Thoughts from The Business Magician
Kostya’s Blog
Redefining The Purpose Of Your Business During A Pandemic
In my keynotes for business organizations, I speak about methods, results and effect. As the world is transformed by this global pandemic, I wanted to use my own principles to ensure I’m on the right path and that I remain effects-focused.
How I've Pivoted My Business From Physical to Virtual
I'm thankful for the opportunity to embrace change head on. I was able to pivot my business by going back to the core of what I do: engaging and entertaining. And by finding my bigger purpose: bringing people relief during a difficult time.
Perceiving Your Work-Life In A Time of Crisis: Diving In or Tuning Out
This is an unprecedented time to reconsider, re-evaluate and re-think the relationship you have with your business. If you’ve taken care of the fundamental physiological and safety needs to get you through the Covid-19 crisis, you now have a choice of what to do with your time.
2020 Keynote Speaker Reel
Looking for an engaging, funny, dynamic and relevant business speaker to impact your audience? On stage, I share secrets of perception and communication. These clips from my keynote speech, “Think Like A Magician™”, best represent the ideas that I share with business audiences at conferences and events around the world.
This College Footballer Mastered Misdirection (A Magician's Perspective)
North Texas punt returner Keegan Brewer is a magician—a “sleight-of-body” magician. Here’s how he successfully used principles of magic to misdirect his audience (the opposing team) so that he could score a touchdown. (Spoiler: Brewer was successful because he understood in that moment that using an audience’s expectations to fool themselves is diabolically effective.)
The Best Keynote Speakers Share This Purpose
The purpose of my keynote speech is to do what Seth Godin describes: “ to communicate emotion. To create tension. To bring change.”
This quote comes from a great interview in Forbes magazine by Michael Solomon. In the same article, Richard Schelp, co owner and CEO of Executive Speakers’ Bureau writes that “the biggest success is when the keynote speech inspires the audience to leave different than they came in.”
It’s taken me 15 years to develop my Keynote Speech and turn it into an hour long transformative experience. My journey to create an ideal keynote speech started with wanting to “do something fun and different” for corporate audience that had grown tired of the expected.
Want to Wow at Work? Learn to Think Like A Magician™
I’ve been a magician for over 20 years, specializing in teaching businesses the secrets of magic and how those insights can improve communication, sales and client relationships. As a speaker, trainer and facilitator, I teach that magic is a rich source of thinking tools. Those tools apply to any organization and any industry, but they also apply to individuals. You can make magic work for you, at work.
To prove it, I’m going to share a few magician’s secrets that can help you improve your career in the following areas: Innovation and Lateral Thinking, Perception Management and Social Intelligence.
If You're In Sales, You Need To Think Like A Magician™
A sale, like a great magic trick, occurs inside the customer’s mind. And it is there where it is replayed, remembered and redefined continually after. The mind is the final battleground. Because magicians are masters of perception, they understand how to get into the heads of their prospects better than anyone else. That’s why the principles of magic can be so helpful in a business environment. If you’re in sales or customer service, here are four secrets to Think Like A Magician™.
Senior Class Students Think Like Magicians To Prank Their School
Magicians don't make the impossible possible; they just create the illusion that they do. This kind of thinking led a group of high school students to prank their school -- and not get in trouble for it -- by creating the illusion of a car accident that their local police department said was one of the best they had ever seen.
Overcome Sales Objections by Turning Your Company's Flaws into Features
Overcoming objections in sales and business can be tough...I have to handle concerns and objections often just by virtue of being a magician. So, what's the solution? Transform what people perceive as your company's FLAWS into FEATURES.
Find out how to change people's perceptions—and Think Like a Magician™—in this blog, which profiles the way the Hell's Kitchen restaurant in Minneapolis turns the worst seats in their restaurant into the best.
3 Ways to Maximize How Customers Perceive Your Brand
This post is about how organizations can create experiences for their customers that are positive, engaging and align with their brand.
The three strategies I share can be applied by any business that wishes to create a more engaging customer experience.
Whether you’re operating an escape room, a performing arts center or a news organization that gives tourists a peek at what you do, here are three things you should do:
- Meet expectations in a satisfying way.
- Go beyond expectations; create surprise and delight via unexpected moments.
- Connect the specific experience to the overarching brand promise or company mission/vision.
Here is an example of how not to do this...
How Marshall McLuhan Impacted the Medium of Magic
I talk to business people about the role of perception in communication and interpersonal relationships. In performing magic, I bring about an awareness of how our perceptions are impacted, affected and easily misled and self-manipulated. When I perform magic it is to highlight the way people see the world and communicate with each other.
While I was studying Philosophy at the University of Central Florida I became fascinated with Marshall McLuhan. His ideas ended up influencing my magic in an interesting way.
Can you transform customer perceptions?
As a magician, I specialize in surprises: creating unexpected experiences and memorable moments. While the unexpected is a great foundation to my art, it is a challenge for my business. People want to buy what they know; what they have seen, heard and touched.
Clients are hesitant to “buy the invisible” – as Harry Beckwith points out in one of my .
Most of the people who hire me, first see me perform at another event. They make the connection that what they have seen me do will be a perfect fit for their business or social event and they contract me to perform. About 80% of my contracts come from people seeing me in person. Booking these shows is a breeze. People have seen it, they know it, they want it, they get it.