It's really similar to a lot of, you know, what our listeners would be would experience, right? Yes, they've got some leadership, you know that they might running a sales territory, but they're the CEO of the territory, they've got to own what the output is for themselves, you know, each each week each month, then and similarly, while it may not be the pressure of, hey, I've gone broke, but I've got definitely got the pressure of, I'm expected to produce these types of Numbers, week in, week out, month in month out. And if I'm not, if I'm not achieving those, the organisation needs to look at at your own role and say, hey, look, is this the right solution for you as the black roll I went totally virtual in a couple of ways. So I mean, first of all, just because we've got a pandemic doesn't mean that people don't still leave events, but it had to go virtual. Now, how does that translate for someone like an illusionist? Yeah, look, I think that the first big thing that Sam has identified there is he is a service, right? He's got a he's got a product to offer. It's a service. And I think what's really interesting is very early on, he realised he can't do it by himself. So bring in the experts, people that know, things that he you know, he's obviously a master illusionist. He's got excellent business savvy, he knows what he wants to do. The three P's a lot of passion. But he can't do it all by itself. And I think the other big one is, you know, doing it for 20 years, you evolve the product that you or the way you sell your product. When you first start out, it's quite different. And I think as you've evolved, Samuel, you're focused on corporate clients. That's a very different dance into in terms of how you get the introduction and how you build rapport, how you understand what they want, and then ultimately delivering a service. Welcome to growth pulse b2b sales podcast, we take a deep dive in the world of business to business sales, and how businesses can get the most out of their investment in salespeople, sell systems and processes, the lifeblood of any thriving organisation. Join us as we explore a range of topics as well as speak to some of the industry's thought leaders, vendors success stories. People have just won and failed on their journey in business and sales. Before we get started, please do us a huge favour and click subscribe follow alike wherever you're watching or listening to us. Also, please drop us a comment that you're subscribed. We'd love to get to know our audience. Welcome, everybody to the latest edition of growth pulse, the b2b sales Podcast. I'm one of your host, Dan Bartels, and I'm here with my co host, Simon, how are you, mate? I'm very well, thanks, Dan. I'm really excited about today's show, it's going to be a really interesting journey into a different way that you need to think about selling. Yeah, I think this is, you know, so we've we've got Sam powers, one of Australia's leading losers as the world's leading illusionist, on, you know, five time magician of the Year award winner, global sensation. He's been on, you know, Australia's Got Talent. And a whole host of other shows. He's, he's run sort of 400 plus nights at a casino in Vegas and all these different aspects of, of, you know, when you think about, you know, people have these other careers, but sitting behind it, it's all about sales. You know, you can't go and wow audiences in 21 different countries, if you haven't fundamentally learned how to sell a product and, and sell an experience to people. So I'm really excited to to have this conversation with Sam and get an idea behind how great artists actually look at selling selling themselves, but also selling the, the the experience that we have, but then also having those commercial conversations. Well, I think that's a really intriguing piece for me to talk about. What about you? So I'm What are you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to it. Look, there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes before the show goes on. Right? And we know this from selling software, there's an enormous amount of preparation, know who's looking at your product, know why they're interested, know, you know, know what's motivating them to get interested in what you've got to sell. And when you know, when you go live in the software world, it's that's the show, but I think there's a lot of similarities and parallels to entertainment and, you know, bringing together a whole bunch of different stakeholders around the vision. You've gone. It's going to be awesome. Yeah, absolutely. So let's bring Sam into the show. Sam. Mike, welcome. Thanks for joining the podcast boys dance. I'm good to see you both. Yeah. Hey, Sam. Mate. This is one of the most interesting conversations that we've had on the podcast so far. You're a master illusionist. Is that correct? You put it that way you call yourself an illusionist to get paid 20% More otherwise. Magicians kind of like next level down so well, just in that just in that concept. I think that's a really interesting piece to drill into right? Just for a moment like how do you position yourself in your career or your company, your brand I mean, I've we've seen so many different things in our career, inside and out. asks career around around sales and and sometimes just those really finite language pieces are really crucial and critical around. What do you do to get the right messaging of what you're going to deliver to people? Is that something you spent a whole heap of time thinking about? or the or the industry thinks about? Or definitely, I think it's more so like, Well, for starters, and illusionist is like a magician, but on a bigger scale, so it's kind of like it's sort of a grand scale version of a magician, but more specifically, when we're looking at niches that we're working in, I've got to be like, I got to target niches. So in the corporate market, I'm a corporate entertainment specialist, you know, because someone has booked me for a MP Christmas party for 800 guests, they want to know that this is what I do. I specialise in this and that's my target niche that I'm the best at. And but if I'm doing something else, for example, you know, like weddings, which I don't do many of anymore, but like I would say, Yes, Sam Powell is the the magic, you know, wedding specialist, you know what I mean? So each within each nation looks like you're a specialist in that field, but the corporate market is certainly one of my biggest sectors where I do a lot of work in that field. Well, I think it's probably worthwhile giving everybody a bit of a flavour of the work that you do. So we're going to check up on the screen now and watch a bit of your your show reel and I know some of the I know you've got a brand new point. You've got a brand new show coming out. Do you want to tell us a bit about that? Put the show up. Yeah, definitely. So it's a big production show called Club Vegas, the show starting in Melbourne on September one at the Athenian theatre. Then we head up to the star on Gold Coast. It's basically a huge Las Vegas style production show we were aerialist with dancers vocalist and of course myself so yeah, it's gonna be fun. Man that's exciting. Let's let's check the show up and give everyone a view of this phenomenon. I love magic that was sick. Well, his magic trick left his school teachers spellbound at just five years of age and ever since master illusionist Sam powers has been perfecting his extraordinary talents with the results to prove it his conjured up five magician of the Year awards. Now he's set to star alongside six of the industry's greatest illusionists on stage for the biggest magic show on the planet the illusionists 2.0. World tour. My god oh, what's the gig? I'd like people disappear can help with showing off. Love it might look, you've spent an entire career. I mean, we've been we've been worked school together, right. So it's sort of a background knowledge. And it's been it's been an entire career, building out a business, a career as an illusionist. And you know, it's not it's an organisation, it's a business. It's not just a pastime. So tell us a bit about how you think about building a business and selling you know, selling your product selling your services. How do you think about that when you've got this this product, this experience delivery sitting around what you do? Definitely, look, it all starts with the dream at the very beginning. So like I didn't start out with 12 tonnes worth of gear in three warehouses, you know, and, you know, 27 crew, it started out, you know, that was the dream. So I began doing a lot of kids birthday parties and smaller kind of close up magic gigs at restaurants, things like that. So eventually build the big international Sam powers brand where I can be, you know, touring on the world's biggest stages and working at the largest corporate events in the world and for the biggest celebrities in the world. And so that's just you know, you got to you got to build that out. You got to get a lot of TV exposure to all the morning shows all the talent shows and you know, and then hit the press and so I got my first publicist when I was 23 years old, and you know, just did the Footy Show and anything I could do to eventually build that brand and then disperse it into different sectors of the market. So when you think about all the brand, the brand building that you've done for your business and how you've built it over shows over time, it's a little bit like lead gen. This is about how do you build the either the, the organisations or the individuals who want to look at the show, is that really how you think about it as a, as a as an artist, but also as a CEO of your company? Or certainly, I mean, when we were talking about lead gentlemen, you know, it's a little bit different to how you would normally perceive it in a different business. I mean, I'm a servant of some essentially providing an experience and also memories. And so my lead gen really is getting out there in front of people, whether it's on TV or on social media, and they thought through inquiries through the ups and powers that they'd be wills and powers as a website that comes through. And so, you know, it's about converting, and they would not be inquiring about, you know, can you perform at my, you know, Telstra, you know, Awards Gala nights, or, you know, my husband's 40th birthday party, or there might be a big tour that's coming up, like, you know, what we can slot Sam powers into this massive tour, that's kind of how that works. We've also got a sales team that reached out with it, I supply the warm to hot leads, and then they cold call out, and we you know, what's coming up for your next event, and what to do last year, and that kind of stuff. So it all kind of works in a very similar way, but just providing a different offering to the market. Yeah, that's, that's an amazing insight that I've never really thought about for, you know, artists like yourself that like you've got a sales team. You know, you've you've got warm leads that you need to foster and manage. And you really need to learn how to how to run that engagement sales. So So let's talk a little bit bit about that as an idea. So I mean, I know when you started off, you probably were definitely not thinking about being a salesperson or running a sales team. As part of being an illusionist, how did that kind of evolution of in your business come about? It all started in the very beginning, like I mentioned before, I was doing kids birthday parties, you know, I started doing that when I was 14. And so you know, I was one of the first guys, I need to have a mobile phone when I was like 15 years of age, you know, it was all brand new back then. And in between classes, I'd go to my locker and check my voicemail. And I would have to call back these clients and understand that, like, I'm not just describing what my show is, I am selling this as a service as an experience to them. And identifying you know why I'm the best guy for the job. So it just started out with like, like, literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those phone calls. And then realising I'm actually a sales guy, like, this is what I'm doing. I'm not just a magician anymore, I got into this for the rabbits and card tricks. But now I'm this like, complete sales guy. And then, you know, fast forward, you know, 20 years now, I'm now running a company with 27 staff and contractors doing 400 shows a year at a casino. And I've got a marketing team, I've got sales reps on the road, I've got 180 tour operators, and you know, and we, it's there's just a massive machine behind this to basically put bums on seats at a show that people are, you know, paying paying money forward to experience something they're going to remember. Yeah, I mean, I think that's an insight I'm gonna hit some stats is this is the other day around, like Taylor Swift in particular. Hey, make sure you never thought you'd be you'd be spoken about in the same breath as Taylor Swift. But it's a credit to the work you've done. Right? But when she's making $14 million per show, profit. And when you think about that, the organisation has to go around that the ticket sales, the corporate sales, the engagements, the partnerships, the modelling to make that work. Yeah, as you went into building that massive engagement from with a casino, how did you go about thinking about the go to market and a lot of our listeners, you know, they're either in startups, or they're landing companies into into region in particular, that maybe they've got a North American parent, and they're growing an organisation here and building those partnerships, and, and those early engagements are critical lessons for them. So how did you go about thinking from an almost standing start? How do I build this organisation to sell this to a much bigger, much bigger partner? Yeah, I mean, again, it all starts with this, you know, massive dream and this relentless pursuit to achieve it, right? And it's like the three P's passion, preparation and persistence. And, you know, and so I figured, well, I don't know all the answers. So let's team up and partner with people that do know the answers, you know, so I would form a business partner that was able to, you know, help pitch to investors and sponsors and this particular show contract which was five years and 2000 shows. Now we had to find an investor for a quarter million dollars to sponsors which we found channel 10 and hot FM radio to advertise the product on TV. Radio, and then you know, and let's build the machine up to this point where, you know, I had to wake up every Monday morning, and realise that if I did not make$20,000 that week, I would go broke. So that a $20,000 breakeven each week for that show. And, but we nailed it. And you know, like, we actually went broke in the first year to be honest. And we're like, okay, how do we fix this? What do we do when we go wrong, and then reformulated the model, and then we killed it, you know, so like, I turned over my first million dollar a year as a 28 year old board of lettuce exceed supercharged and I was like, this is cool. And this is not from just being a magician, this is me having a very hands on role in the business and the sales process and the marketing process, the graphic design, and the brochures, the posters, the billboards, everything was very, very much hands on, because I've never had independent management before I've always run the business myself or with business partners, and has been very hands on with that process. It's really similar to a lot of, you know, what our listeners would be would experience, right? Yes, they've got some leadership, you know, that they might running a sales territory, but they're the CEO of the territory, they've got to own what the output is for themselves, you know, each each week, each month, then and you know, similarly, while it may not be the pressure of, hey, I've gone broke, but I've got definitely got the pressure of I'm expected to produce these types of numbers week in, week out, month in month out. And if I'm not, if I'm not achieving those, the organisation needs to look at at your own role and say, hey, look, is this the right solution for you? Is that the right role? Can we continue in it continue to invest? You probably don't have the same imperative of any small business owner, which is, I'm not sure if I can pay all the wages on Friday. Unless you've been a small business owner, you can't you kind of don't have that experience. But it really is that that driver behind running, running your own organisation of that size. So as you evolved your business over the last sort of, you know, couple of months and years, etc. What are the things that you focus on most as being a business owner and a, in a in the sales function of your business? How do you think about it? Well, I guess the other thing to consider as well is that as I grow and evolve, you know, I need to evolve with the show. So you know, like, I'm now in my 40s. And, you know, it's a very physical job that I have jumping out of boxes, jumping off cranes, and, you know, being on stage with dances. And so you need to kind of evolve in a way that your product offering suits, where, where you are and what you are, to then for example, in the corporate market, so my shift is now to a lot more of the corporate market. It's less gruelling than touring and doing, you know, different city every night. And so you know, so now we I've got a team that that specifically, target corporate clients that have done big events before that may not have, you know, look at the idea of an illusionist, also moving into the field of emcee work as well. So not only can I do the feature show, I can emcee the entire event. And that's a relatively new thing, oh, with the past, more of a pandemic thing that I've done as well, because 100 out of 100, corporate events need an emcee. But only about one out of 100 events would think about the idea of having an illusionist as entertainment. So now we're just getting a bigger piece of the pie in evolving into that space, as I'm kind of progressing through the years, if that makes sense. The similarities between sort of what you were what you think about and, you know, how do you look at different services are actually in so many different organisations today? You know, Simon, you know, we've been through the process of having big customers in the fleet, thinking about how do we add new products to them? I mean, that in our past might we had, you know, ERP clients, and then we would think about adding CRM to them, or how do we add PSA, etc. And, you know, in that story that Sam was just talking about, which is how does he look out for these big corporate clients, I can sell them show where I can start to sell them at a much bigger ongoing service and relationship. I think there's some some real gold there to think about, how do we learn from everybody else? What are your thoughts? Yeah, look, I think that the first big thing that Sam's identified there is he is a service, right? He's got a he's got a product to offer. It's a service. And I think what's really interesting is very early on, he realised he can't do it by himself. So bring in the experts, people that know, things that he you know, he's obviously a master illusionist. He's got excellent business savvy, he knows what he wants to do. The three P's a lot of passion. But you can't do it all by yourself. And I think the other big one is, you know, doing it for 20 years, you evolve. The product that you or the way you sell your product, when you first start out is quite different. And I think as you've evolved, Sam, you're you're focused on corporate clients. That's a very different dance into in terms of how you get the introduction, how you build rapport, how you understand what they want, and then ultimately delivering a service that delights and gets them to talk about you and speaks you say versus on to other corporate clients. But I think know your you mentioned sort of going into that MCP. So I think a lot of a lot of similarities there. Because I think, as you mentioned, not too many corporates wake up in the morning and say I need an illusionist, but 100% of them needed MC See, you've actually identified precisely the product they're looking for. But your expertise is slightly adjacent to that. So you've you've actually put the two together and come up with a much better outcome for your for your corporate clients. And I think, quite interestingly, that once they see you MC, they think fantastic. But once they see the show, and the illusionist show that goes alongside it, that it probably blowing their mind. So it's, it's really an interesting, parallel, because I think, you know, I see salespeople every day that walk in and just try and sell one SKU, and they get themselves really caught up in the skew, they're trying to sell big differences, look at the customer understand what it is that they need, you've probably got a number of services underneath that, that a you're able to deliver, but look at it through their eyes, understand they need an emcee that's going to entertain the audience. And what are the value add services, if you've got that you can wrap into it. Even though predominantly early on, you might have thought your core business was illusionist, well, what gets you that gig is being able to talk about a broader picture. So it's really an interesting, parallel, for sure. Definitely. And look, and it's a relationships business as well, the more they use go on, the more I realise it is it is such a relationships business. And when people know like and trust you and know that you deliver, like, every time that's especially in that corporate market, just get booked year and year again, you know, and so you can be the best at what you do in the world. But if you suck at nurturing a relationship, you're just not going to come back. And so for me, there's been a really big learning curve over the years. I started this 27 years ago, thinking, Yep, I'll just be the best everyone's going to book me doesn't matter. You got it. It's building and nurturing relationships during the whole process as well. Yeah. Hey, Dan, how many sales guys Have you seen that say they're the best, and they expect to sell all the software? All the time. And I think that's, that's a really common piece of, you know, salespeople move between different roles and organisations, you know, you see, one CEO has built a company, and then he sold it a couple of years later, he's got to start again. And that's what they do through their career and some work and some won't. And I think it's always interesting watching someone who's had a company for a long period of time, and how they've really built that, you know, we talked about it being a go to market, you know, how do you kind of evolve what the market needs. And I know, Sam, it must have been, the last couple of years must have been really tough for you being a face to face sort of experiential entertainer, having to change and shut down your business and then kind of restart them again. I know, for a lot of the entertainment world, that was a really tough period. So kind of how did you think about that problem, and I think the insight I want to find for our listeners is, you know, things happen and change in your organisation. And you know, whether you building your product, or there's a new constraint or a new competitor or a new environment, like how do you approach that? And how do you think about your organisation? How did you go about that time, that time period, we've all overused the word pivot. Right. But in terms of what I did, it wasn't just a pivot, it was a full ballerina extravaganza, you know, like, we I went totally virtual in a couple of ways. So I mean, first of all, just because we've got a pandemic doesn't mean that people don't still need events, but it had to go virtual. Now, how does that translate for someone like an illusionist actually translates really well, because when I'm doing promo for tours, I'm entertaining through a TV screen to my audience. And it's pretty much just like that. And because we can now talk to the audience through a screen through zoom, or whatever it seems. Now we have interaction. And so that actually worked really well for me, obviously, not as fun as being live and on a stage. But in terms of, you know, doing virtual shows, that worked really well. It's funny now, because we have what's called hybrid events. And so they would have part of the event live and part everyone's going on Zoom. So I now have a full kind of like recording studio with green screens and everything where I would go and do these virtual shows. And I've got, you know, the auto queue that rolls up just like on channel nine studios, and we have big production. And so even to this day, we still have some hybrid events, we go there and do it. And, you know, it's kind of an extra string to add to your bow in terms of your product offering. And that's what we did. We also did this massive, huge online competition called Cyber magic superstar, the world's biggest online magic competition, where we immediately went into this thing where we At three of the world's best magicians that were on a judging panel, we had a $10,000 cash prize. And we had like hundreds and hundreds of magicians from all around the world enter by putting like a 92nd video in, in the hope to win these prizes. We interviewed Facebook Live magicians every single day of some of the world's best magicians. And that was like a, I was working 20 hours a day, seven days a week for four months on that project. It says an instant pivot, and also raising money for charity. At the same time, all the money we raised went into, get PPE for the frontline workers. And so yeah, that was like an instant pivot because it's either that or sit around twiddling your thumbs, driving a truck loading the loading shows in the supermarket, which a lot of people had to do in my industry. So yeah, that was a massive pivot for us. I think it's, again, the insight here is things happen to your industry like that, can the conditions change? I mean, if I think about, you know, Simon and I, predominantly from the technology, space, right, AI has changed the way that all of our customers talk and think about software, you know, if there isn't a flavour of AI in that, you know, am I going to invest in that moving forward? Now, you may not have that currently in your your kitbag, but the organisation needs to evolve into that space and understand how to sell houses, how your customers changed, explain how the expectations changed, what's happening from their world that is going to influence what you can deliver to them. Because the reality was, you could still choose to go out there and try and be try and be an illusionist face to face. Just no one was buying that. So if they're not buying that, how do you change the product set? How do you change the mix? One of the other pieces, I think would is is interesting on for me to understanding in your space, you've performed all over the world I mentioned before, I think it's 21 countries, you've performed it. Yep. Is that right? Yep. How did how did the different? How did the experience in different countries translate? Do you have to think about kind of sort of any any regional law or experiential changes per country or per region? Is that? Is that a thing that's relevant? Oh, absolutely. And before I jump onto that, I want to rewind one little baby step to the AI AI for my business absolutely incredible. When we're developing show pitches that need production shows, a I can speak into it, it will generate images, ideas to paint the picture of the show. I would say write me a show description to describe a death defying show with limitations and escape, you'll write this most incredible thing. And all of a sudden, what would normally take probably 10 hours to pull a deck together, it takes me two. And so productivity just goes straight up. That's the AI thing. So jump back onto that. In terms of regions and stuff like that. There's a big show called The Illusionist is the biggest touring Magic Show on Earth have sold more tickets in Broadway history than any other magic show. And we've travelled all different types of countries, Asia, for example, that is love magic, they go nuts. But places like Saudi, they believe in black magic. And it's a big conspiracy for them that would toying with the dark arts. And we have protesters outside theatre, protesting against the show, because we're in league with the devil and all these crazy things are different cultures. Certainly, when it comes to magic, you know, even when I was working in the United States, there were some jokes and some lines and some words that I had to change because they were offensive to or not understood by, you know, American audiences. So they just gotta blend and adapt, understand where you are, what the culture is, and, and things like that, for example, Americans, they've got Kmart over there, but they don't know what that means. Let's just say Kmart. And then he's got to change a couple of words around. So they go, Oh, that's what he means, because we're talking gibberish otherwise. So things like that. Simon and I have sold for almost 20 years selling American software, or you sell German software as well. So I'm an into the Australian marketplace. And one of the things that we harp on about to our colleagues overseas on such a regular basis is there's a, we normally use the term localization, but I think it's a, it's a translation, or it's an evolution of what you're, you're pitching your product and your go to market is. And it's so when I hear talk, as you're mentioning in that cultural aspect of black magic versus, you know, fundamental understandings in a community. It's exactly what we see, in every single engagement we've had in our world. So I want to agree. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I think you're right, we call it localization, but it's, it's the art of understanding your audience. And I think quite often you don't see that spelt out. But you know, us being Australians working for American companies, we and we understand Americans probably way better than they understand us. So puts us in a fairly unique position because I think we're obviously bombarded with a lot of American culture. So we kind of know Kimora. We know those sorts of things, but flip it in reverse. So I think it's incumbent on certainly Australian selling to American software in Australia to actually understand the differences and the nuances. And that's the art of it. I think we often talk about the art and the science of selling. I, Sam visited some enormous parallels that you've just highlighted. We've talked about the, you know, The Art of Illusion. I'm curious about the science of illusion. Is there a particular science that you go, I mean, there's, I'm not asking you to break any secrets, etc. But I do clearly is two parts of what you do, right. And, you know, I know as a salesperson is the art of my presentation, there's the art of the spelling out why my customer needs it. But then underlying that this the science and the diligence of putting it all together, knowing that sales is a lot about psychology, how do I put these pieces together and get the right outcome? How do you think about the science and the art of it, of what you do? This, firstly, on the science of like magic and science, so basically, magic and illusion always has to be one step ahead of science. So for example, if we rewound the clock, 50 years, and then whip down an iPad, people would think we're a witch, like, what is this? You know, is this what is magical device, you know? And so, you think of it that way. So basically, you know, magic is always one step ahead of science, because science is always, like, blows us away, to magic needs to keep on evolving in that respect. And there's a lot of science behind magic. It's a bit of a weird thing. People ask me, like, how do you come up with new illusions of magic, and it's, I always bring it back to when you're a musician, and you can write music. When you get good at playing the instrument, you can now learn how to write the music and create your own music is the same thing with magic, but a completely different way. So I've kind of answered your question that says to the science in terms of the science of how to like, then sell a product, sell an experience, you know, like, I always thought, well, it's the best magic show. Well, that's how we sell it. You're selling memories. You're so you're making your your events and unforgettable success you're selling. That not the actual show itself, the show goes without saying. And so, essentially, yeah, so we are we are in the business of selling unforgettable memories for various events. That's when we're talking corporate that's really, in terms of a live show. What are we selling where people want to feel something? Why do we go to a rock concert? Why do we go to a movie, like we want to feel the emotions, the happiness, the sadness, the joy, the laughter, you know? Now traditionally, magicians and illusionists can only evoke one emotion. And that's wonder, you know, so but when you know how to be a storyteller, and evoke all the emotions, you have better success as an entertainer. That's why guys like David Copperfield are doing so well. He's earning 70 million US dollars a year still doing 648 shows a year, and you're watching his show, you got grown men in the front row crying, because David is flying through the air and mining them of their dreams of flying as a child. And that's completely suspending their disbelief and going back to their childhood when everything was magic. And for someone, you know, like, like us, we've got all the stress and worries of life and business and everything, just to have that removed for that short amount of time is just absolute pure wonder, which is just perfection. Outstanding. And it's really interesting, because I think, now I think about sales as it's the art of psychology. So understanding what's motivating the person you're selling to understand what excites them, what wowed them what. And I think once you've got that emotional hook, in a sale, you're three quarters of the way there you obviously got to have a good product to sell. But there must be a hell of a lot of psychology going around in terms of how you design your shows and how you sell sell the experience because I mean, it's all about people's inner desires, what they really want, what they're not necessarily willing to tell you, but you eat that out and you you come up with a message and a delivery in a show that really piques them at a at a deep psychological level. Oh, absolutely. You know, and what I find equally as fascinating back to the pivot on the pandemic, I also went straight to uni because I always thought what would happen if I got a marketing degree? So I went straight to Sydney University enrolled in commerce majoring in marketing, I've got two years through a marketing degree and pulling up the bonnet seamoth underneath there blew my mind. I thought marketing was just selling and like there is a whole world there to learn about. And so I've had to put the degree on hold because all the shows are back but for me just understanding that process two years into a hardcore marketing degree was just so fascinating because I love knowing how things work like that. Psychology, you know your customer avatar? What? What makes them make decisions? What are the emotional triggers? To make them buy something? And how do you fulfil their needs and the machine behind that? It's just like, really, for me, that's mind blowing. You know, for everyone else, the magic I do is mind blowing. That's just boring for me. But this stuff here is really what fascinates me a lot. So yeah, it's very interesting to think sand. The the, the bit that intrigued me about coming to talk to you about about what you do, is, in the software space that we've been in for a long time, sort of the the, the ultimate model is when you sign a long term subscription customer, and we talk about it in terms of, I might have signed a, you know, a multi year deal with someone and then are they going to renew and keep that that piece going. And I think it's, when you're an artist, you you really try and build a product once I mean, even though you would go and do a show many, many times, you know, that show is repeated, and you refine it and you refine it, but it is the delivery of that one show, but you're also capturing the attention and the aspirations of of your customer base. And hopefully you can capture at once and then they become a repeat customer of yours many, many, many times. You know, they watch you online, they they turn into your shows, they buy multiple tickets, they tell others about it. And in the in the business business, the business world, like that's exactly what we're trying to do all the time. And I've always been intrigued by artists, you know, I think musicians are probably the one that you see most often hear most often. They make you know that they write that that piece of music once, but it's sold, and it's subscribed to now, especially in the streaming world. It's subscribed and replayed by by their best customers, again and again. And again. I mean, in my car, I hate to say it my daughter's a huge Taylor Swift Fan. I reckon I'm paying more money to Taylor Swift and most people in the country right now. But it's happening. She's you know, that that piece of how do I get that that regular engagement and revenue from a core customer base is central to what artists try to achieve over a long period of time? How did you get in the space of being a an illusionist, who is predominantly looking at stage shows? How do you think about kind of that problem? And, and that that recurring revenue piece or ongoing revenue piece from your customers? How do you think about it? It's funny, you bring that up, because, you know, many years ago, I was hired to do a girl's 18th birthday party in Melbourne. Now there's probably 100 magicians in Melbourne, but the pero TV, you know, put me in front of them. And I got hired to do a team three years later and buy those beautiful big mansions like a house in the Hollywood Hills, it was ridiculous. And, and it's one of those wild parties. Three years later, I get a phone call from the same client. Oh, hi, she's turning 21 We'd love to have you back. And so I got booked for her 21st. And you know, obviously, that relationship was there. And I always follow up with the client afterwards, make sure they're happy and all that fast forward 10 years, I get another phone call. Oh, it's her 30th I would love to fly you back. So I flew down to Melbourne for this goes 18th to 21st. And the 30th. And, you know, that's just one of many stories I have about clients who just know that, like when they know that you care. It's not just about delivering the product or service, you really have that relationship. And yeah, they could have chosen one of 100 other magicians in Melbourne, without having to fly them and accommodate them and pay the transfers and all that kind of stuff. But that really does mean a lot to me to know that the client thinks enough of me and the relationships I've built with them and what I've delivered to put me three in a row for 13 years for three events. So plenty of stories like that, for sure. So Sam, tell me as you evolve, have you started planning her? 50s? Yeah. I think is gonna be the 40s next, and if it didn't bother, I think I'll be doing doing magic with a cane and walking sticks. But I hope I get a call for a 40 That'd be awesome. Yeah, yeah, no, we'll be good, beautiful. So it is a big part of you know, how does anyone build whether it's, you know, a software sales career, whether it's a small business, you know, how do you build those long term customers? You know, I was doing some some consulting in the last couple of weeks with a small design design company. And, you know, a big insight for them was I had got this amazing list of existing customers. But so many of their engagements were focused on just the first one and what they've, you know, shifted their viewpoint is how do we look at that existing customer base and work out, same as you were doing about okay, now I've got an existing customer. I've had run a show for them, but hold on, can I do many, many other events for them? How do I expand my offerings? That's exactly what they're looking at in terms of how do they expand their offerings? How do they have a larger conversation with those customers who already trust them? And I think that's inherent in any really strong business has been around for a while. They they really care about the outcomes and the welfare of their customers, and then they focus on how else can I provide new experiences, new services that that hit your outcomes? I mean, when you build your shows, and someone sort of asked a similar question before, maybe I know when I buy from artists, like I've been to a couple of great, great concerts in the last few few years, and I have to call out the Elton John show, my daughter and I are huge Elton John fans, and we were one of my one of her lullabies, as a kid was your song right now submit to around 10,000 times that experience for us as going to see, you know, see his show, I pay a ridiculous amount of money to set up the front. And because that was so emotive for me. How do you think about building that emotive piece into your shows? Or how do you think about marketing and selling that to your customers? Well, again, it's funny you mentioned that too, because I did a gig at the multimillion dollar Packer wedding. And they hired Elton John for their sourcing for their wedding dance. And like $1.1 million, but I stuck around as a guest and I was there you know, Cuban cigars, Elton John had human nature. And notice that's just a side Elton John's story, but I get why you're such a fan. Because yeah, what a legend. Back to your story. Look, I think, you know, how do we build that emotive thing? Yeah, like, I remember, the first really cool car I bought, right? It was because I drove a magic Sam van for 10 years, right from when I was like, 17 to like 26 or something. And it was horrible. But I was like, This is how I started I try taking a girl out on a date in the event anyway. Then I bought my first really cool car and I remember how the sales guy sold it to me. And he put me into the emotional mindset and experience of owning that car he got he identified what I'm going to use the car for. I'm going to tow my three tonne touring van trailer and be driving on the road to gigs instead. Now imagine like you know, you're towing the trailer you on your way there's gigs and he emotionally hooked me in sold me this thing. It wasn't a transactional sale. It was like, he emotionally sold me and made me feel what it was like to own that and envision it was like, sold and I bought that thing. And they really reflect on that because that was a big lesson for me. I've since done tonnes of sales calls like Jordan Belfort and a bunch of guys, and and realising that, yeah, it is an emotional trigger when you're selling to someone. And so for me, I'm selling, you know, that experience. And so when the when the events finished, you know, we get standing ovations nine times out of 10. Imagine the clients come back, you say, hey, you know who, thank you so much for putting on that event, we had such a great time that guy wearing it was amazing. It's not about me, it's about the client, and the memories that they have moved out to create for all the guests that night to make the event a success, we try and approach it from that angle, so that they know they're going to be the hero at the end. And you know, be responsible for such an awesome event, which is pretty much how it goes. I hope that answers your question. Maybe we're kind of into the top of the hour now. And normally, we just ask our guests kind of the key takeaways, but actually want to expand it and give us as a couple. I've learned so much from this conversation. And so I want Simon self and you to kind of share our out of this conversation. What are key takeaways? So I'll let you go first, like out of out of this conversation? What are the what are the key lessons or Takeaways you've got for our audience? Sorry? Well, look, I think, number one, selling is all about the experience of the customer. It has to be. And I think all too often in sales, it's about the salesperson, rather than the outcome that you're delivering for the customer. And I think doesn't matter whether you're selling entertainment software, anything cars I looked at the car sales story is spot on. So the experience of the customer is actually what they're buying, they're not buying the salesperson that's massive listen. Then, over here, I'll share my sort of key lesson out of this, which is you know, I'm I always remind myself how much I can learn from people who are similar, but not exactly the same in what I do. And you know, how do I look at, you know, the the illusionists in my life, the doctors, the teachers, all of them have got an experience with humans with with sales of selling a problem, you know, my wife's a kindergarten teacher, and you know, the things that I learned from her in terms of how she relates to parents in her class who are, you know, looking at issues she's tasked with looking after, you know, the most valuable thing for them, which is the law lives of their of their five year old she's a kindergarten teacher, and she has to sell with sell for them often. Like what is the programme we put your child on? And these things are okay. And the things that I learned from her. I'm consistently surprised by. And I think it's a really important thing that we as salespeople do is we learned from all of those around us. I mean, Sam, what are what are some of the out of this conversation? Or what are the key messages you want to leave out, leave our listeners with it? Sure. I think what Simon identified there is really important as well, because that customer journey from the very beginning to the very end is so crucial every single step of the way. Like even when I when I'm running a ticketed show, I trained my box office staff I said, their first experience of this product is you come into the counter to collect their tickets or buy the tickets explaining what the show is. So then my ashes bringing the audience down into the seats, that is also the next part of the experience than the pre show, you know, what's playing on the on the screens on stage or their experience going to the bar and then the actual show itself, all the way down to the meet and greet that I do after the show signing posters, taking photos, making sure I meet the audience making sure that they care and I'm invested about them. So there are so many parts of that customer journey that are so important you know, even from buying the tickets to the even the the portal to purchase their tickets to their credit cards all has to be part of this entire bigger picture, to give them a really really good experience to make sure that you know they will come back they will do it again and you're really offering them that all ground great experience on every single level across the customer journey. Now I'm blown away. This this conversation has has exceeded my expectations and I hope it has for for all of our listeners. You know Sam, I want to make sure we give you a final plug you've obviously got the new show coming up. You know Sam powers.com that I use for people who want to book you please jump on there and check it out. But you know you're I won't take the the wind out of your sails on your show. We'll give it one more plug before we before we kind of wrap up. Well, that's the ticket show right now. It's called Club Vegas, we're playing in Melbourne at the Athenaeum theatre starting September one, then we're up on the star on the Gold Coast October. I don't quote me now it's the first or second week of October. So you can Google that. But more importantly, we do a whole bunch of types of events, from corporate events to private parties to product launches, to awards nights, everything from mingling close up magic at cocktail parties, where there's no stage or production required to you know, massive big stage shows and you know, packages that come in quite affordable to big extravagant packages. So any event no matter how large or small, that's really what we specialise in, in that corporate space. And yet, you've got the the website, Sam powers.com, that, uh, you love to be there and make it awesome for you guys. Sam Simon, thank you so much for today's session. As I said, it's blown away and my expectations have been completely surpassed. In terms of you know what this conversation would be so it's fantastic. For all of our listeners. Look, please. And if you're watching us on YouTube, please subscribe, like us, check us comment down below if you're listening on Apple or Spotify. Please give us five stars and drop a comment. Share the podcast with your friends. And this is all about how do we share knowledge and making you are better salesperson to helping your organisation Sam Simon, thanks for your time today, everyone. Thanks so much.