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