Here are two emails, as exchanged from a potential client who must have received one of my business cards at a show. What do you think? I'm open to critique & suggestions.



Hi Scott,

My wife enjoyed your magician skills at a White Room gathering last year; and is keen for you to perform at her 60th birthday celebrations [with a mix of ages from pre-schooler up]. It will be in Frankston on the evening of Friday, 25th March. Would you get back to me [phone or email] so we can negotiate availability and other details?



Regards,
[Client's name]

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Hi [Clients name],

Thanks very much for your email. I'm certainly interested to entertain with magic at your wife's 60th birthday. My magic show will be a unique and fantastic way to break the ice for the party, for all ages!

I have got Friday 25th of March free, and have put a note on it to keep it aside for you. I am interested to know what type of venue you have, the performing space available, and how many people you expect to have in the audience.

I can give you a few price scenarios for a show in Frankston (price includes return travel from my hometown);
A small scale show is $200, where I offer approximately 20 minutes of magic, all fitting into one briefcase. Not much space is needed for this (eg. in a living room).

A standard show is $250 which I would perform for approximately half an hour. This includes more props, and a few minutes of magic performed to music.

A standard show, also including a larger stage illusion, the "Crystal Casket" (The appearing girl), can be performed for $350. I would need to have my assistant available for this. This is dependent on having plenty of space available, so if you are interested in this we can discuss it in more detail.

Everything is self-contained, as I will bring my own PA system & table.

Thanks again [Client's name]. If you have any questions or would like to book it in, please let me know and I'll contact you by phone to discuss it further. Or feel free to contact me by reply email or phone.

Kind regards,
Scott

Ph. xxxxxxxxx

Perhaps too much information.

You've given him the quotes a tad too soon I think. Now he's got time to shop around without actually speaking with you in person, I'm going under that assumption given the emails.

$10.00 a minute for a 20 minute magic show seems a bit steep. You'd have to justify this expense to me, as a consumer. No offence but are you really that good to command that price? If so, you need to expound on what you're offering.

The mentioning of the suit case really isn't that important to me, as a consumer. For example, I can fit all of my books, pens, boards,telephone book etc., into a suit case too, well a brief case, and I can do a show that lasts from 20 minutes to an hour. Pack small plays big, as Harlin would say. It means nothig to the tyoe of show or the durration that I have to perform.

I'd leave out the pricing entireely. Perhaps just suggesting the differnt levels of serice you provide would suffice for now. Rather than "small" and "regular" scale, (Which itself seems to be subdivided. A bit confusing really.)How about the use of Silver, Gold, Platnium level of service. If not that, then another way of seperating the types of shows you do.

Your response doen't mention the age range that you perform too. The request for information stated that you'd be performing from an age rang of Preschoolers-adults. I think you need to address that a lot better than you have. You've actually ignored the children, at least from this initial responce, and are focusing on adults. While it's not necessary to go into specifics here, you might consider mentioning that your shows are suitable for children as well as grown ups. Perhaps, if you don't specialize in this area, you could bring along a childrens' magician, at one of the higher paying levels or someting, to cater to the kids nees too. Just somehting to consider.

It's a good first draft, but you've given too much information in one way, and not ntearly enough information in the other way.

Why not tease him a bit. Pencil in the date and location. Tell him of the three levels of services you offer, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and then tell him you'll speak with him on phone, or, if the distance isn't too great, how about a face to face meeting? It may not be possible, but at least the phone call would bring remove the distance of an electronic message.

You're also leaving it up for them to call you, or respond via email. Why?

How about:

I'll give you a call on __________ at 7 pm, so we can go over further details.

I look forward to speaking with you.

You need to remember that he may be asking about pricing and availablity, but you're the one in charge of the marketing salesmenship and pricing.

I's a courtship you're after. tease him about the show. The consumation and honeymoon comes after the price has been paid.

Giving them everything all at once, does not give them any incentive to call you bcak, especially if you leave the message as open ended as you have. You've given them control.

You're now in the position of having to chase them up later with either another email, or that phone call.

I'm not being cynical or psychic, but anyone wanna guess what their response to you may be?

Thanks Reuben,

I took on board everything you said. I feel I can justify the price, considering that Frankston is 1 hour drive from where I live. So that's 2 hours driving in total, and there's a few dollars worth of fuel.
My show is not all that bad, I am satisfied from lots of great feedback over the last 7 years. It is just now that I'm turning this into a business venture!

I am sure most other guys on this forum would agree with the pricing. I once hired a magician for my own birthday recently, and it was just over $500 for a 45 minute comedy magic show (out of one briefcase). I thought that was reasonable, I enjoyed it immensely, so it's all relative. However he's a full time pro and I'm not there yet.

You made some really helpful other points, especially giving prices too soon. And to talk more about the show offers the client. Thanks.

I agree with Reuben that you are giving too much information. As Reuben suggests, just offer to hold the date until you can speak in person. Then tease the client about your show packages, saving a discussion of your fee for the telephone conversation.

Jim

An aside:

Most of what I know about things like this comes from "common sense" The majority of it comes from gaining knowledge. I'd recommend Jim Snack's training material. He won't remember me but a long time ago, while living in the UK I stumbled accross him and his "sucess-in-magic" site and made a purchase. It was an astute action on my part.

Take a visit to his site and see what you think.

(And no, I don't get anything from this recommendation, other than the pleasure of recommending some rather well written and useful material.)

I'd say don't give a price so that you can get onto the phone with the client asap. If you give your price, the potential client might slip away without ever having spoken to you. The reason why using the phone is better in my view is that on the phone you can not only provide information and answer questions but also establish rapport - and this helps you to close the sale (i.e get booked!) A phone call btw I think should not end with 'I hoped you found this discussion useful and I hope to hear from you soon' but instead effectively with 'shall we consider this a booking then for your party on 23rd March?' It's a bit pushy, but only gently so - especially if you have given lots of information and answered their questions - and you are saving them a lot of leg work in terms of emailing and phoning around elsewhere. If they don't book revert to 'I hope you've found this discussion useful and I hope to hear from you again shortly.' I'd advise also to also use their name frequently in your discussion, personlise what you say and how you say it, sell the benefits of your show constantly and use sales closing techniques.

So all in all, if you give out your fees by email you are almost certainly unintentionally inviting the client in most cases to shop around - and another magician who is good at sales will close the deal instead of you before the client even got the chance to call you. So just outline in your email the different levels of services, as advised by other posters here, and say that a number of other things determine the exact fee and it is much easier to simply go over it in a no-obligation telephone call rather than via a number of emails. You can also add the benefit of taking their query by phone for example being able to instantly answer any questions the client may have etc etc. Make it sound like a phone call is for their benefit, not just yours. There are a number of other things you can say that can point out why a phone call is useful to them.

The biggest factor for getting onto the phone in my view is that if you are speaking with someone you are starting to engage with them & if you have good people skills then you are 3/4 of the way to booking the show provided their budget isn't a million miles away. If my conversation with the client ends with them not booking on the phone there and then (& thus I assume in most cases they'll go & shop around a bit) I add some additional comments to my sales pitch to explain why I may be more expensive than some magicians (which is true in my case), and that is a que for pitching a few comments about 'quality', 'experience', 'testimonials' etc etc. Some people who are reading this can obviously state how competitive they are if their fees are low - or just plug your USP's whatever they are.

I thought the original question was "Should I use two different Emails, one is on a business card (for people who have seen me) and the other is on my website. Then, when I am contacted, I will know weather to launch into an entire campaign or keep it cool.

My father ran tons of sales ads in various newspapers using different names for the contact person. That way he knew what paper the caller was using.

The orginal question was:



I think he was asking us to comment on his response.

Scott, thanks for posting your draft. The shared knowledge and skills of people here is going to help not only you, but anyone else in a similar situation, or likely to be.

However we have missed one thing - the client in this case already knows of Scott and his show. it is not a matter of convincing the client that you are the one to go with but rather what to charge. inthis case I think it was fine to mention price.

I will say that yes You did give WAY to much info and much of it not needed for the clients sake.

the majority of my clients are ones that have seen me before or are repeat customers so I have no issue telling them current prices and packages via email, I am not worried about price shoppers in that case they are looking for ME not my best price.

that being said if it were a potential client that used my website form and they have never seen me before then yes I would hold off on prices and yes I would prefer to talk with them so that you have that personal connection and can get instant details and a feel from them as to what they really want.

so in closing - did you get the job??

sam

I agree with all the aforementioned comments regarding "too much information."

He wants to talk to you to pound out the details, so set a time to call him. That's it. I think it's really that simple.

YOU know what you can so; HE knows (roughly) what he wants. You were giving information before knowing what interested him. In that regard, I strongly disagree with Jim Snack about "teasing." There is no point in bringing up packages without even knowing what he wants. You might be selling him a hammer when he wants a rake. It's a waste of both your time.

Here's how I would handle it:

1. Set a phone appointment.
2. Be prepared with your packages, but do not bring them up. Ask questions first, and find out what he wants.
3. THEN you might offer him an either/or choice, based on what he tells you.

The point was made that you are ALREADY what the client likes, so don't oversell. Assume he wants to hire you, and go in with the attitude that you simply need to finalize details.

I agree with Starrpower that there is no need bring up the packages before speaking with the client in person. You could mention that you have three different packages and need to speak in person to determine which would be best for their event, but, as Starrpower suggests, that is not even necessary. Find out what he wants first, then offer a solution.

Jim

Great stuff here! Gotta love the Café'

Scott, Your email offers a bunch of objections. What is the one objection every product or service has? PRICE! Sure we talk about pricing, but again, you brought up the objection. Price is usually a consideration, but sometimes its not! Sometimes they don't care what the price is (within reason), they just want YOU. I can do a show for less than the Pendragons could - but they still got the gigs where they were asking $20,000. Price is not always a consideration.

Another objection you brought up was time. What if he wanted a 60 minute show? You said you have a 20 and thirty minute show. He could eliminate you just based on this. What if he wanted strolling magic?

And never lead with the small scale show. At least lead with the standard show (after you find out his needs). If you lead with the standard 30 minute show, and if price becomes an objection, you have somewhere to go. The 10 minute, 2 trick show for $10.95??? Leave your self somewhere to go - don't lead with the bottom tier.

The fitting into one briefcase.... that is info you tell yourself and other magicians. Your prospect does not care! In fact, that sentence can do nothing but hurt your chances of getting a gig. NO ONE WILL EVER book you because you say you can fit your whole show into a brief case! But SOMEONE will NOT BOOK YOU because of that sentence.

We always need to sell benefits! not features.
Example:
don't say: "I do the sponge ball trick" (a feature).

Say: "I do the sponge ball trick, where I bring up a child and have the magic happen in their hands. This is one of the best spots in the entire show to get a great photo of your child on stage - they will have a huge smile, and be laughing uncontrollably when the one ball in their hand turns into 50! The kids always go nuts during this routine. The cool thing, how I do the magic, makes your child look like the star! The rest of the children think he did the magic!" (the benefits are that their child is gonna have fun! the child is going to be the star!)

Remember, it's NEVER about you. It's always about them! their guests, their kids, their good time. They don't care about your props, your award winning back palm, or your back when carrying your show in. They only care about WHATS IN IT FOR THEM!

People don't buy features,they buy benefits. Even though you think you bought your HD TV because it's HD -You didn't buy an HD TD because it's HD (the feature), you bought an HD TV so you could watch your favorite shows, movies, or sports in HD (the benefit). Sometimes the feature and benefit seem very similar, and it's hard to tell the difference sometimes, but they are very different. Scott, your first sentence touched on this! It is a great example of a benefit! "My magic show will be a unique and fantastic way to break the ice for the party, for all ages! " (the benefit is that their guest are gonna have a good time).THis is a GREAT EXAMPLE of benefits selling.


Scott, your return email could have touched on the different types of shows, to get your prospect thinking. Mention the types and the benefits. Close up show, stand up show, illusion show. This will help the conversation when you speak to each other. They will already have had time to think about what they want. How they envision their event.

Oh yeah, I second and third and fourth, what everyone else said. Get the prospect on the phone. You can sell your act better than any old email can!

In your email, last sentence: "Thanks again [Client's name]. If you have any questions or would like to book it in, please let me know and I'll contact you by phone to discuss it further. Or feel free to contact me by reply email or phone." They called you. They are interested in booking you already. You should be "assuming the close" already.

Your show is good. your price is in line. They have seen you before. ASSUME they are buying from you. Always assume the close, never ask them to buy: "do you want to book the show". Example: you have just talked to them, found out their needs. They seem most interested in a stand up show. "Mary, we are looking at Friday at 8pm. Would you like the 30 minute stand up show, or the 50 minute show with the birds?" You just assumed they are buying, and gave them a choice - 2 closing techniques: Assumptive close, and alternate choice close.

Or, "Mary, you will love the 45 minute show, your guest will laugh alot. Would you like me to start at 7 or 7:30?". - assuming the close, and alternate choice.

Heres one more example, "Mary, do you want the 30 minute show for $250, or the 45 minute show with he balloon animals for $300?" Its got an alternate of choice (but brings up the one objection everything shares - price) but is much worse than:

"Mary, your son Little Johnny is gonna love the show! Have your camera ready, he will get up on stage at least 3 times! I'll arrive at 1 pm, and start the show at about 1:15. Would you like the 30 minute show, or add the balloon animals at the end?" (assuming you already talked about the balloon animals). (recaps the benefits - we get some lasting memories -photos- of our son at his party!, he gets to be a big part of the show! The time is perfect - we just talked about it! 30 minute show that I wanted, or more fun with the balloon animals - and less time I have to keep the kids occupied! I love this magician! give me the big package!) and assumptive close along with an alternate choice.

more info on these types of closings: http://www.google.com/search?q=alternati......irefox-a


Hope I helped a bit.

Scott Brown