Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
I’m well aware of the fact that I’m not the greatest technical juggler the world has ever seen. A very long time ago I lost interest in ever trying to become the world’s greatest technical juggler because I realized that my gift was not in what I do but the relationship I’m able to build with my audience. I was reminded of this again when I was up in Yellowknife over the weekend when I was told by one observer who enjoyed the show that it wasn’t necessarily what I did that made the show so engaging, it’s how I made people feel during the show what made it a success. Well thank goodness for that.
Success in business is all about skillful relationship building and building a relationship requires a certain commitment of time. On a number of occasions I’ve used three juggling balls and the time it takes to teach someone to juggle as a part of this equation. In fact, when I order the red and yellow bean bags that I use in my show, I usually order dozen’s of them so I’ve got a good supply that I can give away in the months to come.
Giving someone a piece of swag is one thing, but investing the time to teach them something new, something that is very much related to you (in my case juggling) and then giving the supplies away as part of the exchange will leave a lasting impression. How you make people feel in the process of teaching them this new skill will also have an effect on how well you’re remembered.
My friend, Shawn Farquhar, is a great magician who’s appeared on national TV and performs to standing ovations on cruise ships on a regular basis… He makes a point of carrying a slew of ‘Svengali Decks‘ with him as give aways to his technical crew and to just about anyone else he wants to leave a good impression on. The Svengali Deck is a classic ‘trick deck‘ that with minimal effort allows the user to execute a really powerful magic effect. Shawn loves to give these away because he loves to share his passion for magic, but also provide a trick that people are going to have success with quickly. That way, when the recipient of the deck does the trick for his friends and looks like a hero, Shawn, by association becomes a bigger hero for having provided the trick in the first place.
Juggling balls, Svengali Decks, or what ever… It doesn’t really matter what it is that you use, but if you’re successfully able to pull a ‘bit’ out of your show and put it in the hands of the people you work with or better yet, the people you want to work with, you’ll look like a hero and it’s not a hard equation to figure out who a client is going to hire… The guy who looks like a hero, makes an extra effort and makes people feel good or an unknown who’s only made enough effort to send in a promotional kid. Sometimes growing business relationships requires just a little bit of extra effort.
