The Art of Prospecting

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

From Bryce…

Bryce

For once, I’m at a loss for words.

Tobias asked me to write something and, to be honest, I couldn’t think of anything to write. My whole world these days is sales and marketing, but most of what we do just isn’t applicable to entertainers.

Luckily for you, some of our customers work in fields that magicians could learn a LOT from. In particular, I think about people who are in the professional speaking business.

Enter my dear friend Gretchen Breuner.

I still remember our first phone call. Gretchen started out as a speaker, and did quite well, but found out that her real talents were in three areas necessary to building a speaking business: prospecting, sales and (ultimately) finding, hiring and training people to do most of those tasks for you.

So I asked if she had any tricks up her sleeve that might work for magicians. As always, she came through!

Be careful: this is ninja level stuff.

And… if you’re interested in even more tips and tricks for getting more work, especially if you’re doing (or wanting to do) speaking engagements, a great place to start is with her eBook:

How To Get More Speaking Gigs

[https://speakertraining.wisdomfilters.com/lesson/speaker-workbook]

From Gretchen:

Hot Tip on Doing Research and Prospecting for Magic Gigs

After having a number of private clients all wanting help in getting speaking gigs, I wanted to share a few tips on how to effectively research and pitch for magic gigs, since many of the same strategies are used.

When looking for gigs, I would get extremely curious, and begin to really dig around the speaking industry. I’d ask myself, “How can I use LinkedIn or other forms of social media to find speaking gigs? Where do event planners hang out, online and offline?”

LinkedIn was a fabulous tool to find more speaking opportunities for my clients, and likely for your magic gigs too.

For example, I would put in “speaker” up in the search field to see what popped up. Not only did LinkedIn give me a long list of speakers but, when I clicked on “Groups,” I now had 722 results of speaker groups. These speakers – and these groups – are a perfect way to work backwards, keeping the end goal in mind.

What do I mean?

I would click on the speaker’s name, and that took me to their profile. From there, I could often find the speaker’s personal/business website. On a speaker’s website is a list of where they have spoken in the past. Now I have a list of great leads, on a number of different events. Each speaker may list every event or appearance they’ve recently completed, thus creating a trail of speaking bread crumbs for you to follow.

So, in your search, put Magician in the search field. From the list that LinkedIn will produce, go back to each name and click on their profile. From there, just like with a speaker, click onto their website (if provided). Now, continue to work backwards and see where these magicians have performed. They’ll want to tell you all about their successes, which generates a fabulous “magic” trail of gigs for you to now have. Note these magic gigs down on a spreadsheet and start your pitching from there!

Also, look at the Groups, specifically related to magicians, entertainers, kid parties, team building etc. That too is a great way to prospect for more magic gigs.

I did the same thing with Facebook and got equally valuable results.

All these results from being resourceful, and you can do it too!

 

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