Welzman is hired, often by international corporate clients, to work his magic and build crowds around trade show stands. "I combine magic and mind-reading performance and wrap it around the sales pitch, so people learn as they are entertained."

Welzman was first attracted to magic when working behind a bar. He says, "I started to learn bottle flair, as featured in the movie Cocktail. Then I learnt about magic bars, where the bartenders perform magic in between drinks."

After learning magic from books and videos, Welzman says putting these skills into practice behind the bar made sense. "From a sales point of view, I thought bottle flair went against sales; if someone orders a drink, you want to get it to them as fast as possible. Magic, on the other hand, could be used in between drinks."

Welzman was soon talent scouted by Club Med and spent 12 months at a resort "doing magic every day, seven days a week". However, on returning to Sydney, he says he tried to make magic a full-time gig but "failed miserably ... I had the show but not the business".

Fast forward a decade, and Welzman now has the show and the business. His perseverance and pragmatism helped him find success: "People give up too soon. They stop thinking about what they do and how it fits into the world."

Propelling him further forward, though, was his discovery of trade show magic. Sasha Jensen, strategic account director at Launch Recruitment, agrees that finding a niche can bring big career benefits. "Mastery often follows ... you can 'own' and dominate the niche." Marketing niche skills is also far easier than marketing generic skills, she says, but adds that a niche is something that usually takes time to evolve.

Describing the beginnings of his venture into this specialised style of magic, Welzman recalls his first trade show booking: "I turned up on the day with no information from the agent. It was a food expo. The chemicals that go into chiko rolls was the product I had to promote on the day. It was a hard sell."

While it doesn't sound like the ideal start, Welzman – who has always had a natural inclination towards sales and marketing – says he realised trade shows were "his version of Disneyland".

As he worked more trade shows, he also realised he could add another component to his show. "I would pull a crowd during a magic show and people would then walk away. The client was happy, but I wasn't. I started wondering, 'How do I communicate the message more effectively?' and I realised that I could incorporate a sales message in the performance."

While he later discovered that there are trade show magicians, mostly based in the United States, doing a similar thing, Welzman says he came up with his own style independently.

It's a style that won him the top gong in the world of magic in 2013 – the International Magicians Society's Merlin Award. Career coach Lisa O'Brien says Welzman's success is unsurprising: "He has gone from being another magician to being a magician who can get an organisation's message across in a memorable and entertaining way. That's special."