Take a pump full of magic. Add a pinch of business, a dash of marketing, and you get the nourishing and highly addictive magician business podcast. Here’s your host, Ken Kelly and Julian Mayfair.

Julian:

Welcome to episode 29 of the magician business podcast is Julian Mayfair here and I’m here with Ken Kelly. Hello, Ken, I,

Ken:

Uh, everybody Ken Kelly here from the UK. Glad to be with you really good episode today. One that I’m pretty passionate about.

Julian:

Yeah, it is a jam packed episode. We’ve got a little bit of housekeeping to do. We’ve got some, uh, prizes to announce, uh, from previous episodes. Uh, our guest today is Todd Newfeld. Uh, who’s also graciously extended a special offer to magician business listeners. So we’ll get to that. Uh, we’re going to have lots of insights from Todd about, uh, staying organized and you know, what’s legal and what’s not legal. Just a little chat about that in

Ken:

That’s really interesting and just to kind of, re-emphasize something free. You guys are getting something free today. So stick around to the end of the program and you’re going to get something that you can go and try for free from Todd compliments or the man himself.

Julian:

Now tell you what’s been going on here in Brisbane for the last couple of days, something of world note, we’ve had the G 20 conference here and it’s been massive. I mean, we’ve had 20 of the world’s leaders here, including Barack Obama, David Cameron from the UK, uh, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and another, you know, 17 world leaders. It’s been absolutely massive. And what happened was that they put the city into lockdown, they had security around the whole city and they actually gave people a public holiday and said, look, don’t come into the city is going to be chaos. That was how the, it went until about four days before the event. And then somebody realized, oh no, we’ve told all the people not to come into the city. It’s going to be like a ghost town. And all the world’s media, 3000 will media came in, are going to report stories about Brisbane, the ghost town.

Julian:

So then there was all this backpedaling about, oh, everyone come back in, come back in, please, please, please. So it was a bit of a marketing, um, D one, it wasn’t a disaster, but it was a big stuff up and I’m sure there’s going to be questions asked and people will be hung out to dry over it, but it just made me think about how, you know, we as essentially amateurs in, in, in marketing is, I mean, just take a little constellation from that is that the experts who get paid many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these decisions can still get it wrong. So, you know, it’s a learning curve for all.

Ken:

Yeah. I know I’m getting it wrong all the time as well when it is trial and error, isn’t it. And I guess when, when, when we do something slightly wrong, uh, it doesn’t have that huge of an impact, but when you’ve got the leaders in, whoa,

Julian:

It’s okay to make a mistake once, you know, but if you make that mistake over and over and over again, that’s when the problem is. So it’s about learning from the mistakes.

Ken:

Speaking about learning from mistakes, that kind of keys into what we’re going to be talking about today with Todd, what he’s going to be sharing with us today. And I know that we got to a place in our business where we were finding that we’re having a certain amount of cancellations and what it was were people phoning up and they were booking a date, uh, and sometimes some really premium dates like over Christmas where you really trying to pack them in, in, and it it’s, uh, there’s, there’s a time limit on how long those dates are going to be available for. So if somebody cancels on the Friday before a show on the weekend, you’re not going to refill that, uh, that space and it, and it’s kind of a missed opportunity. And what we did within our business was we made the tough decision and I say tough because it wasn’t easily made.

Ken:

And I know there’s loads of controversy in on the forums and in the Facebook groups about this to ask for a deposit, we introduced a deposit system it’s about two years ago that we introduced that deposit system. And do you know, Julian that we haven’t had a single cancellation since, and it was worth it, not one cancellation in over two years just from installing that deposit system. And we’re not one show down, so we haven’t lost any bookings from that. And I know Todd’s going to be speaking about that today. So I feel that I’d been making that mistake for many, many years, and it was costing me time, effort, and money within my business.

Julian:

Yeah. See, it’s interesting you say that because I don’t get many cancellations. I probably get, I mean, I would say maximum 5% cancellations. If, if that, and for me, I don’t take deposits because basically I’m lazy when it comes down to it, it’s like an extra step, an extra bit of paperwork. And for me, for the number that cancel, I just, you know, ride it out. But certainly, you know, everyone’s situations are different and we get this on the magician business, Facebook group in the discussions there, again, you know, there is, it’s really hard to come to either a right answer or a wrong answer in any of this, but there are certainly good practices. And, um, you know, um, don’t go in blind. Don’t just go in, uh, because this is the way that you’ve always done it. I mean, go in and find out what the different points of view are. Look at the benefits and the disadvantages make an informed decision and then test it, put it into practice. And if it works, keep it, if not go back to the drawing board, it’s a rinse and repeat cycle.

Ken:

You know, when you’re speaking about, uh, a low rate of cancellation, we also had a low rate of cancellation. And I think you’ve just used 5% there, Julia, which means 95% of your shows come through, you get paid, you go there, you do a wonderful job and everybody’s happy. But 5%, if you take, let’s say a yearly income from a, a magician is, and I’m just picking a number out of the year, it’s going to be more, it’s going to be less whoever you are and what the markets you work in. But let’s say it’s $50,000. 5% of that is $2,500. That $2,500 to go. Yeah, well, it’s only 5%. That’s a lot of money to me and for us to implement the deposit system for us because we needed it to be hassle-free. The thing is if you’re going to be approaching your, your clients and saying, oh, you need to do this and that. And giving them a whole pile of steps to go through, it’s going to make it more difficult for them to book, book you. What we did was we, we, uh, paid for a payment gateway where people could pay via their credit cards or however that on online really, really easily. And we worked out that the price for that was a lot less than that 5%, a lot less than that two and a half grand. So we found that we, we saved money on that one, but you’re right. It’s about what fits for you.

Julian:

Yeah. But that’s a smart way that, that you’re doing. And it’s a smart way that I haven’t investigated yet. Uh, and you know, and this is another thing, you know, don’t, you, you can’t do everything at once and it’s a trap you can fall into and it can become very, very stressful, but it’s about looking for a better way to do one thing, improve that, get that working, then move on to the next thing, but trying to do a shotgun approach where I’m going to fix a little bit of this and a little bit of this, and a little bit of this essentially means nothing actually ends up being done at all. So one of the important things we have to do is we have to announce the winner for the free membership, to the balloon workshop blueprint, which is now alive. And that’s coming from episode 27, which was about ringing every last little bit of value you can out of your bookings and listeners to the podcast had to go along and put their ideas in the comment section of episode 27. So we’ve had some, you know, some good discussion there and we’ve made a decision and that person we’ll get to that soon. So

Ken:

Yeah, we leave it. There’s a cliff hanger. This is like a soap opera. I absolutely love it. You know, it just kind of passed by, uh, almost under the radar there where you said Julian, a balloon workshop blueprint, and oh yeah, that’s live and it’s online there. And it, you speaking about getting the, every last drop out of what it is that we do and really maximizing that income. If you guys haven’t seen balloon workshop blueprint, go and have a look, it is on believable. It really is. I’m going to share with you Julian. I was blown away because you’ve been building this behind, behind a wall as it were. You weren’t even sharing with me the content of it. I only got to see it when it went live. And I urge you go and have a look, balloon workshop, blueprint.com. If you are a magician, if you are an entertainer, go and have a look at that because it is an amazing system. It really, really is. And Hey, we’ve had balloon giving it two thumbs up and believe me, if you get two thumbs up from Busta balloon, cause he’s the man he’s real legal name is Busta balloon. This is a, this is a man who is balloon mad. And, and he says that this is the way to go. So go and have a look at that. Well,

Julian:

Actually, I’m going to read to you what, what he wrote back to me about this. Cause I asked him to, to, you know, have a good look at it. And from the perspective of someone who is, you know, you know, probably, you know, the preeminent balloon twister in the world today, and I’ve got to tell you, it was scary asking him to do that. Um, but cause you know, you’ve got to be prepared for the criticism that comes back, but he, this is I’ll re I’ll read you what he said. He said, honestly, I can’t think of anything I would change. Really. I am especially impressed with all the fantastic and well thought out systems that you’ve created for handling absolutely everything really fantastic. You are vastly undervaluing. This course. I really believe that anyone who actually puts the work into this program and follows your systems is not only going to make money with this, but it’s also going to be offering a genuinely great program to their clients or Bravo PS that is not hype. I really think the program is this good.

Ken:

So how’s that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, that is high praise indeed. And that’s the thing about balloon workshop. Blueprint is not just another learn some balloon animals. It’s not another learn some magic tricks. It’s not another trickle routine that you can put in your act. This is something that is commercial. This is something that once you have learned, it is going to earn you money. So it’s not buying a prop. Prop is not even an asset. It devalues when it is in your show, you buy it and you, you won’t be able to sell it for the same price. You bought it from on eBay. It devalues. As soon as you open that box, the balloon workshop blueprint, Julian, it, it becomes worth more. The longer you have it and the longer you do it, you will make money from this. You know, it’s only just released.

Ken:

So it’s only been out. It was released on Saturday. We’re making this recording before we go live on Tuesday. So it is just hours old and already the testimonials are rolling in. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this workshop. I’ve been doing balloons for a long time and didn’t think it would be for me, I was wrong. This is such brilliance. And it is a different idea that entertainers can add to their repertoire. That’s just another one. That’s Cameron that has said that. And they just roll on down the page, go and have a look at this guys. It is well worth the look. And that is the prize that has been awarded to, are we going to, are we going to share who this has been awarded to? Because I know they’re all sitting there edge of the seat, Julian saying, is it me?

Julian:

You want me to give it to Joe Coover? Uh, Joe had a great idea and it’s something we overlook and it’s, he adds value by using the, I guess the time tested Svengali, Dick w he gives you instructions, but in instruction he brands his own, uh, you know, a four sheets. He didn’t actually specify what they are, but I’m guessing they printed instructions, but they branded with, with all his information on there. So good on your Joe, uh, uh, membership will be coming your way. If you can just contact us, give us your email, we’ll get that sorted out for you. Yeah.

Ken:

You know, and I’m you speaking about Joe there and he’s speaking the whole point of the comment section on that, uh, episode was to, to, to feedback how you can add value and make more money out of what it is that you’re doing here and the value of a Svengali. It is, it is the, it is kind of the pitch item that we know as magicians we had in episode 24 of the magician business. We had Marvin Bo glass who was sharing that he had built a well, has built a multi-million dollar company on the back of pitching on the back of items like this van, golly and Joe was sharing that you can pick them up for as little as a dollar. And just because you add value in the value is you, it is you as the performer and the entertainer in holding that in your hands and adding the magic and the presentation to that. You can sell it for a huge profit. It almost in insanely huge profit because you’re adding magic to it real magic. So I think a worthy winner there. And if you haven’t read through those ideas, go on back and look over that episode on magician business podcasts and go and look at all the comments. Cause there’s some really good stuff there. There’s stuff you can take and add into what you’re doing at the moment and make some more money, which is what magician business is all about.

Julian:

Well, let’s get on to today’s guest, uh, Todd Newfeld. And we spoke to Todd when we were at the Cadabra convention earlier this year, again in our noisy little recording studio down the back corridor, all

Ken:

There with, and Todd is going to be sharing stuff that is dear to my heart. It’s about the paperwork is about the formalities of being a performing artist. And it doesn’t matter whether you are a juggler or you are a balloon artist or a face painter or a magician. There are certain processes that we, that we should be following in order to have a good business. And I guess a, a business that can be measured and a business that protects us as artists, you know, having contracts in place so that if something is canceled, that we still get a portion of our fee. You know, it’s, it’s about having a look at these things. It’s the serious business of being a performing artist.

Julian:

One of the things I got out of this discussion was that held simple little things about like your geographic surroundings, how it can affect the way that you think about things in the way that you operate. Because Todd lives in New York city in a small apartment, and, you know, he asks, do you have a large illusion? And I said, well, a medium sized one. He says, well, I mean, I don’t have anything like that. I can’t fit it in. So every time I do a bit of paperwork, instead of using a, you know, like a letter size piece of paper, he always thinks, can I put that information on a half sheet or a quarter sheet? And from that came these other ideas about thoughts and organization and this discussion led on to, um, you know, a broader legal discussion about contracts. So let’s go and listen to them.

Ken:

Welcome Todd Newfeld from New York city. Todd is a balloon entertainer. He’s also formally trained as an attorney, is that the right way to stay in the United States? And he’s also, uh, an expert balloon creator, and also as got a lot, a lot of knowledge about, uh, keeping yourself very organized in the business side of performing very

Julian:

Much. So I really enjoyed listening to your lecture that you did Todd, when you did the bid biz builders, you know, talking about business and the importance of having the correct documentation. And I was kind of really taking a lot of notes there and I learned so much, I thought my documentation was pretty awesome and pretty together, but you really have it nailed down. And, and I think that is something that would be really interesting to, to our listeners out there, any kind of performing artists you’re, you’re working, uh, in kind of unique situations and, and contracts are really important and the process and the funnels. Can you tell us kind of how you got the interest in that paperwork side of things, the briefcase side as you call it? Well,

Ken:

Can I stop this to Todd? Tell us a little bit about yourself first, just playing a little bit of a picture about who you are and the sort of work you do.

Todd:

I live in New York city in Brooklyn, specifically, which is a fabulous place to live a fabulous place to go, to eat a fabulous place, to raise a family, but apartments tend to be very small, which, which is, which is normal. So in order for me to run my business, I can’t have filing cabinets and desks with piles and piles of paper. And it also, for me, forces me to limit what I do to a specific niche, hence balloon twisting. So I started off learning to juggle learning card tricks. I wrote a unicycle, I photoed little origami paper things, and I still love all that stuff, but just through necessity, I had to focus and also through interests. I love balloons and developed a specialty in a sub specialty, into balloon twisting specifically, and now more balloon entertaining. So I will go work a variety of parties.

Todd:

About a third of my parties are kids parties, which could be a birthday show. It could be a bunch of kids running around that need balloons. It could be a school or library about a third of them are adult parties, which are, could be a company party, a grand opening, a corporate thing, or just got a call for Friday, a 50th birthday party of 20 adults somewhere. And a third are a mixture of, I don’t know what you would call them family events, but it’s a mixed demographic. So somebody would rent out a catering hall, hire a DJ or a band. Everybody gets dressed up. So it’s more of an upscale party, but you have cross demographics of children, grownups, everything like that. That was really

Julian:

Interesting. What you were saying. It was about your, the way you live because it’s smaller apartments. I mean, I live a suburban lifestyle, which is, I guess, more spacious and it’s never even occurred to me that the physical limitations of where you live, would it affect the way that you approach your business,

Todd:

Right? You have any illusions, like magical illusions. There’s not life solutions

Julian:

That we all have. Yeah. Uh, that small ones. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I

Todd:

Can’t even have this possibly. So everything that I have, I need to be able to carry on a subway or hop into a taxi cab, go to a show, perform the show. So that really limits the scope of what I do. I can’t even carry a large sound system because I just, I just can’t. So I have a small one, which I found here at Cadabra,

Julia:

But the physical, but you, but you would, that’s also flowing on into the way that you run your business and keep yourself

Todd:

Organized. Absolutely. And that, that philosophy, I think, is super important for anybody working. Cause you have to figure out where you fit in the market. What suits you and pre-think about the problems that you have. So for example, we’re here to magic convention. There are unbelievable dealer items that I would love to use and play with, but I know it’s not practical. It might not suit my character, which is something I can work around. You can always tweak a character or do something out of, out of character, but I don’t have a place to store it. I don’t have a place to rehearse it. I don’t have a place to carry it on the business side. It’s the same thing. What, what are your constraints and what are the problems that you have? Like, you know, if you want say pictures of somebody that you want to use in a promotional situation, you should get permission. If you already know that, then you can think I need a photo release. Well, print one out, make a small one, put it on half a piece of paper, stick it in your bag, print off. 10 of them, shove them in the corner. That’s cool. If you know about that in advance, because you’ve thought about, about the problems and the constraints say my promo is terrible. I need to work on it. I need candid pictures. How do I get that? So that’s some of the things, so

Julian:

Keep following along that line with you, some more of these ideas and tips. Yeah, sure.

Todd:

And so, as, as you think about your business, the problems that you’ve had, problems that you have problems that other people have had keep a little journal, not a mental adrenaline, actually write something down, open up a notebook of uncomfortable things that you don’t want to talk to your clients about, but that you should. So a great example is what happens if you get sick, obviously you can’t do the show. Do you cancel the show? Do you give them back their money? Do you keep the money and say, you know what? I can’t make it, but I’m going to keep your deposit reschedule later. You could do that. Or do you find somebody else? What if that person is terrible? What if the person is better than you? What if that person costs you money out of pocket to cover the show? Do you build a client?

Todd:

I, these are all uncomfortable conversations that you don’t want to have, but you should probably think about what happens if there’s a tornado and you can’t make the show. What happens if something goes wrong? What happens if the customer saw you at another event and saw a trick that you did make maybe a, that the trick with the Ziploc bag and they loved it, incredible Mr. Plastic and waited and waited for that to come and be a part of your show and you left it out and they’re mad. Well, you don’t want to have to have that conversation when they say, I don’t want to pay you. I was waiting for Mr. Plastic. Can’t have a show with that, Mr. Plastic. I’m like, no, no. I changed the show. I could choose what I wanted. Like, it wasn’t appropriate. It didn’t fit. I had something new, whatever your reason is as a performer, you don’t want to have to have that conversation with the client at an uncomfortable moment.

Todd:

So you’d keep a little note notebook. You’d think about it. And then when it comes time to preparing your contracts drop in little clauses, that address some of those problems. So for example, you may have something in your show that says output from a magic show, which is 45 minutes of tricks, jokes, and entertainment with no reference to the incredible Mr. Plastic at all the customer reads it and says, Hey, everything looks great on the contract, but what about Mr. Plastic? Oh, yes. You know what? I will put that in the notes. And then you edit it for this specific event and say, Joe will be the magician, by the way, he will perform incredible Mr. Plastic, et cetera. But you wouldn’t even have that conversation to know about the problem. If you just said, Hey, I’ll come into the show. You don’t know what the different levels of expectation are. So there’s, there’s a lot of

Julia:

That is interesting Todd, that you’re sharing that. And I think I just want to drop in here for our listeners that you have a degree in law. So you’re speaking from a place of authority when you’re speaking about contracts. And I once heard a, I guess a non-law degree definition of a contract is looking at the worst possible scenario that could happen to you and planning for that eventuality. And that will inform what you put in your contract. And you’re, you’re covering things here that I would never even think of. And I guess I urge our listeners to have a real think about what it is you deliver and where it could go wrong and build that into the contract. Because at the end of the day, that contract is there as your safety net, I guess.

Todd:

Right? Yeah. You’re, you’re exactly right. That you, you don’t think that way because as entertainers, we’re programmed to think positively, we’re programmed to assume that we’re going to do a great job. Everybody’s going to love it. And most of the time that’s exactly what happens.

Julian:

I want to give, throw something in if I may, and this is something that I’ve heard from other entertainers that they’ve shared on forums and in Facebook groups where they’ve said, you know what? I couldn’t be bothered putting a contract together because what are they going to do? Are they going to Sue me for a kid’s magic show? What is your response to that?

Todd:

That is misguided on, on so many levels there’s and it shows, it shows a lack of understanding of what goes through the client’s head and a lack of respect for your business, for your art and for your community and an incredible amount of laziness. That it’s one of those things that there’s, there’s really no excuse for it.

Julian:

I guess that kind of puts it in a nutshell. Do you think that by having the correct paperwork by having a contract, you were at a level showing a more professional side of your business

Todd:

Without a doubt. Yeah. Without a doubt. And there there’s, there’s so many reasons for it, simply from a marketing perspective, if you have a contract that has your logo, your name, your phone number, perhaps a website that is going to live somewhere on their desk, on their computer, in a filing cabinet way after your show was done. So you’re, you’re leaving marketing trails, which is good. That’s, that’s always good. It’s the same thing as making sure that they have a business card and it tells the customer that you’re serious performers of all performers, whatever, whether you’re magician, balloon, twister, or clown, customers are nervous. They, they don’t understand. They don’t understand us. They, they always ask questions such as, are you going to be on time? What are you going to wear? Are you showing up all of these fear-based questions? Because what they’ve done is they’ve invited a stranger into their home to interact with their children and the people closest to them in this world.

Todd:

And that is pretty scary, like really scary. And there’s always going to be these doubts in their mind of who is this person are they showing up? And the other reason we’re hired is we solve a problem. We solve the problem of who’s going to entertain my children. And if there’s any fear that you’re not going to do a good job, we’re not going to show up that that, that anxiety is there. And I am always reminded at this even to this day when I’m on time to a party, but I’m not early enough and 18 minutes before the party starts, I get a panic call from the mom. Are you coming or are you, oh, I’m parked out front. See, I’m the red car. Three doors down. Good, good. I was worried. I was thinking really? I, I have your deposit. I’m here. I’m early.

Todd:

I’m checking my messages. I’m listening to the podcast. She was nervous. And we had a signed contract and a deposit. Imagine how she would feel if I was just, yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be there. What time is the party? Yeah. Okay, cool. It’s it’s, it’s terrible. And as far as they can’t be bothered with the technology today, it’s so easy to do it. Uh, I have a database manager, salvage, automates all of it, but you don’t even need that. If you have a word processor, you save a blank document and you just retire. Have you typed in the names? So

Julian:

Are you saying Todd, that it’s important to have a physical contract rather than an electronic contract?

Todd:

No. What I’m, what I’m saying is that you need to have something that communicates what the business deal is that they agreed to, because what the contract is, is a, an understanding of what you will do and what they will do, what they will do is they will pay you. What you will do is you will show up and do a show, and then you’re done on top of that. You should talk about some details. So at its base, a contract would be who, what, when, where, what, what Billy’s birthday? December 1st, 2015, one, two, three main street, two o’clock magic show. 45 minute performance, $50. If they say that sounds good, that’s it? So you don’t have to print it and mail it. You can email it as a PDF. They can write back in an email. I saw your contract. We’re all set. Anything that a third party doesn’t have to be a legal judge.

Todd:

It could be an arbitrator. It could be anybody. It could be, it could, it could be some, you know, somebody’s mom on the other side saying, I saw the email of you and the balloon guy. You clearly said you would pay him. That’s a deal. I didn’t raise you that way. Pay the man. So if an objective person would say, you have an understanding, that’s a contract and it, and it needs to be in writing. And in today’s day, very simple to have contract language pre-written with your logo, your website, save it to a PDF, send it off to them.

Julian:

You know, something that you’ve just said there. And we’re talking about that it being a must have, and they’re disrespectful to you and your business. And it’s respectful to your client. You know, one of the prerequisites of working as an entertainer is that you have some form of insurance to cover yourself in the eventuality. That assumption should go wrong. And we all have that insurance. We got the insurance. Do you know what the first question is? If you, if a claim is put in on your insurance, was there a contract in place? Was there an agreement? And they kind of look at that. And that’s really interesting.

Todd:

No, that fortunately in my 20, some years, I’ve

Never had to file it in store, but that’s it, I mean, in the, in the very unlikely event that you, that you do file a claim on your insurance, the first thing they ask for is the paperwork and the agreement that was in effect. And what would it look like if you said, oh, well, you know what? We don’t really work with contracts. It is a must. It is a priority. Sure.

Tod:

What’s the process that happens if you have a contract in place and either your not happy as the entertainer, what went on or as the client’s not happy, you’ve got a contract. What happens next? If someone’s got a complaint? Well,

Todd:

The easiest thing to do in most likely thing to do is to talk it out and come up with some kind of a compromise. It’s always, always much better to compromise than to try to Sue or knock on somebody’s door, because that gets very stressful and very ugly, which is one of the reasons that you should get a deposit for the shows, because your value of your performance drops down dramatically. The minute you walk out the door up until the moment that you start your show, you are worth an incredible amount of money. The minute you walk out the door, it was good. But th th they, they forget. So if you can get the deposit in advance that helps you, it also puts you in a much better position. If there is a problem and somebody is unhappy and they don’t want to pay you.

Todd:

And if you can’t force them to pay the other half of the money, at least at least you have your, your deposit. You can always go to small claims court here in the U S for sure, small claims court is, is really simple to do, but it’s, it’s, it’s hard to collect it. You, you can’t force people to pay you. And for relatively small amounts of money, a couple hundred dollars, it’s very difficult to get a court order to get that. What tends to happen is it becomes so uncomfortable for, for one side that they just say, here’s what I owe you. So it’s much easier to not let it get that ugly, to always be nice, always be professional, and make sure that the customer understands what you’re doing and what’s expected.

Julian:

How much do you ask for a deposit? And do you ever ask for full payment upfront?

Todd:

Good question. My rule of thumb is I get half upfront and half at the party. There are some events that are booked very far out that I’m now getting about a third, because I found that it makes me sad at that party, that most of the money for this job I’ve gotten and I’ve spent. So sometimes I’ll look at it and say, let me take a smaller deposit now. So my cashflow is a little bit, a little bit more even, and anytime an event is last minute. So if it’s booked within a week, I want full payment in advance because I feel there’s a certain flakiness to a customer that is planning very last minute. And it’s one less thing to worry about. So I want full payment in advance right there. I like to have the balance at the party because it gives the customer a chance to add a gratuity, a chance to thank me a chance to have a conversation.

Todd:

What I find for a lot of performers, myself included is if you’re fully paid in advance, you’re done. The parents are busy. They’re wrangling the kids. They’re doing the cake. It’s easy to just sort of slip off and say, Hey, thanks. See your kids. It was great. And leave because otherwise you get trapped. Oh, I want to see one more show. And that’s a very bad tendency, very bad tendency. So to force me to have the habit of, of saying goodbye and talking and shaking everybody’s hand, I need to get the balance. The other time that I get fully paid in advance is if I need to pay a lot of people for the job, if it’s something that I’m working as an agent with other artists, or I need to get special balloons and lay out some money, then I want to be paid full in advance. So I don’t have to worry about making people wait for me.

Julian:

Now. I want to make it very, very clear that Todd’s not giving any legal advice here and no, no. Uh, but are you entitled to ask for payment upfront? Is there any legality?

Todd:

I don’t S I don’t see why not. It’s, it’s a, it’s a business deal. It’s just like any other thing that you purchased, any other service they can ask you to pay an advance or ask you to pay later. It’s completely up to you. There’s nothing that says that’s not legal. They could say, that’s not fair. That’s not nice in which case they can do business with somebody else, or I can say fine, pay me at the party. And some people have objected. I just had a party where most of it was in advance. And then there was a small piece that she said she wanted to give me cash at the party. I said, okay, that’s fine. It was, I don’t know, 15, 20% of the job. It seemed like an arbitrary amount, but I think what happened is she had budgeted a specific amount and she didn’t tell her husband that it ran a little bit over. And so that was cash. That’s cool.

Julian:

I guess, by doing that in a way you’re giving them a promise with the contract of what you are going to deliver for that money that is being paid in advanced anyway. So they have the reassurance and the Asher and of having the contract. So yet another reason to have that document in place. But I did want to kind of rewind back from the contract, because within your lecture that you delivered on the kind of the business documents that we would use as a performing artists, the contract didn’t come first, you, you started with the email and, and kind of took us through that. There is a process that is followed right through. Could you talk us through some of those documents? And you even mentioned one right at the head of this interview, when you said like a photographic release form, and these are documents that you understand and know well, and you have them in your filing system, as you were mentioning them, I was writing them down. Cause I don’t know, can you share what documents are good to have and maybe in an order of pre-booking and take us right through how that works. Sure

Todd:

Was. W what I talked about in class is that you need to zoom out from your business, look at it and realize that your business is a company that processes something. It does something. And what it does my business at least is it book shows. And when you zoom out, you see leads come in from the internet, from phone messages, from people who stopped me at parties from I call people. So that’s a lead kind of a frenzy of activity that goes into a bucket. They get processed somehow, which means they get, as I’m not going to do that party, maybe it’s inappropriate. Maybe it’s not what I do. Maybe it’s in New Zealand. Then it gets converted into an event. I do the event I get paid, and then I move on. And it’s early to talk about a contract when you’re still dealing with the leads and everything that comes in.

Todd:

So we talked about not, not making, not making your customers work before their customers, somebody who just says, I think I want to do a magic show. What do you do? What do you charge? And then immediately going into filling out a contract. You’re it’s you would say putting the cart before the horse. It’s, it’s a balance of wasting their time and getting the information that you need. So in class, we talked about figuring out the minimum information. You need to qualify a lead as a booking, and it starts off with, what do you want? Where’s it going to be? Are you in the price range? Am I available? Okay. And if any of those answers are no, then you say, I’m sorry, we’re not going to do business because you might be a wonderful client. I might be available, but it might be on the other side of the country.

Todd:

And today’s internet age. That happens all the time. So you would say, no, no, isn’t a waste of time. And I see so many performers with extremely long intake forms before they give a quote or find out if they’re going to do the show, is it indoors or outdoors? Exactly. How many children, how many adults, which packages do you want? Is there going to be covering? Am I going? I’ve even seen one that say, well, there’ll be food available for the performers, really sandwich before you go. But the, the lead has an exam. It’s a question. And they get nervous. And it’s very easy, easy to just click off of that and go to somebody else. So those people are good for your businesses listeners, because they’re going to come to your website. But once you go through that checklist, which you need to decide for you, it should basically be a decision of, is this an appropriate job?

Todd:

Then you go into the book, same process. We’re not even at the contract yet. There’s a lot of questions that you need to have before you can give them a price. And they are generally, what kind of party is it? What else are you having at the party? And what level of service do you want? I assume that everybody listening can do more than one thing. I assume they can have a small show and a big show. They can have a one hour package, a two hour package. They can bring a sound system or not bring a sound system. And so all of those affect the price. And once you hear about the party, you don’t, you don’t need to pitch all of it. Cause you can tell if there’s eight kids in a living room, you don’t need to bring the big illusion show.

Todd:

It’s just probably not what they’re going to want. Similarly, if there’s going to be 500 kids in an auditorium, you’re not going to pick your close-up magic. It’s just, it’s just not, it’s just not even worth having a conversation at that point. So once narrowed it down, then you get into some of, some of the paperwork such as putting together a contract and a contract is really just pasting in the details that we just talked about in writing. Who’s it with? Well, that’s the client’s name? That’s a line in your contract. Where is it that goes in? When is it date and time? What are you doing? That’s from the menu. So what we, what we talked about in class, wasn’t just legal documents, but business documents that are internal. Yes. And that I think is the kind of work that, that people just don’t do.

Todd:

So we spoke about writing out your services in an attractive way, instead of saying magic show, 45 minutes to actually write a sentence or two, that would say the item is magic show. What is the magic show? The magic show is an interactive or has an interactive stand-up show for audience of up to a hundred kids featuring comedy interaction, illusion, whatever it is in your show. Write three sentences. That sound good because your contract is, is the document. As you put it that when the customer reads, it says, oh, this guy’s going to do that. So the more professional it looks, the more professional that sounds the more confidence they’re going to have that you’re going to show up and do a great job.

Julian:

Can I ask if you were doing that in an electronic form, if you were doing it in paper form, I’ll just go back a step and you sent it to someone and they would sign it and maybe send you back a signed copy. How do you do that electronically?

Todd:

That’s a very good question. The best way to do it is with a signature hands down, a signature that somebody touched that you could compare to their driver’s license that says, yes, this is the person electronically. It’s a little bit harder to prove that that was the person that agreed to it. So if we do it over email and you write back and say, yes, it looks all set. I don’t know, a hundred percent that somebody didn’t hack into your account. It’s just, it just seems to be extremely unlikely. We, there are some digital signature technologies out there. I don’t personally use them. It, it means that the other side has a little bit of work to do. And it’s a little bit more complicated. What I do now is that the database that I have called manager Sal has a check box for the client, checks the box, signs, their name, and it happens electronically.

Todd:

So I don’t have a hundred percent proof that they signed it. But if you look at the name, the IP address, it’s pretty clear that it, that it came from them personally. If I was doing a huge event, perhaps something overseas or something, that was a six-month job, I would want a physical signature. But for most of us, what we’re concerned about our contracts and documents for just the day in and day out, when you’re booking gigs all the time, these aren’t a hundred thousand dollars contracts. There are guys that are doing a hundred thousand dollar contracts, and those are the sorts of things that when you get a copy of it, you send it to your lawyer. They look it over. Cause there’s a lot on the line for these monster events. But for family parties, the average company party, you, you don’t need that. You don’t need that level when it comes down to the real answer to your question, is, are you confident that the person on the other side agreed to it? And if the answer is yes, then you go,

Julian:

Because it sounds from what I’ve been listening to you say is that it’s actually on the day-to-day level. It’s more about your marketing and presenting yourself as a professional product and performer rather than particularly worrying about the legality of it, correct?

Todd:

Correct. Yeah. And it’s, it’s all, it’s all part, part of the same package of how you appear to the customer.

Julian:

Todd, this has been really rich in information and it’s very different to kind of where we as performing artists and entertainers, maybe put our mind and our thinking. And I thank you for bringing that knowledge. You’ve mentioned manager sell a few times during this interview, just in closing. Can you tell our listeners how they can get ahold of you if they wish to get in contact with you and maybe tell, tell them a little bit about what managers sell is. And if anybody’s interested, they can go and have a look at that.

Todd:

My personal webpage, Toddneufeld.com. You can always contact me from it is always under construction. It has a list of my projects. And what I’m doing is just sort of a, a random playground where I do business is twisted balloon.com, which is where people book me for corporate and private events and manage your sao.com is a database that came about from my personal need to automate the paperwork in my business, to not spend time figuring out my contracts, my template, or wait. They wanted invoice, hang on. What is an invoice? How do I prepare it? Where does this go? How do I rebook it from next year? I have to find it. Where’s this piece of paper. And when I tried to hire somebody or get help in my business, they said, you’re a mess. I can’t work here. Where is everything? Where’s the information.

Todd:

And I started to really model how freelance entertainers, book events, how the information flows, what are the steps and things that are so obvious to us, such as lead requires less information than an actual contract or things such as, Hey, wait a minute. A customer might book you not at their home, but at a restaurant or a country club, or maybe they have two addresses because they have an office. So those little details became so complicated or things like I have a sales pitch that, that I want to be able to read every time I say school show. Cause I’m not going to book a school show for another few months until the school season. Where did that go? That’s on a note card. So we build all of this into manager Sao. And if you go to manager, sal.com, you can try it all for free. All the contracts I use personally in my business are for free a hundred percent. You can upload your logo, upload your letterhead. When you generate the contracts, it looks customized for you for your business. There’s no watermark, there’s no temporary. Like it just works. You can book an unlimited number of events. We don’t care, whatever you need to run your business.

Julian:

How long has that free trial that you run?

Todd:

It is good for three months, but if they mentioned your podcast, it’s a three-month trial. So they have 90 days to try it out.

Julian:

As opposed to the 30 days that you get. If you don’t mention it mentioned magicianbusiness.com. So just by listening to this, you’ve got yourself a good deal. Go on and try that. 90 days of manager salary, it’s like having your own personal manager. You have the expertise of a man with a legal degree that has written the documents there. They’re all there. It’s copy and paste stuff. It is excellent. And the feedback on manager sell right here at this convention has been overwhelming of people actually standing up and testify and what it’s done for them in their business. I am just so grateful Todd, that you’ve shared your information and that you’ve been so generous with that offer with our audience. Thank you very much for sending that. And I appreciate

Ken:

It. You know, Julian, just listening to that, we speak so often on magician business.com about it’s about where you get your information from what your sources. Todd is a, a practicing legal professional. This man is really qualified to be sharing this stuff with us. You know, and something that really came across for me is that you can get all of the documents. You know, you don’t have to go rewrite them and start them from scratch. You can get them all by just joining up to manage yourself, which is so kindly giving 90 days free trial on you. Get all the templates there. All you need to do is kind of go in copy and paste, pop your company name in there on obviously of course, make sure that it matches, it matches the legislation of the geographic region that you’re working in, but it’s all laid out there for you. No risk 90 days get in there and mentioned magician business. I think that’s a great, great offer to you, our audience.

Julian:

It is. And just everyone, we have no affiliate relationship with this. We, we don’t get a cent for recommending this. It just, you know, we had to look at it and we see, you know, it seems to us to be a valuable piece of software. You know, you got 90 days to get in there and have a look yourself. I mean, you’re sort of not. So if you don’t really, so go, go check it out and you might find it’s something that’s going to work

Ken:

For you. So do you charge a deposit? Do you have a contract? Is it worthwhile for you? Well, share, share with us on the show notes, page, episode 29, magician business podcast, click on podcasts, go down to that episode and share your experience. What do you, and I’m also

Julian:

Going to add an article, a link to an article that came from a photography website. It’s why the non non-refundable deposit is a myth. It’s an interesting counter argument to some of the stuff that’s talked about here, which is we were talking about in the start of this episode is that it’s very hard to say that there’s a right way or a wrong way. It’s just educate yourself, get some knowledge on it and then go and implement a system that works for

Ken:

You and the loudest voice and the most important voice here is your voice. Tell us what you’re doing, how you’re doing it. Let’s get some debate on this. Cause it is a very debatable topic, I think. And again, as we always asked, if you can spend some of your time going over to iTunes and leave us a review, and if it’s a five-star review, man, are we grateful? Julian and I dance a jig every time we get another five-star review on iTunes. So if you want to see us dance with max to make videos that studio

Julian:

I’m the mayor of as a five, and that was born without rhythm on that person, you know, 5,000 people in the audience, 4,999, clap on the beat. I’m the one on the offbeat. Um, you know

Ken:

What? Just for that, you got it. If you want to see Julie without rhythm, go and leave us a five star review, send us an email to either ken@amagicianbusiness.com or julia@magicianbusiness.com and we’ll make a video. And we’ll say you hit on one of my fears. Oh my goodness. Oh, this is far too much fun. And again, I just want to repeat, go and have a look at balloon workshop, blueprint.com. Do yourself a favor. If you do nothing else today, go to balloon workshop group. Then I can’t say it. Balloon workshop blueprint. So I’m giggling too much. Balloon workshop, blueprint.com, go and have a look. It will be worth your while

Julian:

You had some great information, uh, enjoyed sharing it with you and we’ll catch you next episode.