The Blackstoneian 
The official newsletter of I.B.M. Ring 200
Volume 4, No. 6, June, 2008 Editor, Eugene Raymond Soucek
PRESIDENT RAYMOND NIEVES
WEDS
After a loooong courtship, our very own Ring 200 President, Raymond Nieves, married his longtime sweetheart Joanne Woebeser on June 7. Congratulations to both of you and on behalf of all the members of Ring 200 , we wish you a long, happy, rich, and magical life together.
AN EAGLE SIGHTING
On Sunday June 8, an Eagle was sighted in Highland Park. Well, actually it was an Eagle Scout. Ben Winter was officially proclaimed the newest Eagle Scout from the Highland Park Boy Scout Troop 55. In order to become n Eagle Scout, Ben had to design, implement, and complete a project of his choosing. He choose to do a project on Magic. Since Ben ia a member of Ring 200, he asked fellow magicians to aid him. He even produced a video of his project which is in the Ring 200 library if you have not seen it. Congratulations Ben, we are proud of you.
JUNE MAGIC COMPETITION
It is hard to believe, but we are now having our sixth annual Al Hillman Magic Competition. It is hard to believe that it has been six years since Al passed away. It is hard to believe that I have been a member of this Ring for over six years. It is hard to believe that time moves so fast. It is hard to believe that I will not be able to attend, nor take part in, this event which I look forward to every year. But that is what happens sometimes when you are a Grandpa. I wish all participants the best of luck. I hope someone will video the competition.
THE SUCCESS IN MAGIC SERIES
The following article is the next in a series of articles that will be reprinted here, with permission, from Eric Paul. Many of you will recall that Eric did a lecture for Ring 200 a few years back. If you want to know more about him, go to his website: http://www.MoreMoneyWithMagic.com
The Success in Magic Series! Written & Published by Eric Paul
(Note: You may want to reread last months newsletter which contains part one of this article.)
Inside This Issue: The REAL work in handing out your business cards!:
Ok, so you have a killer business card that has all of the necessary elements on it; USP, Con- tact #, email address, web-site, a call to action and something of value to get the prospect to keep it. A few of you asked, so I uploaded some photos of a few that I currently use onto my blog at: http://moremoneywithmagic.wordpress.com/ They work very well for me.
You know to hand business cards out in multiples. You are writing and rehearsing a script loaded with powerful sales strategies. Cool, we’ve come a long way already! Now for the real work – Getting their contact info!
This is what proactive marketing is all about. This is what separates the men from the boys. Taking full responsibility for your success or failure! Some of you may already be doing this and I commend you. Most are not and it’s such a waste of money.
Think about it, you have a prospect that is interested in what you offer. So interested that they went out of their way to come up and ask you for more information.
This is a HOT prospect!
Don’t let them go!
You should absolutely be taking the bull by the horns and collecting their information too. This way you can add them to your “steel Trap” and they will become a customer for life.
There are a few ways to do this.
The obvious way is to ask them for their card also when they ask for yours. I didn’t include this in part one of this article because I didn’t want to give away what I would be covering here. But it’s in there.
And it’s very easy to do. You are giving them something and the law of reciprocity says they have to give you something too. This is standard practice at corporate and networking events. The prospect won’t even blink an eye.
You immediately take their card, enter them into your database and do the necessary follow-up to turn them into a customer. I’ll be covering more of that in future articles.
But what if you’re at a birthday party and the Mom doesn’t have a card? No problem. I al-ways have what I call, “Info Cards” on me. They are simply post-card size forms the prospect can fill-out to receive more information. It takes a minute and I rarely, if ever, have had anyone not want to fill it out. It makes their life easier and I send them the info they want. They can give me telephone number, mailing address or email address. Whatever is their preferred method of contact. It doesn’t matter to me because I know I have systems in place to handle them.
The actual one that I use is on one of the template files in my Theater Show Booking Course so I’m not at liberty to show you the actual piece here. But it’s very easy to make up. Just make up a card with all of the info you’d like to collect and have various check boxes of the different programs you offer. This has been the real money-maker for me!
Let’s say I’m at a Blue & Gold Banquet and a Mom comes up for my card. She may have me in mind for little Johnny’s upcoming Birthday Party. However, she starts to fill-out the form and notices that I also do elementary school assembly programs or magic workshops. This opens up a dialogue and we are off to the races. I get tons of shows this way!
I put these cards out at my public events and theater shows. There is even an area on the back that they can drop it in the mail to me if they’d rather. This rarely happens, but I like to
offer the option.
So here is a HUGE example of how you can get very proactive about how many bookings you get. This is gold and I hope you use it!
Yours in success, Eric Paul
SCHEDULE FOR THE YEAR 2008
June 17th - Al Hillman Excellence in Magic Competition
July 15th - Money Magic - Everyone bring $7.00 in NEW Bills (a five and two singles) Gene Soucek will give a workshop On “Beswitched”
August 19th Picnic swim party at Gene’s house
September 16th - Magic Jeopardy
October 21st - Jim Angelo Card and Mentalism Competition - Show us your best card or mentalist effect or routine
November 18th - Lecture TBA / Nomination of Officers
December 16th - Holiday Party / Initiation Performances
We meet at: The Stelton CommunitWe Community Center, 328 Plainfield Avenue, Edison, NJ; on the third Tuesday of every month; doors open at 6:30 p.m. – Meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. You are invited to join us for coffee at the local diner after the meeting.
WORDS OF WISDOM
"Politicians are wonderful people as long as they stay away from things they don't understand, such as working for a living."
P.J. O'Rourke
"The mistake a lot of politicians make is forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they're anointed."
Claude D. Pepper
