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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, I'm Austin Hankwitz and I'm Jnise Torres. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the season finale of Mind the Business Small Business
Speaker 2: Success Stories, a podcast by iHeartRadio and Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 2: In each episode, Jennie and I chat with small business
Speaker 2: owners as they share their stories about the ups and
Speaker 2: downs of owning a small business. Plus we'll learn from
Speaker 2: their experience about how you can help fortify and strengthen
Speaker 2: your own business.
Speaker 1: Can you believe it's our final episode of the season.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it feels like we're.
Speaker 1: Just getting started, even though we've already learned so much.
Speaker 2: You are so right, genius. I'm really going to miss
Speaker 2: talking business with you and our amazing guests, including the
Speaker 2: one we have on today's episode.
Speaker 1: Same here, Austin. I'm curious, what's been a highlight for
Speaker 1: you this season?
Speaker 2: Ooh, A highlight for me this season. So I think
Speaker 2: I've got both a highlight I want to share as
Speaker 2: well as sort of a realization. So starting with the
Speaker 2: realization as a small business owner myself, I've realized we
Speaker 2: all sort of run into the same problems. They're all
Speaker 2: very similar, marketing, production, distribution, hiring the right team right.
Speaker 2: The list goes on and on, and as I reflect
Speaker 2: upon the last seven episodes of this podcast, I let
Speaker 2: out a sigh of relief knowing I'm not the only
Speaker 2: one going through these challenges and that there are countless
Speaker 2: other small business owners out there that I can lean
Speaker 2: on for support. Now, as it relates to a highlight,
Speaker 2: I think a few come to mind. The first one
Speaker 2: being hiring away what you're not good at right. That
Speaker 2: was huge for me. I'm the ideas guy for suare,
Speaker 2: so being able to hire someone to help support that
Speaker 2: project management was really really important for my small business.
Speaker 2: Always taking the high road right sometimes it's very important
Speaker 2: to forget about money and instead think about the good
Speaker 2: your product or service can do for your community. Talking
Speaker 2: about you any SIPs and finally, optimizing the tech stack
Speaker 2: a the software you use to run your business. Build
Speaker 2: a tech stack that includes email marketing, search engine optimization,
Speaker 2: and cash flow and payroll tools. It's one thing to
Speaker 2: have a product, it's another thing to sell that product
Speaker 2: in a way that's repeatable, scalable, and efficient. What about you,
Speaker 2: Janie's what is maybe a big highlight for you from
Speaker 2: this season?
Speaker 1: I just really love the diversity of businesses that we
Speaker 1: were introduced to during this season, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a good reminder that you can literally turn any idea
Speaker 1: into a business. Whether we're talking chocolate or tea or
Speaker 1: a payment system. There is just so many different opportunities
Speaker 1: for us to monetize, whether it's a product or a skill,
Speaker 1: and I just want folks to understand like anything can
Speaker 1: turn into a small business. So I hope that this
Speaker 1: season encouraged folks to just really think outside of the
Speaker 1: box and think about what is that area of expertise
Speaker 1: that you can turn into a small business.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, today, for our series Closer, we're talking about
Speaker 2: something that each of our previous guests may have touched
Speaker 2: on a little in a quintessential part of managing any business,
Speaker 2: which is scaling your business.
Speaker 1: You know, Austin, I think we often hear the term
Speaker 1: scaling your business, but I want to give our listeners
Speaker 1: a clear definition. So when we talk about scaling, we're
Speaker 1: talking about this scaleability, or the measure of a business
Speaker 1: to enable and support its own growth. This requires planning,
Speaker 1: some funding for sure, and the right systems, staff, processes, technology,
Speaker 1: and partners. It is a process to ensure that the
Speaker 1: company's revenue increasingly outpaces its cost and I know it's
Speaker 1: something that both of us have been navigating for some
Speaker 1: time as business owners, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Denis. I'd also like to add that scalability exists
Speaker 2: on a spectrum, right, because sometimes you scale up, like
Speaker 2: our guests from episode six, Kevin Wong, who needed to
Speaker 2: hire more workers to help his company increase profits. However,
Speaker 2: you can and also grow a company by scaling down,
Speaker 2: like Harlem Chocolate factory owner Jessica Spalding who limited her
Speaker 2: number of skws that is a stock keeping unit to
Speaker 2: lower her overall operating costs.
Speaker 1: Exactly, you can have two companies that are providing the
Speaker 1: exact same product or service, and yet their scaling operations
Speaker 1: can look completely different because the process is so unique
Speaker 1: to each kind of business. One constant, though, is the
Speaker 1: type of tools that you can use to determine how
Speaker 1: you scale.
Speaker 2: Janis are you referencing the DIKW pyramid? You know, I am?
Speaker 1: Why don't you let the audience know more about it?
Speaker 2: Let's do it so. The DKW pyramid represents the relationships
Speaker 2: between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Each is a building
Speaker 2: block towards a higher level of understanding of your business needs.
Speaker 2: First comes data, which is really just raw information regarding
Speaker 2: your business operations. This brings us to information, which includes
Speaker 2: making sense of your data with tools like QuickBooks. Once
Speaker 2: you have that valuable information, you can turn it into knowledge,
Speaker 2: and knowledge is power, especially as it relates to running
Speaker 2: a small business.
Speaker 1: That is so right Austin. Knowledge really gives you the
Speaker 1: power to make informed decisions on how you operate your business.
Speaker 1: Think of knowledge as how the information that you've gotten
Speaker 1: from your data is applied and this all brings us
Speaker 1: to the top of the pyramid, which is wisdom. Wisdom
Speaker 1: is why we make the decisions that we do. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's the knowledge applied in action and when it comes
Speaker 1: to scaling a business, the DIKW pyramid is an excellent tool.
Speaker 2: That was such a great explanation Jannis, and I think
Speaker 2: I know someone who knows a little bit about scaling
Speaker 2: a business. Today's guest Chris Trebus, entrepreneur, concert promoter and
Speaker 2: club owner. Chris Trebus started promoting shows when he was
Speaker 2: just eighteen years old before owning and running his own venue. Currently,
Speaker 2: Triebus is running the new state of the art venue,
Speaker 2: wc's Social Club in West Chicago. The WC Social Club
Speaker 2: is at bar, restaurant and concert venue with flexible and
Speaker 2: comfortable space. Tribas has no formal business degree or financial training.
Speaker 2: He's learned the ropes of the concert scene throughout the
Speaker 2: years on his own. Confined to a wheelchair, Tribis has
Speaker 2: spinal muscular atrophy Type three, a neuromuscular disease. Chris operates
Speaker 2: in a unique space where he can identify problems and
Speaker 2: access when choosing a host, venue and as a wheelchair user.
Speaker 2: He has his own litmus test for determining adequate accessibility
Speaker 2: and he's most recently been featured on the series Born
Speaker 2: for Business, airing on Peacock. What's up, Chris, how's it going?
Speaker 3: Man? Good man, how are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm good, I'm good. Thanks so much for hanging out
Speaker 2: with us on our episode of Mind the Business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no problem, I'm excited.
Speaker 2: So we were told that you played in a band originally.
Speaker 2: How did you go from being an artist in a
Speaker 2: band to being a promoter and talent booker.
Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of a fun story. I played in
Speaker 3: marching band and I couldn't do sports anymore at that age.
Speaker 3: So I met a bunch of the guys and some
Speaker 3: of them were in bands and stuff. So I was like,
Speaker 3: that sounds fun. I should do that, and I started
Speaker 3: playing an actual drum kit in a band. When I
Speaker 3: went to college, there was no venues in the area.
Speaker 3: It was north west Indiana, so we had nowhere to go.
Speaker 3: And I had seen some of my friends do shows
Speaker 3: and you know, Legion halls and church basements and kind
Speaker 3: of diy stuff, and so I'm like, well, I could
Speaker 3: do that for us. So I started putting on concerts
Speaker 3: and Legion halls and stuff. This is back when you
Speaker 3: had to go through the yellow pages, so you know,
Speaker 3: I rented a hall, threw down one hundred dollars deposit,
Speaker 3: which was kind of terrifying an age eighteen with no money.
Speaker 3: And then it kind of became this thing where I
Speaker 3: was like our promoter and concert coordinator but also playing
Speaker 3: in the band, so like I would run the concerts,
Speaker 3: set it all up, coordinate everything, and then I would
Speaker 3: get someone to watch the door. I'd go play and
Speaker 3: then I'd come back, you know. And I kind of
Speaker 3: like started thinking about it from more like a business perspective,
Speaker 3: and it was my first real like entrepreneurial endeavor. I
Speaker 3: never I'd always kind of done our business stuff because
Speaker 3: I thought it was just fun and I was naturally
Speaker 3: good at it. But this was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: I have a business plan, Like I could make money
Speaker 3: this way. I never really had. That was the first
Speaker 3: time it really clicked for me, like where I was
Speaker 3: like I could actually do something, and then I can
Speaker 3: keep the money.
Speaker 2: Oh, we like to keep money, right.
Speaker 3: I used to do it for the love though, you know,
Speaker 3: I wanted my band to be popular. That's all I
Speaker 3: cared about when I was, you know, a teenager, and
Speaker 3: then I got older, I'm like, I could do something
Speaker 3: with this and then I did one show this band
Speaker 3: called the Chiotos Brothers at the time now they're called
Speaker 3: Chiotos and it's sold out, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: I made like eight hundred dollars today, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do this again. That's how I began.
Speaker 2: Making eight hundred dollars from what event, Especially if you
Speaker 2: were passionate about this, seems like a dream come true.
Speaker 2: So was that that sort of first breakout moment when
Speaker 2: you realize you could actually do this for a living.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean at that moment in time, that was
Speaker 3: a lot of money to me. And I was like
Speaker 3: amazed because I got to put on the concert, I
Speaker 3: got to make a profit while doing so. I got
Speaker 3: to like cool cool in front of my friends. It
Speaker 3: was like, you know, a really big win all around
Speaker 3: for me back then.
Speaker 1: You know, that's awesome. So you're basically working with a
Speaker 1: team when you're starting out. I'm curious what prompted you
Speaker 1: to break away and get into business with yourself and
Speaker 1: basically like take over both the promotion aspect and also
Speaker 1: the talent booking aspec.
Speaker 3: Sure, So I just kind of dove in and tried
Speaker 3: some concerts, right, I started as a performer, then as
Speaker 3: a promoter, and then when I was coming at it
Speaker 3: from more of a promoter angle and started to care
Speaker 3: about profits more so than just you know, how many
Speaker 3: people are here and how fun it is. But I
Speaker 3: started to look at it from a business perspective. How
Speaker 3: much money can we make? How else can we make money?
Speaker 3: Immediately I noticed things. My first show with this Banciottos,
Speaker 3: I sold online tickets. I'm like, hey, that guy gets
Speaker 3: a service fee. Why shouldn't I get that? These are
Speaker 3: my tickets I sold? And so then I immediately got
Speaker 3: on building a ticket platform. So within a year of
Speaker 3: being a promoter, I had built a ticket platform. I
Speaker 3: thought to myself, well, if I did it for this band,
Speaker 3: can I do this for other bands, let alone another
Speaker 3: genres of music. I was in college in Indiana, but
Speaker 3: I'm from Chicago Land. Can I do it in both places?
Speaker 3: So immediately I was like starting to identify potential revenue
Speaker 3: streams and say, hey, I can tap into this or not.
Speaker 3: I tried a lot of things that I didn't stick
Speaker 3: with as well, it's worth noting.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually in the process of hosting my first
Speaker 1: live event, and so I know there's so much that
Speaker 1: goes into event planning, things like logistics, marketing, paying your
Speaker 1: talent and the workers. So at what point did you
Speaker 1: actually become profitable as a business, Like, how far into
Speaker 1: your journey did you start turning a profit?
Speaker 3: Well, at first, I started a very event based, so
Speaker 3: I would look at an event by event, so it
Speaker 3: would be like a winner a loss each time, right,
Speaker 3: if you look at it over a timeframe of a year,
Speaker 3: I was profitable immediately. I've always had a good knack
Speaker 3: for making good decisions with music. I've always known music well,
Speaker 3: so I know who people are going to want to see,
Speaker 3: kind of before they're popular, if that makes sense, so
Speaker 3: on the rise, So I'm able to catch an artist
Speaker 3: before they sell tickets and have a demand. They're going
Speaker 3: to learn with me that there is a event for them.
Speaker 2: I didn't know we were interviewing Scooter Braun over here.
Speaker 3: That's part of the job, though, you know, it's kind
Speaker 3: of an A and R situation. You want to make
Speaker 3: good buys. You know, I compared a lot to real estate.
Speaker 3: You don't have to just throw darts in the dark.
Speaker 3: You know, you can take a look at comps, so
Speaker 3: to speak, like comparable artists, comparable shows in other areas
Speaker 3: of the This is a lot easier now you can
Speaker 3: just go on Instagram. Artists posts pictures of their concerts. Hey,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of people there. But like back then,
Speaker 3: you got to like talk to people listen to music,
Speaker 3: you know, And I was the guy. I was a
Speaker 3: taste maker. I was putting on the concerts. So part
Speaker 3: of my job is to make the artists i'm promoting
Speaker 3: bigger as well. Show people, Hey, this artist is awesome,
Speaker 3: this is a product I'm selling, Come see them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm curious if you can let us into
Speaker 1: the secret sauce that you use to assess whether an
Speaker 1: artist is bookable, right, Like, what is it that you
Speaker 1: look for? Is it a gut feeling, is it market demand?
Speaker 1: Or you on social media? How are you deciding who
Speaker 1: is worth booking.
Speaker 3: It's a combination of factors. It depends on the genre
Speaker 3: of music. Each genre has subgenres, so you have to
Speaker 3: get to know this stuff first and foremost. You can't
Speaker 3: just go online and look at like, oh, how many
Speaker 3: TikTok followers they have and how many views on YouTube.
Speaker 3: It's not that simple. You need to look at first
Speaker 3: and foremost fan enthusiasm, like do these fans that care
Speaker 3: about this artist or not? Do so much social media?
Speaker 3: For example, you can just look for yourself. Of course,
Speaker 3: you look at your stats you're following, but you also
Speaker 3: look at growth. You take a look at Spotify monthly
Speaker 3: listeners for instance, what did they have last month versus
Speaker 3: this month? Not what do they have total? What's their
Speaker 3: new content doing? An artists may have a bunch of
Speaker 3: hot tracks, but then you look closer and it's like
Speaker 3: eight years ago, Well, is that relevant? Sometimes it is,
Speaker 3: sometimes it isn't. Some artists are really like having a
Speaker 3: renaissance right now. A lot of them are like bigger
Speaker 3: than ever now, and they it was over for them
Speaker 3: ten years ago, you know. So you got to pay
Speaker 3: attention to all these trends, and there's so much music,
Speaker 3: you just got to pick a few focuses. I think
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so when you decided it was time to really
Speaker 2: scale up the business, right you were going to be
Speaker 2: doing a lot of these What were you initially focused on?
Speaker 2: Was it getting larger names, was it finding bigger and
Speaker 2: better venues? Maybe increasing ticket sales? You mentioned owning the
Speaker 2: entire sort of value chain so you could begin to
Speaker 2: monetize a ton of different ways, but specifically was that
Speaker 2: the end goal or was there other maybe focuses along
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 3: Well, it started, I booked this artist, I go bigger.
Speaker 3: But then I noticed, in order to do so, I'm
Speaker 3: getting cut out. People don't want to play lesion halls
Speaker 3: for the rest of their career. They don't want to
Speaker 3: play in the floor. You know, they want real stages.
Speaker 3: They sold five hundred tickets now, man, they want like
Speaker 3: a real venue. And I noticed I was going to
Speaker 3: be outgrown. So my second focus was nail down a room,
Speaker 3: nail down consistent venues. And then I noticed every venue
Speaker 3: I work with wanted to screw me, take my artists.
Speaker 3: Like I was throwing down a lot of money because
Speaker 3: I could get a lot of people out. I did
Speaker 3: creative marketing tactics like download my space spots and automatic
Speaker 3: messengers and you know, high technology stuff that they weren't
Speaker 3: thinking of. And so my kind of like third and
Speaker 3: most important revolution in the I guess like sort of
Speaker 3: vertical integration space, which I didn't think of it as
Speaker 3: that at the time, but and that was to take
Speaker 3: the venue over. I got kind of frustrated, and I
Speaker 3: decided that I needed to own the venue, and I
Speaker 3: needed to sell the beer, and I needed to pay
Speaker 3: myself a rental. I needed to own the South system.
Speaker 3: I got tired of paying all these subcontractors who like
Speaker 3: do a little piece of the business and then like
Speaker 3: get in the way constantly. This is where I became
Speaker 3: a control freak, and I'm like, I'll just do everything.
Speaker 2: So as a live events company, I'm sure you were
Speaker 2: negatively impacted by the pandemic. How did you pivot your
Speaker 2: business to adjust during that period when you could not
Speaker 2: put out a lot of these live shows.
Speaker 3: Well, for the record, I got totally destroyed during the
Speaker 3: pandemic because my bigger projects just were gone. I had
Speaker 3: a music festival I just got rescheduled at three times.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if we would have to reschedule a
Speaker 3: fifth and sixth and seventh. There was no clear ending
Speaker 3: to the pandemic really until pretty recently. And then, like
Speaker 3: larger venues, these landlords don't care. They just want you
Speaker 3: to keep paying rent. They're not worried about the fact
Speaker 3: that you can't do live events. That has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with them. I had to really scale down and
Speaker 3: I had to play with it for a while to
Speaker 3: see what happened. And what I landed on was like
Speaker 3: taking my operation and really compacting it and really thinking
Speaker 3: about a home base and like not so much like
Speaker 3: expansion and impressive things like maybe take smaller shows and
Speaker 3: really focus on those customers at smaller customer base and
Speaker 3: really zeroing in on getting a max gross out of
Speaker 3: those people. It also conveniently takes a lot of the
Speaker 3: risk out of it. When I do a show for
Speaker 3: like a lot loose evert it's you know, hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars. I'm risking a house here now when
Speaker 3: I take a low risk artist, but I have a
Speaker 3: really good business plan that can monetize it effectively. There's
Speaker 3: no risk, smaller reward, but consistent reward.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of small business owners that definitely
Speaker 2: resonate with that right kind of taking a step back
Speaker 2: from the massive home run out of the park swings
Speaker 2: and you know, putting a lot of risk on the
Speaker 2: line to how can I hit those singles and doubles consistently.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really good way to think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's age too well, I know, making sure that venues
Speaker 2: are ada accessible is a really important component of your
Speaker 2: work if you found that that has helped or hindered
Speaker 2: your company's growth in any way, Like, for example, does
Speaker 2: it get more expensive to produce a show when you
Speaker 2: have to account for such things?
Speaker 3: Well, no, because normally you're going to use a pre
Speaker 3: existing facility, or you're going to build your own facility,
Speaker 3: or at least modify the facility. Like I did a
Speaker 3: show at the Metro down in Chicago, very famous venue.
Speaker 3: I'm the promoter. I rented this place for ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I can't go see my own damn show. It's like unacceptable. Honestly,
Speaker 3: you know, someone needs to like be the antithesis of this.
Speaker 3: I can care about this shit, not just say they do.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Mind the Business Small Business success Stories.
Speaker 3: Scaling occurs by being as busy as possible. We have
Speaker 3: a place that could be used twenty four hours a day,
Speaker 3: seven days a week, if but we wanted to. So
Speaker 3: what else can we do here? Because I do an
Speaker 3: event you know at seven to eleven, that's four hours.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after the break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Mind the Business Small Business success Stories
Speaker 2: brought to you by iHeartRadio and into it quick books.
Speaker 1: Now I know what the music business you can get
Speaker 1: really bogged down with paying a lot of different people.
Speaker 1: How do you manage the service side of your business,
Speaker 1: things like bar, sales, food, catering, merch etc.
Speaker 3: Well that's fun is I actually hate that part of
Speaker 3: the business. I don't like want to run a bar
Speaker 3: at all. But how do I handle it? I dive
Speaker 3: right in and I just like everything else, I handle
Speaker 3: as much as I can, and I delegate where I
Speaker 3: see fit. At WC, for instance, with service and staffing,
Speaker 3: it all comes down to choosing good people because you
Speaker 3: can't interact and serve a customer myself. It's not possible,
Speaker 3: so you have to have good talent selection. Essentially, it's
Speaker 3: a matter of reading people in their psychology and what
Speaker 3: they can and can't handle, what they like and don't like.
Speaker 3: What are they going to do and not do. Realistically,
Speaker 3: it's an experience thing. I don't know. It's never easy,
Speaker 3: and post pandemic I would say staffing is extremely tricky.
Speaker 3: They're going to ultimately be your representation out there on
Speaker 3: the floor. They're gonna be your first line, so you
Speaker 3: have to make good decisions and set good standards.
Speaker 2: So, Chris, I'm curious here right, beyond just the shows,
Speaker 2: the wc's Social Club is also available for private events.
Speaker 2: How does this factor into your business and has this
Speaker 2: helped you scale? I mean, for example, we've talked to
Speaker 2: a lot of entrepreneurs throughout this season about how they've
Speaker 2: come out with a product or service and kind of
Speaker 2: repackaged it for something else that's help them build their
Speaker 2: business into something larger. Walk me through how repurposing a
Speaker 2: venue beyond just for concerts and things, but now also
Speaker 2: for private events has helped you scale your business?
Speaker 3: Well, the biggest advantage of doing something like that is
Speaker 3: it gives you diversity. There's only so many customers that
Speaker 3: are going to get so many times. You know, people
Speaker 3: have only so much money, so you have to diversify
Speaker 3: who you're bringing into the space. Furthermore, the diversity causes
Speaker 3: a lot of interconnections. People come there for a corporate event,
Speaker 3: they realize, oh my god, it's a concert facility. I
Speaker 3: love concerts now they see concerts there. Vice versa. People
Speaker 3: come in for a concert, oh they rent here. I
Speaker 3: need a place for my corporate party or whatever. So
Speaker 3: I guess in a case of WC, the scaling occurs
Speaker 3: by being as busy as possible. We have a place
Speaker 3: that could be used twenty four hours a day, seven
Speaker 3: days a week if we wanted to. So what else
Speaker 3: can we do here? Because I do an event, you
Speaker 3: know at seven to eleven, that's four hours? What else
Speaker 3: we do in so really packing that schedule can help
Speaker 3: the business expand drastically and maybe even physically, which we
Speaker 3: have aspirations of doing as well. Got it?
Speaker 2: You know, we talked a little bit about owning the
Speaker 2: value chain vertically integrated. I'm sure that's not exactly how
Speaker 2: you saw this starting, right we talked about the eight
Speaker 2: hundred dollars you made. I didn't think maybe in the
Speaker 2: beginning you thought about owning that entire sort of system there.
Speaker 2: How do you envision your business changing going forward? Do
Speaker 2: you feel like you've got it all under control and
Speaker 2: you're just trying to now grow or you're going to
Speaker 2: begin kind of offering new types of products and services
Speaker 2: along the way right now?
Speaker 3: Like I said, I really tightened things up and cut
Speaker 3: the fat and I developed a really solid foundation. What
Speaker 3: I like about it is it's very scalable. I'm kind
Speaker 3: of considering a couple of concepts right now, I really
Speaker 3: am between two and that's expanding physically the WC into
Speaker 3: like offering other products. And the way I would do
Speaker 3: this is almost like a mall. You know, there's like
Speaker 3: several kinds of things you can do in a venue.
Speaker 3: So in this case, we would maybe have like a
Speaker 3: lobby that had a couple of different, you know, fun
Speaker 3: concepts in it, and maybe like a studio, and then
Speaker 3: it would lead you to the live room. I'm also
Speaker 3: considering expanding from the regard of, you know, another bigger space,
Speaker 3: which is something I'm pre pandemic. I'm taking it easy
Speaker 3: with that because I want to see. One thing I've
Speaker 3: learned is patients. In this business, I used to really
Speaker 3: shoot from the hip, and I've really learned to be
Speaker 3: patient and look for the right scenario. And WC is
Speaker 3: a great example of that, and I've learned that I
Speaker 3: need to do that again if I go larger, it
Speaker 3: just need to be even more careful.
Speaker 2: So it's a great segue actually into the next question
Speaker 2: I want to ask you, which is, if you could
Speaker 2: go back in time and talk to your younger self,
Speaker 2: what piece of advice would you share as it relates
Speaker 2: to growing your hobby and passion into this viable business model,
Speaker 2: would it be patients?
Speaker 3: Patience will certainly be one of those things, combined with
Speaker 3: not being a fan. You know what's really hard being
Speaker 3: me is you're a music fan and you love these
Speaker 3: artists and you want to book them. It makes you
Speaker 3: want to give them more money and make it happen worse,
Speaker 3: and it's like, you can't do that. It is business.
Speaker 3: Follow the rules, you know, take it more seriously. I
Speaker 3: started my own music than You at age twenty six,
Speaker 3: and it was really ambitious and we did a great job.
Speaker 3: I look back, we were really sloppy. I used to
Speaker 3: drink alcohol a lot. I don't really drink, especially while
Speaker 3: I'm working. Stay sober while you're working, which which sounds
Speaker 3: obvious the most of you, I bet the music that
Speaker 3: is not obvious. You could ask anyone who works in
Speaker 3: my field. Which is too bad, I guess consider people's perspective.
Speaker 3: Guys who came around the first time when I was
Speaker 3: in my twenties, I did a show with them. I
Speaker 3: thought they were assholes. Second time they come around, I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know what, he's mad because I didn't do a
Speaker 3: good job. That's the problem. You need to do a
Speaker 3: better job, dude. I've had to really, you know, learn
Speaker 3: what accountability means the hard way a lot of times
Speaker 3: because I've made a lot of mistakes, which is totally okay,
Speaker 3: But if you don't admit that you make a mistake,
Speaker 3: you're never going to learn. And so those are the
Speaker 3: big things I really have taken away where I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: if I could talk to myself, I.
Speaker 2: Think that's really powerful. I'm curious. You know, you've gone
Speaker 2: to probably hundreds, if not thousands of shows at this point,
Speaker 2: what has been your favorite show that you've produced so far?
Speaker 3: It was probably like in the top three worst days
Speaker 3: of my life to run the actual concert, So it
Speaker 3: wasn't my favorite day. But I reunited the Wu Tang
Speaker 3: clan and I even got Method Man to come out,
Speaker 3: I got to make custom Wu wear and I don't know, dude,
Speaker 3: is just amazing. And then the top of it all off,
Speaker 3: they were like the coolest guys, Like, honestly, everyone was
Speaker 3: super cool. You know a lot of times when you
Speaker 3: get into the big leagues, these guys treat you like shit.
Speaker 3: They act like you're their employee, even though I'm paying
Speaker 3: for everything. You know, this is the opposit scenario. These
Speaker 3: guys really nice, really great experience.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's really exciting. I'm curious. Do you have any
Speaker 1: big shows coming up this year that we should be
Speaker 1: checking out or being mindful of.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't have any like, you know, massive shows
Speaker 3: right now, and that's actually a conscious thing I've done.
Speaker 3: I did a big festival last year and I slayed it,
Speaker 3: and then a few months ago I tried to replicate
Speaker 3: those results got my ass kicked head to cancel. So
Speaker 3: you know, I've honestly just been like really zoing in
Speaker 3: on WC and my ticketing platform and then you know
Speaker 3: the newer, like expansion types of projects that I'm doing.
Speaker 3: So no, I don't have any massive concerts. My favorite
Speaker 3: concert coming up the next couple months I have is
Speaker 3: we have this Bangalactic Empire and they're like a Cosplay
Speaker 3: Star Wars metal band, which is just like it's a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, a lot of chords.
Speaker 2: For me, that sounds like a lot of fun. Not
Speaker 2: gonna lie. Maybe I'll wear my Obi wan Kenobi cost.
Speaker 3: If you come in a hoodie like I'm dressed now,
Speaker 3: you're going to look like an idiot.
Speaker 2: I'll bring my lightsaber.
Speaker 3: That'll be definitely lightsabers.
Speaker 2: Well, I love it, Chris. Really appreciate you walking us
Speaker 2: through your background, and I learned a lot about scaling
Speaker 2: a business.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here, Chris. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, and thanks a lot for having me. It
Speaker 3: was fun to talk about.
Speaker 2: That was such an incredible conversation with Chris. What stuck
Speaker 2: out to you most in that conversation.
Speaker 1: I really loved what I would say is maybe his
Speaker 1: controversial take on not always having to outdo your own
Speaker 1: success as a business owner. He talked about not always
Speaker 1: having to shoot for the home run, right, making it
Speaker 1: more about consistency, even if the results are smaller, but
Speaker 1: you're getting that consistent return on your investment. And for me,
Speaker 1: that's been a personal journey that I've been going on
Speaker 1: in the past year as a business owner, because I
Speaker 1: think there's so much pressure for us to always outdo
Speaker 1: last year, whether that's revenue or the amount of tickets
Speaker 1: you sold, or whatever it is that you're using as
Speaker 1: that mark of success. Sometimes maybe you just want a
Speaker 1: little less money in your pocket, but a little more
Speaker 1: comfort and a little less stress. And sometimes it's okay
Speaker 1: to not always outdo your success as a business owner
Speaker 1: if it means that, you know, you can get out
Speaker 1: of that grind cycle, which I think is one of
Speaker 1: the main reasons why a lot of us pursue entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: It is to have more flexibility, more control of our time,
Speaker 1: and not become victims to this treadmill or this hamster
Speaker 1: wheel that we've created.
Speaker 2: How about you, Austin, Yeah, absolutely, and I totally agree
Speaker 2: with that. As a small business owner myself, it's certainly
Speaker 2: something that I'm trying to do as well. Right, find
Speaker 2: those singles and doubles versus those home runs singles and
Speaker 2: doubles that I really enjoy doing and can do on
Speaker 2: a consistent basis one hundred percent. Chris mentioned something really
Speaker 2: important in my opinion, and I hope you all caught it.
Speaker 2: He was talking about vertical integration and owning the entire
Speaker 2: sort of value chain of his business.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: He was not only just doing the promoting, but also
Speaker 2: the booking, the selling of the tickets. And I know
Speaker 2: as small business owners we tend to niche down into
Speaker 2: one very specific product or one specific service. When susuality
Speaker 2: if we're touching all these other different things, why don't
Speaker 2: we also try and monetize those as well? And you know,
Speaker 2: for example, as it relates to what I do with
Speaker 2: my small business and trying to own that entire value chain,
Speaker 2: it's not only just having the distribution right, which is
Speaker 2: my TikTok, my newsletter, my social media channels, but also
Speaker 2: owning what I am distributing, which could be equity in
Speaker 2: these cool fintech companies or other creator economy companies that
Speaker 2: I believe in and obviously own equity in. So I
Speaker 2: really really appreciated Chris's perspective on that, and I think
Speaker 2: owning the value chain being vertically integrated to something every
Speaker 2: Swamp business owner should strive for.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Austin, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2: Denis. I am so sad to say, but it seems
Speaker 2: like we are at the end of the first season
Speaker 2: of Mine the Business Small Business success Stories. I am just,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, what are we going to do?
Speaker 1: I know I'm going to miss doing this with you
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 2: Austin, me too, me too, all right, Well, as always,
Speaker 2: you can follow me at Austin.
Speaker 1: Hankwitz and I'm at jocquierro Din netto podcast.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Intuit QuickBooks for an amazing first season.
Speaker 2: You can follow them on all social media at QuickBooks
Speaker 2: and to get the tools you need to start, run
Speaker 2: and grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Chris Treebus and all the
Speaker 1: other amazing guests we've had on this season. Check out
Speaker 1: our show notes for more information from this episode about
Speaker 1: scaling your business, and.
Speaker 2: Don't figure us to follow, rate, and review the show
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to podcasts so you can stay up
Speaker 2: to date on season two. This podcast is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Molly Soosha, our supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Nikiah Swinton, and our writer is Tyree Rush.
Speaker 2: Our head of post production is James Foster.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I have had a blast. Thanks everyone. Bye,