fit
in within 2 minutes. Even if a spot is not great, or if you have dozens
of spots, then just show your introductions by the host. Show at least
one effect, not necessarily in its entirety but in such a way that the
viewer understands what happened.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 58
• Montage of highlight shots from various shows (upbeat music):
30-seconds
• TV Clip (highlights of one effect): 1 minute
• Corporate Audience Clip (large audience): 2 minutes 20
seconds
• Corporate Audience Clip (small audience): 2 minutes
• Audience Testimonials after the Shows (like the movies): 1
minute
Sales Letters
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 59
A sales letter is a document that is designed with one purpose in
mind, to generate sales. It persuades the reader to take action. That
action may be to place an order now or to request more information
which in turn is designed to convince the reader to place an order.
The purpose of the sales letter is to influence the reader to take a
specific action. It is not a notice, a brochure, or an announcement; it
is an offer. In order for the letter to be effective it must be specific, it
must be delivered to an audience that is eager to discover the
information, it must appeal to the reader’s needs and it must inform
and inspire.
Most magicians’ printed material and web sites are designed in such
a way as to tell, not sell. This is a mistake. For the most part, it is a
waste of space and a waste of opportunity. Photos, video, and
testimonials may complement the sales letter. Everything else being
equal, a magician who provides a powerful sales letter will get more
bookings for higher fees than one who does not.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 60
• What is it that you offer that is unique and that they can't get
anywhere else?
You must persuade your reader that he or she must book your show
because what you offer provides more benefits and is more attractive
than that of any other magicians.
Here are some more questions to ask when writing your sales letter:
For example, a letter that you would send in the mail would likely be
essentially the same as a letter you display on your web site with a
few minor changes. On the web, because the reader will be viewing
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 61
your information on a computer screen, which can be harder to read
than print on paper, you would use larger type size and more
generous spacing.
Following, is a basic formula for you that I often use with excellent
results.
AIDA
• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action
Get their attention, create interest, inspire desire, and lead into action.
The sales letter formula is basically AIDA on steroids. Here is your:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 62
10 Step Sales Letter Formula
Follow these ten steps to write your own letter. The general rule
about length of the letter is that it should be as long as necessary to
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 63
compel the reader to take action that will benefit them. Testing has
shown that a long letter will outsell a short letter almost every time.
This is not permission to bore them. The letter will be long because
you have found so much information about the reader that you have a
lot to tell them that interests them and you included all the important
elements. A short interesting letter is better than a long boring letter.
A long interesting letter creates revenue.
Bonus Report - "The 10 Laws for Writing Letters that Get Results." By Joe Vitale
Jerry Jenkins asked me to tell you how to write letters that get read
and get results. That's a tall order! Well, here’s what I think the "laws"
are:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 64
Get out of your ego and into your reader's ego. Complete this
sentence: "Get my book so that you can...(fill in the blank)." Your
book (or whatever you are selling) is the feature. What people get as
a result of having your book is the benefit. Focus on benefits.
Always! Without this, your letter will bomb.
3. Be brief.
Say what you have to say in terms of the reader's self interest and
shut up. This does NOT necessarily mean a short letter. If you are
trying to make a sale, and the reader has never heard of you or your
item for sale, you may have to write four or more pages to get your
message across. If all you want is a return call, a one page letter may
do. Don' be afraid of length. People will read any length of copy AS
LONG AS IT'S INTERESTING!
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 65
Always. Why do copywriters who charge upwards to $15,000 to write
a sales letter and have weeks to draft it always use a PS? They are
always read. Always.
5. Look good.
6. Outline first.
Use a planning tool to help you think through your message. Or talk
to a friend. Or to a tape recorder. Or to yourself. This also helps you
get comfortable with speaking your letter rather than writing it.
Turn your inner editor off. You can rewrite later. For now, write
spontaneously and quickly to get your ideas on paper.
Why are you writing? You want a call, an order. Something. Say so!
9. Get a reader.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 66
Find one person to read your letter OUT LOUD in front of you. If he
(or she) has trouble reading your letter, if he wrinkles his brow or
stops to reread a sentence, rewrite those places. Don't skip this step!
It's the secret of many professional writers.
Is it the best you can do? Be honest! If not, throw it away and call the
person instead. Or hire a copywriter to write it for you. Why waste
your time or your reader's with something that doesn't communicate
in a persuasive and interesting way? (I rewrote this letter 24 times!)
Well, there you have it. Of course, there are more rules, laws, ideas
and suggestions for writing letters that get results. You should always
guarantee whatever you are selling, for example, and always offer
proof for all of your claims. But the above will get you rolling.
Sincerely,
Joe Vitale Hypnotic Writing
(ALWAYS Identify yourself. People look here to see who the letter is
from.)
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 67
Here is a terrific report by a marketer who is well known in the
Internet world. The Internet is not the topic, instead he touches on a
principle that I use all the time.
I want you to learn what works for me, in a variety of forms. Also, this
book is about sharing my resources with you – completely. And that,
by the way, is why I have included the guest reports and interviews.
Bonus Report - "Make prospects beg to do business with you." By Yanik Silver
Do you remember the stupid beer commercial a few years back with
the tagline "Why Ask Why?" Well, completely unknown to the ad
agency -- they had almost stumbled onto a breakthrough marketing
concept.
Telling people the reason why you are doing something is one of the
most powerful influencers of human behavior.
The first excuse used was "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use
the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?" This request coupled with
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 68
a reason was successful 94% of the time. However when the
experimenter made a request only: "Excuse me, I have five pages.
May I use the Xerox machine?" this request was only granted 60% of
the time. A significant drop.
It may seem like the difference between those two requests was the
additional information of "because I'm in a rush", but that's just not the
case.
This time a full 93% of the people said yes simply due to the word
'BECAUSE'! And it didn't even matter that there was no reason given.
Just the word because triggered a magic response.
"We are bankrupt. We owe $125,000 more than we can pay, and this
announcement will bring our creditors down on our necks. But if you
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 69
come and *buy* tomorrow, we shall have the money to meet them. If
not, we shall go to the wall."
Max Sackheim, famous for the long-running ad "Do You Make These
Mistakes In English" and originator of the book-of-the-month concept,
says this: "Whenever you make a claim or special offer in your
advertising, come up with an honest reason why, and then state it
sincerely. You'll sell many more products this way."
The premise was how can we sell a product for the incredibly low
price of only $477? (Regularly this product sells for about $695 -
$895.) Then the ad went on to explain that the reason why the price
was so low was because the manufacturer wanted to gain market
share and get nurses and doctors accustomed to using their product.
It was a huge winner and a big money-maker for the client.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 70
So how can you apply all of this to your business? Easy. Let's say
you have a slow time of year and you want to increase your business
during this period. Well, write a simple letter to your customers
making a special offer, only good during your slow period.
* Did you have a flood and you need to liquidate your inventory?
* Do you need to raise cash so you can pay for your nose job?
I know this probably goes against every grain of business sense, but I
promise if you give people a good, believable reason why they'll
respond with open wallets.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 71
Headlines
The headline is the single most important element of your sales letter.
If I had to choose between a great headline and mediocre copy or a
mediocre headline and great copy, the intelligent choice would be a
great headline. The headline gets them in the door and grabs their
attention. If you don't capture the reader's attention immediately, it
does not matter how great your sales letter is, as it will not get read
anyway. The headline, as a matter of fact, will actually determine the
content of the copy of the letter itself.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 72
Other good headlines that you wrote of the 50 to 100 will be used
throughout your letter as additional sub-headlines. They can also be
used and reworked as beginnings of sentences and for your PSs.
Every word you write must create interest and continue to do the job
of convincing the reader to take the next step that you want them to
take. You must continually fulfill the AIDA formula.
Have you read Dale Carnegie’s book, “How to Win Friends and
Influence People”? If you haven't, please do. I bring this up not only
because it is a great book, a classic, but also to point out that the title
has a lot to do with the fact that millions of people have read it. The
title is a headline, probably the most powerful one that exists.
I am telling you that the headline is important, but don’t just take my
word for it. Here are a few other guys that know a thing or two about
marketing and what they say about the function of a headline:
Here's what David Ogilvy, an advertising expert, said about the power
of headlines:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 73
"On the average, 5 times as many people read the headlines as read
the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product,
you have wasted 90% of your money."
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 74
And most experienced marketers, myself included, will tell you that
their testing has proved that one headline will pull up to 1500% more
response/profit than another!
Okay, so here are some headlines that you can use now:
And here are a few more that you may wish to use or adapt:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 75
18 ways to guarantee a successful event"
Bonus Report – “Instantly Double the Response of Any Ad” by David Garfinkel
What words are those? The first words... in any letter, ad or Web
page. The words that make up the headline.
"Then why," I asked, "do so many of your ads not have headlines?"
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 76
It's a fact: We have been conditioned to decide what to read based
on the effect a few choice words have on our thoughts and our
feelings. With books, it's often the title. With articles in the
newspaper, it's the words in a headline. With a magazine on the
newsstand, it's the headlines on the cover.
So, if that's the case, how do you write headlines to make people
want to read your copy, and get interested in doing business with
you?
However, about the worst thing you can do for your promotion is to
have a strictly factual, logical headline at the top of your Web page,
letter, ad, flyer or postcard. Oh yes, the headline has to be believable
and make sense. And what your headline says has to be supported
by logic and facts later in your promotion.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 77
But remember that the purpose of your killer copy headline is to stir
the emotions of your prospect in the direction of buying what you
have to sell... and to get your prospect interested in reading what
comes next in your copy.
Children who don't do well at school will have many problems later on
in their lives
Notice how the first headline states a fact but does not stir emotions
in a big way. The second headline, using the same number of words
(17), conveys 1) excitement 2) pride 3) hope for the future, and it also
creates a beautiful scene in the reader's mind of a happy parent-child
situation.
Action: When you are preparing or revising a promotion, take the time
you need, or get the help you need, to write a great headline that
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 78
creates a vivid picture and stimulates strong feelings in the mind of
your prospect.
Call Roto-Rooter - that's the name - And away go troubles, down the
drain!
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 79
That's hard to beat! If you've ever had a stopped-up drain, you know
exactly why this would be of benefit to you!
Killer Copy Point: Show your headline to people who are unfamiliar
with your product and company, but who would be good prospects for
what you are selling. See how slowly or quickly they understand what
you are saying - especially, what would be the benefit to them. Keep
rewriting your headline until these people instantly "get it!"
Make your headline pass the "Shortcut Test"
Imagine all you were allowed to do was run your headline plus a toll-
free number... as a classified ad. Ask yourself this question: Would it
generate inquiries for you in that form?
I'll give you an example from my own business. I'm taking the
headline and subheadline from a long-copy print promotion for my
product called Killer Copy Tactics:
For years, sales copywriting experts have quietly made millions with
these little-known secrets. Now you can use this information yourself.
Call (000) 000-0000
I used this example for purposes of illustration. Read it again, and ask
yourself if these words alone, printed in the right location, wouldn't
prompt qualified prospects to call for more information?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 80
Killer Copy Point: Put your headline and subheadline through the
Shortcut Test. Make sure that these words alone plus a toll-free
number are likely to generate a response from qualified prospects.
The art of writing headlines is a special skill well worth the time and
effort it takes to develop. There are many known statistics in direct
marketing that bear repeating here:
· It's a good idea to write 15 or 20 headlines for your letter or ad, and
use the "leftover" headlines as part of the selling copy itself.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 81
P.S.
Sometimes your reader will read the headline and then if they are cut
to the chase, bottom line type individuals they will go immediately to
the bottom of your letter and that is where your PS resides. Your PS
must be as strong as your headline and be a strong call to action.
Not the easiest task, but a very important element of your letter and
one that you need to pay a lot of attention to.
P.S. Please reply promptly, because dates will fill quickly, and
remember this is a special show for a once a year occasion.
P.S. If you would like the names and numbers of several meeting
planners that have been booking my shows and winning accolades
from their corporate clients for over a decade, I will be glad to provide
details.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 82
P.P.S. Quick-response added bonus! For booking within 7 days
you’ll also receive a $500 tax receipt in your company’s name to the
charity of your choice.
Guarantees
I don’t know about you, but if I did a show that my client was less than
ecstatic about, I wouldn’t want their money. I hope you feel the same
way.
Testimonials
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 83
of your bookings to come to you in the same manner, by testimonials
from your delighted clients. This will happen and increase for you as
you provide excellent service and a terrific show every time.
You can never have enough testimonials. After every single show
you do, send a thank you card to the client. In your note request a
letter from them expressing their overwhelming satisfaction in doing
business with you and the audience reaction to your performance. It
really is that simple. I have hundreds of such letters and they are
directly responsible for my success in getting several thousands of
bookings over the years. Most often, when I am quoting on a show,
all that I provide by way of promotional material is a sales letter and
10 to 20 testimonial letters. The letters are from clients that are
similar to, or the same as, the type of client that is considering hiring
me.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 84
Start collecting testimonials from every booking that you do. Save
them, collect them, categorize them, and use them often. Your
prospective client will always believe what someone else says about
you, over what you say about yourself. The letters will build your
credibility and stature, and often eliminate the need for other
expensive promotional materials.
Most people value and respect the opinions of others, and for these
people, the majority of folks, there's nothing more convincing than a
testimonial. Some people, however, need to be convinced in other
ways, and that is why you appeal to those people in your sales letter.
Some people need to “see” for themselves, and if you want the
booking it may be necessary for you to invite them to a show or send
them a video.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 85
your approach and listening to your customers. Pull, don’t push.
Study and learn how to ‘read’ people and appeal to their likes and
desires. You can make a good living as a magician without even
having a business card. You will simply have more opportunities
available to you if you are armed with an arsenal of promotional tools.
There is no way for me to tell you without knowing you, the right
answer as to what you really need by way of promotional material. I
will tell you in this course what each market expects or requires, but
even those rules can be bent if you approach them in an effective
manner. There is no excuse for failing to start promoting yourself
regardless of the current level of materials available to you.
Web Sites
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 86
electronic newsletter, highly targeted traffic, properly placed
keywords, products that can be purchased in real time and more.
It is quite unlikely that you are doing this now. I know this, because I
have searched the net extensively and looked at hundreds of
magicians’ web sites and have found few that are doing this.
The good news is that the most successful site you can put together
is also the simplest one to put together (once you are educated as to
what to do). You have a lot of the basic marketing information in this
course. The same rules apply and the principles of dealing with
people remain constant. The performing venues don’t change either.
But listen to what I have to say next. It will open your mind up to a
whole new world of possibilities.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 87
You are wasting your time, money and energy if you use traditional
forms of marketing. There has never been a better time to make a
ton of money as a magician and a small businessperson. Long
before the Internet became as available as it is now, I used to dream
about a scenario not even close to what the Internet can do for us. I
fantasized about a way to contact targeted individuals with my
message at low or no cost and minimal effort. A time where I would
not have to spend a fortune in printing costs and run to the post office
all the time. The time has come and it has surpassed my wildest
dreams. We are truly on the ground floor of this opportunity, and you
are completely missing the boat if you don’t immerse yourself in this
right now.
“But Randy, you keep telling us to be eclectic and that there is never
only one right way to do things”. I take it back. Just kidding. Right
now, not everyone is using the net, but most people can read their
mail. So, if you are now using direct mail to market yourself, it makes
sense to continue to do so until you are properly educated in Internet
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 88
marketing. Faxing, when properly done, can be great too. Also, if
your primary target market is not yet wired, then that too is a good
reason to use direct mail. Plus, for other reasons, a combination of
approaches may be the right answer for you.
The best advice I can give you is to learn to take advantage of the
power of the Internet and utilize it. I am far from a technically
oriented person, but am learning more and more every day. I have a
computer and web nerd; I mean genius, who is currently working for
me three days a week as I am in the midst of developing several new
web sites to add to my existing ones. I have numerous sites
promoting my products and shows, including a “pretty” site that was
created before I knew what I was doing. It is still up and in tact for
positioning reasons but will gradually be transformed useful.
If you want low cost, low risk, instantly testable methods to obtain
high market penetration as a magician then do not let this opportunity
pass you by. Today is just in time and tomorrow is a day too late. Get
in first while you can and reap the rewards of inexpensive and deep
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 89
market penetration by learning and utilizing the Internet to your
advantage.
I don’t want you to get ripped off by web designers and web
marketing “gurus”. Anyone can make money on the Internet
regardless of his or her current skill level or knowledge. You can
design and publish a web page as easily as you can type a letter on a
word processor. You can create digital products by speaking into a
headset wired to your computer. You can book shows by building a
database of email addresses belonging to people who are in the
market to book you and have requested to receive information from
you regularly.
If you don't have a serious web presence, you are losing money and
opportunities. Even if you only book one extra show per month at
$2,500 as a direct result of your web site, that’s an extra $30,000 per
year. You can easily produce this kind of income with minimal
investment of money and time.
If nothing else, put up a simple one or two page web site with a sales
letter and testimonials. Be sure to capture your visitors’ email
addresses by offering something in return. This is how you build your
opt-in mailing list. Use the information from other sections of this
course and write compelling copy. Be sure the site loads quickly by
holding back on graphics and any large files. Submit your site to
search engines and include your web address on all your printed
material.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 90
You should also check out and consider joining the magic banner
exchange. You get massive exposure, not just from magicians, but
also from potential customers. Because there are so many sites
exchanging banners, there is a good chance that someone wanting to
book a magician in your area will find you as a result of clicking one
of your banner ads from a different site they come across. It’s easy
to get started and there is a free and paid service available so you
really have nothing to lose. I personally use this service and
recommend it. http://www.magicbannerexchange.com/
http://www.charach.com
http://www.marketingmagician.com
http://www.magicianmarketing.com
http://www.speakermagic.com
http://www.synergytalent.com
http://www.synergycorporategifts.com
Feel free to grab and learn from the free E-Zines that are offered on
these sites.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 91
Lesson 5 - Fees for Financial Freedom (Back to Index)
How much is your show worth? Although the answer seems quite
subjective, there is a way to determine a range of the current value of
your show. You start by comparing your performance to other acts
that have a similar show and are equally entertaining.
One of the secrets of increasing your value far above this range is to
add extra service above and beyond the performance itself. People
will pay a premium to book your show over another magician who
may have a similar show that elicits similar audience reaction. They
will pay this premium if they enjoy dealing with you more so than with
the other magician. It is worth extra money for them to book your
show of similar quality rather than a less expensive show when they
can rest assured that you would deliver as promised and exceed their
expectations in every aspect of dealing with you.
How much extra is the superior service and comfort worth? That
depends on your client’s resources and your sales and marketing
ability. This means that you can increase your fees again by focusing
your marketing efforts on higher paying venues and clients. I have
always charged substantially higher fees than many other magicians
in similar markets. The higher fees themselves are one of the
reasons I get more bookings, but certainly not the main reason. At my
current fee of $5000.00 for a show at a corporate engagement in the
U.S., I am in line with other acts of my caliber but still five to ten times
the cost of the next best local performer. Now, granted I'm not doing
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 92
an average of 300-400 shows per year as I used to when my fee was
more modest, but I prefer to do less shows now.
Keep in mind that you may have to make a lifestyle choice soon. I
could be doing many more shows at my current fee if I chose to
market myself aggressively. This requires traveling more than I
currently am willing to do. I was just married last year and my first
child, after my stepdaughter, is due soon. While I still enjoy
performing out of town, I have chosen to diversify further into streams
of income that do not require as much travel.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 93
being on the road. Most of the same business options will still be
open to you. Your social and family life will just be different than if
you work mostly within a day or two of your hometown.
I suggest you raise your fee immediately as long as you follow most
of the advice that I give you in this course. Raising your fee, as
mentioned above, will raise the perceived value of your show. Some
people will choose your show, all else being equal, over competitors,
just because your fee is higher. They will feel that they are getting
the best, and for some people, myself included, only the best is good
enough. Accept this advice only if you have a good show. You
cannot rip people off and expect to stay in business long. They must
feel that they got at least what they paid for and preferably much
more.
When you raise your fee in the same market, to the same clients, do
it gradually or expect to do less shows and probably make less
money for a while. If you move into a higher paying market, you can
make a big jump from your current fee. The trick is to start marketing
and obtaining bookings in the higher paying markets before you
abandon your other markets.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 94
Lesson 6 - Gentlemen & Gentlewomen Agreements (Back to Index)
"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
Samuel Goldwyn.
Do you think it is fair that your business suffer even if the mistake is
someone else's? If you have systems in place, as discussed in a
previous lesson, most of these situations will not occur. Accept
responsibility for running a business that makes it easy for your
customers to do business with you. That includes setting up systems
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 95
designed to catch potential errors during every stage of the
transaction. What if you do everything right and they still mess up?
For example, they don’t read your agreement. First of all, get in the
habit of blending several forms of verification of details during
communication and there will be few or no problems. Okay, if
something goes wrong anyway, be a mensch (basic translation: a
generous and kind person): Make people happy and your rewards will
return to you tenfold.
Now it is 50% to secure the booking and the balance either one week
before the show date or at the event itself. Even though these are my
terms, I often receive the full amount in advance from repeat
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 96
customers. It is one of the many ways they express their
appreciation for my service. Conversely, on rare occasions, a
company will prefer to pay a smaller than 50% deposit and that is
usually okay with me too. What you do will depend on your fee, your
market, and what makes you comfortable. Here is the wording from
my agreement, feel free to use it:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 97
Lesson 7 - Your First Class Performance (Back to Index)
The show itself is the centerpiece of the package. Never lose sight of
the fact that as professional and groovy as your show might be, how
you handle yourself before and after the performance will long be
remembered in the same light as the show itself.
The quality of your show will have a direct correlation with the size of
your bank account. You may be surprised that I say this, considering
I speak about all the other elements rather than the show itself as a
means to obtain higher booking fees and more bookings. Well, as
excellent as your business and personal relationships may be, if your
show stinks then the other stuff will not be enough to allow you to
thrive as a professional magician. You have to have it all. The show
part of show business is equally as important as the business part.
You need to pursue excellence in both. You cannot charge high fees
unless you consistently provide fantastic performances.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 98
Now, who is the judge as to whether your show is good or not? Well
the answer is obvious to you, I hope. It is your audience. It certainly
isn't other magicians and definitely isn't you. Almost every show you
do should lead to more shows being booked from audience members
and repeat bookings by that original client. If it isn’t, you’re probably
not very good at entertaining your audience. Even a poor marketer
will get spin-off bookings by presenting good shows.
Your show itself is your single best marketing tool. We must create
desire in the eyes of potential bookers to allow them to look good by
finding and hiring you. There must be overwhelming desire by the
committees and individuals that book you to have you perform for
their group the next time they need entertainment. If this is not
happening every time you perform then you must work on your act.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 99
I stated above that your show is your single best marketing tool.
There are many things you can do at the event itself that will aid in
selling your services. This does not mean to literally pitch your
services before, after or during your show. The person who
introduces you can do that. He or she is often a person of authority
and their words will carry more weight. The following technique I am
about to share with you actually triples my audience-member-booking
rate.
+++
At Conclusion: Please thank Randy, and then say the following in
your own words: If anyone would like information on Randy’s shows,
speeches or products, feel free to speak with him before he leaves.
+++
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 100
Note that one small detail can make a huge difference in the number
of bookings you receive. There may just be one small detail in your
show that you can tweak, that will make a world of difference in your
performance. Perhaps something to do with your voice projection,
your pace, your inappropriate use of insult humor, even the way you
dress, can create a subliminally-uncomfortable situation for your
specific target audience.
This is a crucial point; sometimes the smallest detail can make the
biggest difference. Something you say in the first few moments you
address your audience can turn them off and spoil your chance of
success regardless of the quality of the remainder of your
performance.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 101
Lesson 8 - Golden Relationships with Agents (Back to Index)
Much of my work has been and still is derived from agents. It is great
to establish a foundation with an agency that continues to provide
bookings that you would not otherwise have. They do most of the
office work and you do the show and get paid.
Two common ways an agent will earn money from doing business
with you are to:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 102
1. Retain or collect a commission that is based on a percentage of
the fee that you are paid.
2. Pay you a net fee for your work and profit from the difference
between what they pay you and what they charge the client.
This may surprise you, but I happily work with several agents that
retain a third of my fee as their cut. So, on a booking of, say, $4,500,
they get $1,500 and I get $3,000. Sound fair? Who cares! Don’t
even waste your time thinking about it. Are you happy with your end
of the deal? That is the important question. Too many people worry
about what the other person is making and end up hurting
themselves in the process. What if you are charging $150.00 and the
split is $100.00 and $50.00? See answer above.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 103
Always ask up front how they work. If they work on a percentage of
the fee ask them what percentage they retain. Accept their terms
graciously if it falls within a range that you are comfortable with.
On a net fee arrangement, they usually pay you an agreed upon fee
and add on for themselves what the market will bear or a set profit
margin or minimum dollar amount. The danger of the add-on
scenario is that the client’s expectations may be higher than what you
can or will deliver at the fee you are being paid. If the agent is clear
on what is required of you and relays that information accurately to
the client there should not be a problem.
You can run into problems when booking through an agent. This is
the case regardless of fee amounts and commission arrangements.
You can avoid most potential difficulties by dealing with competent
and honest people in the first place.
There are actually many other legitimate and fair ways for an
entertainment agency to run their business and earn profits. There
are also many reasons why a magician should own their own agency.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 104
You should learn the information available to you (see lesson 22 for a
resource) even if you don’t end up owning your agency. You can
better profit from this lucrative stream of bookings by better
understanding their concerns and being privy to the inside information
of running an agency.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 105
Lesson 9 - Magic Marketing Methods (Back to Index)
What came first, the chicken or the egg? That popular old adage
reminds me of a question that all – entertainers for hire - need to ask
ourselves.
What comes first, the Show or the Business? Well in this case, yes,
the show comes first - only initially though. Once we have
established a solid act or show, we need to focus on the business
part of the equation. As obvious as this seems, most entertainers
neglect the business “stuff”. Understandably, so.
I suggest that you make a concerted effort to split your focus. Study
marketing and advertising, take some risks, learn to enjoy it. The
results will be rewarding for you in many ways.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 106
Remember, the most important rule: There are no rules!
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 107
followed by a brochure, another letter and yet another postcard. Or
with Internet marketing you may participate in a newsgroup
discussion, provide a free report, and reach interested opt-in
subscribers every month with an electronic newsletter.
Over time and repeated exposure you will establish credibility and
build the confidence of your potential client.
Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using this
information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger greater sales
response -- often far beyond what you could imagine.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 108
There are 30 triggers in all, some of which I will reveal to you in a
moment. Each trigger, when deployed, has the power to increase
sales and response beyond what you would normally expect.
There are triggers, for example, that will cause your prospect to feel
guilty if they don't purchase your product. Let me give you an
example. Whenever you receive in the mail a sales solicitation with
free personalized address stickers, you often feel guilty if you use the
stickers and don't send something back -- often far in excess of the
value of the stickers.
Another example are those surveys that are sent out asking for you to
spend about 20 minutes of your time filling them out. Enclosed in the
mailing you might find a dollar bill included to encourage you to feel
guilty, and entice you to fill out the survey. And you often spend a lot
more than one dollar of your time to do that.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 109
30 days, you can return your purchase for a full refund." A
satisfaction conviction is different. Basically it takes the trial period
and adds something that makes it go well beyond the trial period.
Basically you're saying to your prospect that you are so sure that
they'll like the subscription that you are willing to go beyond what is
traditionally offered with other subscriptions.
This in fact gives the reader the sense that the company really knows
it has a winning product and solidly stands behind the product and
your satisfaction.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 110
Looking over what they had created, I saw several mistakes, many of
which would have been avoided if they knew the psychological
triggers that cause people to buy. Let me give you just one example.
In the subject line of most e-mail’s that have solicited me, I have been
able to tell, at a glance, that the solicitation was for a specific service
or an offer of something that I was clearly able to determine.
The problem with those subject lines is that the reader was able to
quickly determine:
Most people don't like advertising. And most people won't make the
effort to open their e-mail solicitation if they think they are getting an
advertising message -- unless they are sincerely interested in buying
something that the advertisement offers.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 111
them to take the next step. In the case of the envelope, you want
them to open it. In the case of an infomercial, you want them to keep
watching, and in the case of an e-mail, you want them open up the e-
mail and read your message.
There are a number of ways you can use curiosity to literally force a
person to take the next step. You can then use this valuable tool to
put a reader in the correct frame of mind to buy what you have to
offer.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 112
Internet Marketing
At the end of this lesson I will point you in the right direction to do this
and provide reports from leaders in this field.
You can make money by providing both products and services on the
Internet. The key to being successful at this is very simple. Build
your own qualified, opt-in subscriber list. Subscribe to what? Your
electronic newsletter of course.
Your web site visitors will provide their information and permission to
include them in your mailing list. You get this by offering an e-zine
(newsletter), special report, ebook, or something worthwhile in
exchange. To keep them willing and interested in staying on your list,
you continually provide them with valuable information that they can
use or will enjoy.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 113
Your profits are derived from booking shows and product sales that
are generated by information you provide in your newsletter.
Revenue can also come from commissions you earn by
recommending affiliate programs that you belong to and believe in.
http://www.hitsncash.com/cgibin/t.cgi/172748
http://www.marketingtips.com/sr/t.x/640070
If you would like a list of other great affiliate programs, just send me a
note and I will be happy to send you a current one.
2) Educate Yourself
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 114
tools to make your work easier and more productive. Join affiliate
programs and profit from them immediately. Spend money only with
people you trust. Invest in knowledge. It is the best investment you
can make. Learn from other people’s mistakes and successes.
Acquire specific information relating to you and your goals. Open
your mind to new learning and opportunities.
Here is a big tip. Do not build a massive web site. Simple 1-2 page
web sites with a single and clearly defined purpose are most
profitable. This applies equally to your shows and products. Build
separate sites for each service and product.
Creating your own proprietary product can be great. It can also take
a long time to develop and market. After that, you may become part
of the small percentage of people to make profit. Having said, that,
by all means do give it a shot. The fact that it is difficult goes hand in
hand with the fact that it can produce your greatest rewards.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 115
4) Build Relationships
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 116
It takes a while to learn and start making money, so don’t jump out of
one thing to do another even if you can afford to financially. Carefully
plan your life, and interconnect business activities that you enjoy and
that work well together. Then quit your day job!
7) React Quickly
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 117
9) Surround Yourself With Positive People
Don’t waste your time with gossip, jealousy, and pessimism. As you
become higher profile on the Net, some people may criticize you and
attack you with their opinions in email and public forums. You can't
possibly please everyone. Remember that they may have a hidden
agenda. Always conduct yourself ethically and responsibly and
realize that their attacks have nothing to do with you. It is their
problem - keep it that way.
Prioritize your activities and don’t stray readily from the tasks at hand.
When you are working on a project, perhaps creating a niche site for
one of your shows or products, it may mean not replying personally to
email questions from people you don't know, or not discussing joint
ventures and business opportunities for a while.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 118
You must invest in further study of marketing methods of all types.
Direct mail marketers can teach you a lot. They are from the old
school of marketing and much of what they teach is and always will
be effective. Learn from them, but apply the strategies to electronic
marketing whenever possible.
Invest a few dollars and buy everything you can get your hands on
that relate specifically to marketing and money making opportunities
for magicians. We are in a limited market and for a small investment
of only a few thousand dollars you can literally own everything
available regarding the business of magic. You should also attend
seminars and consider private coaching. You are in a business that
can make you rich and requires minimal start-up cost and investment.
Consider yourself fortunate.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 119
There is much to learn about many aspects of marketing, not just
Internet specific, in the reports that follow.
The first one is even from an ex-magician and he talks about how he
started advertising his magic shows for free. The beginning of this
report discusses off-line marketing and then it goes into Internet
marketing. The author is currently one of the most successful
Internet Marketers in cyber-space, but he was also very successful
before the net existed as it does today. While everything he says in
this report, and other reports and recommended readings by the way,
may not specifically apply to your entertainment business, they are
included in this book for good reason.
Let me remind you that the title of this book is “Secrets of a Millionaire
Magician”. One of my secrets is that I look for sources of information
and inspiration from a vast variety of sources. I learn to integrate the
lessons and apply them to my business. Although you are provided
in this book with several templates and cookie cutter solutions, I
would be doing you a disservice to spell absolutely everything out for
you. So, with that in mind, please read the reports in this book and
think about how you can apply the lessons to your business.
I was only in the eighth grade. Imagine this tall, scraggly, angular kid
with thick-rimmed, Buddy-Holly style glasses standing in front of a
Boy Scout troop numbering 200 or more...
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 120
...Doing magic tricks.
It blows my mind to think about it now. You see, it all started with a
dumb little classified ad I ran in the local paper (my first direct
response ad).
Yes, when I started, my parties were free. But I made up this goofy
index card with spots on the outside, and my name and phone
number on the inside.
Hidden in this story is the greatest marketing secret in the world. You
can use it immediately for big profits in your business – regardless of
what you sell or who you sell to.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 121
1. Give you a steady flow of highly receptive prospects to sell your
product or service to...without spending much money.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 122
Walter and Steve call this "overhear psychology"...which means that
people attribute more credibility to statements made by a third party
than those made directly by you.
Here's why I call this the greatest marketing secret in the world . . .
1. One of the biggest selling challenges you face is that people don't
believe what you say. Think about it. Every week on TV we see
stories about companies ripping the public off. Our potential
customers are scared they're going to be the next victim telling a sob
story on TV.
That's why they often doubt that your product or service will perform
as promised.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 123
listen openly to what you have to say. While you don't have a
guaranteed sale, your odds of success certainly skyrocket.
Elsewhere, I've told you how Walter Hailey increased his ratio of
converting prospects to sales from 20% to 80% using the
endorsement method. While every business has its own numbers,
you'll no doubt experience profound results using this method.
You have two choices: You can sell the easy way or the hard way.
The hard way is approaching prospects who don't know or trust you.
The easy way is getting others to introduce you to their own
customers who know and love them, and therefore, by association,
know and love you.
Here's why . . .
You've heard the expression, "guilt by association." This puts a new
twist on that saying, "credibility by association."
To make a profit, you count on repeat sales and referrals, which limit
your growth because you have to first recoup your advertising outlay
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 124
before re-investing your profits. In short, you're stuck in a cash flow
crunch while waiting to recoup your advertising dollars.
If you're new in business, the picture looks even dimmer. You have
bills to pay. If you have to wait for repeat business, you may not be
IN business to reap the rewards.
Before the clock strikes 12, you're broke. But what if there were a
way to turn the tables and greatly increase the odds of making a profit
up front? First of all, you'd have a gigantic advantage over
competitors who are stuck in the cash flow rut. Second, you'd be
able to expand more rapidly. Third, you'd have a cushion to absorb
the cost of occasional bad judgment without putting yourself in a bind.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 125
In contrast, consider this: When you joint venture with a business with
5,000 customers, you get to access those customers ALL AT ONCE.
You don't have to advertise for a year or two to get that many
customers. And your cash investment is zero. I'll repeat that...
Take what I'm saying, use your creativity and apply it to your own
situation. If you're thinking, "my business is different," stop right now!
That's a total cop out. I promise you, when you put your mind to it,
you'll find ways to apply this to your industry.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 126
And lead generation is the place where most businesses trip up. It
breaks my heart to see people get involved in business opportunities
without having a way to locate new prospects. I don't care if you're
selling web sites, network marketing companies, insurance, cars,
dental care, psychotherapy, massage or anything else in the world.
If that describes you, don't worry. In the balance of this issue, I'm
going to show you exactly what to do and how to do it. Follow my
instructions, and this won't be a problem for you anymore. So let's
jump right in and discuss how to use the direct mail endorsement.
The principle is simple. You write a hard-hitting sales letter (or lead
generation letter) about your product, idea or service. Then you
locate businesses who sell to your target market, i.e. the people or
companies you've identified who are most likely to purchase from
you.
You ask the owners to send the sales gem to their customer list along
with a cover letter typed on their company stationary. The letter
introduces you, tells the benefits of your products or services, and
urges the readers to peruse the enclosed sales letter.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 127
In exchange for this endorsement, the host business receives a
percentage of gross sales or the net profits. How much?
If you have the opportunity, it's a nice touch to first let the business
owners sample your stuff. That way the cover letter can tout the
amazing results they obtained firsthand (nothing beats personal
testimonials) . . . and explain why they're bothering to endorse you.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 128
The reason you make this endorsement in a cover letter rather than
in the primary sales letter is you can save money by printing the main
sales letter in bulk -- and printing custom cover letters as needed.
Then, you mail the whole kit in the company's envelopes, so your
information will leap out like a neon sign in the mailbox! Why go to all
this trouble? Because of . . .
How much money you pocket from your mailings depends on the
quality of the relationship between the endorsing business and their
customers. If the customers buy a staple item and tend not to repeat,
the endorsement won't carry near the weight as one to customers
who spend a substantial amount of money frequently.
What's a good test quantity? It depends on your budget and the size
of the lists. Big mail-order companies send out 100,000 pieces
sometimes to test complex variations of letters, offers and lists.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 129
I recommend you follow a timeless marketing maxim: Never gamble
more on a mailing than you can afford to lose.
If the total list is only 5,000, then mail 500 or 1,000. If it's 1,000 then
mail 100 or so.
In the latter case, your test won't be scientific, but if several lists
receive no responses (or only one) while others get 3, 4, or more, that
tells you something.
The point is: Test the waters before you jump in with both feet. Use
your common sense and you'll do fine.
OK, you're sold on the idea of doing joint venture mailings. How do
you get started? Ask this question: What else do your customers buy
and who else do they buy it from? Look through the trade
publications, newsletters and magazines they read. Talk to your
customers and find out who they buy from that they really respect and
trust.
Keep your eyes and ears open for businesses with the same target
market as yours and a non-competitive product. While you can do
joint ventures with direct competitors by selling to the prospects they
couldn't convert, your first time or two out, keep it simple by doing
deals with non-competitors.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 130
Your ideal endorser sells products or services in the same price
range as yours to virtually identical customers on a long term repeat
basis. Naturally, if you can't find the ideal host, you'll have to go with
the closest thing you can find.
By the way, let's see what you're learning so far. What's the number
one best method of approaching a potential host? If you answered
"direct introduction from someone the potential host knows and
respects," give yourself a pat on the back and 10 brownie points.
You're a fast learner!
What if you sell to a specialized market and the lists you have access
to on an endorsed basis are small? What then?
Twist One: Mail a sequence of letters, not just one. Send follow up
letters several weeks apart until they're no longer profitable. You
don't have to write completely new letters for this. You can just use a
different headline and begin by referring to the prior letter(s).
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 131
Here's one proven technique: Stamp in red at the top of the first page
"second notice," "third notice," and so on. Perhaps the first letter
escaped attention, but the second or third notice makes the prospect
wake up and dive in.
Twist two: Follow up your mailings with phone calls. You'll usually
find a number of people who say, "I'm glad you called. I've been
meaning to call (send in money, or whatever)"
Twist Three: Instead of going for a big sale, ask for a small trial
commitment or a request for additional information.
When you have a limited number of prospects to work with from the
beginning, every one is worth gold, so you want to skim as many off
the top as possible. You do this is by asking for an easy, low-threat
action.
Dentist: Come in, meet the dentist and receive a free plaque-
elimination kit, a new handy flossing tool and a free report called,
"How To Have A Gorgeous Smile On A Shoestring Budget."
Massage Therapist: Call for a free report, "The Seven Myths About
Massage...And The Little-Known Relaxation Tool You Can Use At
Home." Plus, drop by any of 5 locations and receive a free neck
massage."
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 132
Moving Service: Free moving supplies when you call for a price
quote.
If the lists you have access to are limited in size, these tips will put a
lot of extra cash in your bank account. Now let's look at a way to
blend this principle with marketing on the web:
Of course, endorsed mailings aren't the only way to cash in on this
principle. Here's another
If you've ever had any sales training whatsoever, you've had it drilled
into your head to ask everyone, "who do you know that might benefit
from this product?"
The glitch with asking the "who do you know" question is people often
feel uncomfortable making referrals to their friends or business
associates.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 133
As a result, you often find that customers go blank and can't think of
anyone to refer you to, or can only come up with a few names.
Tell new customers about the free newsletter and ask if they know
anyone you should put on the mailing list. Get names, addresses
and phone numbers. Mail a sample issue to each person with a
cover letter (or a brief note on a yellow sticky) signed by the referring
person. Next, call and ask if they'd like to continue receiving it.
Your sales letters will generate inbound calls before you know it.
And, after mailing 2 or 3 issues, you can further pursue business by
following up with phone calls.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 134
What's more, because your newsletters enhance your credibility by
showcasing you or your company's expertise, you'll find you turn a
higher percentage of leads to sales.
Can you see the genius of this method? Your customers will feel ten
times more comfortable helping their friends and business associates
get on the mailing list for a valuable, helpful, informative newsletter
than they will just giving you referrals directly. The end result is you
get many times the referrals with less effort.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 135
• Newsletter: Three or six month subscription
The Subtle But Extremely Important Secret That Makes The Gift
Method Work
If you go around giving away free stuff, people probably won't value
what they're receiving. "If it's free, it can't be that good," the logic
goes. At best, they're suspicious of the free goods or services, and
they're waiting to find out what the catch is.
So do NOT offer your products or services for free. Instead, let your
customers give your goodies to their friends or business associates.
They should say something like this: "We were so impressed by this
product (or service) we decided to purchase an introductory session,
membership (or trial whatever) and gift it to you."
This makes the sponsor look like a very generous and caring person.
And it prevents the recipient from going through the mental de-
valuation that occurs with some free offers.
For integrity sake, you may want to have the customers pay you a
token fee for a block of gift certificates, so they can legitimately say
they purchased the widget.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 136
Alternative number three: The Vendor/Supplier Angle
As an illustration, let me give an example for people who sell web site
design.
Here's the point: Once you sell a business your widget- whether it's a
web site, a phone system, a training seminar, insurance or anything
else in the world -- you have the most powerful marketing channel in
the world available to you ... a natural economic chain to vendors and
suppliers and customers.
So, in the case of web site designers, once they sell a web site to one
business, all they have to do is ask for an introduction to their
vendors, suppliers and customers. Then, each of those businesses
has its own network of vendors, suppliers and customers. The chain
never stops.
As you can see, you don't have to have a zillion contacts to make this
method work. All you need are several businesses that will give you
an entree to their network, and you can be set for a long, long time.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 137
There's a really neat book you need to buy. It's called: How to
Generate Word of Mouth Advertising: 101 Easy and Inexpensive
Ways To Promote Your Business.
By Godfrey Harris with Gregrey Harris.
Of course it is. Now, you might be wondering what leverage you have
to get someone to endorse your product to their list. The answer is to
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 138
sign up for an associates tracking system where you can track sales
and pay commissions. Check out:
http://www.marketingtips.com/assoctrac/t.x/640070
Whether you market online or off, you need to leverage all your
efforts as much as possible. By tapping into the relationship other
people have with their customers; you're able to do this.
Now, I don't want to make it sound like easy street. Arranging joint
ventures can be time consuming. People are not always eager to
allow you to access their customer list. I don't want to gloss over
these issues.
List owners are worried about making their customers unhappy. You
have to prove you have a terrific product and that you'll indeed deliver
it to every buyer.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 139
The best thing I can tell you is this: If you're persistent and
determined, if you present yourself professionally, if you're
determined to create win/win deals, if you're sensitive to the needs of
others as well as yourself, if you're willing to think outside the box,
you can make these joint ventures happen.
The best books in the world about networking are written by Thomas
Stanley. If you're a serious student and really want to learn some
turbo-charged techniques of getting endorsed by power players, read
Networking With The Affluent and Marketing To The Affluent by
Thomas Stanley.
Here is a simple little method you can use anytime you need money.
For example, this week I've made $6350.00 with it so far. I'll show
you in this article exactly how I made that money.
Last month I made $13,000 in 2 week using it. It's so simple; it's
almost laughable, as most of my marketing methods are. Of course,
those results are not guaranteed and are not necessarily
representative of what the average person makes who use this
formula.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 140
Step One: Compile an "opt-in" list
If you don't already have an opt-in list, then obviously this won't be a
fast cash method for you. First you have to compile your opt-in list. I
teach my students a number of simple, easy methods for doing this.
By the way, if you aren't familiar with the term, "opt-in" list, it refers to
a mailing list that people specifically and deliberately subscribe to. In
other words, they give you permission to send them emails. Sending
unsolicited emails is a gigantic "no-no." Now, if you do already have
a list of people who have specifically given you permission to email
them, then you need a product to endorse.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 141
The key to making sales to your list is the endorsement letter. You
must preface the sales letter with reasons why you're endorsing that
particular product. The folks on your list trust you, and will listen to
your opinion about the product.
You don't have to write anything fancy. Just include a note that
explains why the product you're endorsing deserves their attention
and how it will benefit them.
For example:
Here is the email that has made me over 6 grand this week. I sent it
to my customer list. I prefer shorter emails but this one needed more
explanation.
I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine who has helped me make
a small fortune.
* Intel
* MyPoints
* OnHealth
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 142
* Microsoft
* MotherNature.com
It's the only method I know that allows you to ramp up from small
volume to large volume almost overnight -- without spending one
freakin' dime on advertising!
That means your potential profits have almost no limit and the money
you risk to get that payoff is quite small if you already have products
and a web site.
You don't have to be Microsoft to use his methods. They work for
small, medium and large companies alike.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 143
To my knowledge, Jonathan is the only person explaining the magic
of "per transaction" marketing in a format where you can actually
apply it to your business tomorrow morning.
It's something that Jonathan found out by working "hands on" with the
big corporations. This IS what the serious Internet marketing
companies are doing because you can scale up from small to giant
volume in a flash.
Ezine ads and other methods are great for getting started. But how
are you ever going to get the VOLUME that hauls in big bucks --
without spending a fortune on advertising?
That's what Jonathan shows you...
One last thing: You may not be able to tell it from the sound of his
sales letter, but his product is NOTHING like mine.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 144
With great pleasure, I introduce you to the unmatched genius of
Jonathan Mizel. Please, click here.
Best wishes,
Marlon Sanders
”yourownproducts.com"
See: http://www.marketingtips.com/mailloop/t.x/640070
Format your email letter in a text editor such as text pad and place a
hard return at or before 65 characters on a line. This prevents your
email from wrapping and looking like garbage when it arrives in your
customer's email box.
When you do your mailing, expect .5% of the list to buy. However, the
true answer is that you'll know your response rate a week after you
email your sales letter. The bulk of your responses will come in
within 72 hours.
Follow this simple two-step formula and you can create money out of
thin air anytime you need it.
******************************************
Marlon Sanders is author of The Amazing Formula That Sells Like
Crazy and "Push Button Letters" .
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 145
For an in-depth look at the formula presented in this report, visit
Marlon's web site by clicking here.
The rest of the reports in this lesson apply specifically to the Internet.
Bonus Report – “Improving the Link Popularity of your site” By Sumantra Roy
Link popularity, i.e. the number of sites, which are linking to your site,
is an increasingly important factor as far as search engine placement
is concerned. Other things remaining the same, more the number of
links to your site, higher will be its ranking.
What is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also
the types of sites which are linking to you. A link from a site which is
related to yours is more valuable than a link from an unrelated site.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 146
1) Submitting your site to Free For All (FFA) pages
Nothing could be further from the truth. Most FFA pages can contain
only a certain number of links at a time. This means that when you
submit your site to a FFA page, your site will be placed at the top of
the page. However, as more and more people submit their sites to
the FFA page, your site will be pushed down, and finally, when it
reaches the bottom of the page, it will be removed.
Now, since you can bet that plenty of other people are also submitting
their sites to the FFA pages, your site will remain in these pages for
only a short span of time. Hence, in order to ensure that the search
engines see your site if and when they come to spider the FFA page,
you will need to ensure that you submit your site to these FFA pages
on a regular basis - at least once a week.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 147
Hence, when it comes to FFA pages, my advice is simple: don't even
think about them.
ii) Most of these services give the same pages containing the links to
each of its members, i.e. the pages that you are required to upload to
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 148
your site are exactly the same as the pages which all the other
members of that service are required to upload to their servers. Even
the file names of the pages tend to be the same for all the members.
Most search engines are now able to detect such duplicate pages in
different domains and may either ignore the pages or may even
penalize all these domains for spamming.
iii) Instead of linking only related sites with each other, most of these
services link all the members with each other. This means that lots of
unrelated sites will be linking to your site. As I mentioned before, links
from unrelated sites are simply not as valuable as links from related
sites.
Hence, I don't recommend that you join any reciprocal link programs.
link:somesite.com -url:somesite.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 149
Where somesite.com is the domain name of one of your competitors.
This will give you a list of all the sites which are linking to that
competitor. Then, find out in what context a particular site has linked
to your competitor. If this site is an affiliate of your competitor, then
your chance of getting a link from this site is limited, unless you offer
an even better affiliate program. However, if you find that this site has
a Links page which contains links to other sites, one of which is a link
to your competitor, then it is an excellent prospect for exchanging
links. Find out the name and email address of the webmaster of the
site and add them to your database. In this way, go through all the
sites which are linking to your competitors, locate those sites which
you think may want to exchange links with you, and build up your
database.
Once you have done that, create a Links page in your site, and add
the URLs of these sites to the Links page. Then, send an email to
these webmasters, introduce yourself and your site, congratulate
them on building an excellent web site, tell them that you have
already added a link to their sites from yours, and then ask them
whether they would be kind enough to add a link to your site. In your
email, emphasize the fact that exchanging links in this way will be
mutually beneficial for both of you because it will help both of you
drive traffic to your sites. Wait for a month or so to see the response.
Some webmasters will agree to link to you. Others will simply not
respond. After a month, remove the links to those sites who are not
interested in exchanging links and using the methods outlined above,
try to locate more sites with which to exchange links.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 150
When you send the email to the webmasters, make sure that you
personalize each email. Don't begin every email with "Hello
Webmaster", begin with "Hello Mike". If you want, you can use email
merge programs to automatically personalize each email. You can
check out some email merge programs by going to
http://download.cnet.com and searching for "email merge" (without
the quotes).
The main problem with this method of improving the link popularity of
your site is that it takes a lot of time. You may find that the number of
links you manage to get just does not justify the time that you spend
over it. However, I have been evaluating a program named Zeus
which automates this process of exchanging links to a large extent.
You can download a free trial version of Zeus from
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1532&zeus/
Another thing that you can do is to mention in your Links page that
you are willing to exchange links with other web sites. This allows
other webmasters who come to your web site to propose a link
exchange.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 151
logo is linked to your site, preferably to a page which contains more
information on the award.
Make sure that you give awards to only those sites which deserve to
win. If you give your award to sites which don't deserve it, your award
will have little credibility, which will, in turn, hurt the credibility of your
company. Furthermore, make sure that the logo you design for the
award looks professional. If it doesn't, not many webmasters will want
to display it in their sites.
5) Giving testimonials
This may sound a bit unusual, but giving testimonials for products or
services which you find useful can be another moderately effective
way of improving the link popularity of your site. If you really like a
product, simply write to the company and tell them why you liked the
product so much and how it has helped you. Chances are, the
company will write back to you to thank you for your comments and
will ask you for permission to display your comments in their web site.
Tell the company that you have no problems if they publish your
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 152
comments, but request them to add a link to your site along with the
testimonial. There is every possibility that the company will agree
since publishing the URL of your web site gives more credibility to the
testimonial.
Email based discussion lists which are archived on the web in static
HTML pages can also be used to boost the link popularity of your site
in a similar manner. In this case, the signature file that you use with
your email program should contain the URL for your web site.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 153
Yet another moderately effective method of improving the link
popularity of your site is to set up new web sites and have these new
sites link to your main site. If you are Jeff Bezos (CEO of
Amazon.com), you can afford to purchase hundreds of new domains
and have these new domains link to your main site. If you are not Jeff
Bezos, you can simply set up new sites with some of the free web
hosts. (Of course, your primary web site should always be hosted in a
separate domain of its own). Simply add a few pages of unique
content to each of your new sites, and have each of the pages in your
new sites link to your main site.
If you use this technique, make sure that you do not duplicate content
across multiple sites. If you do, the search engines might penalize
your sites for spamming. You need to ensure that all the pages that
you create for these new sites contain unique content.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 154
too much. For instance, if you publish a newsletter, and have unsold
ad inventory, you can give away some free advertisements in your
newsletter to the winners. If you sell a software (or an ebook), you
can give away a free copy of your software or ebook to the winners,
since it doesn't cost you anything to produce an additional copy of
digital goods like software and ebooks.
Link contests work best if you run the contest on a continuous basis
and if you declare new winners frequently. If you run the contest for a
few months, and then stop it, the webmasters who had linked to you
will all remove their links. However, if you run it on a continuous
basis, and declare new winners every month or so, the webmasters
will have the incentive to keep their links to your site.
Also, make sure that you require all participants to have a link to your
site either in their home page, or in an internal page of their site which
is linked to their home page. Also ensure that the page which
contains the link is no more than two levels deep from their home
page (i.e. it should not take more than two clicks to go from the home
page to the page containing the link). If they don't do this, the search
engine spiders may not index the page which contains the link to your
site, and hence, may not find your link.
This is by far one of the best ways of improving the link popularity of
your site, and one of my favorites. Whenever I write an article on
search engine placement, I first publish it in my newsletter and then I
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 155
publish the article in my site as a separate web page. I also submit it
to the following article submission sites:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm
Now, at the end of each article, I mention that people are free to re-
publish the article as long as they include my resource box (i.e. my
bio) at the end of the article. I always include the URL of my site in
the resource box. This means that whenever someone publishes one
of my articles in his/her web site, I have another site linking to my
site. Also, many ezine publishers archive their ezines in their web
sites. If they have re-published my article in a particular issue, I again
get a link.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 156
webmasters and ezine publishers, some of whom will publish it... and
so on.
ii) Your resource box should not be too long - it should be no more
than 6 lines long, formatted at 65 characters per line. Otherwise,
other webmasters and ezine publishers will hesitate to publish your
article.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 157
This is another excellent way by which you can improve the link
popularity of your site. When you have your own affiliate program,
you give other webmasters the incentive to link to you. In this case
too, since most of these web sites will be related to the industry in
which you are operating, these links will be more valuable than links
from unrelated sites.
Now, when you start your affiliate program, you need to decide
whether you want to run the program yourself, or whether you want to
outsource it from a third party. While outsourcing your affiliate
program has a number of benefits, doing so will not help you improve
the link popularity of your site, because affiliates are going to link to
the third party's site. In order to improve the link popularity of your
site, you need to ensure that the affiliate links are pointing to your
domain.
This is by far the most important step as far as improving the link
popularity of your site is concerned. As I mentioned before, what is
important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the
quality of the links to your site. No links are as important as links from
some of the major directories like Yahoo!, the Open Directory etc.
Hence, it is vitally important that you get your site registered by these
directories.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 158
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_
Web/Searching_the_Web/Search_Engines_and_Directories/.
Bonus Report – “Choosing the Correct Keywords for your site” By Sumantra Roy
In this article, we focus on the correct way of finding out the keywords
for which you should optimize your site for the search engines. This
article will give you the formula for the Keyword Effectiveness Index
(KEI) - a mathematical formula which I have developed to help you
determine which keywords you should be optimizing your site for.
Step 1: Open your text editor or word processor and write down all
the words and phrases that you might have searched for if you were
looking for a company which offers products and services similar to
yours. For example, suppose your company organizes packaged
tours to Australia.
tourism in Australia
travel to Australia
traveling in Australia
travel agencies in Australia
traveling agencies in Australia
Australian travel agencies
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 159
Of course, the keywords that came to your mind may have been
different. But that's not important - the important thing is to get an
initial list of keywords.
You may be wondering why I have not used single word keywords.
Here's why:
Thirdly, single word keywords won't get you targeted traffic. When
people search for "tourism", they are not necessarily looking for
tourist destinations in Australia - they may be interested in any other
country of the world. Even if you got your site into the top 10 for
tourism, you gain nothing from such visitors. However, when
someone searches for "tourism in Australia", he/she is your potential
customer, and hence, it makes sense for you to try and get a top
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 160
ranking for your site for that keyword. Hence, whenever you are trying
to generate keywords, try to be location specific. Try to think of
keywords which apply to the geographic area that your product or
service is designed to serve.
Create 4 columns - one for the keyword, one for the popularity of the
keyword, one for the number of sites that appear in AltaVista for that
keyword and the last for something I call the Keyword Effectiveness
Index (don't worry - I'll explain what KEI means later on). In order to
ensure that you can follow what I am saying, I recommend that you
add the following column headers to the first four columns of the first
row of your spreadsheet:
Keyword
Popularity
No. of Competitors
KEI
In case you don't want to take the trouble of creating your own
spreadsheet, download the keywords.zip file from
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1532&download.htm The file
contains a sample spreadsheet in Excel format.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 161
Step 3: A great way to obtain a list of keywords related to the ones
you have developed in the first step is to use WordTracker's keyword
generation service by going to:
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1532&wordtracker/
Click on the "Trial" option at the top of the site. In the page that
appears, type in your name and email address and click on the "Start
the trial >>" button. In the next page, click on "Click here to start the
trial". In the next page, type in the first keyword that you developed in
Step 1, i.e. "tourism in Australia", in the text box. Click on the
"Proceed >>" button.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 162
Once you have added all the keywords in the right pane which are
applicable for your site, click on the next keyword in the left pane
which is applicable for your site. Once again, WordTracker will
display a list of keywords in the right pane which contain the keyword
you had clicked on in the left pane. Again, copy the keywords in the
right pane which are applicable for your site and paste them in the
first column of your spreadsheet. Also, copy the figures present in the
Count column and paste them in the second column beside the
corresponding keywords. Repeat this process for each of the
keywords in the left pane.
Step 5: Once you have finished with all the keywords in the left pane,
press your browser's Back button a number of times until
WordTracker again displays the text box which asks you to type in a
keyword. Type in the second keyword in your original list (i.e. "travel
to Australia"), click on the "Proceed >>" button and repeat Step 4. Do
this for each of the keywords that you developed in Step 1.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 163
show the popularity of the keywords and your third column will
contain the number of sites you are competing against to get a high
ranking for those keywords.
If you had used the spreadsheet file that I created for you (see Step
2), you won't need to enter the formula for calculating the KEI
yourself. The KEI would be automatically calculated for you the
moment you enter the values in columns 2 and 3. You can go straight
to Step 8. In case you didn't download the file, here's how you can
calculate the KEI.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 164
Then click on the Copy button to copy the formula, select all the cells
in column 4 which have keywords associated with them and press the
Paste button to paste the formula. The KEI for each keyword will be
displayed.
Step 8: Use your spreadsheet program's Sort feature to sort the rows
in descending order of the KEI. In Excel 97, you would click on the
Data menu, click on the Sort menu item, choose KEI from the drop-
down combo box named "Sort by", click on the "Descending" option
next to it, and then click on OK.
And guess what - that's it! You now know the keywords which you
should optimize your site for. You can now start optimizing your site
one by one for each keyword, starting with the keyword with the
highest KEI. Exactly how many of the keywords you choose to
optimize your site for largely depends on the amount of time that you
can spare from your normal business activities. But whatever the
number of keywords that you target, it obviously makes sense to go
for the most effective keywords first.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 165
Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected
search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. To have
Sumatra’s company place your site at the top of the search engines,
go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1532
For more advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the
search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by going to:
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?1532&newsletter.htm
The next two reports will save you a ton of time if you choose to
pursue Internet Marketing as a way to increase your bookings and
income streams. And I hope you do pursue this – but you already
know that <=;
All other things being equal, higher web site traffic will always
translate to more money in your pocket. So here are some
methods/tools for that purpose, along with a couple dozen links to get
you started!
* Search Engines
http://www.searchengine-news.com
http://www.searchenginewatch.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 166
http://www.bay9.com
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com
* Press Releases
http://www.prprofits.com/killer.html
http://www.xpresspress.com/PRnotes.html
http://www.businesswire.com
http://www.newsbureau.com
http://www.prweb.com
Software:
http://www.abcreports.com/PressRelease
http://www.prwizard.com
* Newspaper Advertisements
http://www.bonafideclassifieds.com
* Postcards
http://www.netcards.com
http://www.wbcards.com
http://www.mailshopusa.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 167
* Word of "mouth" (visitor recommendations)
http://www.recommend-it.com
* Joint Ventures
http://www.jvmarketer.com/jvcenter.html
Discussion Boards
Discussion boards are one of the best resources for doing online
research, finding joint venture partners, and driving additional traffic
to your site. Here are a few of the best Internet marketing boards
available:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 168
The Entrepreneurial Success Forum
http://www.ablake.net/forum
Cybermarketing InfoBoard
http://www.bizweb2000.com/wwwboard/
Profitalk
http://www.profitalk.com/talk/talk.cgi
Product Developers Discussion
http://www.profitlines.com/ipub/index.html
Free Publicity and Promotion
http://www.free-publicity.com/cgi-bin/talk.cgi
Web Marketing and E-Commerce Forums
http://www.wilsonweb.com/cgi-bin/ubb/Ultimate.cgi
Biz-Gold Discussion Board
http://profitinfo.com/discuss/marketing/
High Traffic Forums
http://www.gethighforums.com/bin/Ultimate.cgi
INC Magazine
http://www.inc.com/discussions
The Profits With Information
http://klausdahl.com/forum/
General Business Discussion
http://www.the-illuminati.com/board/index.cgi
ExpertOnEbiz
http://expertonebiz.com/bbs/
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 169
Networking Online
Many of you will also need to participate in discussions involving
other subjects. Below are the three search tools for forums,
newsgroups, and mailing lists.
http://www.forumone.com
http://www.liszt.com
http://www.dejanews.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 170
CGI Script Resources
One of the key ways of creating interactivity to your web site is
through the use of CGI scripts. Here are five of the best resource
sites for CGI programming, CGI searches, and CGI tools:
CGI Resources
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/
Free Code
http://www.freecode.com/
Big Nose Bird (over 300 pages of tutorials)
http://www.bignosebird.com/
Script Search
http://www.scriptsearch.com/
SuperScripts Membership (Lifetime Membership is $250)
http://www.superscripts.com/scripts/index.html
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 171
Jim Daniels
http://www.bizweb2000.com/articles.htm
Terry Dean
http://www.bizpromo.com/free
Banner Advertising
If you want to try advertising your web site using banners, then here
are four of the best resources for running large or small banner ad
campaigns:
Pennyweb
http://www.pennyweb.com/
Flycast
http://www.flycast.com/
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 172
Ad Auction
http://www.auction.com
The Ad Store
http://store.linkexchange.com/
CashPile
http://www.cashpile.com/
Make Money Now
http://www.makemoneynow.com/
Associate Programs
http://www.associateprograms.com/
Hundreds of Potential Programs From Linkshare:
http://www.linkshare.com/
Here are 11 more links that don't fit in any specific category, but I
have found them very valuable in one way or another.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 173
Small Business Administration: Support, funding, and training are
available from the Government to small Internet businesses and
entrepreneurs: http://www.sba.gov/
Human Click: Install the simple free code given to you, and you will
be able to communicate in real-time with your web site visitors:
http://www.humanclick.com
Great Domains: Buy and sell domain names with the largest selection
on the Internet:
http://www.greatdomains.com/
GTA Technologies: Receive a Free Shopping Cart for Your Web Site:
http://www.gta-tech.com/
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 174
CNET Web Services: Pick a new ISP. Find a popular Web Host.
Design a killer web site. All of these tutorials and tools are available
from CNET Web Services:
http://www.webhostlist.com/
Web Site Garage: Tune up your web site, shrink your images, and
track your traffic at the Garage:
http://www.websitegarage.com
Listbot: Start up your own ezine or email newsletter for free using
Listbot's basic free listservers:
http://www.listbot.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 175
PART II
The going rate these days for college bookings in the U.S. are
approximately $1500 to $3500 per show. Colleges are keen to book
magicians, mentalists and hypnotists, thanks to their success with
some extraordinary entertainers that work a lot in this market.
Hi Randy!
I went back to the client with the information and they sent me the
following e-mail. Can you give me a call and we'll go over things and
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 176
then perhaps you could be in touch with her as well, so we can put
this one to contract.
Thanks,
Jennifer
Hi,
2. I also would like a few more details on what Randy would do for
this fee? How long is the show? Would he be prepared to come to a
"resident" barbecue on campus just to mix and prepare people for the
upcoming show. Normally we have the "residence" barbeque at 6:00
pm and then the show around 7:30 pm.
3. Re: accommodation - I could book a hotel for him (is he the only
person coming?) but for your consideration, we do have hotel rooms
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 177
and/or conference suites in this residence. The hotel rooms are
pretty standard with 2 twin beds, tv, small fridge, full washroom. The
conference suites have a kitchen, living room area, 2 bathrooms and
up to 7-8 bedrooms so he would have lots to choose from in terms of
bedrooms but more room for general relaxing. Would Randy find this
acceptable or would he want us to book a hotel?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 178
Okay, so let’s see what we can learn from this. Just so you know, by
the way, my wife’s condition that Judy refers was that of being
pregnant. She was due right around the time of the booking, so I told
the agent that if the baby is not born prior to the event that I can
provide another act in my place. The booking is in another province
and requires plane travel. I called the agent regarding all the
questions of her client and gladly accommodated all her requests.
So, work with agents in the college market. The fee range is lower in
Canada than the U.S. (applies across the board, by the way). Expect
requests for attending social functions and accepting campus
accommodation.
There are three main ways that I suggest you contact the agencies,
based on the on the information you have available:
Write a generic note to each company that you can copy and paste to
save time. Be sure to personalize each message with the person’s
name and web address if you were able to visit their site. This way it
will not seem like you are spamming them (sending unsolicited bulk
email). Try something like this:
Dear Bob,
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 179
Was at your site: www.bobbookscollegeacts.com and noticed …
Joe Magic
(Signature with USP and call to action goes here)
Direct Mail
You can phone and ask for the address if you couldn’t pull it from the
web site. Then send a letter asking if they would like to receive a
package. Offer them a few easy ways to reply such as an 800
number or a fax or mail back sheet. Follow up with more mail or a
phone call. I do not recommend you ever mail promotional packages
unless the person is expecting you to send one. It is a waste of time
and money. Refer back to the sales letter lesson to help you write
your correspondence.
Phone
Finally, you could phone the contact person and actually have a
conversation with them. Wild. Find out who they are and what
possibilities there are for you to work with them. Ask how and what
they want by way of promotional material. This may be your best bet
if you are not Internet- marketing savvy with all your electrons in line
yet. Since there are not tons of agencies that book colleges, why not
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 180
just give them a call? There are probably a few more out there in
addition to what I have listed, but there are certainly not hundreds.
This is where just picking up the phone makes the most sense.
You probably realize by now that I think most direct mail marketing is
a waste of money when compared to Internet marketing. Use the
direct mail method in this market only if you are really inept at using
email and scared to talk to strangers on the phone. Use toned down
sales correspondence when dealing with agents.
You can find out more about this organization at: http://www.coca.org
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 181
Lesson 11 - Shopping Centers (Back to Index)
Shopping centers and malls can be a lucrative venue for you. You
can perform strolling magic; create theme shows based around
holidays and events, and a lot more. Let’s look at one example of an
event to promote:
Christmas
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 182
How to reach this Market
If you would like to travel and work in different cities, then join the:
The site above will give you access to a directory search of all the
major malls in North America:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 183
Lesson 12 - Fairs and Festivals (Back to Index)
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 184
over 20 years ago at seventeen years old. All I had to do was put
together a clown costume and some make-up and I was all set.
There are a couple of key points that I want to be sure you did not
miss in the scenario above:
1. I am all for sales letters and was using them long before I even
knew what they were called. But sometimes it’s simply better
just to pick up the phone and make direct contact. In this case,
I know for sure that the entertainment manager received
hundreds of letters and promotional packages every year. He
was delighted to have someone actually phone and suggest a
meeting. What followed from that meeting was well worth the
phone call.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 185
During the course of the next sixteen years I did something each year
that was appreciated by each and every new entertainment manager
at the Fair. I approached each year fresh by asking questions as to
their new and changing needs, and I provided solutions to their
problems. Every year I increased my value to the Fair and my fee
consequently increased substantially too. In the last couple years
performing at the Fair my fee peaked at just over $3,000.00 per day
for each of the seventeen days of the run. In one of those years, all I
had to do was two-twenty minute mentalism shows per day. My
contract was for $54,000.00. You too can build relationships over
time with organizations that can reward you handsomely while you
serve their needs.
But guess what? That's not the best part. During the years as I was
listening to their needs, I realized an opportunity to provide them with
much of their other entertainment. My entertainment booking agency
obtained contracts year after year with this client. In one year my
company was granted a quarter million dollars’ worth of their
entertainment-programming budget.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 186
Lesson 13 - Restaurants, Bars & Lounges (Back to Index)
Even in a small town it should be easy for anyone that can handle an
invisible deck and a few sponge rabbits to get regular work in several
different restaurants. If you're truly new to the magic business, and
just starting out, even if you work for tips alone the spin-off work will
be well worth your effort.
There are a few magicians who make a good living performing magic
in bars, clubs, lounges and restaurants. As a matter of fact, there are
a few that make a six-figure income this way. But they are few and
far between, and for the most part, I feel that this type of work will
benefit you mostly if you are just starting out or have not yet
penetrated more lucrative markets. Perhaps it will be one of your
narrow streams of income. Or, if you take a really focused and
serious approach to working in this market then you can probably
create a comfortable lifestyle and make a decent living. If that were
all you wanted though, you probably would not be reading this
material.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 187
In the 80's, I had regular bookings as a close–up magician at several
restaurants, nightclubs, and lounges. I was paid between $100 and
$200 per night and chose not to accept tips. I did however obtain
many higher paying private and corporate bookings and made
valuable contacts that I still maintain today.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 188
Lesson 14 - Corporate Work (Back to Index)
Performing for adult corporate audiences has been the focus and
bulk of my work for the past decade. It is clearly the most rewarding
type of work available for most magicians. Of course, some
magicians prefer performing on television and theatres across the
nation, in fancy review shows and other high-profile venues. This is
not necessarily an option for most magicians. Even celebrity and high
profile magicians still place corporate shows high on their list as
profitable and comfortable venues to work.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 189
hospitality suite or as mealtime entertainment. Trade show
magicians earn anywhere from $150.00 up to $15,000 per day. One
mentalist friend of mine earns $1,000,000. (Yes, one million dollars,
Dr. Evil) per year while serving only a handful of clients. Many
provide custom packages for their clients that include script writing,
promotional items and even booth design. Often there are multiple
day and show arrangements made with a single client. Trade show
work can be extremely lucrative; it often requires a lot of hard work
and long hours.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 190
A great way to open yourself up to higher paying corporate bookings
while also expanding your market potential is by becoming a speaker
who does magic. For the most part, speakers earn much higher fees
than entertainers in the corporate market and are in much higher
demand. For a resource on how to add a speaking component to
your show so you can benefit from this lucrative and exciting field, go
to: http://speakermagic.com
There is a little known secret that I am going to share with you now.
Here it is:
How do you find them? It is really not too hard once you know what
you are looking for and where to look. Start in your local yellow
pages and look under the heading of Convention Services. Look for
ads that mention the words incentive and destination. Call and ask if
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 191
they book entertainment for corporate events. Most of them will say
‘yes’. You now know what to do from there.
MPI costs $350 to join ($545 Canadian) and will open up a world of
opportunity for you.
International Headquarters
4455 LBJ Freeway,
Suite 1200
Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. 75244-5903
Voice: +1-972-702-3000
Fax: +1-972-702-3070
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 192
MPI European Office
Avenue des Gaulois, 7
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Voice: +32-2-743.15.44
Fax: +32-2-743.15.50
Voice: +32-2-743.15.44
Fax: +32-2-743.15.50
Learn more abut The Society of Incentive & Travel Executives at:
http://www.site-intl.org/
Phone: 1-800-795-6596
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 193
Explore the whole site. It provides enough contact information to
provide you with a lifetime of corporate bookings:
http://info.asaenet.org/gateway/OnlineAssocSlist.html
If you have ever thought about doing trade show work, then the
following interview will answer all, or most of your questions.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 194
Bonus Interview – Anton Zellman on Trade Shows
But, if you don't mind, I'd like to tap into your knowledge and
experience about how to earn a living as a Mentalist. And in
particular, I'd like for you to focus on how to earn a living in the area
of trade-shows. OK?
RC - Let's start at the beginning. How long have you been earning
your living as a mentalist and how did you get into working mostly at
trade-shows?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 195
show was in 1973 for $75. I remember thinking that I was stealing.
This was just too easy. I booked my first trade-show three years later
in 1976 with Owens-Corning Fiberglas. They paid me $1,000.
Of course I didn't have a clue then that I would end up earning seven
figures working at trade-shows. But I knew I was on to something that
had great potential.
RC - So, how old were you then. Or is that a closely guarded secret?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 196
AZ - Well, to answer your question about age, I was 32 years old
when I began performing as a mentalist. I decided to make the move
into full time performing in June of 1977. After ten and a half years
with the Bulova Watch Company, I decided to let go of my fear and
doubts and to do what I do today. My show bookings were picking
up, and I decided to let go of my secure, straight commission, job with
Bulova.
It was a big risk to give up what was considered pretty good pay in
those years,($38,000 plus benefits), to do what I wanted to do most,
and that was to perform. Well I now know that the only risk I had to
take was to make the decision. I have never looked back.
RC - What was the primary ingredient and knowledge base that you
applied to become a trade-show performer?
I'm certain that the combination of those work related skills and
experiences shaped me into the performer I have become. The truth
is that 30 years later I am still delivering a 'Pitch', but for a lot more
dough!
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 197
RC - Speaking of dough, you are earning a substantial income as a
trade-show performer. Give us a rundown of some of the financial
numbers. If you don't mind. And perhaps a historical summary
would provide a good lesson regarding fees obtainable in this market.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 198
AZ - Right, great example.
AZ - Sure. The agency guy set up a meeting for me with his client. It
turned out to be Owens-Corning Fiberglas. Well, at the end of the
meeting, I was asked how much I would charge to perform at a trade-
show? Randy, I had no idea. However, I knew from my years at
Toastmasters, that a good speaker should make at least $500 a day
+ expenses, so that is the amount I requested.
He said he would call me the next day and let me know if I had the
job. Sure enough the next day he called. He told me that the show
lasted four days and they could only afford $1,000 + travel expenses.
Would I be OK with working only the first two days? I told him no, but
that I would work all four days for the $1,000.
He was ecstatic and that was the beginning of a ten-year run with this
company. In fact, I crafted and honed with Owens-Corning Fiberglas,
most of the twelve trade-show presentations that I perform today.
RC - What did you earn in your first year, back in the late seventies,
as a full time trade-show performer?
AZ - Randy, that's what I most appreciate about you. You don't beat
around the bush. I am happy to share these details with you and
your readers. And, for two reasons. Yes, of course, I am very proud
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 199
to let people in our business know how well I do, but more
importantly, I have a great need to educate those who want to earn
big bucks at this wonderful and fulfilling occupation. You see if I can
help other trade-show performers to improve their payoff for their
work, then we all win.
RC - I see your point. If more performers ask for and receive higher
fees then fewer customers will balk at the higher fee requested. They
will become familiar and accepting of the higher fees.
AZ - Exactly! Of course I can't simply ask for more money than the
other trade-show performers without providing what I believe is a
more dynamic product that provides a greater ROI along with more
services.
RC - Another good point Anton. So what kind of money did you earn
as a trade-show performer when you started and where are you at
today?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 200
In 1979 I booked 48 jobs and I earned $51,000 in fees. $31,000 of
those fees was earned by performing at 8 trade-shows. Hmm, there
seems to be a pattern here! By the way I've kept track of every show I
have ever performed. I still have all the records starting with my first
free show in 1973.
Now listen to how these numbers grew over the next few years. In the
late 70's I was earning $2,000 to $4,000 per trade-show event. In the
early to mid 80's I averaged $7,000-$15,000. In late 1985 I began to
more fully understand the value of what I was providing to my clients.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 201
life to significantly change. With a lot of moxie and a couple of
strokes of a pen I jumped from $15,000 to $30,000 + per trade-show.
I can still recall the client taking back the proposal, looking at the
crossed out numbers and saying to me..."What's this?" I responded;
"it was a computer error." The client smiled and said, "You know, I
didn't think you were charging us enough for what you do."
RC - Wow! That's a fantastic story. So, these fees are what you
receive for a series of bookings over time and are not simply daily
fees for performances. It's my understanding that you also charge for
additional services such as scripting, support graphics, and licensing
fees for customized audiocassettes that you create and distribute at
the trade-shows. Right?
AZ - Yes, and I also bill my clients for setup and rehearsal fees, travel
days, strategy meetings, and even a fee for my wife, Lois who assists
me. Also, to be clear, I charge a separate fee for the right to
distribute my tapes at the event. This usually adds another $13,000 -
$15,000 to my bottom line.
AZ - Yes, I always charge fees plus expenses. I charge the client for
coach fare and search for the best price I can find.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 202
We mostly travel first class using frequent flyer points to upgrade. On
the road, Lois and I live as well as the client. And as you know major
clients do not scrimp when it comes to hotel accommodations, dining
and entertainment. Our budget for travel for the past five years has
been $3,200 to $3,600 per trip.
AZ - Yes, and we also have a 10% leeway if some trips turn out to be
more costly. I am pleased to report that in 25 years we have never
been over budget. I made up my mind early on that if Lois was going
to support my work and to travel with me then I would be certain to
provide her with a better than average lifestyle on the road.
RC - Oh, but of course (grin). Fair to say then, you realized that there
are companies willing to pay for all of your valuable services. And
once you found these companies, or they found you, it was a matter
of suggesting and providing a variety of services that related to your
trade-show appearances, and for as long as possible.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 203
booked, it was just about $45,000 short of a million dollars. Gee, I still
get goose bumps when I say that!
RC - How many events was that for, and how many total days did
you work.
AZ - The total events for the year were nineteen. (15) were trade-
shows and (4) were sales meeting engagements. Total performing
days were 50, travel days were 30, set up and rehearsal days were
25. I always arrive at least 2 days early so I can be certain my stage
is properly set.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 204
confidence of my words to gather and increase the size of my
audience.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 205
What size space have they contracted? Do they have a stage? Who
is their Display House? How many products do they want me to talk
about? And so on.
In my proposal I describe to the client how I will fill their needs and
meet their objectives. If appropriate, I also pitch my audiotapes by
showing them the extra impressions they can make on their
attendees minds about their product(s) and their company.
They also pay me an additional script fee each time there is a product
change or decide on a new marketing campaign that requires new
information to be communicated. Added to this are reimbursement
for travel expenses and production costs. And then there are the
licensing fees I receive for my tapes.
My invoice for the last medical meeting at which I presented for this
client in 2001 was for $54,439. Of that amount I earned $42,625.00.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 206
RC - So, Anton, what I understand you to say, is that what is required
to earn fees in the higher end of the scale, is a combination of a
quality performance, a good strategy to be perceived as different and
better than the competition, a winning mind set, the courage to take
risks, and excellent promotional methods and materials.
I am gong to ask you for some specifics on how to actually put those
materials in front of the decision makers.
First though, I often hear from some of the entertainers that hire me
for consulting that their market just simply does not bear these higher
fees we are talking about. What's your take on that?
If on the other hand, I think of myself as a $1,000 guy, I will still bring
to me the $500 clients and some of them will say no. But, I will also
bring to me a number of the $1,000 clients.
This same mindset operates in the higher fees as well. And there
are many levels of paying clients.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 207
So, if I believe, for any reason, that my market cannot handle higher
fees then that will remain my truth! It's a limiting way to think and it
will bring me limited results.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 208
AZ - Before answering that question I want to say something here
that to some may sound a bit esoterical. It's not. It's another one of
those precious gems that really works. I am quite clear, that I can ask
for any amount that I want for my services. And the reason I can, is
because no one I deal with in the corporate world really knows what
value to place on what I do for their product or company.
Of course clients know what they have paid the guy before me.
Initially they may want to compare me to the Speaker, the Juggler,
the Magician, or Musician they previously engaged. But they don't
really know what my value is. My truth is that I'm still not sure if I
even know the true value to place on my work.
But I do know this. Companies and their teams pay for and want to
deal with Professionals. They have no time to waste on start-ups or
amateurs. So, from the very first day I represented that I was doing
business as Zellman Productions, I decided that everything that goes
out to a client and has my name on it was first rate. Even if I had to
go into hock to do it.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 209
My brochures and letterhead are printed on quality paper with a
distinctive logo. The paper stock feels good. My brochure is printed
in four-color.
These folks will not risk their jobs by hiring and paying for an
amateur. They are accustomed to working with the best professionals
they can find and afford.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 210
show is not tiring, it's just that a different discipline and energy level is
required.
RC - Okay, so they should go test the waters and not worry about
what they earn at first.
AZ - Yes, and then if they enjoy it, have the energy to finish the show
with energy and enthusiasm, then go out and develop a better plan
than what they already have in mind. There are a lot of folks out
there working trade-shows. But they are all doing pretty much the
same routines. I think it is worth more to the client if I can present a
memorable commercial. But the point is this.
I must create and provide a campaign that gives the client a larger
bang for their buck.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 211
RC - And it can't look like a commercial, right? That's where the
creativity and experience is required. And, that's why they should
start off at lower fees because they are not likely to be worth the big
bucks to the client yet.
RC - What is the range of fees that most magic type performers are
getting these days, per day?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 212
into a company at a certain fee. It is tough to get the same company
to hire me for a lot more. I have to come up with additional services to
offer that will add dollars and profit to my total invoice.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 213
RC - What would you do right now, if you were just starting out?
For the new guy on the block the tool may be a connection they have
with a specific company or industry. It might be some special
attention or award they have received about their work.
For me, my primary tool today would be my first book that is very
close to being finished. I plan to approach past, existing, and
prospective clients, and offer them a package deal that includes my
tapes and my book. I may offer something like giving them a special
price for X number of copies of my book if they engage me for a
series of events.
Or, I might elect to give them the book at cost as a give-away to their
attendees who see my performance. There are a number of ways to
use my tapes and book as a means to open a conversation and
perhaps to close a few new contracts.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 214
RC - Creative trade-offs. I do it all the time. The total value is still
intact, it is just sliced differently. Why are you considering doing this
at this time?
As I've stated, it's all about adding extra value. Ideally I would love to
make a million dollars doing one job. I really believe that if I stay with
it for a few more years I'll do just that.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 215
AZ - Yes, it supports what I do, but it doesn't actually bring me new
work. I haven't designed it to solicit jobs. I use it mostly to provide
instant access to language and visuals that represent me prior to
sending a hard copy of my brochure to a client who is requesting
information. I will make better use of my site when I am ready to sell
my book.
RC - There certainly are pros and cons to working bigger deals with a
small client base. And you are a master of turning what would often
typically end up being a small booking into a much bigger deal.
I think that the readers of this interview will benefit from learning what
you are sharing regarding up-selling, regardless of whether they
pursue trade-show work or not. In other words, and I am now
addressing the reader of this interview, apply what Anton has shared
with us to all of your services and you will certainly create a larger
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 216
income for yourself, while at the same time better servicing your
client.
AZ - Yes, I think I can add a couple of simple yet useful ideas here.
The best marketing device I have ever participated in is to invest lots
of time, energy, and money when practical to do so, to become
known in my community as a person who has unique talents, a
special occupation, and a willingness to share it, without charge, with
the community.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 217
Another way I found to build a local reputation, as a Psychic
Entertainer is to find a business sponsor who would allow me to
perform at College Athletic events while delivering a commercial for
their company or business.
I must admit that the one time I did a mass mailing, I developed a
campaign that cost around $30,000 to put together. I sent out 4,000
pieces. My return was eleven leads that led to one job that netted me
$11,000.00.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 218
make the sale, I am usually working with the communications
department or a companies advertising agency.
RC - Any trade journals or web sites worth checking out for those
wishing to market themselves?
AZ - Yes, just about every industry has a Trade Journal. And most
have associations to which they belong. Many associations publish
their own trade-show books that list the dates and locations of all
meetings in their industry. They are published every year, usually
with a mid-year update. I am a member of a medical association
named the Health Care Exhibitor Association. They publish the
HCEA handbook that lists all of the major medical meetings. Another
handbook that lists just about every national and international trade-
show in all industries is named, "TradeShow Exhibitor."
This link will also make your readers aware of a very popular trade
show that is geared to the people who offer products and services for
trade-shows. Its name is 'The Exhibitor Show.'
And finally here is a site that will lead to many other sites connected
to the trade-show industry: http://www.tradeshow.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 219
RC - Anton, what is expected by way of material and number and
length of shows, etc. for trade-show performers.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 220
RC - What are some of the effects that play well in this market?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 221
RC - Well you've set up a good place to segue to what your book
is about. What's its title?
AZ - Thanks for asking. I've named it "So, you want to read MINDS -
Step One." So far, it's fourteen chapters of methods and exercises
that I believe will help the reader to read the most important mind of
all, their own. I've peppered each chapter with personal stories that
reveal how I have personally used these systems to enhance various
functions of my mind. The book is designed in a manner that helps to
answer, the number one old question that every Mentalist is asked to
reveal- "How did you do that?"
RC - You have been most generous with your time and information.
Thank you so much. I have known you for a few years now and
clearly you are one of the most giving individuals in our business.
Do you mind if I give your email address out for my readers to contact
you if they are really serious about performing at trade-shows and
have one or two quick questions, or perhaps inquire about your book.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 222
Lesson 15 - Cruise Ships (Back to Index)
Working cruise ships can be a lot of fun. It would take a long time to
get rich working solely in this venue as a full-time career. A cruise
ship magician would earn in the neighborhood of $100,000 a year.
Your living expenses would be minimal. However, it would be difficult,
but not impossible, to leverage your time among multiple performing
venues and synergistic businesses.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 223
experiences. Allow me to highlight some information that will be
useful to you if you wish to pursue working on cruises.
Always be sure that your contract clearly stipulates that you have
passenger status on board the ship. This means that your cabin is
located with the passengers and is of the same standards. It also
usually means that you can eat with the passengers, swim in the
pool, and enjoy the cruise along with the paying customers. If this is
not part of your agreement, then be prepared to sleep in the bowels
of the ship and perform laborious crew duties. I've never been in this
exact situation but have spoken to magicians who have and they
regretted taking the work. The higher end ships do not ask for this at
all. I am referring to small ships of cruise companies that are not well
known. They also pay much less to entertainers. Don’t even
consider working for small unknown cruise companies that pay low
fees of $300- $500 per week and expect you to take on duties other
than as an entertainer.
Let me get the last bit of bad news out of the way. A few years ago,
immediately after I sold my entertainment agency and decided to take
a year or two off from working altogether, I was offered an eight-week
contract from an agency in Vancouver that books a lot of cruises.
This same agency had booked me a couple times in the past on the
Princess Line, and those bookings had gone really well. I normally
would never consider such a long contract for the financial reasons I
mentioned in the beginning of this lesson. I also wasn’t going to do
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 224
any shows for a couple years while I took a sabbatical from work but
figured this is a working vacation and why not.
I am now going to tell you about a much more positive cruise gig
experience that occurred just last year. I spent most of last February,
a great time to leave Vancouver, in the South Pacific. I performed my
comedy magic and mind-reading show on two different ships with
back-to-back ten-day contracts on each. I met some great people,
made some money, and came home relaxed with fully charged
batteries.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 225
I’d intended to take a vacation in February, anyway. The trip I took
which ventured through Singapore, Australia and Bali would have
cost me around $5,000.00, and that is about what I would have spent
that month for a vacation. I went on my own, but could have brought
a guest for free. If I had to pay for that person, my wife for example,
add a few thousand dollars to the expense. Let’s use the figure of
$5,000, though, and do the math:
A few days ago, I sent the following e-mail to the agency that booked
me on that cruise:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 226
Dear Carolyn,
Please let me know if I can copy information from your site and e-
mail you some questions to be answered and returned by you within
the next week or so.
Thank you,
Randy Charach
2808 W 39th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6N 2Z4
http://www.charach.com
PH: (604) 839-7937
FX: (604) 739-2866
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 227
She replied with the following email:
Hello Randy,
Nice to hear from you. Please feel free to highlight our company in
the cruise ship lesson. Although our business is 95% musicians, as
you know, we have had the opportunity to offer work to "Headliners"
such as yourself, and magicians.
Carolyn Coventry
Vice-President of Operations
---------------------------------------------
ProShip Entertainment Inc.
TEL: (514) 485-8823 FAX: (514) 485-2675
e-mail: ccoventry@proship.com Web: http://www.proship.com
5253 Decarie Boulevard, Suite #308
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3W 3C2
I just checked their web site more carefully, and realize that between
my knowledge that I am sharing with you, and the information on their
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 228
site, I do not think there will be unanswered questions. So, I will now
write to her:
A couple weeks ago a fellow from your agency called and asked my
availability for cruise work, which would run for several months
in duration. I appreciate the call, but that is not possible for me at this
time. I did mention, and want you to know, that I would love to do a 1-
2 week booking. Perhaps between other performer contracts or as a
fill in when a performer takes vacation. Maybe this summer on an
Alaskan run that leaves from Vancouver so there is no travel expense
for the cruise company. Anyway, please keep me in mind.
Warm Regards,
Randy
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 229
tell you that the information is pretty standard across cruise lines and
agencies that book acts on cruises. Some of it may seem harsh and
in reality much of it is not actually upheld.
ProShip
Salaries are always paid in U.S. currency and range from $1,000 to
$3,000 per person per week. Meals, accommodation, airfare and
excess luggage or Air Cargo charges for your equipment to and from
the ship are included at no extra cost to you.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 230
ProShip's Commission
If we invoice you, you will need to visit the local post office or a bank
once a month while in port, and have a certified cheque or money
order made out to ProShip Entertainment in the amount indicated on
the invoice.
Novelty Artist
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 231
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
One night you will perform the same 45 minute Feature Show twice
(once for early and once for late seating). On the other night, you will
perform the same 20-minute show twice (once for early and once for
late seating) as part of either the Welcome Show or Farewell Show.
On 10-day cruises, you may need to perform two different 45-minute
feature shows and a 20-minute show. Some acts, except for Feature
Instrumentalists, may also be asked to perform a Late Night Adult
Show.
Variety Acts
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 232
VIDEO: The video must accurately represent your act in a live
setting. We prefer an uncut 1 hour video done in front of a live
audience rather than a 5 minute edited video done in studio. With the
uncut video we can see how well you are received by an audience
and how much material you actually have.
- Song list: (if applicable) Printed repertoire. Please group the songs
by musical style and language, vocal and non-vocal.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 233
- Biography: A printed biography including: a promotional "teaser"
paragraph (6 - 7 lines), a career resume describing your background
and experience, a highlight of your last 3 years of professional work.
Accommodations
You will be assigned a crew cabin once you board the vessel. A
sideman usually shares a cabin with another musician, while a Band
Leader or Guest Entertainer will have a cabin to him/herself.
Occasionally, a Band Leader may be asked to share a cabin with
another musician, or a sideman may be asked to share a cabin with
two other musicians in the band. All these details will be made known
to you before you accept a contract with us.
Contract Length
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 234
the contract. Normally, the cruise line prefers to hire people for longer
periods of time.
On a regular contract, you will usually have four to eight weeks notice
to prepare for your departure.
"If, for whatever reason, the artist changes his mind about accepting
the contract or departs the vessel prior to the termination date on the
artist's A/MA, either by his own choice, or by AMR's decision, or by
ProShip's decision, except if the artist suffers from injury or medical
condition not present prior to embarkation necessitating his dismissal
from the vessel, the artist agrees to pay ProShip a replacement fee
equivalent to three weeks of the artist's net salary."
On-board Hierarchy
Captain (Master of vessel)
Staff Captain (2nd in command)
Chief Purser (3rd in command)
Hotel Manager (4th in Command)
Cruise Director (responsible for all entertainers)
Guest Entertainers
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 235
Musical Director (responsible for sidemen and musical groups)
You
Officers: Officers are a breed apart. Unless you have already been
exposed to a military environment, it can take some getting used to.
Officers live in a world where strict obedience and respect are of the
utmost importance. If you show officers the respect they expect, you
will not have a problem. The best answer to an officer's command is
a prompt and enthusiastic "YES SIR!"
Mental attitude
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 236
give your consent. We do not have a problem with those who refuse
a job. However, once you consent to take a contract, you are formally
committed and we expect you to live up to your word. We cannot
involve the cruise line by requesting contracts, airline tickets, etc., in
your name unless you are 100% positive you want the job. Between
the time you verbally accept the job and the moment your signature is
on the contract, we have to count on your commitment.
Illegal Drugs
Coast Guard officers are similar to Custom officers and have the right
to search your cabin without your permission and without telling you
why. These searches may be random and may happen throughout
the ship on any day at any time.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 237
Curfew
Restrictions
There are areas on a ship that musicians and entertainers are not
permitted to visit. These areas include passenger cabins,
(passengers are not allowed in your cabin either), the ship's Casino,
and the pool. Bar stools are also off limits. (Waiters prefer to have
passengers on bar stools since they are better tippers.) You may
have a drink at a table in the lounge. However, you cannot walk
around the ship with a drink or a cigarette in your hand in case the
ship tilts and you spill your drink or burn a passenger. Use of the
public gym facilities may be permitted at certain times. Some ships
have their own staff gyms and pool which are more accessible.
Fines
The laws of the ship are clearly spelled out to you when you arrive. If
you break an on-board law, you may either receive a written warning
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 238
or be fined. If you resist the temptation to break the rules you should
not have any trouble.
Required Drills
You must participate in passenger and staff boat drills. Drills will
teach you how to act if an emergency situation arises.
Boat drills happen once per cruise and are compulsory for both staff
and passengers. A drill lasts about 20 minutes and is similar to an
airplane drill. There are also special training periods for staff and
crew, which you must attend. Although ships are extremely safe, take
the time to learn how to save your life and that of others in case of
emergency.
Dress Code
The dress code varies for different cruise lines. However, in general,
you will need to wear a Tuxedo with a white pleated shirt, a black bow
tie, black cummerbund, black shoes and black socks for formal night.
On non-formal nights, you will wear a blue blazer with a white shirt,
tie, white pants and white deck shoes. Some cruise lines will provide
you with the non-formal night wear, a daytime uniform and a nametag
that you should wear in passenger areas.
Prior to departure you will be provided with the policy manual of the
cruise line. It will look something like this:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 239
Can Do
No Can Do
1) The following parts of the ship are off limits to staff members:
Casino, passenger cabins, pool and bar stools.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 240
Health & Medical
You will have full medical coverage while on board and on land (while
the ship is in port) if you successfully complete a thorough physical
examination prior to departure.
Depending on the cruise line, you may be asked to have the medical
examination done at one of their affiliated Clinics. You will be notified
if any vaccinations will be needed.
Medical Insurance: If you are a U.S. resident paying U.S. taxes, you
may be asked to participate in a "Shipboard Medical Plan" which will
provide coverage for the period of time spent ashore in the United
States after disembarkation upon the completion of a contract.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 241
Words of Advice
The time it takes to adjust to "life at sea" varies with each individual; it
can take anywhere from two weeks to two months.
___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 242
Bramson works with most of the major cruise lines in providing
headline entertainers. These are artists who perform in the main
show rooms and have a cabaret style act.
All of the cruise lines want to see a videotape before they will even
consider offering an engagement. The cruise lines are looking for
poised, professional entertainers who they feel will be a good
reflection of the overall quality of their product. While not a perfect
medium, videotapes are the standard by which all acts are hired in
the industry. The most effective tool is a tape of a live performance. A
staged promotional tape is not as good in this market.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 243
and make this field unlike any other segment of the entertainment
world. In addition to having the right kind of act that is totally clean
and can play to a family audience, there is also a social component to
shipboard entertaining that is very important. Living and working with
people 24/7 poses certain challenges. Important to understand this
and be willing to mix, mingle and promote yourself as well as the line.
Linda Raff
President
Bramson Entertainment Bureau, Inc.
630 Ninth Ave. - Suite 203
New York, NY 10036
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 244
Lesson 16 - Television (Back to Index)
Your own television special has the potential to launch your career to
new heights. There is no guarantee that the special alone will make
you rich and famous, but there will certainly be many other benefits.
One way to have your own special aired is to produce it yourself and
give it for free to stations to broadcast. You can recoup funds by
selling advertising slots for commercials and/or obtaining corporate
sponsorship. Often there is a budget available from smaller stations
to contribute to your production for first-run rights. You may also be
able to simply have a station or network produce your show and pay
you a talent fee.
The following pages contain a template that you may wish to use to
propose your own television special. The first page is the synopsis
that will be needed in your initial stages. This is followed by an
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 245
acceptably formatted complete television special “bible’ that you can
model yours from.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 246
TV Special Synopsis
SYNOPSIS
THE [Your Name] SHOW is a [Describe your Show]
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 247
TV Special Template
The
[Your Name Here]
Show
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 248
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. SYNOPSIS
2. TECHNICAL DETAILS
GENRE
LENGTH
COMMERCIAL BREAKS
VTR PACKAGES
SHOOTING DETAILS
SEGMENTS
CAST
LIMITATIONS & LOCATIONS
3. SHOW STYLE
4. SET
5. SHOW RUNDOWN
_________________________________________________
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 249
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 3
SYNOPSIS
THE [Your Name] SHOW is a 60 minute Television Variety Special
appealing to the new generation of entertainment connoisseurs in the
18 - 34 age range.
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 250
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 4
TECHNICAL DETAILS
B/ LENGTH
PACKAGED OPENING
COMMERCIAL BUMPERS
TRANSITIONS
__________________________________________________
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 251
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 5
[Describe Segment]
Length: 45 seconds
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 252
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 6
[Describe Segment]
[Describe Segment]
Length: 4 minutes.
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 253
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 7
[Describe Segment]
Length 8 minutes
[Describe Segment]
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 254
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 8
[Describe Segment]
[Describe Segment]
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 255
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 9
[Describe Segment]
Length: 4 minutes
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 256
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 10
SHOW STYLE
[Descriptions below are to give you an idea as to what you
could write in this section]
A talented and creative crew will produce this show. The DOP will
greatly influence the look and feel of the show and it will be shot to
reflect the content, which is hip and innovative. The show will be
moody at times, bright at others, but always consistent in its
contemporary flair. Bumpers, stings and music will be added in
postproduction to compliment the show.
The content of the show will not reflect current events and will be
international in scope. None of the segments will be time dated.
Although the show is only sold in [Your Country] at this time, it is
expected it will receive worldwide distribution. Although written to be
shot in [Your City], it could be shot in any city.
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 257
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 11
SHOW RUNDOWN
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 258
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 12
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 259
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 13
___________________________
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 59:50
_________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 260
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 14
A/ OPENING
B/ COMMERCIAL BUMPERS
Length: 15 seconds
C/ VTR TRANSITION
Length: 10 seconds
__________________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 261
“The [Your Name] Show”
Bible - Page 15
Q&A
____________________________________________
Q. [Question]?
A. [Answer]
____________________________________________
Q. [Question]?
A. [Answer]
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
Copyright [Year] [Your Production Company] - All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 262
You can and should get booked on local and national talk shows. I
have been on many as mentioned in the lesson on promotional
material.
Each talk show has a different set of criteria for selecting guests.
Here is the information you need to submit yourself as a potential
guest on some of the major shows on national television:
The two toughest and most desirable shows to get on are Letterman
and Leno. I spoke with a representative at the Leno Show who told
me: “We get hundreds of packages a week and we don’t do
Mentalists, Magicians, or Hypnotists and the packages are
automatically sent back to the sender”.
The only way for you to get on these shows, unless you are a
celebrity or just happen to get lucky or work hard at being seen by the
right person at the right time, is to be creative in your approach. They
do not care how good you are. I am going to tell you how to fit into
their current format. That is the most realistic way of getting on one
of these shows.
Go to their web site and check out their current interests in stories.
Find a way to fit into THEIR programming. Of course you will tie your
magic into the approach. A clip of you performing magic on The
Tonight Show with Jay Leno or The Late Show with David Letterman
will instantly increase your fee and marketability. Since this is the
only realistic way to make this happen, why not give it a shot?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 263
Late Show with David Letterman
http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/clubhouse/faq.shtml
I've got a Stupid Pet or Stupid Human Trick. How can I get
picked for the show?
Here's what you need to do: videotape you or your pet doing the trick
at least three times in a row without stopping or editing (to prove to us
that it can be done consistently, on cue).
Darren Demeterio
Late Show with David Letterman
1697 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 264
I know of a "regular" person who would make a great guest for
the show. How can I bring them to your attention?
"Human interest" guests fall basically into two categories: topical, and
people with unusual hobbies, talents, or obsessions.
What all of these stories have in common is that they are light-
hearted stories with a happy ending. Hero stories are always
welcome. Other human-interest guests are people with unusual
hobbies, talents, or acts. These are likable, outgoing individuals who
do something extraordinary. Examples of this type of guest are the
105-year-old woman who wrote a horse handicapping column for the
New York Post; the "Human Echo," a man who could repeat anything
anyone said in 1/50th of a second; and a pool player and trick shot
artist who could knock 90 balls into the pockets with one shot.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 265
Celia Converse
Attn: Human Interest
Late Show with David Letterman
1697 Broadway, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10019
http://nbctv.nbci.com/tonightshow/
We're looking for people who've had a funny, bizarre or really bad
dating experience. Drop us a note with the details. You could end up
telling it to Jay on the show.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 266
Do you think you have the ugliest dog in America?
Note from Randy: Are you a kid? Too young to hit the big time?
When I was a kid I was always told that I was too young to be doing
what I was doing. Use what you have (your youth) to your
advantage.
Over the years, some of Jay's most memorable guests have been
kids, like 'The Lizard Boy of Sarasota', the 10 year-old watermelon
eating champ, and the 4 year-old genius. There are many youngsters
out there who have outrageous interests or bizarre pastimes and The
Tonight Show wants them! The wackier, the better! If you know a
youngster 12 and under who could make an unusual and
unforgettable mark on The Tonight Show, send descriptive letter and
VHS videotape to:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 267
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Attn: Segment Producer JA
3000 W. Alameda
Burbank, CA 91523
All kid collectors! Do you collect human hair? Perhaps chewing gum?
Okay, how about vacuum cleaners? All those may sound strange, but
Jay welcomes kids with interesting (okay, some would say weird)
collections. If you have an unusual or wacky or just plain strange
collection, then JAY WANTS YOU! Youngsters who have appeared
on recent Tonight Show show n'tell segments have included
collectors of snakes, teeth, and even rats (not to mention the hair,
gum, and vacuums mentioned earlier). If you know a kid 12 and
under - or if you are a kid 12 and under - whose cool collection could
make an impression on The Tonight Show, send a descriptive letter
and VHS video tape of the kid and the collection to:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 268
Note: I spoke with the guest coordinator at Conan and was told, “we
don’t book variety acts and we are a celebrity driven show”. So, I
recommend you watch the show and think of ways to tie yourself into
their format if you want a shot at appearing on this program. Unless,
of course, you are a celebrity now.
Note: You can also fax to: Human Interest at (212) 506-3249 but I
suggest you mail them an impressive attention getting package
instead.
I spoke with one of the coordinators of the show and she was very
friendly and open to receiving information. They are primarily
interested in high profile guests that are on a publicity tour and going
to be in New York. Can you honestly present yourself that way to
them? I think you can! Remember, start with local appearances on
television and become high profile in your area. Build upon that and
work your way up to shows like Rosie.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 269
"The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn"
7800 Beverly Blvd.
Suite 244
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Attention: Human Interest Coordinator
If you know of any "regular" people who might make a good "human
interest" guest, we'd like to hear from you.
"Human interest" guests fall basically into two categories: topical, and
people with unusual hobbies, talents, or obsessions.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 270
LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY
7 Lincoln Square, 5th Floor
New York, NY
USA 10023
Attention: Michael Gilman
Note: I think this is one of those shows that you just have to keep
trying to get the attention of Gilman, the Producer of the show. If you
can find a way to get his attention and have a great tape of your
unique performance you may get on the show. How do you get his
attention? How about sending him a cellular phone with a note telling
him to just press “send” to reach you. Sound extravagant? Do you
want to be on the show or not? Will it work? I don’t know if this
specific example will work in this specific case, but I will tell you that I
have done things like this in the past with great success. Go the
extra mile, friend. You will stand out and be rewarded handsomely for
your efforts.
• The big-time shows are doable if you find a way to fit into their
existing program. Of course, when you do this, you will tie your
magic performing into the scenario.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 271
Lesson 17 - Consulting and Acting (Back to Index)
Acting lessons can improve your performing ability and are great for
personal growth. Acting skills are particularly important for
Mentalists. Unless you live in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Seattle
or Los Angeles, the major film centers, there is probably not a lot of
work available in your area. But, even cities not known for doing a lot
of filming may offer opportunities for you, so do some research in
your area. Look into acting classes. From there you can hook up
with an agent and perhaps join the actors’ union, as I have. You can
also contact production houses, studios and casting directors to offer
your services as a magic consultant.
There are other ways to get work as a magic consultant. You can
work with executives, teaching them how to make more effective
presentations by using magic. And check this article out:
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 272
Police to Train As Magicians
There really is no limit as to where your magic skills can take you.
Use your imagination and add consulting as one of your multiple
streams of income.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 273
Lesson 18 - Theatres (Back to Index)
In my area, the average theatre rental cost for a 200 - 400 seat venue
is $900 per day. If you are to bear all the expenses of the show,
there is also technician, front of house staff, advertising, promotion,
ticket distribution, and concession considerations among other
responsibilities and expenses above and beyond producing the show
itself. The risk/reward figures are fairly easy to work out with a little
research and scratching out possible scenarios on paper. The
exposure by way of publicity generated in conjunction with the
venture has some value, too.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 274
Bonus Interview - John Kaplan on Booking Theatre Tours
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 275
is they are planning - they have to come up with a way to raise the
funds themselves.
RC - What year did you start, and what did you start out with?
JK - In the 80s I started with a small packet, a fold over booklet and
posters.
RC - Great. Now John, give us an idea of the scope, the depth of this
market. Detail the opportunity for us.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 276
Government funding and cutbacks make them even more reliant on
raising funds themselves.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 277
I want to back track a bit and refer to a comment you made regarding
telemarketing as a more common method of raising funds in these
situations. I have my own thoughts and experience on this from a
performers perspective, but please expand on your previous
comment about the topic of telemarketing.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 278
RC - Please share some numbers with us. If you don’t mind, I would
like you to be candid about your fees and expenses as well as the
kind of dollars your sponsor typically ends up with after running with
your program. Also, outline the responsibilities that are divided
between you and your sponsor.
JK - The client, the sponsor, is responsible for paying for the show.
Included is the project kit that I put a value of $250 on. If they book by
a certain date they get the kit free. Also, there is a money back
guarantee attached to the kit. If they do not make a profit after using
the tools, they get $250 refunded (whether they pay for it or not).
They are responsible for providing the venue, promoting the show,
and selling the tickets. I take them by the hand and show them
exactly what to do in order to sell the tickets to the show and raise
money though various other methods related to the show. I call this
piggyback fund raising.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 279
By providing all these opportunities beyond just selling tickets, it is
pretty much a fail safe system.
The show sells for $2600 for a single show or $3100 for two. They
can buy their cost down by close to 50% by using certain fee
reductions that I offer.
RC - Like?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 280
group that doesn’t have the money to pay for it. I give Stan credit for
the idea of carrying a concession.
RC - Which wholesalers?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 281
RC - Right. So, at the end of the day, how much does everything,
your fee and product sales, typically net you? What would be your
average take per date?
RC - Okay. Now I am going to think like the sponsor. That is, before
you educate them. How much are tickets to the show? Do you
dictate the amount, make suggestions, or need to approve the
amount? How does it work?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 282
JK - They can charge what they want for ticket prices, but I suggest
$8 and $12. $8 for kids and $12 for adults. The range is $5 - $15.
RC - So, if they bring in, say $3,000 in combined ticket sales and your
piggy back fund raisers, and have taken advantage of your fee
reductions, bringing their cost for your show to as low as, say $1500,
they have made $1,500. Right?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 283
JK - Yes, thank you. I believe I do. And yes, what they did, by
booking a larger and more costly venue, worked for them. So I no
longer strongly advise against it. Every year I update my manuals for
the groups and add what has worked for others during the year.
JK - Any variety act that performs family shows could do this. As long
as they can do a great show.
RC - The two halves so you can give them a break from sitting, and it
allows for sales during the intermission.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 284
the Gym Floor, in an Arena, Recreation Centre, Community Hall, a
Theatre, and even in Church basements.
RC - (grin)
JK - Yes. Well, I used to phone initially for the directories and now I
send out a fax with my request. How I receive the lists dictates how I
contact the potential sponsors. Often, I send a one page lead
generation fax to the groups. I have a database of 20,000 prospects
in Canada. I update it every couple of years by referring back to the
last time they helped me out, and request new information.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 285
RC - Is that how you started. I mean, finding the groups, the
sponsors? Sounds possibly expensive and quite time consuming.
JK - If you buy 200 lists at say, $20, and each list may be good for 2 -
10 viable prospects, the acquisition cost can be expensive. I did build
up gradually over the years and started off by just finding groups in
the white pages. Now, I also buy ads in the newsletters of groups like
the Rotary, Lions, Kinsmen, and Elks.
RC - This is slightly off topic, but will prove interesting for the readers,
I’m sure. What other streams of income have you created to fill in the
slower months of touring with your fund raising show?
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 286
Illusion show to do the overflow dates that I cannot do. You know
Tony.
JK - Sure, I pay him a flat fee for the tour. This way I keep and
service the client, and give work to another performer that I admire.
Some clients book the same show 3 - 4 years in a row, most often
they want me every second year or so. It depends on how transient
the community itself is. I have worked for one group, 6 - 7 years of
the last 10 years. Personally, I like to use the same show for at least
3 years to amortize the investment of creating the show.
I needed someone who has a good show and integrity. The sponsor
gets a different show each year so they can bank on the fundraiser
event.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 287
clients and offer a discount for booking early while giving them an
opportunity to pre-book and lock in the date.
RC - Well, John, I think I have sucked enough out of you for now, and
I appreciate your candidness. Let me ask you about your
philosophical approach to marketing and performing. As well, I am
interested in knowing what you attribute your success to and why you
are sharing this information. Two sentences or less please (grin).
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 288
revenue streams can I create for them. What promotional tools and
strategies can I give them to help ensure their success.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 289
what it costs to acquire a client, and then what the lifetime value of
that client is worth to their business. Right?
RC - You are a very wise man my friend. Okay, any final words of
wisdom, advise and/or explanations as to what you are planning for
the future.
The opportunity to share what I've learned, and pass along useful
information that can benefit others interested in considering this field,
is another reason for my releasing the Fundraising Magic Program.
RC - John, thank you for your time and for sharing this information.
If you would like more in depth information from John, and his
complete system, go to: http://www.millionairemagician.com/JK.htm
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 290
Lesson 19 - Resorts and Casinos (Back to Index)
1. You are hired for a fee to perform: reserved for proven entities.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 291
to a self-produced show and ultimately, as you know, received a
dream deal in Vegas. This is the exception and certainly not the rule.
From a realistic business standpoint you need deep pockets to 2 wall,
which is likely what you will do. Even if you have the money and/or
backers, there is major competition for room space in cities like Las
Vegas.
I clipped the following article from the newspaper to share with you
here:
LAS VEGAS – Robert Goulet has pulled the plug on a summer stint
at the Venetian hotel-casino, saying he can’t afford the $15,000 US
nightly showroom rental.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 292
Goulet ended the show after Monday’s performance, four weeks into
a nine week run. The showroom withheld box-office receipts on
Tuesday.
“We came at the wrong time of year,” Goulet said, adding that
audiences would have been better in September during the city’s
convention season.
So, even a well known celebrity that you would think would do well in
Vegas had to make a 2 wall arrangement with a major casino/hotel
there and obviously lost a lot of money in the process.
If you really have the desire to work this type of venue, plan carefully
as you would any other business venture. If you can get backers with
deep pockets, or if you want to risk your own money, or if you can
convince an operator to hire you, perhaps one day you too will get a
100 million dollar, 13 year contract and your own showroom. Oh, it
just may help, if you also happen to be one of the finest magicians in
the world, exuding with class, and have teamed up with a well-
respected and brilliant manager! Speaking of which…
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 293
Bonus Interview - Peter Reveen on Success
Peter Reveen and I have been friends for several years now. I
greatly admire him in many respects. He is a wonderful and kind
man. On top of that, he is the epitome of a consummate show
business professional. Not only is he one of the worlds greatest
showmen to ever grace a stage, he is also responsible for pursuing
and negotiating Lance Burton’s 100 million dollar contract in Las
Vegas.
“It is very, very necessary to develop an act that is wanted. You can’t
just come in and say, “Hey, I have just bought all the equipment in the
world and I’m going to be great”. You can’t do this, they’re not going
to book you, they do not know you, and you do not have a name.
To get into Vegas you have to make your name somewhere else first.
Lance Burton did this through his success on the Johnny Carson
show. He was making a name for himself. And then he got a little
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 294
three month shot in the Foles-Bergère. And then, because he was
doing great work and did not become a problem, he stayed there for
nine years.
Not becoming a problem means he did not get into back stage
gossip, things of that kind, that get back to the bosses or often have
very thin skin. You just finish your work and you do it very, very well.
You do not allow yourself to be drawn into that. You just finish your
work, go back to the dressing room, study, or do something like that.
To get involved in the first place, you develop an act somewhere else
and get yourself a great reputation from it. Then, you send out
invitations to the various buyers in Las Vegas.
===
Note from Randy – Contact the Hotels directly and simply ask who
books their shows.
===
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 295
Or, maybe you are playing in a town nearby and can convince them
to come see you. Then if you do a great job, maybe they will think
they could use an act like that, and that you have promise, and talk to
you about it.
Also, you look at all the great magicians in history that really made it
and they were also very good businessmen.
You look at Maurice Rooklyn who was very brilliant in other phases of
business. I think I said in his obituary that we often wondered how far
he would have gone with his artistic integrity of been able to stage
very beautiful shows and with the skills of sleight of hand that he had,
if hadn’t been so successful in other forms of business that kept
drawing him away from the theatres to do this.
===
Note from Randy – I was fortunate enough to meet Maurice Rooklyn
while I was performing in Sydney in 1984. He and his lovely wife had
me over to their house for dinner and took me to the local magic club
meeting in the evening. He was a great man and I miss him very
much.
===
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 296
Levant was a brilliant businessman too. He knew how to make a
show that could get in and get out very inexpensively for the music
halls in London. He always gave them a great show. He did not go
huge and massive like Dante did, but he was a great entertainer and
a great businessman.
You must believe in yourself. Not to the stage where you get a false
belief in yourself. You have to be able to turn it off. You cannot
always go around living and acting like the great magician 24 hours a
day. You have to have a life away from that.
You know, I was always able to go out and do my show, give the
audience their moneys worth, but then turn it off. When we went out
of there, we were Peter and Coral and the kids. We did not make a
lot of friends over the years.
===
Note from Randy – This is the only point in my talk with Peter that I
disagree with. Peter certainly has made a lot of friends over the
years. A mutual friend, and Vancouver radio and television
personality, Dave Abbott, introduced me to Peter initially. Peter is
well loved and respected throughout the world by people like myself,
proud to be his friend because of the kind of person he is and not
because he has achieved fame. He does have a lot of friends and is
so very humble.
===
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 297
We didn’t go out and do the party circuit. I went through that very
early during my first success in Vancouver. I use to take 20-30
people to the Cave and would think isn’t it really great to be a star,
people really love you. Then as things went wrong after going through
a spell of losing some money, all those people disappeared. This
made me realize very early in my career that this was not the way to
go and I changed all that.
===
Note from Randy – Of course, these were not the type of people I
was referring to in my note above.
The Cave was a popular nightclub in the 70s. I saw Harry Blackstone
Jr. perform there several times. Mitzi Gaynor, Rich Little, and others
played there often too.
Look, the main thing is to have a good product, believe in it, and
continually try to improve on it. Listen to your audience, they are
going to give you the best critique you can have. If they don’t enjoy
what you are doing, don’t push it. When you find something they do
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 298
enjoy, develop that, and make it very, very good. Always listen to the
audience. Always give your audience your full attention, that you are
doing it for them. You are not up there to do something just to make
yourself happy. So, it is very, very important that you always listen to
the audience, always respect the audience.
And I would say the greatest advise I can give to any entertainer, is to
always play it clean. You can go out and you can try to put out an
absolutely filthy hypnotic show, as some of them are doing. You
know, we have one guy out here who is telling them that they are
going to have an orgasm every time he shakes their hand and stuff
like that. Well that appeals to a certain audience, but I can’t imagine
people wanting to go back and have that humiliating experience
twice.
And that’s why I have been able to keep a career going for all these
years. It’s now what, 40 something years since I started playing
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 299
Vancouver, and all the other cities in Canada building up to that. And
I can still go back and draw an audience.
==
Note from Randy – The audiences in Vancouver love Reveen. He is
a big hit and sells out every time he comes here.
The conditions that existed when I started off do not exist anymore.
Touring is tough because you are fighting the 200 channels of
television - and the Internet itself. Many of the young people who
would normally go out looking for shows, jump on the Internet and
start talking to each other. And these are very important things to
consider. People are becoming more cave dwellers now, they are
doing more things at home. So, to draw them out of there is not as
easy as it was.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 300
My biggest mistake, when I tried to build the big magic shows, which I
loved, you know, I loved magic and tried to bring it back. I believed I
could perform it the same way as I performed the hypnotic
performances. In other words, the long runs. Well there is a big
difference. There are only a certain percentage of the audiences who
really want to see magic. And it’s a very small percentage. And once
you have gone through those people, they are not going to come
back and see the same magic show again. You cannot change your
magic show every two nights as I could the hypnotic show.
He said to me “Peter, this is a lovely show and people that love magic
will enjoy this. But you may come back in a year or two from now and
some of those people may come back and see it if you have some
things new. But only so many people can see this.” He said, “With
your hypnosis show, I saw people coming in on the Monday night,
and then I would see the same people come back with friends on the
Wednesday when you changed the show. And then they would come
back on the weekend with even a bigger crowd around them.”
You see, he said, “that show had something that could touch the
audience, and in a very, very personal way. And magic could never
do that.” And he was right to a degree.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 301
I remember when David Copperfield came to see me when he first
went out on tour. And he was asking me what he should do and what
he shouldn’t do. I told him, don’t break your promoters. Don’t go out
with these big, huge shows, where they suddenly hit you with 15-20
stage hands like they did with me. I said this is not the way to go.
I said, if you are going out, do your Lear Jet, on stage, the film of that,
and do your other magic, which is very personable. He had a great
personality and was very fresh. I said if the promoter loses maybe a
thousand bucks on you, they’re going to bring you back the next year
because they are going to know the people enjoyed you.
He (Copperfield) was very smart about one thing. I asked him how
long he was going to play. He said just one night in each place. He
said, I realize there are enough people who have seen me on
television now to maybe fill one theatre. But to go for two or three
nights is asking too much. Now he is at that stage where he can go
in for close to a week and draw, but it took years for him to build to
that. So he was very smart in business that way.
==
Note from Randy – Now, I asked Peter what someone would need to
do today to book themselves in Theatres.
==
I think you have to work with sponsorship. You need to find people to
raise money to go behind you.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 302
==
Note from Randy – Peter is referring to sponsored shows where a
charitable organization, like the Kinsmen, raise money from the
community by selling tickets to the show. The money is divided
between the show and sponsor.
==
We started to die on that and said this can’t be, and we started to do
it our own way. So we went back to those same sponsors and said
we would come in and do the promotions and give them a smaller
percentage and they would say “No, we didn’t make enough money
the first time.” We went back to those same towns on our own and
sold out.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 303
The only thing wrong with the telemarketing deal is that you may not
play to the audiences that you want to play to. They raise the money
and give the tickets away. They tend to give them to kids so you
have to have a show that’s scaled down to that.
The only other thing you can do, if you want to do a serious show, is
to do it through the Temples where it’s going to be sold to adults. All
the Temples want to raise funds, so you take 25% and let them take
75% and they will really go out and sell them for you.
The main thing is, you have got to have a product first. And you have
to have talent. The product has to be good and you have to believe
in yourself. Then you have to believe in the audience. You have to
respect the audience, that is the most important thing.
I have played to eight and a half million people in Canada. Over the
years, that’s how many tickets we have sold. And it’s because I
respect the audience.”
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 304
Lesson 20 - Comedy Clubs (Back to Index)
I used to perform at the Yuk Yuks chain in Canada. It was fun and a
great place to iron out new material. Working comedy clubs will
probably not make you rich; it may however appeal to you as one of
your many multiple streams of income. Here are the rough money
numbers. (They vary from club to club, and in the US and Canada,
and depend on whether you have a “name” or not). If you have an
exceptionally funny act you may be booked as a headliner and
receive around $2,500 per week. Most likely, however, you will be
booked as an MC or middle act and earn between $500 and $1,000
per week.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 305
Many entertainers have hit the “big time” by performing at the "Just
for Laughs" comedy festival in Montreal. The contact information is in
the directory below.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 306
Lesson 21 - Profit from Products
If you are not already producing products and selling them before or
after your shows then I highly recommend you start now. When I
say, ‘before the show’, I mean that you can sell your products to the
client prior to the show to be distributed free to the audience or to be
sold directly by your client to the audience members.
The product that I have had great success with in the past, as have
many other magicians, are customized ‘Three Card Montes’. I
suggest you make some up for yourself with the force card imprinted
with your business contact information. This alone is a great way not
only to promote the product but also to spread your information
around to potential bookers of your show. You could make the card
sets yourself or purchase them from a magic supply wholesaler.
You can sell items to your audience members after the show or have
a certain number of them included in your fee when you negotiate the
booking. The ideas are limitless as to what you can sell; magic
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 307
instructions, magic tricks, performance video, screen savers, audio
tapes, T-shirts, posters, balloons and anything else that you can think
of that will appeal to your audience.
Subscribe to all the magic related magazines and search the net for
ideas and offerings. Also, source products to resell at:
http://www.magicdealers.com/
http://www.royalmagic.com/
http://www.murphysmagic.com/
http://www.ezmagic.com/
http://www.magiccty.com/
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 308
Lesson 22 - Synergistic Ventures
If you want to make some serious money, and I think you do, then
start a business that is synergistic with your magic business. The
right business, set up the right way, and operated with systems in
place, can make you rich. It is ideal to choose businesses that
complement your existing activities as a magician and that target
customers to whom you are already marketing to. Also consider
businesses that fit your lifestyle as a magician.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 309
Another terrific business that I started as a result of being a magician
was a toy company. In 1980, while still in high school, I noticed that
Santa Claus would almost always distribute toys to the children at the
Christmas parties that I was performing at. I began asking every
company that I was being booked to perform at if I could supply the
toys for their party. Most agreed, and my mom and my girl friend
wrapped and labeled the orders, and the parcels were sent to each
company prior to their party. In my first year, the sales were
approximately $5000.00 for the month of December. I sold this
company in 1995 when my December sales were just under
$200,000 with a net profit of around $100,000 for the month.
It is really not too hard to become wealthy when you have the
advantage that we do as entertainers. You simply need to educate
yourself, treat people fairly, and listen to the needs of your customers.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 310
Toys and entertainment companies are by no means the only
companies that are logical for a magician to be in. Both have worked
well for me, and I recommend you start one or both of them yourself.
Other businesses you might consider are a magic store, inventing
effects, or building props. Whatever you do, consider using the
Internet to your advantage.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 311
PART III
Additional Resources
You will learn a lot just by reading the information on each site. I
highly recommend you spend some time “surfing”. You will need to
be connected to the Internet to view the following resources.
INTERNET MARKETING
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 312
Sitesell
Are You Interested in Making Your Web Site Sell? Discover the
manual that's been heralded as the 'bible' to anyone who wants to
make their web site make money. Be prepared to spend quite a bit of
time as you explore this site that is truly a diamond in the rough!
Here is the link: http://www.sitesell.com/ultimateprofits2.html
Yanik Silver
You could waste months (and thousands of dollars) - trying to figure
out what really works on the Internet. Or you could save yourself the
frustration, time and mistakes by following Yanik's lead. Go to:
http://instantinternetprofits.com/cgi-bin/at.cgi?a=168901
Terry Dean
This guy has Internet Marketing down to science. Visit him at:
http://www.allthesecrets.com/ic/a1342z/index.html
And:
http://www.netbreakthroughs.com/revshare/ccShare.cgi?cmnd=home
&id=viplink
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 313
DIRECT MARKETING
Dan Kennedy
The tools and resources on Dan's site are the "fuel" that has
generated countless fortunes and millionaires - and each tool and
resource has been enthusiastically praised by thousands of
entrepreneurs, executives and managers, small and home business
owners, salespeople, inventors, consultants, public speakers and
yes, magicians, worldwide.
Joe Vitale
You met Joe earlier on in this book. My respect for Joe is HUGE, and
you really need to discover what he has to offer, and sooner than
later. Visit Joe at: http://hop.clickbank.net/?milmag/outrageous
Rex Sikes
Rex offers some great communication tools that you will find useful.
He is an expert in the field of NLP and is one of us (entertainer). Get
his free report and check out the articles and offers on his site:
http://www.idea-seminars.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 314
BOOKS
The prices listed are roughly what they were when I last checked at
Amazon.
ACTING
Sanford Meisner
Auditioning
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 315
Hot Tips For Cold Readings, Nina Finburgh, Anne McArthur, $8
Monologues
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 316
Classic Audition Speeches For Women, Jean Marlow, $9
Acting Instruction
General
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 317
Free To Act, Mira Felner, Michael D. Hinshaw, $37
Building Characters
Stage Movement
TYPES OF ACTING
Comedies
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 318
Improv Comedy, Andy Goldberg, $12
Dialects
Dramas
Shakespeare
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 319
Classical Acting, Malcolm Morrisom, $18
Careers in Acting/Directing/Film
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 320
How To Be A Working Actor, Mari Lyn Henry, $16
Directing
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 321
LA: Get The Agent You Need, K. Callan, $15
PUBLIC SPEAKING
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 322
Speaking for Profit and Pleasure, William D. Thompson, $10
Talking With Confidence for the Painfully Shy, Don Gabor, $10
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 323
Quotes For Public Speaker
2000 Sure Fire Jokes for Speakers and Writers, Robert Orben, $8
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 324
Mitch Murray's One-Liners for Business, Mitch Murray, $21
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 325
COMEDY
Stand-Up
Improv
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 326
Stand & Deliver: Inside Canadian Comedy, Andrew Clark, $30
Zen & The Art Of Stand-Up, Jay Sankey, $75 (Special Release)
These books will assist you in writing comedy for your act. This skill
is also useful to entertainers of all types.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 327
Joke Books
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 328
Children's Magic
Coin Tricks
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 329
General Magic
Math/Science Magic
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 330
Card Tricks
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 331
Juggling
Mime
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 332
Mime Spoken Here; The Performer's Portable Workshop, Tony
Montanaro, $35
Clowning
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 333
BUSINESS-SUCCESS & MARKETING BOOKS
Let's Get Real - Mahan Khalsa – Excellent book if you really can’t
stomach the thought of being a “sales-person”.
Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive - Harvey Mackay -
Mackay's first book full of great stories and the "Mackay 66" system
for keeping track of prospects and clients. Another great one is:
Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt.
The New Conceptual Selling - Miller & Heiman - Removes a lot of the
mystery about selling and gives a deeper understanding of what is
going on with the buyer and the whole process in general. Excellent.
Their book The New Strategic Selling is also excellent, with more
focus on selling to corporations.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 334
203 Ways to Be Supremely Successful in the New World of Selling -
John Graham - The author of Magnet Marketing provides the same
keen insight and understanding to the sales process as he did with
the marketing process. You will make more sales after reading this
book.
I'll Get Back to You - Robert Shook & Eric Yaverbaum- 105 very
useful tips on how to get people to return your calls and other helpful
sales tips. Just one tip could get you in for that all-important
appointment.
Stop Selling - Start Partnering - Larry Wilson - This book will help you
to stop seeing selling as a collection of techniques and start to see it
as a long-term relationship.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 335
The One Minute Salesperson - Spencer Johnson and Larry Wilson -
This little book distills some of the most important selling concepts
and principles and is a must-read.
The Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell - Fun to read and will help you
understand persuasion as it applies to marketing.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 336
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries and Jack Trout - A
marketing classic.
I also recommend other Ries and Trout Books following and Trout's
"New Positioning." All strongly recommended to the serious marketer.
Marketing Warfare
Bottom-Up Marketing
22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
The New Positioning
FOCUS - The Future of Your Company Depends Upon It
Pricing
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 337
Copywriting
Cash Copy - Jeffrey Lant - An incredible book that will teach you to
write copy that gets attention and generates sales.
Selling the Invisible - Harry Beckwith – Fun to read and very valuable
information.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 338
How to Get Clients - Jeff Slutsky – Anything written by Slutsky is
great. Also, check out Streetsmart Marketing. If you can find any of
his out of print work, grab it.
Networking
Endless Referrals - Bob Berg - Lots of great tips and techniques that
anyone can use.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 339
Secrets of Savvy Networking - Susan RoAne - Also the Author of
"How to Work a Room," Lots of how-to's and tips on getting an edge
in business by developing long-term relationships.
Direct Marketing/Advertising
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 340
Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This - a Guide to Creating Great Ads - Luke
Sullivan – Definitely a fun and entertaining book to read. I am
recommending it with the caveat that the information will likely not
apply directly to the magic business but is inspiring and you will enjoy
it.
Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got - Jay Abraham –
He is the Gurus, Guru of Marketing who has sold books that cost as
much as $750. The lowest price of any Jay Abraham materials you'll
find anywhere and a bargain at ten times the price of this book.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 341
The New Maxi-Marketing - Stan Rapp and Thomas Collins - One of
the best books on corporate marketing. Their other books are also
worth checking out:
Maxi Marketing,
Beyond Maxi Marketing and
Send 'Em One White Sock.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 342
Marketing for People Not in Marketing.
Celebrate Marketing
Celebrate Selling
GM Attack,
GM Weapons,
GM Excellence,
The GM Handbook,
Guerrilla Trade Show Selling,
Guerrilla Marketing Online ,
Guerrilla Selling,
GM for the Home-Based Businesses
GM Online Weapons
GM with Technology
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 343
Marketing through Speaking
Customer Service
Entrepreneurship
Pour Your Heart Into It - Howard Schultz – Covers a lot of ground and
is truly inspiring and useful. Absolutely wonderful.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 344
The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber is what inspired me to "work
on my business - not in it" and create systems to automate my
business. If you have staff, also read The E-Myth Manager.
Motivation/Success
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 345
Learn how to become a highly paid Speaker at:
http://www.speakermagic.com
http://www.synergytalent.com
http://www.synergycorporategifts.com
http://marketingmagician.com
http://magicianmarketing.com
mailto:testimonial@charach.com
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 346
Conclusion (Back to Index)
Will you implement some of the ideas that were presented to you in
the book?
Go out of your way to create a "wow" experience for your clients and
your audiences? Or,
Will you just feel inspired for a few weeks and then keep doing
exactly what you were doing?
Perhaps, you were doing just fine. Great. Please keep in mind that
many very successful entertainers have implemented practices
contained in this book, with great results.
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 347
"When you're green you grow, when you're ripe you rot".
The wealthiest and most intelligent people I know are the most willing
to listen to other viewpoints, take risks, and try new things.
Our relationship does not have to end here. Take some time now
and explore the other offerings I have set up specifically to help
entertainers expand and grow in show BUSINESS.
P.S. Recoup your investment in this book and start your own new
stream of income at:http://www.millionairemagician.com/partners.htm
Copyright © 2002 Randy Charach and Synergy Promotions, Inc. All Rights Reserved 348