Daniel Chan: Pivoting In A Pandemic Through Virtual Magic Shows
Even though we know they are just sophisticated tricks, watching magic performances is still awesome to behold. With the pandemic, many magicians held virtual magic shows instead, which gave their performances a unique level of excitement. Being one of those performers affected by COVID-19, Daniel Chan brought his magic to the online scene. Joining Chad Burmeister, the Millionaires' Mentalist talks about his transition to the internet realm, which was challenging yet still fulfilling. He shares how he works with all kinds of clients, the status of his earnings despite the current restrictions, and his plans for the coming years. Chad also bares his most painful memories, what drains his energy, and the things he tolerates in his business.
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Daniel Chan: Pivoting In A Pandemic Through Virtual Magic Shows
Rich is not here, but Daniel Chan is. We’re going to talk to Daniel about his magic show, where he started, where he’s at and where he’s going. Daniel, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Chad, for having me.
It’s good to have you here. We spent almost a week together in beautiful Huntsville, Utah. We got to ski at Powder Mountain. Not only is Daniel a magician, but he’s also a good skier. It was a pleasure to ski with you for a day, Daniel.
Chad almost made me disappear.
We’ll leave that for another day. The Woody’s run, at the end of the day, was the scary run where you look over the edge and you don’t see much after you get over it. Tell us about your organization. What do you do for a living?
I am a magician and mind reader. I’ve pivoted to the virtual meeting. I’ve done about 310 virtual shows. I’m an event specialist in the virtual world.
You’ve made the pivot better and faster in an amazing way compared to some people. You’ve been at the bleeding edge of being able to make such a pivot. Congratulations on that. It’s highly motivational to see someone who can rebound as you have.
That’s an amazing thing to be able to do that. We were featured in Business Insider twice in 2020, CNBC, The Hustle, VoyageLA, and my son was on television with a Penn & Teller on Access Daily. It’s all in one year.
Virtual Magic Shows: How much founders care for their vendors is a clear reflection of how they will succeed.
What we talked about in one of the exercises we did at the Living A Better Story Retreat in Utah is we looked back to our childhood. We talked about when we were 5, 6, 10, 15, and so on and so forth. Tell us, what were you passionate about when you were 5 or 6 years old?
To be honest, I don’t remember much. I think I blocked out a lot in my mind. I remember the school selling bottle caps and trading them and then selling syringes, but those syringes were water guns. My mom used to work at the hospital. She would be able to bring these clean syringes back home that were never used, but they had to throw them away. I would sell these things. We would use them in the sink, pull them out, and squirt each other. That business lasted for 2 or 3 days. I don’t remember how many times I got to sell them. There was that the stigma of having a clean syringe. It didn’t feel right for them. I was told not to sell them anymore, but that was my entrepreneurial thing.
That was a one-and-done thing but the bottle caps continued. My dad was a doctor, and he used to come home with the same thing. We’d cut the tips, so instead of fine grain, you could make it a little wider. When you had that thing at the pool or the hot tub, you were a popular kid. Some of your first memories are selling. That’s interesting that being a magician, part of your day job has a little bit of selling in it as well. If you think about what you did then when you a younger, what’s the secret connection that you could bring from then to now? What was that passion that lit you up in the morning that is now apparent in what you do for a living?
I remember watching David Copperfield when I was a lot younger, popping in the VHS tape and recording it. It was me who was doing that. I’m watching that again and again trying to figure things out. The connection is sometimes you don’t figure it out immediately, but you’ll study that pattern and you’ll see it again and again. I have seen some magic shows up to 7 or 8 times because it’s followed me. I want to watch it again until I figure it out. By repeat viewings, you can get to the core of it.
As I look at successful business leaders, CEOs, and founders that I talk to all of 2020, I did about 60 episodes. What I find is they find a pattern that causes things to occur like sales and then they rinse and repeat. They document what the pattern is and then they’re able to roll that out. There’s a parallel between what you do with magic to what CEOs do in magic when they create and build their companies. That’s an interesting parallel. What about the painful memories? We all have things that happen to us in life that could be life-changing. Do you have anything that sticks out to you where at the time it might’ve been painful, but now looking back, you learned from it and it caused you to be the person that you are.
I remember there was this kid who invited me over to his house with a couple of other kids. It was the only time I think he invited me over one of the few times. He did invite a lot of other kids over. I’ve got these goofy ears here. I remember him walking me into his bathroom. Me kicking the door and trying to knock down that wall because I wanted a kid to pick on to invite over. I remember another time where we’re in this van on the way to a basketball game. We stopped for fast food.
The kids get food, I fall asleep and they had the sugar packets. They put Soda Pop, mix it together with the little that they had, and then they put it in my hair like gel. That was some nasty concoction. I remember crying. That was something that made me want to prove myself. In certain industries, you have to want to prove it because magic is competitive. I don’t know if it was attributed to that, but I always remember wanting to show off, whether it’s my magic, my biceps or whatever else. I would want to not let people pick on me because from 4th to 8th grade being picked on.
A lot of people can relate to that because I remember the kickball teams when you’re a kid and before you played a lot of kickball, the last pick was always the most embarrassing. We’ve probably all been through that experience. It gives you that extra fire that caused you to say, “I don’t want to be the last kid being picked on the kickball team.” What about from an energy perspective. There are things that can drain you in life and can give you a jolt of energy. What gives you energy and what drains you?
Pitching media is something that I do all the time now. I started turning that switch on. I used to be practicing magic, but I realized practicing could only get you so far to get always staying in front of people. That practice of pitching media has got to me on to 7 or 8 major media channels, including The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed and some other things.
You did it yourself. There’s a lot of PR companies out there that would love to charge $3,000 to $10,000 a month to get you on 7 to 8 shows.
The thing is they said there were no guarantees. They wanted a retainer, and they had a three-month minimum. It was $2,500 to $5,000. I said, “Forget about that. Let me learn this myself.” It took me 2 or 3 years to figure out the formula, but once I figured out the formula, I could replicate it again and again, immediately. You’re paying for the experience. They can probably do it on. I can do it for people within a day or two, figuring out what the story is, who to pitch, and how to pitch it. It’s that training and that thought process of developing it distilling that to a form is an art but I was too cheap. If I had money, I would have had them, but I don’t even know if they would have got beyond there, and I say, “This doesn’t work.”
This may not work for everyone but I think I had that story, which was I’m a pre-IPO PayPal employee that now is a magician. That tagline gets all those LinkedIn opens immediately. I also said, “I lost this much in one month, but now I’m earning this much and this is how many shows I’m doing per week.” I did up to 52 shows in a week and 12 shows in a day. When a reporter hears that, they’re like, “Let me hear more. We would like to see a free demo.” I promise people, “I’m going to be the most fun you’ve had in interviews.”
It’s all about the listeners. If you can show them that you’re going to be entertaining and valuable for the listeners then they’ll bring you on the show. What about what drains you? If that’s what lights you up, what takes the energy out of you?
Sometimes, picky clients who you are convinced to work with and then they end up draining you or committing to something and then realizing it’s not what you realize it to be like. For example, if you go into a meeting or you go into something. If you go to a magic conference, you sit in front and center, and it ends up being boring, you’re like, “This sucks. Now I have to leave in front of everyone.” Staying and sitting in the front. Sometimes, you’re like, “I’d rather sit in the back, and if it’s not good, I can walk out.” Once you sit in front and center, you commit and then you’re like, “I can’t leave.” That’s draining.
What about if you were to think about the next several chapters of your life? What would you like to accomplish in life that would change everything for you?
There are many things. I’ve been going for low-hanging fruit a lot, but it could be like ADT, Penn & Teller: Fool Us or even opening up a restaurant. Then those are all things that are very risky. I’m risk-averse. I’d rather bring people on, maybe investors or consultants. When I was becoming a magician, I knew that there was a bottom floor. I knew that if I could do 4 shows at $250, I would make $1,000 a week, 52 weeks in a year, I’d make $50,000. It’s conservative but it’s plausible because that’s what a kid’s magician will make. If I doubled that, I make $100,000. I set smart goals.
Virtual Magic Shows: If you make a small change, sometimes depending on where it is on the curve, you're making a big gain.
You’re pacing to do quite a lot more than that from our conversation.
We are doing well more than that because we’re mainly in the corporate sector. That $250 was 2 to 5 years into my career, which was close. I started it years ago. Now, I’m working for Google, which’s hired me about 40 times, Netflix, LinkedIn, and Salesforce. My client list is from an A to Z.
While we’re there, without naming company names, what I heard you say is that some of these companies have a heartbeat. The culture, it’s almost as if they’re a person because they are. There’s a brain, left hand and right hand. You can tell. When you go inside the body of this person called the company, you can tell the companies that are healthy and the ones that are sick. Talk to us a little bit about how you can parallel the life of a human being’s body and compare that to a company. I was curious in our conversations.
The company culture stems from how much the founder cares about its people. It also is reflected in both the wages and how they compensate. For example, let’s keep it positive. Airbnb granted some of its experienced hosts, including myself, IPO shares at the IPO price. That is a reflection of how much they care as partners. You’re invested long-term. A couple of other companies I’ve worked with have granted me equity in their company based on me contributing, doing four trade shows for them and/or giving them ideas. It also gives them the option because it leaves the door open. There’s another company that tips me a $1,000. You can tell how much they care for their vendors. That’s a reflection of how much they’re going to succeed in the feature because every time something happens, you have this connection because of the reciprocity.
I remember hearing who worked in the Bush administration. He talked about going downstairs when he parked his car and the people who would park his car, most of these politicians were jerks to the workers who were parking the cars. Not this guy. He asked about their families. He cared about what they were all about. They parked his car upfront. They washed his windows every day and they treated him with respect. He didn’t ask for that, but he earned it by being a good person. What you put out to the world and your level of positivity comes back in spades. Eric Donovan said it, the return on intention. A lot of people think of return on investment. If I put in $10, do I get $50 out? If you measure it that way, sometimes you might be disappointed. If you put in the intention, then you’ll usually get out way more than you put in and way more than you expect.
That’s a big takeaway.
Let’s fast forward three years from now. It’s now the end of 2024 and you’re looking back. Maybe we’re at another Living A Better Story Retreat. We’re in Australia, in a jungle in Africa, or who knows where we’ll be. You’re now looking back and you say to me, “I had the most incredible three years of my life.” Tell me about those years. What happened?
I always leave for possibilities. I don’t say it’s a disappointment if these don’t come past. I did a documentary. My whole thing was, someone said it’s going to cost $100,000 to do reality television. I’m leaving that there. Maybe I’ve done a reality television, that’s been picked up, I make a full-length documentary or I’ve been on Penn & Teller or ADT. Any of those would have been a validator. I don’t know if I could do all those in all three years. Those might be things that I could do in ten years. I don’t live with that expectation. I move toward it, but I don’t want it to say, “If I set this, then there’s a standard or a failure.” What I tell my wife is I grab a whole bunch of darts. I throw them against the wall. I see what sticks and I draw the circle around it. I know that’s the direction I’m going. I can paint where the dart lands. To me, that’s a little easier and you always win.
What’s interesting about that is I’ve got this little packet. It has goals on it. When I was in my early twenties, I wrote down 1-year, 2-year, 5-year, 10-year goals. The ten-year goals were all achieved within three years with one exception. I did not buy a boat and I still haven’t bought a boat. It’s amazing when you put your intention to the world and you say, “This is what I’m going to do. I know a person who has contact with some of those kinds of places. I know multiple people who do it.”
If you keep it wrapped up in a box and you don’t make it your intention, then when you meet people like me that make an introduction to someone like Jeff Hayzlett who knows everyone in media or ERock, who’s out of Arizona then people may or may not achieve those. Being bold and putting those things out there are exactly what it takes. It’s all about the belief that it can happen and I love it. I’m with you. If one of those three things happens, that would be a life well-lived. If 3 for 3, then we’ll be doing more than a high five. We’ll be opening a bottle of Dom Perignon on that day.
One of the things is I’m planning. For example, if someone told me, “This is what’s going to happen for video or reality television,” and he told me the cost of it. I wrote it down. I showed everyone on Facebook, “This is what they told me. I filmed for over two days. This is a documentary that we had. I filmed it on a $550 budget.” Imagine what I can do with a full budget, like $20,000 or more, even $100,000. That’s my practice runs to say, “I’ve been there and done that.” I’ve dropped in a link to the documentary that won a film festival. I’ve got rejected from one and I have five more that we have awards hopefully coming.
I met the producer of this documentary called Liberty Lockdown. It’s release on Vimeo. It talked about how a lot of companies were shut down in the middle of COVID from doing their businesses. He interviews people and it’s a high end that this guy would be an interesting person for you to talk to. He’s doing a project, a documentary on the Gavin Newsom situation going on. He has all the behind-the-scenes footage of the campaign that’s going on to remove him from office. This is a very interesting producer who’s quite good. The next question is, what are you tolerating in your business? Sometimes we all leave the squeaky wheel because it’s easy to leave. Is there anything that you say, “I’m tolerating that?”
Sometimes, I say, “It’s good enough,” and I take on lots. As Arjun said, “If you make a small change, sometimes depending on where it is on the curve, you’re making a big gain.” You have to go further and further to that gem of the journey to that perfection point where you’re getting that small push and big gain. A lot of times, I’m saying yes to a lot of things as things. In the beginning, I said yes to a lot of podcasts that I didn’t even know. I was like, “I’m going to go out there and do it.” It feels like you’re grinding the wheels versus hitting the ones that would make the difference. Because of a little bit of timidity, it adds back a little bit more conservative.
How many listeners do you have? Qualify them as much as they’re qualifying you.
I enjoy it so much. I sometimes say, “I’m going to do this.” I end up giving consulting on the backend, helping out and building relationships because I feel that there’s something to be said about that.
What bores you?
My wife says it’s my talking because I tend to fall asleep. I fell asleep in the car when she was talking to me on the way home from the airport. She woke me up. Sometimes at night, if my head hits the pillow and I fall straight asleep. She’s talking to me mid-sentence, I spoke one word a couple of seconds ago and then I’m out. That’s what she says. To be honest, I don’t get bored easily because once I’m bored, I’m already out. I have that freedom. No one is forcing me to do anything.
What do you think is working well in your business and what would you like to improve upon? You already hit a little bit on it but a slight variation of the question.
My Google Ad spend the return on investment. I’m not sure if it’s coming through. There was one day, I turned something on and I spent over $1,500 on that, which is not normal. I go-between nothing to $100 or $150 depending on where I’m going. I spent it and didn’t see anything come back on that day. I expected a phone or a metrics in it. I guess it was a lot of impressions.
Virtual Magic Shows: You got to accept the good and the bad, but the transparency that you give to it sometimes allows you to tell the story and get better at pitching media.
What role does faith play in your journey?
We walk by faith and don’t see what’s ahead of us. I don’t know how strong it is sometimes. I’m thinking, “I got to do this myself,” versus relying on grace. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic. I had very little faith because I woke up at 5:00 and I went to sleep at 2:00. I ground the wheels instead of trusting in God. I was like, “I got to do this to myself.” Sometimes, you’re full in or you don’t know what. You’re like, “Where are you, God?”
You sure had faith in Woody’s run at the end of the day when we said, “That’s the only way to get to the next mountain.”
I remember guarding my stuff. I was thinking certain things in my head, but I did not say anything. I was guarding my mouth. I was like, “I’m going to do this.” I’m not going to say anything because I don’t want to get scared but there were certain things that I wanted to say.
The biggest thing that I shared with the group is what I went through with my son. I was putting together a PowerPoint presentation to articulate that because, at some point, I want to walk a group through the level of testing that it gives you. The long and the short of it is we got a phone call at 6:30 at night that said, “I’ve been in a car accident.” My wife goes, “A car accident?” He said, “No. A cooking accident.” You wonder like, “Did you cut off a tip of a finger? Did you burn your thumb?” He’s like, “No, mom. I burned half of my face off.” A lot of people could go immediately, what’s next?
You have a lot of pictures in your mind, but we had faith all the way through it. What’s wild is at the end of two weeks, he’s at our house now. We played cards with him on our poker table. He’s got a little nick on his nose, a little bit of redness under his eyes, and a little pinkness on his face. All you would think is that he was in like a little bit of a scuffle with somebody and maybe in the sun for too long. If you had seen him, it would have been like, “What in the world happened to you?” It does remind us that having faith in the journey gets us through and you have proven to the world that COVID can hit you. You’re running all these events live and you have to pivot to virtual. How many live events did you do per year before COVID hit?
I don’t even know. It was 250 or 350 a year.
Your income is in the several hundred thousand dollar ranges. The first month that you were in transition, what did you go to? You probably did zero events in one month or what was the number you did in a month?
It was three events. This was the last article that hit on CNBC. This was the first article I hit. That was the bookend. When we talk about bookend with what Arjun was saying, the first one was, I lost $8,000 in one week, and that’s not a good story. My wife and family were like, “What are you doing? You’re telling everyone that you lost money.” It’s getting on this media cycle and then I could tell the next reporter, “This happened.” After that, it was Business Insider, then VoyageLA. Those were all things that came through in order. You got to accept the good and the bad, but the transparency that you give to it sometimes allows you to tell that story and get better at pitching media.
Most people are like, “I would not do A.” If you did not do A, what about the $8,000 in one-week loss, you’re not going to get B, C, or D because that was the opening the door. The people I have been telling to do this as a media, they’re like, “No. I’m not going to do this. I would do any of these that you’ve done.” They didn’t realize that media coverage would not have happened because I would put these on LinkedIn and I said, “Do you want to see how it’s changed?” With LinkedIn, there are only many characters to have the credibility of CNBC cover me and say, “I lost $8,000. I was featured in this article. Can I tell you what’s different? Can I tell you how much more I’m making now?” Most people turn that down off. They said, “We’re not doing that.” I see a lot of guys struggling because they thought that was too embarrassing and they’re still stuck in the mud when this helps them.
Be authentic and share your authentic self. I’ve seen Lance Burton live. I’ve seen David Copperfield live more than once. Probably, three times. I saw Criss Angel floats above the Luxor Hotel. I love magic. I’ve named 6 or 7. I saw another guy. The guy who was always on the Vegas show years ago on New Year’s. He was always in Vegas and do a lot of card tricks. There’s only 1 of 1 Daniel Chan. If you were to leave our audience with the cliff note, what’s the 1 of 1 of Daniel Chan’s magic show?
Right now, it’s some virtual things. I’ll show that to you.
You are the best virtual magician in the world. I would comfortably make that statement. At this place and time, Daniel Chan is the number one virtual magician in the world. If I say it, then it must be true.
Let me try something with you real quick. I want to ask you if you can help me right here. I’m going to leave this card that’s clipped here. I’m going to ask you to think about your intuition. There is a card right here. What card do you sense this to be? It’s not the king because a lot of the guys end up picking a king. What card do you sense this to be?
It’s funny because I was originally thinking king, but it changed for me into a jack.
What jack are you thinking about?
Spades.
How confident were you that this is a jack of spades?
It was between that and an ace of spades. It’s a black jack regardless.
What do you see?
I see the jack right there.
Under that?
Jack of spades.
That means it’s the jack of spades.
For the readers, he did it. I was looking at a card, and it transformed into the jack spades. You can see more of it if you visit MillionairesMentalist.com. Dan Chan, the magic man. His son and his wife have equal levels of talent. If you read this episode, if you know someone who knows someone, let’s get Dan Chan on ADT. Let’s get him his own show. He’s worthy of it. I promise you that you’ll love his show and you’ll love Daniel Chan, the magician man. Everybody, thank you for joining. It was a pleasure having you back on the show. This is show number one. I’m happy you came to Utah, Daniel. It’s a pleasure getting to know you. I can’t wait to see you looking back on three years and all the accomplishments that you’ve had over three years.
Important Links:
https://www.CNBC.com/2020/04/03/coronavirus-hurts-silicon-valley-caterers-and-event-businesses.html
https://TheHustle.co/silicon-valleys-favorite-magician-zoom-magic/
https://www.BusinessInsider.com/silicon-valley-favorite-magician-pivoting-to-zoom-2020-5
http://VoyageLA.com/interview/meet-daniel-chan-dan-chan-presents-chino-hills/
