Magician

Hiring a magician will always be a popular choice for children’s parties and other such events. Magic certainly isn’t the first choice of entertainment for adults but street magicians such as David Blaine are changing that in a big way. If you enjoy the theatrical side of life and revel in learning a new skill daily then becoming a magician might be the work at home career for you. This business doesn’t require much in the way of start-up capital and delivers everyday job satisfaction.

Before The Start-Up, Let’s Not Get Ahead Of Ourselves

No formal qualifications are required to become a magician. If you’re new to the game you have two options to get started. Either get formal training at your local college, or alternatively buy books on the subject and train yourself. If you have the time and capital to spare we recommend creating a solid skill foundation by taking a course. If however you are short on both time and capital then the do-it-yourself route is the way to go.

The Start-Up

Whether you are searching for a college or books to teach yourself, the Internet is the best place to get started. If there is more than one magic course offered in your area do some careful research before making a decision. Books will be far easier to shop for than courses, head over to Amazon for a wide selection. Remember that you have the option of searching by highest review or most purchases. Each filter will give you slightly different results; try finding books that rank highly in both searches.

Once you’ve got some tricks under your belt it’s time to start practicing for real. Perform for free at friends and families birthday parties, functions and even on the street. Performing for free will allow you to develop your skills in a relatively stress free environment. The only penalty for getting things wrong will be your pride! In many situations you’ll find that people will let you know when you are good enough to start charging. Look out for comments like “are you sure we can’t pay you anything”, “do you have a business card I can take” and the most obvious “that was great, you really should start charging”.

Research the local competition before drawing up your price structure. Standard rates average around $50 (USD) for a two hour children’s party and $300 (USD) for a two hour adult’s party.

Making It Work

Appearances are everything in this industry; a borrowed cape from your nephew and a magic kit from the kids store aren’t going to impress anyone. Invest in a great costume and exciting props.

Marketing

The entertainment industry is ideal for networking. Spend time seeking out and creating relationships with businesses in the same space as you. If for instance you specialize in children’s birthday parties then party planners, cake decorators, party stores and other entertainers such as clowns and musicians spring to mind. Help the referral process along by making sure you leave every client with a business card and great experience to remember.

Advertise your services the old school way in local newspaper classifieds, the Yellow Pages if you can afford it and on bulletin boards. Ask clients where they heard about you; use this information to target the most effective advertising medium.

Advertise your services online by having a one to four page site developed. Make sure it’s simple, elegant and contains a list of your services, testimonials and several images from events you’ve worked at. Drive traffic to your website by learning to run a pay per click (PPC) campaign. Google Adwords is the easiest and most widely used PPC service; we recommend Perry Marshall’s The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords to get started. With PPC its possible to target ads at a tiny geographical area such as your suburb, making it the ideal advertising tool for a tiny home business.

Don’t Forget

Don’t forget to budget for advertising costs when drawing up your business plan. As you become more established, referrals and word of mouth marketing will account for some new business but it is unlikely you will be able to stop advertising all together.