When I was a little kid, I had a fascination with stage magic. I’m sure a lot of kids do. My father indulged me, with visits to local magic supply stores to buy colored scarves and interlocking metal rings and fake cup and ball tricks. One trick that I still remember very clearly, nearly forty years later, is the Magic Money Machine.
The Magic Money Machine was an astoundingly simple, nearly foolproof magic trick. Anyone could do it. It was a small plastic box with a slot, a roller and a crank. You opened the box to show the audience that it was empty inside. You closed it. You waved your wand. You inserted a blank piece of white paper into one end. Said the magic words. Finally, you turned the crank and WOW! A crisp, beautiful, absolutely legal dollar bill made its way out of the slot. Money from thin air!
Of course, the trick isn’t hard to figure out. You roll the dollar bill in beforehand, and the crank and roller are designed to carefully hide the bill until it is needed. But to a five year old, it was great – particularly if you dress it up in some dramatic showmanship, make the effort to sell it as real magic.
I tell this story to clients sometimes to try to make a point.
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At Load Bearing Creative, we do our best to avoid terminology and strategy that doesn’t really mean anything. You won’t hear much from us about the dynamism of permission-based channel relocations, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Your business doesn’t need that. What it needs is a practical plan for building sales and developing markets, and buzzwords aren’t going to get you there. Continue reading 
