This is all psychological science looking in and some of my own person beliefs which you are free to disagree with. I'm hoping this will give in some new insight or maybe refresh what many of us already know. I'm going to first discuss the technical, what is really going on - when it comes to sales and persuasion. In social psychology the terms, Hard To Get, Foot In The Door and Door In The Face are the technical terms for the three big persuasion tactics. Playing Hard To Get, we often think of dating but the term has the same meaning in the context of dating as it does in persuasion- it's playing on scarcity. Scarcity infers value. We naturally want what is rare because it has value.
Given that you are good and you are the only magician in the immediate area - you will be of value because you are rare. Now - Playing Hard To Get only works as long as you are not impossible to obtain. People will give up in the quest to obtain the rare item if it is impossible to get to. In real-world application, while you are your area's one of a kind, you should give yourself a high fee (in the three digets) but you should be easy to get in contact with.
Foot In The Door refers to making a small request that eventually leads to the target. An example of this would be a kid wanting $5 by asking his neighbor for 25 cents one day, 75 cents the next day, a dollar the next and finally $5. A small indifferent request leads to the target.

I recently purchased a vehicle a few weeks ago. The car salesman was more interested in selling this particular car because the dealership that gave this salesman's dealership a promotion if they sold this car. The going price was if I remember $18,000 (it was a used car by the way). I was only wiling to pay up to $15,000. I made sure the car salesman knew this. Since he really wanted that promotion by selling this vehicle he talked to dealership's manager if the price could go down. I met the salesman at $14,500. I got my car and the salesman got his promotion.
This true story is an example of the final technique for persuasion - Door In The Face.
Door In The Face is when you meet the victim to be persuaded with an outrageous request but talk them down to the target.
Kid wants some money to go to a concert. Tickets are $100, kid asks parent for $500, parent says no. Kid asks for $100, parent agrees.
Door In The Face is probably the technique I see most often and you probably use it without even knowing it in your day to day functions as an entertainer in showbiz.
If you are not using this technique.

If you aren't using these techniques, I urge you to. To play on scarcity - simply place "15% off for a LIMITED TIME" or "Tickets Sold OUT on X & X Date"
Use foot in the door when someone is hesitating on booking you - says your fees are too high, say that they called during a discount time frame and fees are reduced by such and such %.


Time to give a few words on getting what you want. If you haven't already - read Dale Carnegie. In psychology, a lot has been documented on pro-social behavior. We humans are social organisms, we depend on each other for survival, or at least we did and that social instinct is ingrained in our genetics and it isn't going away any time soon. What does this mean for sales? Sometimes you're going to have to meet in the middle:

I got a call, an email rather from someone requesting me to do a show. I was originally planning on giving them my $$$ fee but then I learned that this person is running a new daycare. Being a businessman as a magician - I knew the financial strain of being fresh so I told this person that I was cutting the price in half but I'm doing it as a favor so please don't tell anyone I'm doing this. I got an agreement, the person signed the contract and I showed up a few weeks later to do the show.
Common sense says that you get what you pay for and that there is value in price. Experience has taught me that low price equal poor treatment from clients.... Well common sense and experience do not always dictate future events. The client and the kids in the daycare enjoyed the program, I got positive feed back, I got paid the reduced price and I was called back to do the show again and I have gotten a good relationship from this client and her business going because I was willing to negotiate.

This where I'm going to take a moment to glorify personal belief ahead of the science I discussed previously. You can charge in the hundreds (lets just talk about private party clients), have a good show, get great feed back but not get a call back the next year because of financial issues on the clients side (he/she loved the show, felt that the fee was reasonable but simply can't call you or anyone else back again because of money tightness. It happens.) My honest opinion, the success of a business isn't in how much the business charges but it rests on how it treats the people that come in contact with it. I'd rather, personally have a long standing relationship with a client who pays in the low $150 who keeps giving me call backs and repeated bookings than to have a client pay $500 but can't do a repeat. Relationships no matter what - between friends, lovers, between client and professional - are all the same. Psychological science has mapped out the entire process. All relationships between people start the same and end the same. Dissatisfaction and death are the #1 reason why relationships end; someone wasn't being negotiable or they died.

You're probably thinking to yourself " you negotiate a low price, but you are a professional". I'm still getting paid and I'm still getting booked. I am not saying negotiate yourself so low that it's uncomfortable for you. I took a risk slicing my prices in half for this one client - who has become a loyal client and has been calling me back ever since.
Also, in marketing - you should probably be putting more time and energy in the people who have already done business with you than exhausting energy in getting new people who don't have your interest at heart.

that's it. If you got anything else to add please discuss here. Feel free to disagree with me, I learn from disagreement.

Instead of worrying about the psychology of selling (which seems tacky and sleazy to me) I believe in being transparent with my customers.

Much of the "selling psychology" out there doesn't address the elephant in the room which is most people don't call anymore and most buyers are searching online.

That's why the user experience on your website is so important. It's almost "psychological selling" but online.

Most call this Conversion Rate Optimization.

Did you know that if someone is looking to hire a magician they are 70% sold before they even fill out your contact form, email or call you?

Knowing that - it kind of throws psychological selling out the window.

Be transparent, provide an amazing experience for your customers (online and offline) and you don't need to concern yourself with negotiation techniques and all that.

Josh London

It could be said that if you have done proper psychology selling and positioning, 70% could be sold before ever needing to visit your website.

This percentage should not be presented as factual and may be misleading for some reading it. In reality, the percentage one is sold prior to filling out a contract or calling varies greatly based upon ones business model and the specific market. One thing I am certain of is that there is a much higher percentage of people in my area who are sold on hiring "Charlie and Checkers" before they contact me than those who are "looking to hire a magician".

I agree with Josh that being straight forward is the best approach. Of course negotiations that are for the mutual benefit of everyone can and do work, but should be presented when meaningful and appropriate.

I believe the scarcity principle the OP spoke of is the one that I choose to leverage the most for my business model.

I think Josh is onto something there. I guess in any case between a client and a professional - if someone is making contact with you - or even asking a question that relates to something about you or what you do (price, years of experience, etc) they are either hooked and sold or they will be hooked and sold.
Whenever someone approaches you in concern to what you do - the minute they open their mouth they are telling you that they are considering.

70% is a good number - that means there is a 20% chance that they are thinking about it or they aren't going to bother booking you. 20% is still a very small number As I said, the minute you are asked a question concerning you professionally - you are getting one step closer to closing the deal, getting booked and paid. Even if the deal doesn't go through that time, since they asked and you answered, they got enough information to proceed to ask again next time or you will probably hear back from them in the near future.
This happened to me earlier this year. I was asked if I could do something on the lines of a birthday. I said yes, they said good but the birthday has already passed but I'll most likely hear from them again as I was promised (the person who asked I have consistent contact with at least once every 2 weeks so the odds are in my favor of hearing about this offer again come next spring.)