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Barry:  And we get that moment of busting out of the curtain you guys. It’s Barry. Good morning, July 1^st, happy July 1^st. My wife’s birthday is tomorrow, note to self, and don’t forget that. A new group of folks in my 30 Days Sugar Free Program. We’re starting July 1^st so a whole bunch of my stars come together today and the biggest excitement of course always to be joining ShowBiz Blueprint on Wednesday mornings. Doing it live, it’s been such a joy this year having my finger way more on the pulse of what’s going on with everyone in the class.

Drop a line in the chat box and let’s make sure my audio is good. I know we had that one little confusion on week one. It hasn’t come up since. You get the joy of me parting my curtains in the background and my head blocking my air conditioner because eye-yey-eye California got crazy. It’s probably not as bad as where some of you guys are at, but if it gets over about 72 or 73 I start to get a little ornery and we’re up in the 95s yesterday. Definitely running the air-conditioning during the webinar today.

I’m going to wait until I get a message that people are hearing me before I dig in. Drop that in the box. Hey, good, thanks so much everyone’s got it. Double report in six letters from Steve, thank you very much, nice. Good you guys.

Digging in there’s a lot going on today. As you know, from looking in the group we’re starting to feel it, right? We’re starting to feel the change of what’s happening. Operating our same way in our lives for most of our professional lives, all of our professional lives, and what happens in ShowBiz Blueprint drips out into other parts of life. So there’s a whole bunch going on. I’m going to address that at the very end of the webinar.

We’re going to have some time to open up the phone and the webinar lines for live interaction. I’ve left a part of it today to do what we can just to get you guys right on course. Some action you can take, I’m going to talk about how the 80/20 rules plays into what we’re doing here. I brought up some comments.

I put something in our alumni group last night just asking if people, how did they feel halfway through this? Was there overwhelm, and what’s happened in the time since that?  Some people have been doing this system, 1, 2, 3, 4, years. It continues to grow and continues to play a part in your life. I asked them for comments about what they did. So I want to share those comments with you.

Oh wow, this has helped me become a political game changer. That’s from a guy who was in ShowBiz Blueprint when we were really. Gosh, I think I had barely hired a virtual assistant to help me organize it all. Benjamin was, yeah, probably in the very first group, and just always growing, always pushing himself. Let’s address the overwhelm thing when we get to that.

I want to head into what we’re going to be looking at today. It’s good stuff today. It’s good stuff every week in this program and some of it is going to get used right away, some of it you’re going to let it just roll over the cranial 2000 up there in your head and let it start seeping in slowly.

Week six, today we’re talking about a Business Card Funnel. I think this is probably the fifth funnel that we’ve talked about, fourth or fifth funnel we’ve talked about so far. We’ll continue to add them until you have all the ones that I use in my business. We are going to dig deep into the art of copywriting, why it matters, does it still matter, how to know when yours is good. I’m also going to be… Audio is going in and out stay fixed next to the mike. Yeah, stay fixed next to the mike is not going to happen, but let me turn down my limiter.

I got my limiter cranked up real high to keep the air conditioner out of it. We’re going to get a chance to go live on some of your websites so if you have copywriting questions, we’re going to do a little bit of work on that today. I say a little bit of work, I might be being a little bit humble about it. It’s going to be kind of life changing. So if you fit into that we will dig into your website, my website I have a couple on tap that I’d look at if no one else wants to be brave, but I know you guys will be brave.

We’re going to look at the 80/20 rule in action. This has been spawned, of course, by what’s been happening in our group and people talking about some overwhelm and where this all fits. Good, alright, let’s dig in. I want to, as I like to do, just take a look at week five so we can go…

Connection challenge, I’m going to ask you about this because that’s what good coaches do. My results have been outstanding. I listed ten results that I’ve had in the three weeks I’ve been doing the connection challenge. I listed some of those on the page.

Put your comments of what’s come up for you even if it’s nothing. Just put it up there. Put if you haven’t been doing it. Everyone answer that thread on there on our group. Just jump on there and say, here’s what’s happening on the connection challenge for me. You guys are here for change and I tell you it’s not going to happen. I’ve said it early and often, change takes change.

Just put what’s happened to you in the connection challenge. Those ten things flew right off the top of my fingers as I was typing of what’s come up in the three week for me in the change. Good, I hope you’ve been playing around with your how are you different response from last week and we did some good work about that. I’m really curious about what Mike Toy, who originally prompted that conversation, did you do some work on it, Mike? And also what did it bring up for others?

I brought this up in a Master Mind group of mine and Wow, we all took off in big directions. I’m in a Mastermind group with some people who are leaders in the bridal industry market and boy they did some powerful work because of course people in photography, they train people in the wedding industry how to get the most out of their business, so they’re all photographers, caterers, décor people, officiants for weddings, everyone is always asked that, “How are you different?” response so it’s spawned a lot of good conversation. Maybe the best question of the year from that agent friend of yours, Mike.

Good, Post Show Funnel? I hope you guys got one of those into your funnel. Where you brave enough to get one out? I thought I read that Allison shot one out all at once. That stuff happens. It’s not the end of the world, se la vie, onward. You know what I say about that Allison, at least you got one out, at least you did the work and got one out. So it went out all at once, that will never happen again, I promise you that.

Josh on SEO from entertainers. He’s in our group. Please use him. I posted some of my success with SEO in the group. I’m doing this course right along with you guys, so I put up a number of blog entries over the last week and I used Yoast, that little plugin and boy, I don’t stop working on my blog posts now until they’re green and I posted a screen shot from some of my live Google analytics from moment after I posted that blog post. So pretty exiting to be able to see traffic like that come right away and know that it’s out there speaking to people who are either doing that search or just responding to a post somewhere, and hanging around the page.

Lean into Josh, the SEO is a part of it. It may not be your part of it, but it’s certainly a part of the blueprint as we go forward. CVI webinar, I promised it to you for this week. I had a technical glitch in doing it and had to reshoot it, ran out of time. The good news is it’s going to be better than the first one and better than I originally planned, so that’s the good thing and I will have it out for you before the next webinar. You’ll like that. It’s an important part of the five part sales funnel. So we will bring that up to bat here.

Some of you guys, it’s cracked me up to see some of what you’ve been doing. You’ve already been hitting the customized video introductions and putting them out, just based off the one I showed you and the example I gave. Wonderful, and the demo on how to make that is going to be excellent. I didn’t see that glitch coming.

What’s stopping you from taking action? That’s the last section of today’s webinar. I’m going to dig into it a little bit. I’m going to help you really discern down out of all that we’ve learned, what’s the one step you can put into action right now. I’m going to show you what some of the Alumni have been talking about and how they’ve been dealing with it. Yeah, you guys all came here for change and you’re getting it, and it feels uncomfortable. I get it.

Let me ask you something. I asked each of you when you signed up for this course what is it that might get in your way? I’m just curious if you feel something getting in your way right now? Is it something that you told me about, or is it something completely different? It could be different. Just think that through and hold that in your thoughts. What is it that’s holding you back right now and we’ll dig into that a little bit more.

Today’s agenda, let’s just talk the art of connection bigger than ever, bigger than ever. I’m going to show you an example of how that’s played out in the world in a way that a lot of you may have heard about. It’s undeniable that it was purely from doing what Larry Bennet taught us a couple of weeks ago and how that’s come into life, not for me, but this is something that’s been on big national level.

We’re going to look at a Business Card Funnel. A perfect time for you not to drop the ball and that’s a very simple funnel. I’m going to run through it quickly because we all get a lot of business cards at show, or meetings, when we go to a chamber group, if we do a great show, always collect those little pieces of gold. I’m going to show you what to do with them that’s going to convert them.

Copywriting for entertainers. That’s where we’re going to spend the bulk of our time today. This is for entertainers, but this is a skill that you’re going to be able to take out into any part of the world that you ever play in. It doesn’t matter. What we’re going to talk about in this section of our webinar today is the importance of human psychology, of how we respond, and I have a gentleman that I guarantee you, you would not be able to spend an hour with unless you’re here. Boy, what he’s going to give you, popping out into this is going to be pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to that, of course. Then the 80/20, I already mentioned that. We’re going to do some hands-on work doing that.

Let me take a quick peek at the questions. Hey if your graphics got blurred hit the refresh button on your browser and make your screen smaller. Ray that’s solid advice that’s worked for people. Mike says, booked 4 this week and getting ready to send the first emails from the funnel today, excited to see the results. Excellent, you’re going to do the Post Booking Funnel, Mike, fantastic! That’s going to be very good.

That response of how are you different came into play for me. Met a random producer at my restaurant and wowed them! Awesome David, I’m so glad you did that.

Not doing three a day, averaging two, perfect Will. We talked about that last week, I don’t care if you do one a day, get in the habit of it. If you want to commit to doing three a week, get something regular and expect to get your body and your brain used to doing a couple. I’m doing three a day for the 30 days, just because that was the challenge. I’m doing 90 total over 30 days because that was the assignment. Please find something that works for you.

Making some strong reconnections. I love what you wrote in the group, Will, that was wonderful about a friend that you connected with. Dean, heard back from 80% of the people I made the connection with and it was all positive. Lot’s to plan for the future, awesome. Having problems with topic to connect with people. Hunh, not sure what that means, Dale. Oh maybe just what you’re doing in the connection challenge.

Hey you can always default back to the wonderful Larry Bennet line, the million dollar question, what are you working on right now that I might be able to help you with? Boom! Fall to that one, what he taught was gold. That question is rolling off my tongue wherever I go.

Hey Ray, booked two directly from the connection challenge. Faith, happy Canada day, I love it. Alright. OK good, that catches us up here.

Never worked for you to shrink the screen, strange. Alright, Ray I’m not sure, maybe I can jump on with you at some point. I don’t know if you’re on windows or Mac, but put a note in there if you’re on windows, there’s a little center button that’s got two screens, that lets you change the size of the screen. If you get it down to a small enough area and refresh your screen it’s going to be beautiful. Of course that’s depending on your internet speed too. Ray I have no idea where you’re at and how you’re connected to the internet.

Yeah, what are you working on that I might be able to help out with? That’s an excellent line, then the million dollar way that Larry really pushed it out is, “What are you currently working on that me or someone in my network might be able to help you with?” That’s just wonderful, especially if you have a decent sized network.

Let’s dig into this. This was from the WTF podcast with Mark Meron, I don’t know if you guys have heard of this, over 600 episodes, an incredible funny man, standup comedian, who is no different. Go back six hundred and something episodes and go back a few years – literally no different than anyone here playing as an entertainer. He decided when the podcasting craze came that he was going to create a podcast WTF, it’s gotten HUGE publicity and HUGE coverage. It’s become very popular – millions of downloads.

We had a talk in our Alumni group about podcasts and the popularity of them. Boy, what Mark was able to do recently, and I don’t know if you know, but from his garage in Los Angeles he had a one hour long form conversation with President Barack Obama, just a couple of weeks ago and he did an episode, kind of recapping what that experience was about, and Steve Bedwell from this group sent me an email yesterday asking me if I heard what he talked about and it relates so perfectly to the connection challenge about the way he nurtured it.

I wanted to play just that segment of this interview for you. I don’t know who’s in this group who might be real sensitive. Maybe there’s a language bomb in here or what, but let me just put that caveat out because you never know. I’m going to play the audio from this and I want you guys to just listen to this one piece and then let’s talk about a few things.

So it was a definite sense of let’s check this out, let’s see if this is real, let’s contact them. That was about over a year ago – June of last year, maybe even May of last year, but definitely in that time of year. It’s interesting because I’ve seen since this was announced that this interview would happen people have said that we heard that the White House reached out to have President Obama on, and it’s not that simple actually. Just because you’re in contact it doesn’t mean that something is happening. It was a vague thing. So that was June. It wasn’t until September of last year that there was ever the mention of the President’s name, and it was like, what would you think about him doing the show?

It’s like a joke to us people who have said all the time, “When are you going to get Obama?” Of course we would have him on. I think they wanted to make sure that having someone on, you look at our guest list, in 612 episodes there’s not a politician on it. So I think that was what they were saying, “Would Mark want to even do that because it’s a politician?”

As I said all along to anyone we’ve ever talked to, we would have any guest on as long as they can do the type of interview that we do which is talk about life and talk about other things and not have a specific promotional agenda.

I remember when we were first talking to them I said… It was a good conversation I had with the White House. You said maybe someday we could get Obama on, and I said yeah, probably when he’s not President. There’s no way he would do it when he’s President. I also just think it’s a little bit of a lesson there, especially for people doing podcasts that that’s like old media.

Even though they came to us specifically because we’re new media, I believe the reason this came to pass was just because the lines of communication were kept open and there was a constant, cordial discussion and comfort level achieved on both sides with everybody thinking that this would be a good thing to do. That only happens with time and with diligence.

To me it’s a good lesson for people. If you want something it doesn’t have to happen right away. Just make sure you keep the work up. Put that in the little file there and keep it as a to-do list. We were not pushy about it. It wasn’t until earlier this spring, late winter, early spring that I got a call, on my phone, I let it go to voice mail because it was an unknown number, and that went to voicemail and it was a person at the White House that said, “wanted to get back in touch with you thinking about doing something, maybe with the President.” Very casual – slipped it in. So obviously I got in touch and then all of a sudden, maybe three or four weeks later, we got dates.

Barry:  Let me pull that off. That’s the germane part of what we’re doing. Did you hear anything in there that you can take away? This interview seemed out of reach. This happened, there’s amazing pictures on the internet, if you go to the WTF podcast site, there’s a link to pictures from that happening.

They came into his neighborhood, his suburban neighborhood in Los Angeles. Literally tented off his entire area. Made a big entryway with tents. The presidential limo pulled up. This is all happening in a small neighborhood, in a guy’s garage, who runs a podcast with the President of the United States.

So when something seems out of reach, right now? Wonderful! Do what he said in there. You can do anything if the lines of communications are kept open. That’s directly talking to the connection challenge. That’s nothing but the connection challenge right there, keeping the lines of communication open.

Comfort level achieved on both sides. That was a line that he used in there. So that’s what we do with the connection challenge. It happens with time and diligence, it doesn’t have to happen right away. He also said that.

To me this was an amazing case study in what’s possible for us because we step out on stage, because we have chosen a life where we aren’t ordinary. Same as Mark Meron has done and there he is with the garage and the secret service. He said there were about 50 guys there in this interview setting up different things, responsible for different things.

There was no parking on his neighborhood street for the whole day, so kind of a fun stir. Pretty exciting. If you want something, it doesn’t have to happen right away. He also said that. Keep a file and keep working on it. Don’t be pushy. Are you thinking of reasons why this can’t happen to you? Are you thinking that somehow Mark Maron is special? That’s a question I have for you guys. If you’re letting your brain go to the place of wow, this worked for him, do this, just stop it, stop the brain from doing that right now. I don’t want that to be why you’re doing this. You don’t want that to get in the way of your thinking you can do anything.

I love that example. I love the interview of him with… I love how he did it on his terms, and how his terms were strong enough that after 600 plus episodes it became important enough for the White House to take note and say, hey maybe this is a good place for our guy to be heard. Wonderful. Love that one.

Ok you guys, let’s dig in. One sec here, let me get over and just take a pop down here. Yeah, when you’re talking about Mark Meron here, he actually came and played a concert in my small town. He gets out there and talks. Yeah, huge accomplishment. Oh good, hey Ray, I won’t move anything, we’ll just stay right here.

Good, let’s dig into the Business Card Funnel and we’ll follow up with Mike who asked about another funnel for if you’re already booked and definitely a good way to handle that. So this one is fun and easy. We’re going to move through this kind of quick.

These are pieces of gold you have sitting in your desk and your handed from a show they saw you as a hero. I’ve already talked about how amazing it is when people are sitting in the audience and actually see us on stage and the projections they have about us in their head. The stories they tell themselves about who we are and what our life must be like.

So for them to even come up and meet us is kind of a thrill, then to hand us a business card. Look you just did a 30 minute commercial for them and you showed well, and now it’s time for you to show up with humility. So let’s run through exactly how this Business Card Funnel works.

Part 2 of this, accept the card with grace and hold it. This is something that I learned from my Dale Carnegie course, which I thought was probably one of the best investments I ever made in myself. The Dale Carnegie course, you take that card and you hold it with grace. Hold it in a way that they’re not used to seeing something like that being held. Either in one hand in a cup, or in with one hand on each side of it.

Do that because it’s a pattern interrupt for what they usually have happen when they hand someone a business card and they get shoved in their pocket or thrown into a little holder. Or worse at a trade show, popped into a bag never to be seen again. Hold it with grace don’t put it in your pocket.

Read their name off the card, even if you know it, even if you see it on a name tag that’s facing you, read their name and use it at least three times in the conversation you have with them. The sweetest sound in the world? Dale Carnegie always said this, it’s the sound of somebody hearing the sound of their own name.

So remember something and note it on the card. This might have to happen if you collect a whole lot. You may even have a pen on you and just make a little note on the card, something they like, where they were born, some laugh you shared, it doesn’t matter what it is, you’re just going to note something on that card.

Tell them that you will connect with them soon. That’s a huge important part of this. Tell them that you’re going to connect with them soon. One of my favorite parts of this funnel, because it’s kind of like hunh? You just got two standing ovations, and you’re going to connect with me soon. Yeah right bozo. And then if they say anything nice for your, ask them if you can quote them on that?

They’re going to say really nice things about your show and this is a great time for you with a card in their hand and a pen where you can circle it or take a note, ask them, can I quote you on what you just said, and make a fun joke out of it. Wow, that’s really cool you enjoyed the show that way, can I quote you on that? Something like that and then note it, because that’s going to come in handy for you and I’ll show you where.

Hold the card while they’re turning away. It shows that you care. Just keep the pride going in that card. Treat it as even sacred, just change what you have now looked at a business card, change it to something sacred and hold on to that thing. Then of course you put it away, as you’re meeting other people, but put it away, but hold onto in when they’re turning away. I love that moment.

Part 3, connect with them. Use the telephone, their numbers on there, they’ve given you a business card, take them up on it and use the phone. Mention the one thing that you noted on the card. This is a great time to do even what we talked about earlier on in our conversation here today. Find out what they’re working on. Is there something that you or your network can help them with? Ask them that question.

Inquire about possibilities your past experience is a treasure. Trust me on this. Your past experience is a treasure to someone who may have an event one day, who may have whatever market you’re working in. All the experience you have rolled up on you is something that they don’t have in their network yet. So now they do and you’re giving them that connection. You’re giving them that new arm of their network.

Your clean mindset that we’ve talked about so much in the conversational calling, your clean mindset going into this does provide a natural ending to the conversation because your curiosity will let you know when the conversation has come to an end. So keep your mindset clear when going into this. You are not going in to sell.

At the end of this phone call get permission to follow-up with an email. Really nice meeting you, do you mind if I follow up with an email? So simple, so conversational, so exactly how you would say it to anyone you met and cared about and respected and weren’t trying to sell to. So keep that mindset in place.

Part 4 of this bad boy, don’t drop the ball now. Do what you said. The mindset is service and you’re finding out is there a fit? So we’re going to pick up a bit into our Continuation Funnel like we did in the sales funnel, but we’re not aiming for a sale. Reminder, anything from the card or the phone call, that’s what goes into this first email. Did something come up for you from what you had in the business card, or what you had discussed in the phone call? What came up that you could mention, add more value to in this email, perfect.

Ask questions that show you care. Go back to that networking question and you’re moving towards being an advisor at this point. You’re certainly not coming off as a sales person. You’re just connecting. You’re doing what you said you would do at the show. Let her know you can help her, use this phrasing, which I absolutely love and I use every time, let her know that you can help sort out entertainment if on any event that they have coming up.

That doesn’t mean you’re trying to sell yourself, that just means that you can help put order to some mess that they may be looking at. Let her know that you can help sort out entertainment and you’re not selling yourself. Perfect, and this will come through.

Final part of this, the next email, you’re going to discover something about him, or them, or her, whoever this is, you’re going to find out something that’s going on in their industry. You know me well enough to know that I say that’s five minutes or less on Google to find out some little piece of something that’s happening in that industry, and it’s actually very fun to educate yourself in this way. It’s something happening in that city that you maybe going to perform at.

Did something happen at that Performing Arts Center a year ago and an anniversary is coming up on it? We can find out anything right now and us connecting those dots moves us way further into becoming trusted advisors. Something that’s going to help them out as well, of course. To be able to connect dots about how entertainment or your services, someone in your network might be able to help them with an event that they have coming up.

So what do you know about them so far? You probably have a pretty good idea from meeting them at your show. You at least know what industry they were in, or what city they live in if it was a public show. From the card, from the title on their card you can kind of find out what they do for a living. From the dots you connected by using Dr. Google you may have some insight about what’s going on in that industry and any conferences they may have coming up because you can do a little bit of easy research on that.

Yeah, spend five minutes, alright? Deliver an idea, a custom song, anything that shows you’ve done some work and that you see the industry and problem through different eyes. This is one of the biggest gifts that I’ve been able to give people who were in “real jobs” is the perspective of someone who works at a lot of conferences, who’s been around the world, who knows different layouts and plans, so being able to offer a perspective through different eyes. It doesn’t matter what market you’re working in. If you’re working in libraries or festivals or Performing Arts Centers, private clients, private events, special events, private parties, you have insights that those people don’t have because they’re new at it and you’re a pro, you’re an old pro, so bring that in.

They’re in your funnel and part of your network now. Now it’s time to do what we do with all people in this, don’t slide into sales, please don’t slide into sales, continue to invite them to connect with you in different ways. All this stuff is very fast. This is not a long process for each business card, this is a connection and this is just assessing is there something, is there a fit here, and is there a possibility for you to expand your network in this way.

Invite them to the LinkedIn, the fan page, continue the conversation over there. Introduce them to people in your network. Larry Bennet would tell us to always be thinking about dots in your network and who you can connect. This is like having a certificate of deposit in your bank that is just growing in interest.

So how many can you do this week? Can you try just one? Can you sign up for at least doing one for a business card that you may have gotten recently? I hope so. Can you do one a day? I don’t know where you’re at. One thing I do know from reading our group is that people are busy, in overwhelm and I’m going to address that at the end, but let all of this continue to wash over your brain and definitely commit to doing at least one this week. Please do this funnel with at least one business card this week.

Good. That feels complete to me. Copywriting for entertainers. I’m going to introduce you to someone right now, let me just leave a second here for any questions that come up about the Business Card Funnel. Again, if you want to pop it in the box there, if you want to raise your hand and come on live, do anything, I’m open for whatever serves you guys in the biggest way. The attendees button up there, you can hit that and then request to speak. Make you live, or just pop it in the box there. I’m going to assume that Business Card Funnel is fairly straightforward. My only question/challenge for you is will you do one this week? Will you take those six slides right there, march through the steps. Oh good, Faith, I don’t understand the inquire about the possibility piece. Wonderful, let me just back up to that.

Right here on this one, is there something that someone in your network can help with? Good so inquire about possibility. That’s finding out what kind of conferences they attend, and in your world of course who are they connected with? Where do they go see music at? I know you’re working in the wedding market, so inquiring about possibility for you might look like talking briefly about work you’ve done at weddings, at really high-end weddings.

What you’re doing is giving a glimpse inside the window of what you do in your business. Without going into selling, without going into selling mode you’re giving a glimpse into ways that you bring value to the world. I hope that’s clear Faith. Drop a follow-up if it’s not. I work with high technology engineering people can the magician really give then any interesting perspective that matters. Oh my gosh, oh man, can you give them ideas.

Hey it’s fine if it’s resistance speaking Mike, and I appreciate you getting it out of the back reptilian part of your brain where it can drive your ship. I’ve asked myself that question at every high paying tradeshow I’ve ever performed at. What do a couple of jugglers have to do about perspective? At every single event I have helped people, helped them get more in touch with their prospects. Ways to extract really what they want their prospects to know, but have written it in marketing speak.

I’ve helped them really get an understanding of what does this mean to somebody just walking by and how can I turn that into a joke, into a juggling routine? How can that get inside and under the skin of the prospects so that they come to the sales team at the trade show booth going , wow, Barry and Daniel talked about XYZ, can you tell me more about that?

They would have never done that had they not had my perspective, had they not helped me milk out what this means to a real person. So yeah, hey and I know Mike, you work with a lot of trade show people so you have perspective that is incalculable to these people. I know that for sure, just the places you’ve been and what you’re doing.

Good, let me just check the comments real quick. What if they are not the person to speak to, often I just meet a sales person, not the organizer should I ask for an introduction. Bingo Sean, once they’ve seen you perform, you have a lot of authority and clout with them. You asking for an introduction at that point is perfect.

Ask for it in a specific way. Ask them to include you on the email, so to do a three way email, where they write to both of you. They mention briefly where they met you, what they saw in the show and what specifically they think might interest the person that he or she is introducing you to. So if you ask them to do all three of those in the introduction, you’re going to get a lot better introduction. Don’t just ask… give them the steps to take. One client dreams of being a writer for Saturday Night Live, every talk we have I give him something to try for the next few week. Awe that’s awesome Benjamin. Look at the way Benjamin delivers value to a client, because he got this guy to open up enough to say he wants to be a writer for S&L which is a pretty cool goal.

So every conversation that they have, he just kind of drops in something new for that guy to try. Hey work on this, and it costs Benjamin nothing and it continues to build a relationship. Yeah it makes more sense thinking I could actually tell them. Yeah man, you have to be a leader and that right there Mike, what you just wrote, that’s moving to trusted advisor – from hired magician to trusted advisor. Boy that position has gotten me into some amazing “trouble” over the years, just being in a great place.

You guys, let’s dig into… let me come on live and introduce this guy. I’m so excited. This is a guy who I met by networking, by connecting, many years ago. I think going back to 2009 or so. A man who I really gained a respect for through one set of eyes as a world-class copywriter, as a guy who’s name appears when you look at some of the most successful marketing campaigns in the world, his name will show up somewhere in the credits.

Then, through some looking around, I find out that, Wow, Brian kind of likes magic. I know magic people. I’m in that world too. So doing what Mark Meron did, just putting out the feelers, letting it develop over time. Reaching out, offering whatever I could do. Initiating a conversation, became in a circle, inner circle of friendship with the man, then testing the friendship by dropping a note and saying, hey, will you come on and talk live with a whole bunch of entertainers from around the world who are looking to up their game and didn’t go to school to study copywriting, it isn’t maybe their job and pleasure, but can we let them see a glimpse into what it takes to do it properly and what successful copywriting can do. What it looks like versus bad copywriting. Just for fun, can we bring some of it on live and actually dig into a few pieces of it?

What does he say, “Man sure, let’s do it.” So I’m really excited to make live, I invite you to kick on your camera, Brian, your microphone. I think I should be able to hear you, and see if we can go live with Brian Keith Voiles here.

Hold on one second. Let me just do this. I had a couple of introduction points that I definitely want to share. Let me make these public to folks. He works under the radar. Oh am I on the wrong screen. So Brian works under the radar with high profile clients in so many different industries. It kind of surprised me when I got in there and started learning.

He’s the safest bet in copywriting as his clients always say, it’s not a gamble when I go to Brian it’s a matter of am I going to do it? Pretty wonderful to be in a field and have a reputation where the gamble is removed. Frank Kern, probably one of the most successful internet marketers in the world credits Brian with getting him into the business, which I’d love to be able to say something like that.

He’s not a guy we can afford to access. I don’t know his rates for copywriting, they hover high and he’s here for us today, so with all that said, let me bring on… Kicking back in his home in Salt Lake City, with guitars in the background which I asked him to play.

Hey Brian, welcome, thanks so much for being here man.

Brian:  It’s my pleasure, Barry.

Barry:  Good, let me kick up the volume. Thanks for doing that man. So give a little brief introduction of how your worlds collide with magic and copywriting. Where did it all start for you?

Brian:  To make a long story short, this is in the late 80s. I’m trying to build my magic business and doing birthday parties, lots of families here in Salt Lake Valley and I just wanted to learn how to get more business and I happen to come across an add in a mailer. It was a newsprint magazine that was actually one of those Biz Op mailers. Page after page of get rich overnight. Selling golf tees door to door. Selling No Soliciting signs. You don’t have a No Soliciting sign, you need to buy one of these. And they you go around the backdoor, you need one back here too. You know.

Barry:  Oh my gosh.

Brain:  Magazine selling, all kinds of stuff like that. Anyway, I saw an ad in there that said, “Hey, need more customers?” And I said yes, and the ad just sucked me in and I couldn’t not buy this book on copywriting that the guy was selling. I couldn’t not buy it. I had to.

Barry:  Right. It worked.

Brian:  Yeah, it worked. That’s kind of what got me started. It was on direct response copywriting and I wrote a letter. I just did what the book said. It said do this and this and this and I just did that. I think that’s kind of a separating factor a lot of the times: doing, taking action, it can be all the difference in the world. It seems to me like so many people don’t take action. Some sort of self-sabotage or fear or anyway. I’m getting off the topic.

Long story short, I did what the book said. I wrote a sales letter selling my birthday party service to Moms and I had a 36% response rate with that letter and so out of 100 letters I’d get 36 birthday parties. I had no idea how freakin phenomenal that was. I just figure, OK it’ll work. This guy says it’ll work. I’ll do it, and I just did it. I followed the instructions and I did it how he taught it and boy did it ever work.

Barry:  What year was that, Brian?

Brian:  I think that was in ’91 or ’90.

Barry:  And that’s when you entered the copywriting world?

Brian:  Well, I didn’t really… I became aware of copywriting.

Barry:  But I didn’t know it was something that you did as a profession or… My paradigm is just very, very small and very narrow. I just was a small business guy who wanted to get more business. That was it, period. So anyway, that’s how I got into it. Then I went to a Brian Flora Marketing Magic seminar and I shared this letter. I stood up and I help it up and I said, hey guys, I got this letter, you guys are all welcomed to have a copy of it and use it. It averages 36% response, and the whole room just went like, “What!” Everybody just freaked out and I’m like, “What, what did I say? I’m sorry.” They’re like, no, no, do you not understand what you have? Obviously I didn’t understand what I had.

That’s kind of how I got started and one of the guys that was there, David Alexander, I don’t know if you know that name. He wrote Gene Roddenberry’s biography. He was kind of the man in the room that we all had respect for because he was connected in Hollywood etc. etc.

I’ll never forget it Barry, I’ll never forget the day he was sitting in the front row in an aisle. I was sitting in the back row inner aisle and he looked straight down the aisle right in the eyes, I had just cracked a joke and everyone else was laughing. He looked at me right in the eyes and he says, “Well get the hell out of the magic business and get into copywriting. You can make a hell of a lot more money.”

Everybody else erupted with laughter because they thought that was pretty funny. The laughter was silence to me because I’m like really? This is like news to me. My entire drive, just to get you a little personal with you, my entire drive was to be the greatest Dad I could me. I have four amazing kids and I just wanted to be a killer Dad and a killer husband, and nothing else mattered to me in life, honest.

So to me what that copywriting represented was a way to make more money, working less hours and so that meant I could spend more time being that great Dad. I would have more money which would give me the freedom to be that better Dad and so that just grabbed me. I was just dead determined to do whatever I could do to become a copywriter.

Barry:  Man, fantastic organic beginning and you just saying yes, you saying yes, doing the work, following the directions, putting in the time, which I’m sure would have been easier not to do at first. Hey great lesson there. So let me move into copywriting and just kind of get some big picture stuff around it. In this world that is so video driven. Is there still a place for copy? Do headlines and big copy still matter?

Brian:  Oh absolutely. I’m just polishing up a direct mail piece that will probably go in the mail the first part of September, late August, and as I recall right now I have 52 pages of copy written for this mailer. 81/2 in. by 11 in., 52 pages front and back, and it hasn’t entered the design stages yet. This is just the copy.

Barry:  52 pages guys. So that’s clearly going to a targeted list that has shown an interest in a topic?

Brian:  Right.

Barry:  We sometimes talk about a video has to be less than 60 seconds, or 30 seconds to… It’s a different world. What‘s the broad topic, what market is that going out into?

Brian:  The target audience is what you would call the survivalist or preper, doomsday some people call it that.

Barry:  Oh right, the end of world type of stuff and people being ready?

Brian:  Yeah.

Barry:  And that’s good marketing. You’re getting paid nicely, I’m sure, to create a story.

Brian:  Yeah. It’s a win/win and I’ve just had so much fun writing the piece. It’s actually kept me up at night. That’s a good sign when a copywriter can scare himself so bad that you want to buy the product. That’s where I’m at.

Barry:  Wow! So you’re writing this stuff and you’re going man, maybe I should get into this whole survivalist thing.

Brian:  It’s actually scaring me.

Barry:  Someone had a cool question, “Is Brian still using the principles he learned from the original copywriting book he bought?”

Brian:  Absolutely, yeah. That book, by the way was I believe it’s called Cash Copy and it’s by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Barry:  Are you hoping for a 36% conversion on this letter?

Brian:  I’m always hoping for a 36% conversion.

Barry:  Yeah, yeah, cool man.

Brian:  Dr. Lant, based on my experience isn’t the kindest individual, or most thoughtful, or loving certainly, but he had a huge impact on my life at that time.

Barry:  Good, so let’s bring this into the realm of entertainers. Does it work for… we’re not going to send out a 50 plus page letter to our clients, but what’s the most important piece… do you mind jumping into a couple of websites live if I make them live on the screen?

Brian:  I want to do whatever is going to serve the people who are on the call. Whatever you want to do, I’ll do it.

Barry:  Cool, let’s bring up a couple and let’s just talk about the page you’re seeing when you see it and then let’s also talk about it just in general, what can we do as entertainers to really capture the prospect of someone who lands right away.

I’m going to take these in order that you guys put them up on the screen here. So here’s one from Ray Thompson, who’s an Alumni of the group. What do you see when you look at something like this?

Brian:  Well I’ll just spew this out as the thoughts flow in. My initial impression is I don’t know where to start. The picture is where I’m first drawn to. The picture is what grabs me, but from there I’m assuming, obviously I’m not live with this page, but I would click Play for sure.

Barry:  Yeah, I’m sure that heads into some testimonial type stuff. So it’s a 40 second blip of testimonials, OK. I think that’s always good to have some evidence, proof. You’ve got your previous venues to the right there. I think that’s really good establishing credibility. Hey this guy works. He’s not sitting on the couch. He’s got a track record so you’ve got some good things going there. My biggest beef really, at this point is the headline, if you want to call it that, “Hypnosis and more.” I’m like, OK that’s not a headline. Then it says presents Ray Thompson. Now I’m really confused. Hypnosis and More is that a company and they represent Ray Thompson? Who the hell is Hypnosis and More and why should I care, and presents Ray Thompson… There’s a major disconnection.

Barry:  Disconnect.

Brian:  Yeah, major disconnection. The use of all caps is very distracting. I would use it on occasion, but certainly not the way it’s being used here. The colors seem… I kind of like it, but I think that having the text be, a dull royal blue text, I think I would make that white. I would at least try that. Then the paragraphs are a little tall for my liking. You want to keep your paragraphs, my rule of thumb is no more than five lines, but that fifth line can only be two or three words. So I shoot for three. I really try to break the paragraphs at three. Don’t worry about breaking them where your English taught you to. Just break them so that they look good.

Barry:  If I shrink this down to phone size. Oh this website is not scalable. If I broke this down to phone size, that paragraph is probably… which is where most people look at their websites now-a-days. I wouldn’t say that this website… No this website is not responsive for mobile stuff.

Brian:  Those are two of my initial impressions. But it looks real sharp. It looks real professional and the things that you’ve done right, Ray, is that you’ve got that credibility is right up front plus you’re baking it up with these logos. You’re baking it up with videos. You’re doing a lot of things right here as well.

Barry:  So hey, do you want to play around, Brian with the idea of… What comes to you when you think about Hypnosis, that kind of a show for corporate events?

Brian:  Well, and that would be my other thing, I would comment on Rays site is it’s really not very clear to me that Ray specializes in corporate events. One thing that throws me off the trail is Hypnosis and More. I’m just completely befuddled, and more, oh you juggle too?

But here’s a picture of you bending forks, I didn’t know hypnotists bent forks, see there’s so many convoluted things coming at me. When they hit that page, you want them to go, “Oh, this is exactly where I need to be right now.” You don’t want them going Hypnosis and fork bending and… what? You definitely don’t want them confused. I would talk about seven reasons why Ray Thompson’s Hypnosis show is perfect for your next corporate event and use the number one track record. I’m just flying off the hip here, obviously.

Barry:  I just listen to what you’re doing right there. How you’re making it so specific. I think it’s scary, and I can own this one for myself. We have this hope, or this fantasy that when someone lands on our page they’re actually in our world and understand us. The truth is they’re in their world and don’t understand us.

Brian:  One thing I’ve learned about internet marketing in particular is it’s distraction marketing. The internet is one big distraction. Think about it, how many times have you jumped online, “Oh I’ve got to shoot this email over to Bob before I forget.” You jump online while you’re emails coming up you think, “Well, I’ll just hop over and I’ll see what time the game’s on tonight.” Twenty minutes later you’re scratching your head going, now why did I sit down? There was something important that I needed to do,” which was the email to Bob, right?

But you’ve gotten so distracted because this email had popped up and this banner ad popped up, and this video. Oh that looks funny. I’ve got a minute, I think I’ll watch that. Before you know it you’re completely off topic. The internet is incredibly distracting. My point is when a prospect hits your landing page, they don’t have that, “Oh, this is where I need to be right now,” type of reaction. You’ve lost them. Chances are you’ve just completely and utterly lost them because something is going to distract them.

Barry:  Something is going to distract them and if the word “and more” is there it’s like I don’t have the brain capacity for and more right now. So I love what you said. Even the top three reasons, the top five reasons why hypnosis will astound your corporate event, something that pointed, that’s what you’re talking about and I’m sure, hey man, if you’re spending 50 plus pages talking to someone abut survivalism, you know about the importance of keeping somebody’s focus and that’s what it is.

We can’t use words like more. We have to say what it is. There are so many requests that came in. We’re probably not going to be able to do them all, but what I am going to do is just jump and we’re just going to run down a couple and we’ll to some extent power shoot them here.

Let’s go for first impressions of what you think. Let me make that screen live over here for you. Undo you from the world and bring up this one. Brian, Ray that’s good that your site is mobile friendly, I see that you’ve done some Google testing on it.

Barry:  Yeah I think Google friendly is different than responsive Ray, I think there may be two differences there. I can tell if a sites responsive by the way it reacts. This is something that we all should know. In fact let me check, we can just try it here on Jason’s one. As you start moving this stuff, everything starts shrinking to fit it. Yours wasn’t doing it. Your graphics were holding the same size. Yeah so this is exactly, this is what’s called responsive. At some point I get here and he’s got his whole menus up here. A responsive site kicks into this at that point, says, hey I’m too small right now, let me turn this menu into something else. Google friendly is one thing, mobile responsive is a whole other conversation. Side note.

Brian:  Yeah, I know nothing about that stuff, Ray. I’m sorry I can’t help you there. I hope the other stuff was helpful.

Barry:  Good, so here’s another one, let’s make this live.

Brian:  When was the last time that you laughed at reality? Give your guests the gift… OK subhead is much better than your “When was the last time that you laughed at reality?” I don’t get that. I don’t understand what you’re… as a prospect I don’t get it. I don’t get where you’re leading me. As a copywriter I’m also confused as to what’s the intention of saying that? When was the last time? I’m not sure what your goal is in saying that, so it’s certainly not working for me as a copywriter.

Barry:  When you look at something like this and you think it’s maybe going for some angle that what I mentioned on Ray’s page before. Someone would have to be somewhat involved in their world. It’s not clear. It’s not simple.

Brian:  OK, that’s a really good point. But see the next line is, although it’s vague, “Give your guests the gift of laughter and wonder.” I like that much better than the other one, but even that can be improved upon. You know, when I write headlines, Barry, I’m a vicious ruthless machine, I guess. I rarely, rarely write less than 200 headlines when I’m working on a project.

Barry:  Wow! Wow!

Brian:  IF YOU DO THAT AND YOU PUSH YOURSELF TO DO IT. YOU WILL HAVE THE MOST AMAZING AHA MOMENTS AND BREAKTHROUGHS, BUT IT REALLY TAKES GETTING INTO YOUR PROSPECTS MIND. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE WORLD FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE AS IT RELATES TO WHAT YOU’RE SELLING.

Barry:  You guys, just bookmark that. Let everyone take a breath on that right now. 200 headlines, get inside your prospects mind, because they’re not in our minds, right? Man, you just said that so beautifully.

Brian:  For me, that’s probably my real strong point as a copywriter.

Barry:  Did you do something once that’s written about online because I have thing that I read about you for a while and I thought there was this like headline challenge. Where you at some event and it was on a big screen and you were writing headlines and people were just in the audience amazed, does that ring a bell?

Brian:  Ah, I’ve done a lot of silly thing over the years. I wouldn’t doubt it.

Barry:  I read some reviews or someone was talking about you at a conference once and I just remember them sitting in their chair with their jaw on the floor at the rate at which you were cranking headlines live onto a big screen.

Brian:  Oh, that’s funny.

Barry:  Repeat that piece one more time Brian, just that thing you said you write headlines and you have to do it through the eyes…

Brian:  Yeah, it involves empathy. It involved putting yourself in that prospects shoes and literally, I do this, I literally sit in kind of a meditative place and I imagine my prospects day, from the moment they hit the alarm, what is the first thought that comes into their minds. “Oh shit, another day, oh gotta go to work.”  Or are they happy and excited?

How does that happy and excitement translate into their cup of coffee, into their drive to work? How does it affect the traffic? How does it affect what radio station they listen to and why? What motivates them to do that? I will literally walk through the entire day of this person trying to connect with emotions.

This is the key. Trying to connect with the emotional events that they will experience in any given day. Not just as they relate to what you’re selling, although that’s critical, but also, guess what, we have other things that influence us all throughout the day. That bring up emotions. “Oh, I frickin can’t stand that guy!” “Oh, that woman drives me crazy!” Then you get over it and you move on. But having empathy, deeply, compassionately, putting yourself in that prospects shoes and imagining and feeling the emotions that they feel in a given day as it relates to, for example, last year’s Christmas party was such a nightmare! The entertainer didn’t come, he was 20 minutes late and we had a 15 minute gap in the programming before that. The DJ was… bla, bla, bla. What are all these nightmares that they go through and the emotions that they feel from having failed and everyone publicly seeing you screwed it over? The worst part ever and take it to the other end of the spectrum.

Best party every. Way to go Becky, holy cow, are you open to doing it again next year? You were just amazing and what kind of pride they can feel swelling in their chest from accomplishing that. If you really, really, want to connect with your prospect, you’ve got to take yourself and imagine their day, and imagine their emotions. What are their frustrations? What frustrations do they go through?

This is huge and it’s so skipped. Out of 20 books on my shelf, the idea of empathy isn’t even talked about in all of them but maybe two of them and two of them only briefly touch on it in terms of copywriting. It’s just not something that’s taught very much, but it’s so huge.

Barry:  Man, my gosh Brian, I don’t know where you got that but I just wrote a comment on here that this is like watching Michelangelo paint. It’s really… Thank you for that. I’m guessing that’s why this connected with you so well, the whole idea of copywriting when you first put out that letter and got a 36% response rate and in that room people turned to you and said, “You need to be doing this.”

So hey, man, I know you wrote a book on this stuff. I know you wrote a whole course on it. I’m over here, and I don’t even think that’s for sale. I think when I asked Brian to be on this he said, “Look man, I don’t have anything to say at all,” and I was like, dude, don’t worry about that. You’re here to give your heart. Thank you for that whole piece you just gave. I know that will be a well-read piece of the transcript. Thanks for doing that. Gosh, oh gosh, that just really connects with me. So powerfully, what you just did.

Let me go back and bring up another site. I want to go back to the live. You know how I always tell you guys to turn off your ringer?

Brian:  So Allison says repeat please.

Barry:  You did that one piece, that was great. That’s what she asked you to repeat, just that wording on that. Let me grab another one. Are those shelves of vinyl records behind you? That’s what someone is asking.

Brian:  No this is my music studio. I write music. I write orchestral pieces for movie trailers and I write jazz and rock and roll and heavy metal. I write all kinds of music. Everything on the shelves back here has to do with either playing the guitar, playing the drums, playing the base, mixing, recording, mastering, and orchestration. So all of these have to do… they’re training courses, DVDs.

Barry:  Always a student man, aren’t you?

Brian:  Yeah, oh I love learning. I’ve got a pile of books on the floor that I was going through this morning. This is funny you guys. We met in the webinar green room about 10 minutes before we went live and Brian and I were chatting, and I said what have you been doing? He goes, I’ve been reading man, I’m reading about copywriting. Always a student. Let’s head back to live and let’s grab another. I think that this is just wonderfully valuable to folks and thank you. Good. So let’s hit onto this one here. This is someone who is working in the birthday party, the high-end birthday party niche.

Brian:  Great, wow! How much do you charge, I’m just curious.

Barry:  We have an Alumni member who wrote a book called the $1000 birthday party and he regularly books $1000 birthday parties.

Brian:  I think I own that book.

Barry:  Andrew Smith.

Brian:  I think I… I buy every book on magic and marketing that you can… I have every one all the way back to the late 80s. You name it I own it. I guarantee it. I’m just a fanatic, any magician has something to sell on marketing I just sign up for it. Unfortunately most of them are very disappointing, but any way. This is perfect.

Planning a party? Hello, here I am. I’m in the right spot.

Barry:  We’re not making anybody think or connect dots on this headline.

Brian:  If I’m a Mom or a Dad or a Grandma or whatever, planning a party and I see those kids, kind of in my peripheral vision, I know I’m in the right spot. I see some balloons, lots of color. “Make your party the best it can be, hire me the great Lerdini,” I would put that in quotes, I think the “Great Lerdini”, “and with two shows for one bring magic to a child at New York Methodist Hospital.” OK I think I just puzzled it out. When I book you to come and do a birthday party, you’ll go do one free at the Hospital. That’s a really very cool thing that you’re doing.

Barry:  From hearing you have to puzzle it together, Brian, it sounds like there’s a way more clear and benefit up front way of him even saying that.

Brian:  For sure, it’s muddled as it is. But what a great marketing strategy overall. I want to compliment you on that. That’s WOW! You must dominate your market because what Mom wouldn’t want to book you assuming you are any good at all, and be able to say that they donated to the Hospital too, that’s just freakin brilliant. What was this gentleman’s name again?

Barry:  This is, where we at? I don’t even remember what I clicked on. Sorry, I’m running a few different things here. Talk about a great point though. To have your name right on this thing. He’s working under a character name for sure. Here he’s got a letter at the end and really sticking with the character, so there is no…

Brian:  It’s Eric.

Barry:  Yeah, yeah, my mind is so focused on the content we’re doing. Yeah, that’s Eric yeah. I had a nice conversation and he told me about this two for one thing and yeah – brilliant, wonderful. Are you able to make this work financially Eric? Is this a big hit and can you raise your prices for the birthday party market? I agree with everything that Brian said. The second you land here you know that you’re on a page that is the right place.

Brian: There are definitely things you can do to improve. Obviously puzzling out that whole thing obviously doesn’t work. I mean beyond that there’s some stuff I would change like, well look at your market and ask yourself what percentage of the shows are birthday parties. Well it’s NewYorkCityBirthdayMagician.com, so there’s your answer. Planning a birthday party. You could make that change. You could throw some sort of qualifier in there. Perfect for ages 3 to 9… your son or daughter can have the best birthday party, the best they’ve ever had.

Barry:  All you guys who are watching this we’re talking about Eric’s site. Take everything in and modify it to your market.

Brian:  See what the important principle here is that it gets them nodding their head. Planning a birthday party, yes. Perfect for ages 3 to 9, yeah my daughter’s turning 7. Your son or daughter… so now that we’ve had three, four head nods whereas before there was only one. Planning a party, yes. Make it the best it can be, hire me and I haven’t nodded my head again.

Whereas if you’re implementing these target identifying… again reassuring them that they’re on the right page so that they don’t get distracted. They’re on the freakin internet. They’re going to get distracted if you lose them. So you want them saying yes, yes, yes right as many times as you possible can from that headline. Yes I’m in the right place. Yes I’m in the right place.

Barry:  Yes, I want to live in a bunker. Yes, I want to stock up food for the rest of my life. You’re doing that with your 50 page letter I imagine, getting a lot of head nodding. Alright, good. Let me keep moving. I really appreciate. Oh my gosh the stuff that is coming out of this I think is amazing. I brought up this one we’re going to go to next. Boom.

Brian:  It’s not as big a deal, Eric and please don’t construe this to be anything more than just a comment. You’re suite and tie did throw me for a second there. Again because it didn’t say birthday party. It said “planning a party,” and I see this guy in a suit and tie and I’m seeing kids and I’m like, wait a minute. This isn’t corporate, OK it’s a birthday magician, OK New York City Birthday Magician. I knew that if I typed in the address or I clicked on it. It’s not that big a deal.

Barry:  That’s a great call and it creates a road bump. I didn’t even pick it up, but now that I’m looking at it through those eyes I’ve never seen s suite and tie at a birthday party.

Brian:  So adding the word planning a birthday party just make it ultra, ultra, ultra clear.

Barry:  Let’s jump over to Steve Bedwell and take a look at this one.

Brian:  I love Steve, he’s so freakin’ funny.

Barry:  Well then we’re done with him.

Brian:  Yeah it’s kind of hard to me to be biased. I think he only has one DVD out on the market for magicians, and I just love it. I love him, I think he’s so funny. I’m a student of comedy magic. It’s one of those things where I have every book and every DVD, and every video. If the VHS got too old it’s been transferred to DVD and I’m just insatiable.

Barry:  What do you like about the writing on this site and pretend you don’t know him.

Brian: Certainly the very first thing I’m going to do is push Play.

Barry:  Yeah, nice and big, big call to action.

Brian:  I’m not sure what this graphic to the right of the video is. Committed to your success, Steve. I do like the signature. I don’t know what the graphic is. That’s certainly not clear. “Need a motivational speaker? Leave next year’s planning committee with the best kind of problem.” OK, again, but I had to puzzle it out. The puzzle is, leave next year’s planning committee with the best kind of problem, which is how to outdo the job that you did.

Barry:  Right, he’s got a testimonial there that supports it. You’re painting a big distinction here, Brian, really of, you called it out right at the beginning. People have a lot going on in their brains and probably not time to puzzle?

Brian:  Yeah, yeah, please don’t. I don’t have time for it, man.

Barry:  Doesn’t that kill everything in our creative nature to just have to take all that… kill our darlings in a way.

Brian:  You know its… I kind of blame it on the institutional advertising that we’ve all grown up with throughout the years. Everybody thinks they have to do something clever like the car commercial did or like McDonalds did, or like Coke did. So we think we have to be clever or creative. No, please, chuck it out the window.

We’re talking about you make a freakin living here, we’re not talking about Coke who has a stock option that’s just off the charts. They’re going to make money whether you buy their dam product or not. Whether their add works or not more importantly. So you can’t be like them. You can’t even start to be like them. Otherwise you are wasting your money. This is massive.

To make me have to sit and puzzle it out in my head? “Need a motivational speaker. Leave next year’s planning committee with the best kind of problem.” OK it only took me eight seconds to puzzle it out, but why? Especially at the very beginning of your website, do you want to make me stop and scratch my head and go what the hell is this guy saying?

Oh it’s very clever. Oh that’s funny, Oh that’s entertaining. No. Just give me the message man, again, we’re on the internet. I am going to be distracted sooner or later. I am going to get interrupted. My internet messenger will pop up. My email will bling at me. My I phone will go off. My kids will walk in and tug on my shirt, come on Daddy, come and play with me. Or my grandkids now. I’m just saying this is a world of distraction and to make me spend 8 seconds to puzzle that clever bit of copy out is asking too much.

Barry:  Man, thank you. Yeah.

Brian:  That’s a great testimonial. You are much better off, Steve, making the big headline be need a motivational speaker with this kind of impact… So that’s your super header. That’s not a headline that’s a smaller above the headline. Then your headline is the freakin testimonial. “Every year we try to bring in a better speaker than the year before. After Steve, I have no idea what we’re going to do for next year.” You could even use that, “after Steve Bedwell, I have no idea what we’re going to do for next year.” Then go with why? “Because every year we try to bring in a better speaker than the year before. It’s going to be extremely tough to top this guy.”

Barry:  Man, I got a head to toe goose bump rush when you were talking about that. I’m going to refresh this page Steve. I don’t know if you do your own website, but maybe its already been updated. Just kidding, good stuff man, wow! Solid.

Then he goes on with some more support text, but what I love you just talked about that headline in another formatted quote in the same way down here. In the same color, so we get used to seeing him in that color. Fantastic.

Boy just a ton of social proof and authority over here on the right with the list of logos and clients that runs the length of the page. Yeah, that’s really killer I used to do that in my direct mail letters back when I was selling corporate magic. I used to put all the logos on the letter in full color.

Brian:  It was really costly to do that too.

Barry:  I don’t think that this is setup responsive for websites, but that may be something that you look at as you redo those headlines. It wouldn’t play happy on a phone, so something to think about. Good stuff man. My thought up here is having a 7 and ½ minute video, Steve, just for what it’s worth if this could be a 30 second commercial right here at the very top where we get a chance to watch a 7 ½ minute one, I’d love that. There’s a lot of power in letting somebody finish a video, especially at the top of a website like this where you have it set up. So good stuff man, thank you so much for tossing that one up there. How are you feeling Brian? Do you have time for a few more? Where’s your energy?

Brian:  I can go all day if you want me to.

Barry:  Incredible. Michael thank you. Somebody went through here and grabbed them all and put them in an order for me and I so, so appreciate that. Let me grab onto what came up here next. Let’s take a look at this one. This is Faith. She’s up in Toronto and she does some private events, some high-end weddings, really concentrating in the high-end private events. Public performance, jazz club, Performing Arts Center, this kind of world.

Brian:  You’re again I kind of have the feeling that Ray took some offense to my comments earlier. I don’t mean any of this personally. I’m just speaking off the cuff. None of this is preplanned, preconceived and I’m just giving my professional opinion, so don’t take this personally, but I don’t give a shit who Arvelis Music is, I don’t know how to pronounce it so that makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know, I don’t care there’s nothing about Arvelis music that makes me go, “Oh, I’m in the right spot.” The same thing “a boutique music agency.” I’m not even sure what the hell that means. I’m sorry.

Barry:  I’m fine, hey, Brian don’t stress your language any. I don’t think anyone has taken offense, I think this is a mirror that people would pray to look into, so…

Brian:  Thank you Ray, and Faith says “bring it.” So that’s good.

Barry:  Yeah, very good and there’s right from miss Arvelis herself. So I don’t know what a boutique music agency is unless, and again take this for what it’s worth. I am not inside your industry. If that’s a term that your prospects use all the time and it’s used in daily conversation, yeah, you go right ahead and use it girl. But otherwise, it means nothing to me. So the best in Toronto private and corporate entertainment. OK I’m OK with that. I would rather… This is my own opinion, I would rather come to your home page and get a message that’s for me. So what I mean by that you’re saying that the best in Toronto private entertainment, Oh, and corporate entertainment too. To me I’d rather come to your home page and have three options.

• Are you looking for music for your private event such as a wedding, banquet click here.
• If you’re looking for music for a corporate event click here.

Then from there you can target the message directly to me. Again this is a media of distraction. I want to click on the button that’s going to narrow this message down so that you’re talking to me. Because I want to find out for my corporate event, for my wedding, for my private whatever.

Do you see what I’m saying? Yeah, you’re kind of doing that by having these little links up at the top of the page. I get it. But guess what, I’m not looking at the links at the top of your page when I get here. First of all I’m confused. I don’t know where to look.

The logo means nothing to me. A boutique music means nothing to me. The other headline you had that was on the other page, yeah the best in Toronto, at least it had something there that made me go OK, I’m in the right place. But the other stuff didn’t. Wedding corporate/private, yeah you could argue that that lets me know I’m in the right place because I want for my wedding, or I want for my corporate, or I want for my, well I don’t know what private is. I want my privates I guess, that’s just, it’s not clarifying as it could be.

Barry:  OK, yeah.

Brian:  You could certainly argue that it is. But I disagree. Again, I would rather see you come to this home page and it says, you can even be as anal to say, In order to serve you better, this sounds like something AT&T would do, please select the choice that best describes who you are.

Barry:  Or even, how can I serve you? Corporate, wedding, private, yeah.

Brian:  Exactly and then have a targeted message specific to them.

Barry:  I would argue that a private event includes a wedding and I would not confuse it with these two, but just corporate or private would be wonderful.

Brian:  Is that a video to the left of the…?

Barry:  No, that’s just a photo. I consider this a striking photo for creating an image of what a wedding could look like, the couple here and nice staging. I imagine this is a very high-end wedding. I know you performed at one recently, Faith, and reported about it so, ok cool. So some intake there and that runs into what we had seen earlier is not making people think and not making us have to connect dots. Where did we end up here. I skipped that one. Library balloon show. Let me see what this is.

Brian:  Will says, would offering private and corporate events separately weaken the offering for magicians? I’m not really sure what you mean by that. I don’t see how it could because you’re talking more specifically to each prospect. A guy who has a private event has much different goals and desired end results than a meeting planner who’s booking an event and is being judged by all his peers and his co-workers and his boss.

A guy throwing a private event probably doesn’t care nearly as much. Obviously he want it to be fun, he wants it to be good, he wants it to be quality, etc. etc, etc. and he doesn’t what to be embarrassed, for sure, but it’s probably a lot less poignant to him to not be embarrassed. So Will, I would say that I don’t see how it could weaken the offering and why magicians would have anything to do with it, I’m not really sure.

Barry:  OK cool. Let’s jump into a man who’s had kind of a fun history, but let’s take a look at what comes up for you in this one as far as confusion in this distraction based world.

Brian:  OK.

Barry:  That’s not me, by the way.

Brian:  I’m going to look at the URL, MagicBarry.com Ok that doesn’t tell me anything. Unique entertainment packages for any event. OK. Corporate entertainment in Charlotte for sales meeting, award, team building, training, wedding rehearsals, holiday party, family and all of a sudden we’re talking about family. We’re talking about wedding whereas it’s all been corporate up to that point.

I’m not sure what to think. I’m not sure if I’m in the right place, that’s for dam sure. If I’m a corporate meeting planner do I feel like I’m in the right place? Corporate game shows, if I’m looking for a corporate game show. More entertainment review. Get a quote. I’m not really interested in getting quote right now. Unless Barry has found that 90% of the traffic that’s coming to his site is only interested in getting a quote. Like if the Sales Funnel has already lead them to that point.

Barry:   I think this is the home page. I think this is where the world finds him. We can just listen to Brian piece his way through this page and kind of tell something is happening here. The back button would be begging to be hit right now.

Brian:  Yeah, yeah, where’s my distraction? The distraction might be clicking on the frequently asked questions or contact or… but for sure I’m not feeling like this is where I’m supposed to be.

Barry:  Yeah, so you know the advice I would give to Barry, just looking at this site is… The question I would ask is are you clear on what you offer? Are clear on the one thing that you want this website to offer? Is it about corporate gameshows? If it’s about corporate game shows, there’s a whole bunch of stuff here that doesn’t make sense. If it’s about strolling magic there’s a whole bunch here that doesn’t make sense.

Brian:  Yeah, it’s kind of like Allison pointed out. For any event isn’t that kind of forbidden and I would absolutely agree with you. It’s like the magician who has “magic for all occasions” on his business card. Well you’re for no occasions then.

Barry:  This is a line that I certainly talked about in my launch videos when you guys were first considering whether to play in this world. I begged you, if you have any occasion, those two words on your website it has to come off instantly. So Barry, my challenge to you would be to be very clear on what you want this website to offer. One thing you want this website to offer.

Brian:  You want to be the knowledgeable specialist who’s coming in as an expert to solve the problem and right now you’re telling me you’re an expert at everything.

Barry:  Ok, let’s call that one for where it’s at right now. Barry take that in as what you can learn from it.

Brian:  Barry says I just paid an expert to build this site for me.

Barry:  Awe, awesome.

Brian:  I hear you. This is the most frustrating painful part of being a self-employed entrepreneur is you go through crap like this and somebody turns around and tells you it sucks, and you say, well I just spent $12,000 getting it done and now you’re telling me I have to go through the hassle of redoing it. Either finding somebody else, or upping my fees with this dude. It’s such a pain in the butt.

Barry:  Just from a design element, I don’t know who the person was that you paid the “expert” but were they in marketing, were they in web design? Two very different worlds. Layout wise, I like the colors, I like the background, I like the imagery. There’s a lot of white space, so from a designer angle I’d say, hey it plays. From a marketing angle. You just heard what happens from a seven figure a year copywriter. He’s lost beyond words, doesn’t know what to do, so very different worlds.

OK, I hear it Barry, and I hear there’s some regret in that and all that. Let’s bring that up. I’m going to get on with you and we’ll talk about that. Allison put a great point, “I love money.” You guys have seen how I deal with money, I want that to be the very last thing in the conversation. I like money to be a line item after they’ve already decided we’re going to have the Raspyni Brothers here, let’s just figure out what it takes. I don’t want a quote to come into an early conversation. So wonderful. Let me get back to my list. We’re starting to do a little bit of repeating, so I just want to help as many people as we can on this.

Brian:  It may sound repetitive, but these are universal principles and they apply across the board.

Barry:  Oh my God, they’re HUGE!

Brian:  It’s not going to hurt for people to hear it again and again.

Barry:  Not at all. OK here we go Brian. This one is going to be a lot of fun for you.

Brian:  I need to go take a quick potty break.

Barry:  No problem man, in fact let’s all just stretch out a little bit. Oh man, let’s just get up and shake our bodies. There’s a lot happening on this call that can be taken very personally and it’s what I wanted from this week. I don’t want it to be a whole lot of… I don’t want anything in this course to be theoretical. I want to get down to ground roots on this thing and we’re getting to do it with live examples.

For some of the Alumni that are on the call, let me just say I put in the message, I really want to handle as many of the new members as we can. Take everything in just like Brian just said. It’s great to hear this stuff again. How can you apply what you’re hearing to your own website, your own business? Can you easily look at Magic Barry’s that was just up and say mine’s doing the exact same thing? So let’s do that and I have them all listed in order, thank you Michael, I appreciate that and we’ll keep digging in.

Michael did you have one on here? Yeah you had one on here. It’s really magic I want to get on. There’s Brian back. Thank you so much man.

Brian:  He may be a copywriting machine, but isn’t it nice to know he’s still human?

Barry:  Right, exactly, he’s still…

Brian:  Still gotta go pee.

Barry:  He still has to relieve himself. Perfect man. This is Allison. She is who I introduced as Eric earlier. Really playing in the high-end birthday party market. Getting rid of the $205, $500 gigs, not interested in that market anymore and playing bigger, so let’s look at what happens here.

Brian:  Good for you. If I had the energy, Barry, I think I’d honestly would love to do high-end birthday parties. I love kids so much and I used to do birthday parties for a living. That’s how I made my full time living for three and a half years. It just sounds really, really fun to me, but I just don’t know if I have the energy for it.

Barry:  It’s a different world, man. That guy who turned around and looked you in the eyes and changed your life forever.

Brian:  Yeah. “The amazing magical birthday party expert.” I really like that for some reason. What I don’t like about it, Allison, is the… and I get why you’re doing it, but it’s just hard to read. It’s so dam hard to read. I can see why your kind of making it feel a little circusy I would call it. I can see why you’re doing that, but…

Barry:  I want to see what happens when a Mom looks at this on a phone. She’s having to do this.

Brian:  Yeah, but that’s not copywriting.

Barry:  No, that’s not copywriting, but a design tip.

Brian:  Quit doing that, quit it, we’re talking copywriting here, you jerk. But I really like the words. The amazing magical birthday party expert. That tells me, BAM! I’m in the right spot. This is exactly where I need to be. All the colors are fun. This is right where I need to be. I love it. The only thing.

Barry:  A nice quote there right at the top too.

Brian:  I like that quote. It’s not very obvious. Have you got it highlighted Barry?

Barry:  I don’t. I was just checking. That’s actually how it’s laid out. I would play with that a little differently.

Brian:  Yeah, I’d definitely change that. That’s kind of hard to read like that.

Barry:  In fact I clicked on it and it went to Yelp.

Brian:  OK, I’m going to hop on the soap box for a second here. I don’t know what Yelp is, so I may sound naive. I do know what YouTube is. I think it’s a mistake to host your videos with YouTube. I could be wrong. Again I don’t know jack about internet marketing or SEO or whatever, but I think it’s a mistake, and hear me out, to host your videos with YouTube because I have the option, it says to view this on YouTube or at YouTube.com, well guess what, if I click on that, if a prospect clicks on that and it takes them to YouTube, yeah they’re still going to watch your video, but you have just invited distraction away from your website.

Even this drives me crazy. Even if you don’t click away and watch the video on YouTube the moment the video is done YouTube populates the video player on your website with six or nine different videos that are options that I can click on and watch, but I’m on your website. I’m here to find out about you, not to get distracted into the world of YouTube videos. So I think it’s a massive mistake to do something a YouTube hosting your video there and having them be able to click away from your site. That’s what it looked like this Yelp thing was with the testimonial. I don’t know. Again, I’m not an expert on that, I don’t claim to be, I think it’s a horrible idea, because again, this is a medium that is full of distractions and now you’re inviting distractions.

Barry:  Got you, great point. Way better to grab I think the idea of clicking on Robin Williams Quote here and then taking us to Yelp is that the person will be focused enough to say, Holy cow, I get lost in here, can you instead grab some of this content, some of these five star reviews, even is screen shots.

Brian:  Look, there’s ads for Amazon, shit.

Barry:  My son was looking at a scooter yesterday, so here I’m seeing my. These are wonderful, these are great reviews. They’re five star reviews going back showing the history of your business, but it’s not continuing the conversation. I completely see what you’re doing there. So to summarize, Allison here, great colors. Nice headline. Brian likes. I think it speaks to…

Brian:  The guarantee is really great. I think that’s wonderful that you have that, first of all, and that you show it off and put it right up front. I think that’s brilliant, Allison.

Barry:  Good, great, very good. Fun photography, of course. Ok let me copy this one and let’s head over to one other site here.

There’s another… maybe that had too much in it, sorry about that. I guess that ends here, right? This is a whole opt in thing. I’m not sure why I got that. Let’s just head to this site. This is the root of the domain here. Wow! Robert, I wonder if this is working. I’m typing in your domain and something weird is coming up. I’m doing melody music, getting rid of all this and just going to that and it’s taking me to this… Let me try it here. Products… This is your store. I remember you sent me this. Robert if you put in your link I’ll go to that. Right now I’m going to just go back to this list, so put in your link and I’ll grab it next. Let me just take a look at a couple more here. Michael made that nice list for me and this was at the bottom. Here are the remaining in the order. We covered all these. Let’s do, yes here we are.

Brian:  Sean is asking me to repeat the comments on YouTube. I just don’t like hosting videos on YouTube because if you’re on my website watching my video, once the video ends, it gives me six to nine different other videos I can click on and watch and guess what, that distracts me from reading your web page, our watching your videos on your web page and buying your product. So it’s a distraction.

Barry:  To be fair, you can disable that, but still that was a long time ago that YouTube was necessary to do that, but don’t implant videos from YouTube. You can use a Vimeo pro account, you can host them on Amizon S3, most WordPress will just play them without anything. The days of needing YouTube to post your videos has long past and you should leave that in the past.

Let’s take a look at another current member in the program. Let’s see what happens here.

Brian:  Yeah, I like Amazon S3 too.

Barry:  Alright, so here’s a lot of white space up here that should be used in a different way I imagine.

Brian:  Oh jeepers, that’s an actual web page?

Barry:  We’re not taking any of this personally, Dean, but he said yeah, that’s an actual web page.

Brian:  Hunh, scroll down. Is there no copy. There’s no copy, there’s just corporate clean customized.

Barry:  The only copy is this little phone number here.

Brian:  I think it’s pretty obvious…

Barry:  Yeah, some work needs to be done here.

Brian:  I do like the idea of stressing the clean content of the comedians. I do think that’s important to a lot of corporation.

Barry:  All of them.

Brian:  I have an idea. It’s something to think about Dean, I wouldn’t run with it without researching it, but I have an idea. Adam Christine is a dear friend of mine. He owns clean comedians.

Barry:  Oh yeah, we know him, sure.

Brian:  My idea is I’ve wanted to encourage him to take the next step in the clean comedian concept and call it, Clean Christian Comedians and embrace… take it to that degree I guess would be the way to say that. I think that would be a whole niche following that would be very, very on board with that. Maybe someone’s already done it. Dean, it’s just an idea, like a say, throw it up against the wall. You can research it if you want to.

Barry:  Dean did add in here that the page isn’t loading correctly, but it says the copy is “Your company. Happy.” So there is something else there that is not loading now. Good to see it.

I worry about, one thing that jumps out for me as someone who is very hip and tuned into this world is this is clearly a comedy club and you’re talking about corporate. Here’s a guy with an improve T-Shirt, clearly a waiter. This just has the look of a comedy club. So something in the way of congruency I would look at here.

Brian:  Yeah, that’s a really good point. I did not notice that at all, Dean, just for whatever it’s worth.

Barry:  I didn’t notice Eric in a suite at a birthday party, so we’re double teaming here.

This is Robert, who I tried to get up before. Thanks for putting the good link in here. I guess Robert, this is something that you would be sending someone to directly, because your website alone went to the store. So this is something you’d be sending buyers to directly. So what happens here when a buyer lands at this site.

Brian:  OK I’m going to assume the role that I’m a corporate booker.

Barry:  I think Robert, just to be fair, here is definitely playing a different market. There’s a couple of members, Nathan is in this group as well and he is really more in the performing arts market to the public concerts. Speak to that as maybe looking at this from someone who is a promoter for festivals and Performing Arts Centers.

Brian:  OK. I’ll do my best because I’m not really familiar with who those people are and what’s important to them. But I’m sure quality entertainment would be the first. Mel Bane music, unless that name is known in the industry and recognized it doesn’t really do anything for me. But again, I’m not in the industry. If it as weight, then by all means use that logo and say Mel Bane Music presents Robert Michaels. Although I think it’s a horrible headline. But it’s really not acting as a headline. The next line would be more your headline. It’s more of a header for the website. The video, I’m assuming is awesome.

Barry:  It definitely take the view through the experience. It looks powerful as heck.

Brian:  Awesome. Is it Spanish guitar?

Barry:  I’m not sure, he’d have to answer that.

Brian:  Must be, there’s Spanish dancers. OK that’s great. The video is going to do the mother load of the selling here anyway.

Barry:  Yeah, the video does the heavy lifting for sure.

Brian:  I might change this, “Robert Michaels is a world music artist.” Again I don’t know what that means exactly and unless you prospect knows exactly what you’re saying there, I think it’s a bad thing. I would rather you say, watch the dam video to see if I’m good enough for your event, because you’re going to love it.

Barry:  I love that.

Brian: I would say something about hey, watch the video. What’s important here is that they watch the video, so… This other stuff down here. “Robert’s Italian roots have inspired him to produce a new, exciting and engaging show.” Yeah, I don’t care. I might care if I’m that guy, so I can’t really say that. So Juno award winner, if that means something to your prospect then go ahead and say that, as long as it does. Again I think it’s exactly what you need, however I’m not seeing a way to get in touch with you. I’m assuming the end of the video has that on there.

Barry:  There’s probably some more down here. Yeah, click here for booking and more information, so.

Brian:  Why is that buried at the bottom of the page for crying out loud?

Barry:  That just brought up my thing to write you an email. That’s a little bizarre. OK. Let me go back. Did I lose it?

Brian:  That’s a mistake, he needs to fix that.

Barry:  I think that took me to a screen to write you an email, and then when I said I don’t want to write you an email, I closed it and everything went away. So

Brian:  So who was that I was… oh the phone’s ringing, never mind.

Barry:  Yes and the beautiful opportunities and the lives that you can touch with your music that fall out the window when that phone rings.

Brian:  And it’s gone, you can’t do that.

Barry:  I care enough to bring it back, but yeah.

Brian:  Underneath the video after your headline that sells them on watching the video, I would put the link that says click here for booking information and actually put booking information, don’t send them an email, or force them to send you an email and it’s closing down your website at the same time. Hey, there’s other videos here, there’s testimonials to read, why would you want to push them away from your website?

Barry:  Yeah, these are great testimonials, actually. These are really nice.

Brian:  They should be up high on the page. Besides a great performance, all of that is meaningless to me. It can go way down on the page. Click here for bookings and then your testimonials. To reorganize it you’ve got your video, you’ve got your headlines selling them on watching the video, and then you’ve got three reasons why you need to have Robert’s killer show at your festival or dealio and boom, da boom, da boom, which can include Robert’s Italian roots – that copy. Then go right to testimonials and cut all this other educational outreach, put it way down at the bottom if you still are going to have it. Did I put the click here for booking? I want that to be after the headline that pitches them on watching the video.

Barry:  Yeah, OK that’s right under here. That’s right under the video here.

Brian:  You could put it under the testimonials as well.

Barry:  Sure, sure, the testimonials are strong. The videos strong. I’d love to see a picture of you with your Juno award. That’s the Canadian version of the Grammys. That’s a big thing. How nice would that be to see a picture of you with that?

There’s no reason you shouldn’t be working and there’s no reason this website would sell you. So unless you’re into some incredible relationship marketing, which is certainly something I have talked to this group about. This isn’t doing you any favors right now and I’d like to see that come to a different place. I think the suggestions that Brian just gave are a perfect wireframe to begin that with.

1. This is crazy. Let me just see if there’s one or two more from the new group and then I have a couple that I really would like you to put up. Brian, thank you man. There are so many comments here.

That’s Africa hot, I don’t know what some of these people are talking about here.

Let me find that next one here we’re going to look at. Gosh there’s a place where Michael listed them. Here it is. Ok this is one I really want to get at. This is a guy who’s doing really well in our group and updating his world, so let’s take a peek at this one and see what happens.

I’m not doing that moving, by the way, Brian, so don’t yell at me to stop it. I know you’re going to want to.

Brian:  Yeah, that’s really distracting. What’s making it distracting though is that the copy and the button are sliding off as well. I think that’s what’s, anyway. I definitely don’t like it and I don’t care for it myself.

Barry:  I love this picture right here. I don’t know if there’s a way to freeze it. Can I click on that little icon to freeze it. This picture tells a story. Yes the headline and the contact button are over it, but that picture tells a story to me where this one tells a story too. It’s a different story. This one doesn’t tell a story to me. This could to.

Brian:  Again, some of the same.

Barry:  Yup, we’ve covered some of this stuff, yeah.

Brian:  Some of the same challenges here. You’re trying to sell everyone. I would just do, I would do the three option thing again probably or the two options. Click here if you’re looking to make your corporate event magical, meaningful, whatever. Click here if you’re looking for entertainment for your bla, bla, bla. Again I’m not even clear on what… are you a close-up magician? Apparently you do some stage work, because the stage pictures I’ve seen.

Barry:  That’s a nice video. In fact with the people smiling in freezes. I like that. Great. In Dubai, it shows international. In London. At a hoodlum convention in London, that’s awesome. Street magic, I got you. That’s awesome. Impromptu. Let’s just see if the ultimate crime is committed here at the end. But see, he didn’t turn off the thing so this is what Brian is talking about. We’re offered 12 other places to go at the end of this.

Brian:  Distraction city.

Barry:  All the way of looking at somebody’s TedX talk to watching someone the 10 most brilliant, so there’s exactly what Brian was talking about. There’s twelve options to leave your world. I know Michael, that’ll be fixed by the end of this call. He’ll get in there. A bit of confusion here.

Doing some great relationship marketing and still making changes in your career and booking good gigs and there’s places to go on this. I like this kind of parallax website where there’s a… I think photography tells a brilliant story. You have some nice photographs, some good testimonials here. An option to view more testimonials. Does that take us somewhere else? Yes, this takes us to a page that’s dedicated to testimonials. Well done.

I like this and you have a little icon this is corporate maybe with a tie. You have some nice little design elements here. They’re great. I think it looks like you’ve done what we were talking about with Allison. You’ve actually grabbed these outside ratings from a Yelp or something like that and brought these into your own design. I see all these nice star ratings here unless you’ve just done that. Company Bar-B-Q, birthday party with a little cake, yeah, so there’s some nice elements happening here definitely.

Brian:  Yeah.

Barry:  And copy, you can still tell a story man, you can still tell a story. Alright Brian, I’m over two hours, but I just want to put one or two more up here. And then I’m going to open up the door at the end for some folks to talk. So here’s one more I’d like to just take a peek at. Maybe we can grab one other too. What do you see here?

Brian:  I’m assuming it’s for corporate but I don’t know that you want to assume that. Again, if it is for corporate entertainer, it works. You don’t actually have to say you’re a corporate event, for me to feel like I’m in the right spot because again, I’m just doing a critique here essentially.

Assuming I’m a corporate person and I come here, then yeah, it’s fine. Create an unforgettable experience. I might have the same challenge as a magician and I say that, I’m not trying to book myself. I have this weird fantasy, Barry, that someday I’m going to book myself again.

For whatever it’s worth, in the fantasy website copy that I’ve written for myself. The headline is always something like this. Create an unforgettable experience at your next event. It’s always that, but then I always critique myself and I say, yeah, but anybody can sock that up on their website and say that. Anybody, the Raspyni Brothers, that’s a perfect headline of the Raspyni Brothers. It’s a perfect headline for Ray to use.

Barry:  Right, right, for anyone.

Brian:  So that’s my problem with it. It’s perfect and it doesn’t say anything about why you are the man to make it happen. It works for me, David, on some level it really freakin bugs me. But maybe by playing the video you answer the question by showing me your personality and what not. So I don’t’ know. I’m torn there.

Barry:  Yeah, great point just about the genericness of it.

Brian:  Here’s some credentializing. I love this. This is great. Television appearances. This is great. Huge vast audience.

Barry:  Quick and easy website right there is the bottom. Easy to get through.

Brian:  Lots of great logos along the bottom. Establishing credibility. Click on services there for me Barry. I’m just curious.

Barry:  We have to go to the end to see if he made the big mistake. Hah, he turned it off. At least we’re not introduced to 12 Ted Talks we could have watched. Services, let’s dig into that for a sec. Corporate event and trade show attraction, we have two choices there.

Brian:  OK, that’s great. Perfect for, that’s brilliant. Testimonials. A couple of packages, he’s introducing packages there. Very good, this is really good. Very, very good.

Barry: Big fan of phone numbers.

Brian:  Again the copy. It works, it’s fine, but you could take your name out and put some other dudes name in there and it works just as well, That’s to me the problem. How you overcome that is, I would really have to do some thinking about that. That’s really your problem David, is I could plug my name in instead of yours and my website is done because that’s how generic and unspecific it is in regards to the specialness that you bring to the occasion, this entertainment event. Does that make sense Barry?

Barry:  I think that’s an excellent litmus test as well.

Brian:  Other than the genericness of it I think you have a brilliant flow. I like that the home page is really kind of all about establishing credibility with the video, the logos, I believe there were testimonials there. The one thing I didn’t like about the home page was that I had to come up to services in order to find out more. I’m wondering. I don’t know. People are used to those menus. They’re used to having to dig. I’m kind of torn. I almost think you’d be better off having two options down lower on the page that say corporate trade shows, corporate entertainment. I don’t know.

Barry:  A good example of a responsive site here, although we’re not doing web design, Brian is punched out, but yeah, here’s what happens when it gets down to phone size. We just get these buttons. Good stuff, real responsively build.

I lost this guy’s website a little earlier, and he’s one of the members of the current group and I want to give some time to dig into this. This site I know for sure that Will is well aware it needs redesigning. I believe he’s actively talking to someone. Let’s just take this back to 1990s this would have been on top of the world. But there’s just nothing here.

Brian:  Does that say tea magic or team magic.

Barry:  Well yeah, good question actually.

Brian:  I’m assuming it says team.

Barry:  Yep, team magic. I get that.

Brian:  Hunh, that’s kind of confusing to me. Especially since the domain name has two “m”s in it. Anyway. Actually, design wise it may take you back to the 90s but I think it’s actually kind of, assuming the prospect knows where they’re going, why they’re going here.

Barry:  Let’s bump inside here, so I bumped inside the overview and we get something here that we can at least start looking at. Yeah, assuming the prospect knows why they’re coming here, that was a pretty good idea. The sorting isn’t really happening. Wow, finally. This is some decent stuff. I just now, though. Again I’m not your prospect, but I just now figured out what this is about.

Barry:  Yeah, you just got it.

Brian:  It’s team building, and that is the word team magic. Again, I’m not your prospect. Maybe they know when they come here it’s about team building. OK that’s fine, but still.

Barry:  Yup, I get ya. I’m right there with you. Then we’re on the overview page and we have to come down here to the bottom to navigate to somewhere else.

We’ll just bump through these kind of quick. Corporate organizational programs.

Brian:  This is good Barry, because this is a new problem. This is something we haven’t addressed before and it’s this. This copy is very erudite and very college level English teacher written. “Today’s unpredictable business environment demands a positively highly motivated teams that get together quickly and exploit new technology”… and I’m running out of breath and holy shit. Simmer down. Talk to me like I’m a human. Maybe you’ll argue, well my audience is different. My audience is sophisticated. Guess what, dim wad, they’re human. You want to write at a fifth grade level or less.

Barry:  Wow! Hear that, fifth grade level or less.

Brian:  I guarantee you go through my fifty pages of copy I just finished, it’s at a fifth grade reading level or less. So.

Barry:  Today’s unpredictable business environment demands – that’s a tough opening there. So…. Okay, so yeah, there’s stuff to do here that we’re not going to solve on this call you guys. This is not the time.

Barry:  And the way you figure that out Barry, is you read your copy out loud, and if you run out of breath, you know that you’ve got a problem.

Barry:  Yeah, yeah. I see some people with frozen screens. It’ll be fine on the replay you guys, and sorry about having to run into that, and we’re shooting out of here at a high speed. So, anyway, let me… let’s just see if Brian can suggest a website builder so we can see their work? Oh, so yeah, Brian’s not talking about website building, he’s talking about copy, so I will have some resources for you for copy. I mean if everything you’ve learned today isn’t a ton, or everything you’ve seen today.

How do you put it into use? Brian has some resources that I will pass your way, even if they’re just like 101 things, we’ll figure out a way, and the truth is, is that it’s another thing to add onto your plate, which I don’t want to do to you guys right now. I want you to be able to work, so is copywriting something that you should outsource to someone who’s copy you love? Heck yes! You know, is it something that you have to invest in in one time? Or find somebody who’s an intern, a college student studying whatever it is, get resourceful.

Yeah, you have to do something else besides planning and readying yourself. I take it today’s unpredictable business environment demands positive, highly motivated teams that gel together quickly to exploit new technology, create world class products, deliver winning presentations, yeah that entire sentence was probably not written by someone who studies psychology of copywriting. Okay guys…

Brian:  A really quick way to hammer, copy out, if you just need some copy, is to pretend like… push record on your iPhone, and pretend like you’re talking to a prospect, and sit down with a list of questions that that prospect would ask you, and then answer those questions. And what you’ll end up with is a recording that’s very conversational, because it is a conversation. It’s you talking with a “prospect” and then just get it transcribed, and use that as your starting point for your copy. That way it’s very conversational, it’s very human, very down to earth.

Barry: Wow! Did you guys take that in? Isn’t that incredible? Just tape recording, Just talking about what you do. I’ve heard some people on my interviews for this program talk about what they did, and it was just beautiful.

Brian:  Yeah it works magic! It’s actually a super secret, highly effective way to write your own copy, and never have to hire a guy like me!

Barry:  Yeah, okay,

Brian:  That’s why I keep it super secret.

Barry:  Exactly, It’s all hidden! Well you guys, yeah, so people are coming back in… okay, it’ll be in the replay? Brian just gave a huge gem, and I’ll just repeat it, because I don’t know where people came back? It looks like something’s frozen in the technology. He said to talk to people about what you do! Record it, have that transcribed, and use that as a starting point for that copy. What was the secret? And

Jeremy’s awake, I saw your comment at 2:30 in the morning, somewhere I think in Singapore or something? So funny! So yeah, a lot of great topics in here, re-forward to this part of the conversation. Yeah, you guys, so much! And from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for everything you did here. Did we miss anybody’s site here?

You were frozen for 15 minutes! Wow, that’s amazing, I don’t know why that happened… Did we miss somebody’s site here? We covered Will’s site, his sale program site, his team magic site, and I think I gathered everybody else, if not I will make up with you in some other way. Brian I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the generous amount of time you’ve given this group, it’s unbelievable!

Brian:  Only glad I’m not getting a bill for it!

Brian:  Hey, I’ve had a blast! I’ve actually really enjoyed it so…

Barry:  Dude, thank you!

Brian:  I don’t have anything to sell, but if anybody would like to… who didn’t get they’re website reviewed on this call, if you’d like me to, you can e-mail me and give me your contact info, and I’ll get in touch with you. Give me your website, and I’ll be happy to spend 5 or 10 minutes on the phone with you and go over the copy. I don’t mind doing that.

Barry:  Wow! Holy cow! Okay, alright, thank you so much man, before you dig yourself in a hole, I know you’re a busy guy. Don’t beat him up or anything like that, but if you put something out and you hear something back from him, wonderful. Michael we did go into truly magic extensively, I’m trusting that it’s on the replay. If not then I will get on and summarize with you, and sorry you guys blocked out since the music clip, no idea why that happened. Thank you, thank you so much! Brian, I’m going to turn you loose. So thankful for you man! We will open up the phone lines here in a little bit in our conversation just to cover what we’re doing in our group, and there’s the comments floating in man, so thank you so much!

Brian:  Well let them know, I’m sincere, alright? If you’re ready for it or when you’re ready for it, I’m happy to review the copy for anybody in your group. I just really care about you Barry, and I want to take care of you, and I want to take care of your people, so happy to do it really, happy to do it!

Barry:  Thank you so much man! Appreciate it! Alright, I’m going to turn off your camera man, you’re welcome to hang out, but you probably have got other stuff to do, so thank you so much! I appreciate your help, man, thank you.

Brian:  Alright, I’ll see you.

Barry:  Alright guys. I will apologize straight up for the technology glitch guys. I don’t know what happened after the music clip. I was getting a lot of comments that people were frozen after the music clip. I’m going to trust it’s in the replay. If not, I will cover what we talked about.

Let me just go and hit a couple of the key points I was writing down as Brian was talking to us. What he gave us there was gold beyond anything I ever promised when we started talking about this course. One of the big points for me is what’s the first thought in their mind. What happens to them right in the morning, what do they think about that Brian writes over 200 headlines for a single piece of copy. What you uncover when you get to that kind of depth. I’ve written probably 25 or so and I’m still not happy and I think I quit at about 25, so just over 10% of what he does for a minimum.

Walk in their shoes, connect with their emotions. Don’t think they’re focused in your world. Another HUGE takeaway. Just don’t think they’re focused in your world. This is a distraction business. Good you guys. Feeling a little bit bad, feeling a little bit of shame about the technology and it’s outside of my hands. I brought in probably the best system I found for doing this kind of thing, sorry if it got missed. I’m going to trust it’s in the replay and I’ll be very happy if it all is, which I think it does. It may have just been in the going out that it got messed up.

Let me just dig into something right now about where we’re at in this group, at this point in the course, trust me, you have learned enough to radically alter your reality. I want to run one screen share right now over to something that I really want to share with you. This is something that I put on our… One other Alumni group last night… This is something I put in our Alumni group last night just to kind of get a feeling of where people were at. I want to share some of the responses with you guys right now.

I wrote, “How did you guys…” this was 10 hours ago. I put it on last night when that discussion was going down in our group. “How did you guys feel halfway through ShowBiz Blueprint, any advice or other words you can share with new members who are feeling overwhelmed, thank you.”

What did we get? 17 comments on this thing, “As an Alumni, loving it.” This is Jeremy who was in the program again, talking about how much better it was this time.

Andrew said he felt overwhelmed. Felt there was so much to do and wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Saying that the support and positiveness and the Facebook group was inspirational and still feeling that. Loving it as much this time. Brian doing it again. The content is great, so glad I decided to do it again.

So what I want to tell you guys is this stuff isn’t going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. The content isn’t going anywhere. This is a firehose that you guys signed up for a radical shift in your life and I promised to deliver that to you. I am delivering that.

One person wrote in another message down here about how what he was doing was running into another area of his life in such a big way. Yeah, apply the genius and pleasure rule today. This is someone who did the course a year, year and a half ago. To some, not directly ShowBiz related. Putting our house on the market and majorly stressed about prepping the house. Realized today that painting was not something that I’m good at, not my genius and pleasure. This is a sense of relief. Amazing how what I learned in ShowBiz Blueprint applies in so many areas of life.

That’s happening whether you know it or not it’s getting into the DNA of how you’re operating in your life. Allow it to keep coming in. I’m going to ask you a challenge in the next part of this here. Mike, who did one of the original groups, said that he felt overwhelmed half way through.

I don’t have any specific advice for new people. I can say that the feeling will pass eventually your brain adjusts to this way of thinking and you’ll develop techniques you personally need to handle everything. I know it sounds vague and I know it will pass.

People saying I’m grown as a presenter in this, and I don’t doubt that – the ninth time doing it. This gal wrote, if you’re getting stuff take some of the items and put them in the fridge so that you can devour them next week or the week after that. I stockpile portions of your lessons in both the fridge and the freezer, subsequent consumption and I’m still nibbling on pieces I apply to alternative projects.

I just want to let you guys know it’s not unusual to feel what you’re feeling here. If you can, bring it in. Trust what we’re doing here and know that at this point in the challenge, like I said, you have what it takes to change your career radically.

You have tools to create a new reality. Just a few of the things that we talked about. I want to ask you what’s 20% of what we’ve done in this program so far that can give you an 80% upgrade on your life? Alright, that’s the 80/20 principle right now, I want to apply it to this.

What is 20% of what we’ve talked about? In fact, just get out a list and write the one activity that can give you an 80% upgrade in your life right now, and stuff you can put in the fridge and stuff you can put in the deep freeze. I’m not letting you stay as you were when you signed up for this course. It’s not why you came in here. You didn’t come in here to stay in the same place. So is it time management? Could you do a better job of time management so that you could make a change?

Is it daily scheduling? Is it looking at what you spend your time on? Is it the cold conversational calling? Is it outsourcing? Is it getting someone to gather enough of the outside information of events coming to your area, people who book Performing Arts Centers? Can you outsource enough of that that you’re not involved in it daily so that you can spend your 80% of your time on the 20% that’s going to make a difference for you? Is it the sales funnels? Is it the relationship marketing? Time management and daily scheduling, great Michael, yeah. Thanks for the top notch people that you have brought into this program.

Barry:  Yeah man, that is a HUGE change. I taught all this myself in past groups and when I watch some of the old webinars I wince a little bit.

Yeah, Brian’s email will be in, I’m going to take him up on his offer. That will be in the follow-up notes for sure, Gary. Keep smiling, yeah, that’s a big one man. That’s what I like to do.

OK, connection challenge Will, absolutely, man I share those ten points of what it’s done for me, it’s crazy. So write down, you guys, the one activity that you’re going to commit to from all this group. Circle it and put that 80% of your time into that one activity.

Continue to take in the rest without pressure. Continue to take in the rest without pressure, without any guilt, without any shame. We’re not here for any of that stuff. You’re not alone. Know that we’re not going anywhere. Lose anything that’s toxic. There’s just no place for that. Good. Let me just open the lines here. If you are, let me jump back on the screen share. I have something that I want you guys to see here. Let me share that.

If you want to come on live to share something with the group, oh there, Brian put his email address right in that box there. I want to really ask you and I’m going to reiterate this in our notes, if you got a review from Brian on this page, don’t write to him, please. Save that right now for the folks who didn’t get looked at. I don’t want him to be overwhelmed. He’s working on HUGE, HUGE projects and if you got some feedback from him, don’t write him and say, what about this, what about this, let’s not beat that to death.

Take all the feedback, listen to this webinar again and take all the feedback that you heard and apply it to your own business. If you are in the group and didn’t get some time, he’s offered it, please do it in that case. So there’s a couple of options on here. Raise your hand, tell me where you’re blocked. I have a plunger. I swear to God, right here, in this office, I have a plunger that I will use right now to unclog you. You’re here for a reason. Continue to trust yourself. So there’s a couple of options if you want to get in here right now, hit the attendee button, hit request to be a speaker, if you just want to put it in the box. Put your problem in there. I will spend another ten, fifteen minutes on here right now dissecting it. But I can unclog any problem that you have. I trust myself to do that.

Faith wrote conversational calling is one of the big pieces for her to take away from. Absolutely man. In the market you’re working. You’re working in the wedding niche, are you kidding me. You have to overcome the fear, the anxieties, and the trepidation, put yourself in the shoes of the bride who calls you for a high end wedding market.

I need to turn off this air, and not because you’re freezing but because it’s turned into a meat locker in here. Yeah Faith, that’s a big piece of your market.

Time management and daily scheduling. That’s what you guys are talking. Here’s a couple of ways man. You want to raise a hand, you want to call in on that phone line. I can make you live right now on the webinar, whatever it is. I’ll assume there aren’t any. This has been a huge dose of education, insight, mind blowing, DNA reprogramming two and half hours, a big one for me. You guys have stayed with it.

The rest of you will catch in on replay. I’m going to assume we’re good for today. I’m going to thank you for the way you guys show up. The final words I just want to say, the words that we use to convey our story determine the stories we experience. Brian showed is a whole bunch of ways to change our words. Thank you so much for being here today, for showing up big. One person did hit the room button, let me just see if we can make this person life real quick just to see if it works.

I hit the button to invite you as a presenter Michael, let’s see if makes you live, if not, grab that phone number on there. Feel free to ring that if you’re not able to come in live. I’m not sure if that works. I’ve been on the other end of that before, but maybe it allows you to go in live. I can jump in. Ben, feel free to jump in.

Oh good, Michael, you jumped in as a presenter, good. Is your mic working?

Mike:  I hope so.

Barry:  Perfect man, that worked great.

Mike:  Alright. The big challenge that I’ve had is obviously there’s the ShowBiz Blueprint itself and then there are other things in my life and I find that whenever I focus on one thing it’s to the detriment of everything else and I finally start feeling like I’m ahead. All of a sudden I realize I haven’t done anything. So I’m struggling and I think I need to figure out some way to segment my time.

Barry:  Yeah, so this goes back to something that we did, I think it was in week two, or week three when we really talked about scheduling. Looking at the amount of hours that you have that day. Being obsessively anal about your schedule and just getting one thing done, like Renee said on the Alumni group. Put some stuff in the refrigerator, put some stuff in the deep freeze.

Make that agreement with your accountability team. Just say, “I’m going to be working on week two right now. I’m going to be working on week three.” My gosh, please, all you guys, don’t let anything in like exactly, I know for sure that Michael is speaking for a group here, guaranteed. I saw it in the group last night, and I’ve seen it in some of the comments.

I want you guys to do how this works for you. So I hope that helps, man. Be obsessive with your group in the morning. Look at night. I know when I quit work for the day I know how many hours I have for the next day. Yes, things pop up but I let them pop up in a way… I have my email closed when I’m working. I’ll have social distractions and it’s really about owning your time.

I’ve said it a couple of weeks ago, successful people own their time. Unsuccessful people are owned by their time. So, man, shift into that and find where you’re at and just be accountable to where you want to be, Micheal, don’t get pulled into what we’re doing in this program.

Mike:  I appreciate it. I definitely feel owned by my time, for sure.

Barry:  Awesome man, thanks so much. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate. We all came here to perform. We’re taking this ten weeks to shower ourselves with new strategies, new mindsets around business, and I appreciate you’re just taking it in. Grab the stuff, we make it available on MP3. You can put it on your phone and just listen to the stuff. You don’t need to see everything. You know what my big bald head looks like.

Mike:  Actually I download the transcript to read while I was in the mountains last weekend on week four.

Barry:  Wow! That’s cool. That’s neat to know that was happening up in the mountains.

I can make one more person live. Let’s see if they have their thing live here. There’s another request. Let me invite Benjamin in, Alumni, he’s definitely come so far in this world and maybe add something else in. Good, I’m glad you got it to work, Michael. That’s the first time I tried adding a guest as a presenter in this system and it worked. Let me see if I need to kick you out. I’m going to kick you back to..

Yeah if someone else wants to speak up, head in, I’m happy to make you live here.

I want to let you guys know the replays will be up. The homework will be up on plan. I’m going to be stepping out on a family camping trip, leaving right after this, going Thursday, Friday, I’ll be back Friday night. I’ll be back in the group.

There is help in the group. Note that I have to take vacations. You guys have to too. I’m going to step up and be 100% off grid for a couple of days here. Something that I have to do to recharge with my family. Good. Benjamin came live. What are you up to man? This guy was from ShowBiz Bluepring group one, so what do you have to say about overwhelm?

Benjamin:  Oh, overwhelm, well there’s a second stage of overwhelm that I wanted to run a thought past you. So there’s so much feedback that comes in after these big shows because of the convention, they actually use feedback forms and you find out, if there’s 300 people there, there’s 15 people who are pounding on something that can give you some really great ideas for your show.

One of the things that is overwhelm for me is, one of the first mega shows that I did was a standing ovation. Some of them, as I tried different mixes of my program. Like a version that flew on an airplane, versus one in a truck, got good responses. So emotionally I’m a little overwhelmed in getting back in and pushing the marketing again and trusting in the show.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I really need to bring the full package if they want to book for something smaller than it’s not going to be a good fit, and I’m not going to look like a great magician. So the overwhelm is getting back in after receiving amazing feedback and feedback that was a little less stellar when I didn’t bring the whole thing and how that short of shook me and sort of pushed me back a little bit.

Barry:  You know what sounds important to you Benjamin and other people I’m sure can relate to this, is that the important of outsourcing, of not doing everything yourself, of you focusing on the area of you found that the stage magic and the bigger show needs to be a part of it. What does it take to make that happen? What does it take to make that be financially viable and not trying to handle everything yourself?

I know from watching you for years, you’re very into the nuts and bolts of your business and how it works and touching every piece of it. I’ve learned as things have grown in my world that I can’t. I love going into the back area of my 30 Days Sugar Free website and seeing the admin done. Seeing blog posts that I didn’t write on my blog. It becomes important for us to be the person on stage, to shine brightly. It comes down to time management again.