3 Reasons to charge more for your services

Apart from the obvious reason that mpost of us want to earn as much as we reasonably can from each of our shows, there are also many other reasons to charge a highter fee. I want to share a couple of thoughts with you;

Have you ever arrived at a venue and been told that the only place for you to change and prepare are the toilets? I certainly have had that happen many times during my career, and to be honest it always bugged me. What I learned was that the higher my fee went the less this happened until I reached a point where it would never happen. This is of course just one indicator that you have changed status in the clients mind. It is little things, once the client sees you as more than a commodity then you will have course be offered a complimentary tab for your refreshments and dinner, parking and logistics are arranged for you and so on. Basically you are treated as an important professional rather than one of the commodity staff.

Having spent more on your show - the client will also set you up for success (both in their minds and with the rest of the audience). It is of course true that people generally do not want you to fail, but if they have paid a high fee then they really want to enjoy what you do. In fact they make it even easier for you to do the job, because they put themselves in the right frame of mind.

So not only do you start to become more financially wealthy - but the job becomes easier! Why would you not try and make yourself the most expensive magician in your area rather than under cutting to and trying to be the cheapest?

The Magicians Secret

'Magicians never tell people how to do tricks' must be the oldest phrase in magic and is infact the basis that the whole world of magic. So how does a person first get into magic? Apparently it is alright to SELL magic secrets but not to GIVE them away! This is clearly bollocks as an argument - but hey its the world of magic so you wouldn't expect anything else would you?

It is ludicrous to say NEVER gives a secret away, because obviously magic would then die out within a generation. Of course SELLING a secret is no real improvement on the situation - it merely brings the whole issue in line with prostitution.

So what might be a better solution? The objective seems to be to keep secrets within the farternity and the challenge is how do you admit new people to the fraternity? Simple, magic is ONLY sold face to face within the fraternity and access is via an initiation process. This means that if you have money you still cant get in unless you have a real desire. This stops casual day trippers getting in and makes the whole world of magic shrink!

Bad news if you are a magic dealer like http://www.UnearthlyMagic.com or any of the other professional magic retailers that make a living from the active world of hobby magic, as the market is so very small and personal now that maybe only a couple of original creators will continue. In fact only creators will survive, as in a smaller market there is no need for a classic retail distribution system. So people lose jobs.

However on the up side less magicians means that if you are a performer there will be much less compitition and that would drive higher fees - being a magician would become a much more exclusive profession.

Will this happen - of course not ! To do this would mean that the world of magic would have to put its money where its mouth is - and that my friends is a test to far! So they will bleat on and moan (situation normal in the world of magic) and pretent to be outraged by people giving away magic secrets! Simple solution, but much easer for them to just continue with their muddled thinking and double standards!!

This recent video on YouTube touches on this point brilliantly....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKtBaDsCgn4