I love magic.
I mean I really love magic. My wife, Barbara, and I recently ed the Magic Castle, Home of the Academy of Magical Arts. Located in Los Angeles, it is that old castle on the hill near the Hollywood Bowl. I will not bore you with the history, let it suffice that this is the sacred place where the greatest magicians in the world hang out.
There are about 2,500 magician and then an additional 2,000 “associate ” like me – which is another way of saying I couldn’t do “three card monte” if my life depended on it.
So what is the relationship between magic and the entrepreneur?
I am going to offer some thoughts from “Penn & Teller: Fool Us Winner” Kostya Kimlat, who teaches business executives “how to think like a magician.” First let me share why I love magic. I am thrilled when I am dazzled, when the “trick” happens, close up, right in front of my eyes, 4 feet away, when it is clearly “impossible,” and then it happens. I am transported.
That’s also what your customer wants.
Kimlat says, “Great magicians think differently.” They obsess over their audience’s experience. They read the room, they see micro-expressions, “they adapt their approach mid-performance and ensure that every action builds toward an unforgettable moment,” he says.
Think about your sales team. They are technically proficient, they know the product, they have their pitch down cold. The sales engineer knows what he knows, ready to impress with 23 different artificial intelligence models or agents or pricing or whatever.
The customer sits quietly disengaged, ready to say no thanks, call me in a couple of months, looking at his watch, wondering if he can still make his tee time.
I experience this issue frequently. The founder starts his deck, and nothing except a train wreck or a bomb going off is going to derail him from “the swift completion of his appointed rounds.”
Hey, entrepreneur, you are not a mailman.
Kimlat teaches the following mantras. “Instantly read customer personalities, create moments of genuine surprise and delight, turn complaints into opportunities and make your customer want to tell others about you and your product.” The only thing that matters is perceptions and feelings. See things from your audience’s point of view.
My little AI company is getting ready to raise a round of financing. I am guided by an older and wiser (hard to imagine anyone older) mentor. He says, do not tell the investor about the technology, the vectors, the chunking, whatever, tell them about your customers and why they love your product.
Kimlat says, “Magic is not about processing information, it creates connections and sparks wonder.”
Now I recognize that this desired result is not easy. But it should be the goal. He goes on to say, “Businesses that excel will not win through superior algorithms, they will win through superior experiences.” The young entrepreneur might consider putting that on his wall.
When I pitch, I am looking for the moment when my prospect says, “Wow, I had no idea you could do that.” I try to create a tiny bit of astonishment.
In all the years of attending magic shows, I have never wanted to know how it was done. I was content to be dazzled, to be fooled, to not understand, to see that the impossible was happening right in front of me.
Let me share a personal thought that is probably completely orthogonal to the point of this column. There is a trick that is done with a calculator. Many magicians do it. I recently found out how it was done.
And when I next saw it performed, I was disappointed. Sure, the patter was good, but I knew how it was done. Not so much magic.
Think like a magician means trying to create a moment of the willing suspension of disbelief, that real feeling when the customer knows they have been listened to and are certain that you will deliver the goods. It is all about trust.
Here, your card was the ace of spades, right?
Finally, in today’s environment, closing a series A financing will be nothing short of an amazing magic trick.
Rule No. 844: Pick a card, any card.
Senturia is a serial entrepreneur who invests in startups. Please email ideas to [email protected].
