Categories
Design the Future

A Storybook Story Featuring the Blog Coalition with Links to 10 of its 60 or So Websites

The Blog Coalition has approximately 60 websites, each of which is updated around every 6 weeks or so. Below is a brief and “Magic” Tale that has sprinkled throughout it 10 links, each of which is connected to a corresponding Blog Coalition site.

The idea behind B.C. blogs is that they have material of interest to various groups of people. Let’s say for example that you were looking for a METHOD HOW to become a mentalist, not as a vocation but just to be able to read people’s minds at parties.

Is there a METHOD HOW to become a mentalist? All we know for certain is that you are not going to get magical powers by watching all of the Harry Potter movies one after another. Though entertaining, it did not exactly provide you with the result you desired.

Maybe Houdini could teach you? You knew that he died on Halloween night in 1926, which is why every year on October 31st magicians hold seances to try to channel Houdini’s spirit. But when you read up on him, what you find out is not good.

Turns out that Harry Houdini, although world famous for being an escape artist and magician, never billed himself as having the powers of mysticism. Quite the opposite. He spent the last years of his life exposing false psychics. He want to believe in real magic but he was able to do the same things with tricks, that these “psychics” did, but they claimed when they did such feats, it was due to their uncanny and magical ability to get in touch with all that is cosmic.

So, then you think to yourself that you will invent mentalism. You could read a book or find a mentor, but you know you are creative and do not think you need help of any kind to create your own mentalism effects. And then you can perform what you invented…No. That’s not it either.

Back to the drawing board to become one who seemingly possesses ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). You live in New York and at your nearby library you saw a performance by the Magic Neighbors troupe in which they made someone float. You think that floating through the air is like floating in water. That theory turns out to be all wet.

You own your own business, so you are an entrepreneur. You think to yourself that you should be able to get magic powers and then become a MagicPreneur. Oops. That did not work either.

Then you recall you had a client who called himself Manhattan Magician. Surely, he could help you, right? Wrong. He is a member of a magic society and took an oath not to reveal secrets.

So as a last resort you went to see Marketer Magician who, in regards to your need to be able to do effects, says that the best METHOD HOW to do that is to go to METHOD HOW.

And so, you did and were given a strategy to achieve what you have a hankering for. Hence, you go online to METHOD HOW and before you know it you are given a strategy to learn the METHOD HOW to do some psychic effects to impress at parties. You realize you should have just contacted METHOD HOW from the start.

And now you can go to parties not just with something on your mind, but the ability to read them!

Categories
U.S. Ageism

Metaphorically Speaking, Even Those Who are “Magicians” at What they Do in their Industry, Do Get Old Like All of Us, so Why Ageism

People in the web industry work very, very hard. It is not easy to become a “magician” at what you do, which is especially the case when you go the design direction. But when you become a top contender in this area, then what? Get a job with an agency? Start your own business? The problem is that there is no hard and fast pathway, and when searching for it anyway, you get hit hard. Maybe for reasons you had learned about, but did not take seriously during your recent education?

Age. You discover there is a lot of competition out there. Especially of those who are younger than you are. You realize that, you, as someone who has been around for a while, you are considered extinct because of advancing in numerals. The numbers that represent how old you are, are used to designate how long you have lived on this earth and sometimes against you. U.S. Ageism is alive and well. It can make you start to question your ability. You realize you are officially an “Old Fogie” sometimes the targeted by the young, thinking it, but not saying it, in the context of things like job interviews, if you even manage to get one.

It is almost as if you are seeking that stamp of approval from from Millennials, or Gen Y. But then things get even worse. It does not stop there. This members of demographic are not the only ones who are gatekeepers who practice U.S. Ageism. The people holding up the green light “U-Turn” sign even includes older members of Gen Z. You realize that not only will you never get a position from them, but you can kiss goodbye even think they’ll call you in for an interview. What would you do if this happened to you and you were a “magician,” magic at what you do?

Categories
Inspiration

Your website is a tool…

Web Design Magician

The name of this site is “Web Design Magician,” and one might think that all we deal with here is the magic of web design. At times admittedly we do, but we are often much more likely to move toward creating material that focuses on instead, selling points that can be utilized to convert someone from being a browser of your site online, then turns into a customer, or at least someone who signs up for your newsletter.

You Can Buy Time with Emails

This brings up a good point with is that you do not have to nail a sale right away. In fact, much of the time you do not. It is said by many in the marketing world that the newsletter subscription is a way that you can get someone who is on the fence, to at least commit to reading your emails weekly.

The Strategy

The strategy thinking behind this is that over a period, they see enough in the benefits and features of your products, as well as trust you more and therefore jump into the deep and makes a purchase. It does happen on occasion.

The Difference Between “Start to Get” and “Fully Get”

The point being made is that all good things take time. Anyway, when it comes to online sales for which you do not have to purchase expensive ads that do not necessarily work anyway.

Third Parties

Start to get and put into motion your own profitable online business marketing and selling eBooks you write yourself which means your books are not available anywhere else except for your sales platform and any third parties with whom you might or might not partner with.

Reaching the Point of Being Active in Your Business

Before diving in, it is important to understand the difference between “Start to Get” versus “Fully Get.” Start to get means get things rolling so you can finally start your new business or work through and find out if there is hope for your current one. Whereas “Fully Get” your business means your business is active.

Jump Right In

Or to put it another way, think of “Start to Get” is a low-risk way to evaluate your business before sinking in any kind of investment or business type action. Whereas “Fully Get” is when you finished the experimental phase and believe it is a solid idea, so you jump right in to “Fully Get.”

Why Write Your Own Stuff When It Would be Easier and Less Hassle to Sell Someone Else’s?

Look, there is no question that it is easier to sell someone else’s online books because writing books that teach and are educational on a topic, is going to accept much of your time. Whereas if you decide to sell someone else’s work, you do not have to hassle through the creating process.

Is Reality Actually Reality?

That said, if you are someone who wants to build both yourself and your business together as a brand, being the author of what you sell, gives reason for promoting your brand. People are fascinated by the creative process as the reality show genre has shown.

The Approach

And when you write your own products, a part of how you can market your brand, is by leveraging for promotional purposes, the behind-the-scenes of your own process. Thereby revealing the behind the scenes of your creative process. This approach has been helpful with a past businesses.

Categories
Controversy in the Clubhouse

“Pick a Card, Any Card,” Describes How Web Design Magician is Feeling, as if it Does not Matter what Card You Select for Your Conjuring Marketing

Web Design Magician Feels Like He is Just Another Card to be Chosen from the Deck

Web Design Magician Wonders if What MagicPrenrur Stated was Really Necessary

It was clear that Web Design Magician was unhappy, even hurt, about the recent post on the MagicPreneur website regarding their opinion that magicians don’t need the help of a “web design magician” to create and maintain their websites because they can create them themselves, using a website builder app.

Web Design Magician had this response:

“I am proud of my abilities as a professional website design magician, something that has taken years for me to achieve. And although I agree that there are a lot of website builder apps out there that are decent, as well as conjurers who use them and seem to get a fairly good result, I still believe, despite what MagicPrenrur said on Friday, was uncalled for.”

“To Show His Commitment to the Magic Community He Created the Following Publicity and Promotion Tips and Hopes You and Other Magic Entertainers Enjoy Them!”

Publicity is often sought by others. People write not only entire books, but even a series of them for topics like publicity online. Because of online marketing, the rules have changed. It is those with the popular digital assets that win when it comes to the internet.

Mission – First, Last and In-between

There is something that nonprofits know that for-profits could learn from, and that is

“It’s all about the mission.”

Mission, Vision and You

Mission and Vision statements are the guiding principles when it comes to those whose ongoing activities spur from what they can do that is in accordance with the through line that they have designated in their overview concepts.

Web Design Magician is Making Not Just a website, but a Guidance Plan

If you are an entrepreneur who is looking to ignite their marketing efforts, there are endless opportunities to be had to be in the public’s eye with your entertainment business.

Put Together a Campaign

Doing a “Marketing Campaign” is something that is talked about frequently without some performers really understanding what it is. A campaign in a broad strokes’ definition is that it is a collection of a bunch of ideas and their respective strategies that relate back to a central concept and goal that is usually income based.

Categories
You are Technology

Can you design your future in the form of a website?

The reason we joined others to create an educational product.

Whether you are a business owner or are thinking of starting a business or even maybe are a freelancer, chances are that if you have a website in some ways your site starts to feel like it is a reflection of you. Maybe you start getting anxious or even angry that it is not producing the results you want no matter how hard you try to make it better. We have partnered with others to write a “plan” to empower you to become a “plan user” and have a doable step by step approach to leveraging what is working about your website and make it better.

An excerpt and preview of this work-in-progress project.

We got permission to give you a tidbit from our evolving learning tool. The big picture of the undertaking is that it provides steps you can take to harness niche marketing. And from this point on, in this post will be some of the content we have participated in to develop:

 

If you are a plan user here is how to start working on a plan to achieve one of your business marketing goals.

Are you a plan user?

Do you consider yourself to be a plan user? Do you use plans to achieve goals?

WHO are you trying to reach?

The reality is that niche marketing comes down to three different questions you must answer. These three questions are “Who are you trying to reach?” followed by “How will you reach them?” and finally “What do you want them to do?”

Let us start with “Who are you trying to reach?” This is where the concept of a niche audience comes into play. What is a niche audience? For our purposes it is defined as:

A group of people with specific characteristics that motivate them to purchase something.

HOW will you reach them?

This is an important question and one that in the marketing industry is often answered with the suggestion to buy expensive search engine and social media ads.

It comes as a shock to some, that search and social platforms exist primarily to get your data and then use it for the ad buyers who are trying to reach you, and others in your niche audience to purchase their stuff. That is correct, you are a member of a niche audience being sought after based on your age, posts, habits, and other characteristics that in the eyes of advertisers make you a potential customer.

WHAT do you want them to do?

Okay, since we are using you as our guinea pig case study, let us imagine that you have a hobby that requires a lot of expensive components to keep going forward with. Search and social platforms have access to your buying habits therefore serve ads to you hoping that you will now purchase their advertiser’s product.

Put together your answers to the three questions “Who, What, How?” for your eventual strategic plan.

At this point you could make the expensive gamble of running ads for your products and/or services, or you can continue putting together, as a plan user, your strategic plan by filling in the blanks of the statement:

Who I am trying reach is _______ and how I will reach them online is _______ and what I want them to do is to buy my products and/or services which are _______?

Do not worry, you are not expected at this point to fill in the blanks the most effective way to get you sales.

More precisely define your niche audience with a series of descriptions.

People want to feel taken care of and to be seen for who they really are and therefore respond to forms of marketing of products and services that seem to have been created just for them and others like them.

Categories
Pandemic

Strategy to Provide Possible Hope for Surviving as a Magician

Now a Ghost Town

It is no secret that one of the hardest hit industries in this challenging age of the Pandemic , is that of entertainment, and especially live performance that requires in-person audience members. I experienced firsthand evidence of the loss of live theater when recently having to go to a doctor’s appointment near Times Square NYC. It was eerie walking past empty Broadway theaters that once were a part of a flourishing draw for New Yorkers and tourists from all over the world. Now these buildings had their once brightly shining banners and signage turned off. It was like walking through a ghost town with no one in sight.

Magicians of All kinds Face Hard Times

One of the hardest hit aspects of entertainment types is that of magicians. There is a large variety of kinds of conjurers all with their own unique challenges now that having a live and in person audience is virtually nonexistent these days. A sector of the workforce are magician entertainers ranging in subcategories such as sleight of hand artists, illusionists, mentalists and more.

The Loss of In-Person Venues

This is a profoundly serious problem. People’s livelihoods are at stake. The problem consists of the fact that due to the limitation of having to rely on technology to interact with an audience (brought about because of COVID-19 and its variants) performers have a lot to sort out. Conjurers are trying to uncover a means of making magic something that will still get bookings from those who make spending decisions. Even magicians who are not household names used to be able to make a living performing in theaters, ships, homes (birthday party magic for kids), large gatherings (restaurants, weddings etc.) and many other “in person” venues.

In-Person Audiences Lost, So What Now?

Unfortunately, the Pandemic made all the performance opportunities mentioned (and many more) present facing the frightening reality that all the ways that magicians used to make money doing had now vanished (pardon the magic pun). How were magicians going to be able to survive in an art form that required live audiences?

Learning from Houdini’s Mistakes

The question surfaces of whether or not communicating with audiences through apps like Zoom and Google Meet can be a viable source of income for magicians? It reminds one of how Harry Houdini, in the early 1900′ tried to do daring escapes in films, which at the time was a new medium. By all accounts he failed in the movies some think, because spectators watching him on the silver screen doing daring escapes did not have the same impact as when they saw him live. The general consensus among historians is that the reason watching Houdini do stunts on the big screen was not successful is that audiences probably thought that escapes done in films could have utilized camera trick.

If Houdini Could Not Do it How Will I?

If the world’s most famous magician of all time could not succeed doing his escape magic via the then remote medium of cinema, then how now today were average magicians going to be able to get paid through delivering performances via the present remote medium of digital streaming and video chat? How now can magic performers overcome the obstacle in the minds of viewers that technology makes possible the use of special effects?

A Message to Magicians

Regardless of whether you are a sleight of hand artist, an illusionist, a mentalist or more, you are obstructed by the exceptionally large blockade which is needing to find out how to have credibility given that the perception is that performers can fake what they do in ways that are not possible when performances are live and in-person. This hurdle needs to be jumped over if magicians can ever hope to these days get hired by decision makers.

A Profoundly Serious Problem

So, you now have a profoundly serious problem. What is the solution to being able to delight and astonish those watching you on a digital screen in a manner that takes away the possibility of the perception of relying on camera tricks? We believe that we possibly have come up with a cure to the video performance blues. The strategy we are thinking of involves integrating a special strategy that can help you rethink your act in a manner that provides you with more credibility and a better chance of getting hired if you market it well.

What is the Secret?

What is this secret to eliminating the possible perception of the viewer that you are not employing camera tricks? How can you convert your act into something that is sought after by bookers because it includes exciting interaction? Is there a one size fits all way to make more money with your craft even today whether you are a sleight of hand artist, illusionist, mentalist or more?

Pulling Away the Curtain

To succeed as a magician today involving the use of on camera interaction makes it imperative that you instill the confidence and belief in your audience that they are watching something that could have been faked digitally. This can be achieved by making the viewers the most important part of what you do. You need to encourage their input by making them the primary decision makers during your act. There is a single phrase that we believe sums up how you can achieve this. That phrase is “Give your audience the power of choice throughout your performance.”

It Can Make a Big Difference

This giving of the power of choice can work as a strategy for sleight of hand artists, illusionists, mentalists and more. In other words, those who are remotely watching your show appear to be in charge of steering the boat that is your act. For example, a sleight of hand artist can do things like riffling through a deck of cards until a viewer says to stop. This is perceived by those watching that one card has been chosen at random from the deck. Or an illusionist can do things like giving the spectators the choice of which large box the vanished assistant should magically be made to pop out of. And mentalism is ready made to be done online because a mentalist can do things like ask the audience to pick something, followed by revealing that a prediction made in advance matches their choice.

Putting in the Work Now, Can Make it Easier to Get Hired

Putting in the hard work to reinvent your magic show as one that involves free choices made by the viewers, can enhance the thrill of the experience that they have when watching you. Giving your digital audience the power of being the decision makers is more likely to result in them feeling that they are observing true magic which in turn increases the likelihood that you will get more paying gigs to be delivered through the web.

Categories
Inspiration

Yianni Stamas Speaks About One of the World’s Greatest Magicians

Magician Heroes

Here at WebDesignMagician.com we recognize magic heroes such as magicians who are blind. The reason today January 4th is especially important in this regard is because this date has has officially become known as World Braille Day. The day was named after the inventor in the 1800s of Braille named Louis Braille. January 4th is Louis Braille’s birthday.

Magic is Blessed

Magic is blessed with fine magical talents who are legally blind such as the amazing magician Richard Turner who is a “Card Mechanic,” a term used by magicians which means you are a master of sleight of hand with cards.

Turner as been praised by some of the legends of magic, such as Dai Vernon who is quoted as saying:

“Having seen countless numbers of card experts execute for over eighty years, I consider Richard Turner to be by far the most skillful. He performs the most difficult moves with the greatest ease. I doubt if anyone can equal him.”

Categories
Inspiration

Get Out and Vote

Opposite Ends

Web Design Magician is voting tomorrow, are you? Very important to vote just 24 hours or so from now. We are a country divided. Hopefully if we all vote our country will come together more. It is quite strange how there are totally different points of view at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Portraying the Other

Personally I watch both CNN and Fox. Both at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to news and updates. What’s interesting, while at the same time disturbing, is that both “sides” seems to portray the other in a manner that is utilized by both.

Make “V’ Your Mission Tomorrow

They both have similar strategies to discredit the other. Sadly, voting could lead to more issues. Change of some kind is coming soon and we pray that this transformation is a good one for all. Get out and vote!

Categories
Delegation

Get Online Workers

Serving Their Needs

Over the years we’ve worked with and helped a wide variety of kinds of clients including Educators, Hairdressers, Musicians, Nonprofits, Performing Artists, Small Businesses who are just starting up as well as Experienced Small Business Owners. Do you fit in this jigsaw puzzle? What they all had in common was the need for customers, clients and fans.

What’s Your Industry?

And yes, there was a little tweaking needed based on what industry we were assisting our customers with. That is one of the things that we are grateful for in terms of our methodology: with a minimal amount of adjustments it can work for just about any kind of business or individual.

You know Your Business Best

Another thing our customers all have in common is that in one way or another we use the services of online workers to create the work itself that is delivered to our clients. Are we going to reveal our method? Yes, to a certain extent we will. But in the end, the procedure you use needs to be yours because it must fit you well and only you know your needs in terms of working.

Ultimately You Must Create Your Own Blueprint

That said, we have information on how you can best construct your own personal blueprint for working. Of course, if you need additional help for creating your sales and marketing plan, we are always here to help as consultants. Though, this is an incredibly information packed book so you will be more than able to use it to develop your approach.

Focus on the Things that Matter

If you’re reading this look at managing digital workers chances are you’ve heard the phrase “work smarter, not harder.” That is what this eBook is all about. Lessening the work on your back so you can focus on the things that matter. Another thing that is important to look at is the specific tax ramifications of getting online workers. Better to solve this problem now than further down the line.

Learn to Delegate in the Online World

Right off the bat I think it should be said that we are focused on delegation and management in the world of the web and that many of the techniques listed here will not work live in your office. Though, some of the principles here will also work in the office. If you are reading this, you are likely someone who is seeking out help with working with online workers.

No Time for Fear

The funny thing is that although there are many benefits to using delegation, most owners, entrepreneurs and even artisticpreneurs are slow to reap the benefits. Small organizations face the process of delegation with fear and the last thing they want to do is to set up a system. We believe this is a mistake. In fact, this moment is hopefully the one you change your mind and decide to pursue the creation of your own personal system to delegate effectively and ultimately increase your bottom line. More of this to come but first things first, the question inevitably arises which is “Where are some of the places that you can get online workers?” Please let us know of this interest and we will publish our resource for this. If we get enough responses we will show this list.

Categories
Design

Designing the Cover of an eBook

Design is Our Job

You may have heard from other blogs such as this one of Y.E.S.( Yianni Euripides Stamas) talking about the development of an eBook. That is the content aspect. As far as the design of the cover goes, that’s our job.

Trying to Fit it All in

We created a rough draft of the eBook but it was too busy. Apparently we were trying to fit in everything including the kitchen sink.

Less is More

So we went back to the drawing board and came up with something much more simple. We wish we could show it to you but that is not being allowed. So we’ll leave this post with the saying that has never been more true than at the moment: “Less IS more!”