Turner Magic and Keynotes Receives 2011 Best of Atlanta Award

Turner Magic & Keynotes Received the 2011 Best of Atlanta Award from USCA

The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2011 USCA Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Commerce Association
Email: PublicRelations@uscaaward.com
URL: http://www.uscaaward.com

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Planting a lucky penny can bring a quick smile to someone's face... but this one should have been left face up!

At an event later that night, I was having a conversation about this sort of thing with Katy Fenbert, an insurance agent in the metro-Atlanta area. She shared a wonderful idea with me that I’m passing along.

Remember the old rhyme about pennies bringing good luck? Katy decided to start deliberately leaving her pennies in surprise locations. It’s one thing to find a penny on the counter at the convenience store, but Katy places them strategically in places where people might need a boost of hope, however small.

There are plenty of places where people may have just received some troubling or difficult news. Hospitals, courthouses, doctor’s offices, funeral homes… I’m sure you could think of a dozen more places where a little good luck could brighten someone’s day. It doesn’t even have to be a particularly gloomy spot, although it’s nice if you can find a way to do it.

I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in boosting people’s spirits. When I heard this, I was inspired to think about where I could leave a penny – face up, of course! – and possibly bring a surprising moment into someone’s day.

Leave a comment and tell me someplace you strategically hid a penny for someone to find! I’m leaving one on the window sill here at Starbucks right now.

Most people don't have enough "data points" to evaluate providers of unique services in relation to others in their industries.

Most people have plenty of experience listening to, say, bands or singers. Music surrounds us in our everyday experience. If someone hires a singer and they give a bad performance, the next time the question comes up then most people will say, “That singer was bad – let’s get a different singer.” This is because they have enough experiences with music to know that the one experience they had was of poor quality, but that better experiences are certainly out there to be had.

That’s not the case with mentalism or magic. In those cases, people who have a bad experience often conclude not that the performer was merely sub-par, but that the entire art form is largely of similarly poor quality. Because most people don’t have everyday experiences with these arts, many clients react not with “I didn’t care for that performer,” but rather with “I don’t like magic – let’s do something else.”

Likewise, most people probably will not see more than a dozen professional speakers in a lifetime. Meeting planners and convention committees deal with professional speakers and entertainers regularly, but most people have never had to consider what might make one a better fit than another for a given audience.

Because there are so few points of reference, it can be difficult to establish a scale for evaluating quality. Here are six tips you may find useful.

1. Ask for specifics about experience. People who claim they are perfect for “all occasions” probably aren’t. Your budget will bring a better return when you discuss the specific event with the provider, ask about their specific experience in that environment, and follow-up on the references they give. When the performer or speaker takes a bow, how will you feel if they thank you by name for hiring them?

2. Consider awards and credits with a grain of salt. The words “award winning” are suspect. If an award intrigues you then ask about it, but so many awards are available and offered to performers in so many circumstances that it’s almost impossible to find a performer who can’t claim to be “award winning” in some way.

3. Check for online reviews. Do a Google search on the person’s name and look for reviews. Look beyond performers’ web sites themselves; check their LinkedIn and Google profiles. Check other sites like Kudzu, Meetup, and Yelp. Fifteen minutes of internet research can save your event as well as your reputation.

4. Analyze the promo video. Do they provide footage of performances in front of a variety of audiences in a range of venues, or is their entire promo kit built around a studio shoot and a set of photos from one event? Check their YouTube videos, but consider whether it was shot at home, in a studio, or in front of real clients.

5. Don’t fall in love with a low quote. The performance you’ll get from the undercutters is only going to result in a poor experience for your audience and a blot on your reputation. I’ve written before about the high price of cheap entertainment, and it’s worth remembering that even when budgets are tight, quality counts above all. It’s better to stretch on the entertainment budget than to have beautiful lighting and decorations around a performer or speaker you wish your audience would someday forget.

6. Be honest and ask for a referral. When you find the speaker or performer who’s right for your group, work with them about what you really can and cannot afford. Most of us are willing to make mutual concessions in the course of good faith negotiations. If the numbers just won’t work, ask that person for recommendations of other quality performers who might meet your budget constraints; then trust their advice. Remember – the experienced performer knows how their unique service has fit into a variety of events and venues, and they also know the quality of other artists and speakers in the marketplace.

I have always found that it only enhanced my own reputation and client relationships to help clients find suitable alternatives when I’m out of range or unavailable. I hope these tips help you navigate the sometimes-confusing process of evaluating unique services.

Atlanta Mentalist and Magician Joe M. Turner taking a bow at the Punchline Comedy Club.

Sunday afternoon, then, found me home alone with no real plans, until my phone rang.

“Joe, I’m glad I caught you!” said my friend Christian. “Are you working tonight?”

“No – why?”

“Well, I’ve got a situation…”

Christian is a local comedy magician who was scheduled to play Atlanta’s Punchline Comedy Club that evening. Due to some miscommunication between himself and the club manager, each thought the other had booked the rest of the talent for the evening’s show. That is, they had a headliner but no emcee and no feature act. Would I be interested in taking one of those spots? The emcee spot runs about ten minutes, then you introduce the other acts. The feature spot is a 25-minute spot, then you’re done for the evening.

I had never worked a comedy club before. Sure, I use humor in my act, but I don’t bill myself as a “comedy magician.” My friend assured me that I would be great and that the crowd that night was expecting strong magic.

Back in April I wrote about the importance of being willing to jump into unexpected opportunities. I thought about that post as I considered this offer for a few seconds.

“If I can do the feature spot, I’m in.”

“Done. See you at the club.”

Next thing I know, I’m headed into town to work the Punchline.

On the way, I considered how I would start. I had a routine that I knew would fit comfortably into the time slot. I knew the effects would work well together, involve the audience, and generate some laughs from their intrinsic humor. My main concern was precisely how to open for an audience largely primed for stand-up comedy.

I decided to take part of a humorous speech I had written for another performance and adapt it to this new venue. Basically, I set out to establish that I was on the show for contrast, to make the funny acts seem funnier. However, in positioning myself that way, I was also getting some laughs. The combination worked well, and I had the audience laughing at my ‘predicament’ before I even started the magic.

As it turns out, I had a great time. Excellent comments after the show, including “You were our favorite” from a couple who didn’t know any of the performers, and “You changed our whole outlook on magic” from another couple who had actually come to see the headliner and didn’t expect to see other performers.

The stage of Atlanta's longtime comedy landmark, The Punchline Comedy Club.

• Take advantage of unexpected opportunities to grow.

  I could have stayed home and told myself, “That’s not my venue.” Instead, I now have a new venue. Are your skills or services applicable to a market you haven’t explored?

• Think about your opening.

  Find a way to position yourself for success by turning your presumed weaknesses into strengths. They’re not bugs – they’re features! Is there something about what you offer – or about what you don’t offer – that you can use as a point of contrast to others in your field?

• Nail the punch line.

  In comedy, you won’t be successful if you don’t nail your punch line. All the build up requires that you deliver the goods at the end. How do your clients know when it’s time to laugh and applaud? Are you nailing your punch line?

Here we are at the end of 2011, a year that has been both amazingly challenging and amazingly fruitful. You have just enough time left to nail your punch line.

Anyone can claim anything. How are you evaluating the credibility of those who offer to provide services to your organization?

Diane’s company, Performance Strategies, helps other companies align job descriptions so that they really are achieving their strategic objectives. She also helps consultants as they work with their own clients, providing them with a range of diagnostic assessments and expertise in analyzing an interpreting the results. Her business experiences both in corporate human resources and in small business give her a rich spectrum of real-world experiences to call upon when providing her services.

One of the things we talked about was the importance of credibility in speakers and yes, even in entertainers. Whether proposing a keynote address, an after-dinner show, or any other kind of appearance, I’m only too well aware of one unmistakable fact: Anyone can claim anything.

I regularly get calls from clients who either minimized potential concerns about credibility or ignored them altogether when selecting an entertainer for their organization. Basing their decision solely on a web site, a studio photograph, or worst of all, a low price, they engaged a speaker or performer who promised an experience that they simply weren’t prepared to deliver.

• Success speakers whose only notable success is to book themselves as a “success speaker.”
• Team-building leaders or experts who have never built a real business team.
• Small-business coaches who have never built a real operating business.
• “Life coaches” whose own lives are in questionable shape.
• Entertainers who misrepresent their credits, awards, or endorsements.

I’ve written before about the high price of cheap entertainment. There is also a high price to be paid for ignoring the need for involving a credible entertainment professional.

I was recently made aware of a business event that featured a show by another performer. Promotion was hot and heavy and set exceptionally high expectations for the event. These were claims that simply couldn’t be backed up by a performer of such limited experience. When the reviews came in the attendees took both the performer and the organizer to the proverbial woodshed. That organizer’s credibility has suffered a major blow in public perception because he let his event hinge on the skill of a performer who wasn’t really equipped to deliver.

Incredible performers create incredible experiences – and that is true in both the good and bad senses of the word!

Positive public feedback is an invaluable tool for helping your prospects reach buying decisions with a high degree of confidence.

The down side of this, of course, is that they have to take the time to do it. The purpose of this post is to make it easy to leave a great review online in just a few easy steps… with links included!

Step One: Don’t panic! Keep it short and appropriate for the primary target market.

Sometimes people are intimidated by a perceived need for volume. Relax! You don’t have to write a New York Times theater or book review. You can write one short review and post it in multiple places. In fact, it’s better to keep your review short and enthusiastic – it’s more likely to be read!

Despite being short, though, it’s also important to give some thought to how best to communicate value to the future prospect. My primary target market, for example, consists of meetings, conventions, and corporate events where I can be booked as a keynote speaker, after-dinner entertainer, trade show booth presenter, or hospitality entertainer. Sometimes my work takes me into other venues or settings, but it is my primary corporate audience that needs to know my value to them.

If my work for you was in a different setting, it’s helpful to focus on the components of my presentation that are of most interest to my corporate clients. Comments relating to professionalism, reliability, superior experience, higher value, my ability to deliver high-quality entertainment, build practical skills, engage people, get good audience feedback, and integrate client messages into my performances are all of interest to my main clients.

Step Two: Share your review, prioritizing key sites first but sharing as widely as possible.

Google and LinkedIn are two key sites where my clients do research on speakers and entertainers. Having your review posted there makes a big difference in my online visibility.

In order to post reviews on Google and LinkedIn, you’ll have to have an account at both places. Fortunately, they are free and most people already have them.

• How To Leave a Google Review

  If you don’t have a Google account, then click here to create one for free.

  Once you’re signed in, click here to leave a review. If that doesn’t take you directly to a text box, click here and look for the “Write a Review” button.

• How To Leave a LinkedIn Recommendation

  If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, then click here to create one for free.

  Once you’re signed in, click here to view my profile. At the top right of the screen you’ll see the link to “Recommend Joe M.” – just click on that and you can post your recommendation there. You may wish to target your recommendation either to my entertainment offerings or my professional speaking.

• Taking It To The Next Level

  If you have time, you can follow a similar process to leave your review on as many other pages as you can. Klout is growing in importance – please visit my Klout page and leave me “+1″ on topics of change, speaking, networking, and magic.

  Some additional options include Bing, Yelp, Yahoo, Kudzu, and Merchant Circle.

Step Three: Share your review on your social media sites and mine!

Once you’ve created your review, don’t forget to share a link on your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media pages. If you have a blog, post a link there. And as always, please feel free to join me on my Facebook page and share your feedback and even upload photos you may have taken at your event! Your participation on my page makes a big difference in its visibility.

Microsoft Outlook sometimes creates two "Company (None)" groups - but there is an easy way to consolidate them into a single group.

While moving my wife’s work information from one laptop to another, it turned out that instead of capturing email addresses as individual contacts, she had somehow simply added them to distribution lists instead. When moving the contacts from one computer, the import function only wants to bring in actual contact records. She had several distribution lists with dozens if not hundreds of email addresses, but no actual “contacts.” The individual email addresses entered in a distribution list are not saved as contacts but rather are just saved with the list.

This initial problem was easily resolved by exporting the lists to Excel and importing them as contacts from the spreadsheet. These were minimal contact records – name and email addresses. One little hiccup I encountered was that when importing the Excel spreadsheet, I failed to provide a header row. This meant that the first contact in each group was not imported. No problem; I just created those contacts manually, then created distribution lists from the contacts, and figured I was done. Until I noticed something.

The Puzzling Nature of “Company (None)” Contacts

When I looked at the list of contacts in my wife’s brand new contact list, I saw that they had been sorted into two groups. One group, containing all the records I imported, was categorized as “Company (None).” Obviously the software was trying to group and present the contacts sorted by company name, and none of my records had anything in that field.

Strangely, though, there was another group called “Company (None).” This second group had all the records I had entered manually.

I could not drag records from one group to another. I was puzzled and searched online. Turns out this is a known issue, and it has to do with the way Outlook populates empty fields when importing records versus creating them directly. The workaround suggested was to go into each record, add a bogus company, then go back in and delete the company name. This would eventually put all the records in the same kind of “No Company” group, and all would be well.

Except for the obvious problem: who wants to do that for all those records? Not me!

Here’s the simple solution.

First Task – Identify which “Company (None)” group you’ll be changing.

1. Open any one of the records from either group.
2. Change the company to a placeholder name – ABC.
3. Look at your list – make sure it’s showing that ABC company as a separate grouping.
4. Now go back into that record and delete the company name.
5. Check to see which “Company (None)” group that record ended up in. That is your target “Company (None)” group – we’ll call that the TCN group. The other will be our source “Company (None)” group – we’ll call that the SCN group.

NOTE: The SCN group may or may not be the same group you started with; the process above just lets us identify the group we are going to change.

Second Task – Change all the records with an easy drag-and-drop procedure.

1. Open any record from the SCN group.
2. Change the company name to ABC.
3. View the entire list and make sure you can see the new ABC company.
4. Select all the records in the SCN group and drag them to the ABC company group. The SCN group will now disappear as it is empty.
5. Now select all the records in the ABC group and drag them to the TCN group.

Congratulations – all of your “No Company” contacts will now be listed in the same “No Company” group!

Atlanta speaker, mentalist, and magician Joe M. Turner performs at the London Palladium on September 19. (Photo courtesy Ilona Richards)

Atlanta-based speaker and corporate entertainer Joe M. Turner has been tapped to perform at a landmark event at the historic Palladium Theatre in London on September 19. Illusionists from around the world, including Las Vegas headliners Mac King and Jeff Hobson, will present an evening of stage magic and close-up sleight-of-hand as part of “Palladium Magic,” a gala benefit show supporting several UK children’s medical charities. Turner, a two-time Greater Atlanta Magician of the Year, is the only American slated to be part of the close-up magic performances.

“It is an honor to have Joe as part of our event,” says producer Paul Stone, president of MagiCares, the charity behind the show. “His talents are well-known in America and we are proud indeed that he agreed to share them with us. Great magicians such as Harry Houdini, Chung Ling Soo, and Paul Daniels have performed in this historic theatre, as have most of the greatest singers, actors, and variety stars over the last hundred years. Joe will become part of a great show business tradition when he takes his bow on the Palladium stage.”

Turner’s skills as a mentalist and sleight-of-hand expert have put him in high demand as an entertainer and speaker. His visual and psychological illusions have been featured on Good Morning America, Nightline, CNN HLN, and numerous other television programs at home and abroad. He has performed multiple times at the Hollywood Magic Castle, the Tropicana Atlantic City, off-Broadway at Monday Night Magic in New York, and at hundreds of corporate and private events in North America, Europe, and the Caribbean.

Turner performed at the 2010 national convention of the Society of American Magicians and serves on the Executive Committee of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, the industry’s largest organization. He is a member of the London Magic Circle, which awarded him an advanced performance degree last year.

As a speaker, Joe frequently delivers motivational keynotes on subjects of creativity, leadership, and “doing the impossible” by leveraging one’s unique combination of talents and life experiences. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and was featured in their national magazine earlier this year. After the show, Turner will travel north to perform and lecture at another conference in Southport before returning home.

Find out more about Joe M. Turner’s unreal entertainment and keynotes at http://www.turnermagic.com and http://www.turnertalks.com.

Atlanta speaker and entertainer Joe M. Turner performs in Vicksburg on September 8

NOTE: Listen to a radio interview about this upcoming appearance!
Interview by Annette Kirklin on The Directors Report, WVBG Radio, Vicksburg, MS (8/17/2011)

Atlanta speaker and entertainer Joe M. Turner will perform “One Enchanted Evening” at the Southern Cultural Heritage Center on Thursday, September 8. Turner, a Brandon native, will present a unique show of sleight-of-hand illusions and music performances.

The Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation takes immense pride in welcoming acclaimed international speaker, corporate entertainer, and Brandon, Mississippi native Joe M. Turner back to his home state for a one-night-only, one-of-a-kind theatrical performance on Thursday, September 8th at 7:00pm in the SCH Auditorium.

Turner will present a multi-faceted evening of variety entertainment including unreal sleight-of-hand mysteries, uncanny psychological illusions, and unforgettable piano and vocal classics, all woven together into what some consider “a 21st-century one-man vaudeville.” Don’t miss this unique entertainment event! This limited engagement will sell out, so don’t miss out!

Tickets are $25 for SCHF Members, $30 for Non-Members and $225 for a Corporate/Private Table. Ticket price includes heavy hors d’oeuvres, punch, a cash bar, and an unforgettable evening of magic, mentalism, and music! Tickets are on sale now at the SCHF Business Office, Paper Plus or charge by phone at (601) 631-2997. You can get tickets and directions online at http://www.southernculture.org

Joe M. Turner combines seven years of corporate experience in training design and development, business communication, human performance development and change management initiatives at Fortune 100 clients with extensive theatre experience and magical talents to create customized magical presentations for his clients.

Joe is a member of the National Speakers Association, the Academy of Magical Arts at The Magic Castle in Hollywood, the Society of American Magicians, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, The Magic Circle in London (A.I.M.C. with silver star), and the Fellowship of Christian Magicians. He is also a popular speaker, onscreen and onstage talent, a professional pianist, an accomplished vocalist, composer and playwright. Visit his website at http://www.turnermagic.com

Space is limited and an advanced ticket purchase is suggested. For more information or to purchase tickets, please call the SCHF office at 601-631-2997 or email info@southernculture.org

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Based in Atlanta, Georgia, professional speaker, mentalist, and corporate magician Joe M. Turner delivers unreal entertainment and keynotes for corporate meetings, events, trade shows, conferences and private events worldwide.

Category Entertainment, Event, Arts

GET CONNECTED Interviews – Joe M. Turner from Brent Brooks on Vimeo.

Interview on the Dottie Coffman Show, WIMO Radio (7/28/2011)

Two news stories in the Patch (include video)

‘Chief Impossibility Officer’ Coming to Powder Springs

Georgia’s own CIO will be in Powder Springs on Tuesday.

No, Joe M. Turner isn’t a chief investment officer—he’s the Chief Impossibility Officer.

A speaker, mentalist and “sleight-of-hand expert,” Turner owns his own business, Turner Magic Entertainment. He’ll be talking at the Powder Springs Business Association’s monthly luncheon mainly about successful ways to market small businesses.

Marketing, Magic Meet at Ford Center

When thinking of someone who can deliver speeches on marketing, Joe M. Turner admits that magicians don’t typically pop up in people’s minds.

But Turner, a speaker, entertainer and owner of Turner Magic Entertainment, is invited by organizations from all over to speak on the topic. Turner spoke for the third time at a Powder Springs Business Association monthly luncheon on Tuesday.

Using entertainment as an attention grabber, Turner applies modern marketing and small business strategies to his craft.