Small Biz Special: How A Magic Show Became Popular

0:00Quick, I want you to think of every evening activity that you enjoy. I know that sounds really weird, but I mean like, you know, what do you enjoy doing at night? Going out to dinner with some friends, maybe seeing a movie, staying in, going to a concert, you know, the usual stuff. Is a comedy magic show anywhere on that list? The answer for most people is probably not. Maybe not because you hate magic or comedy. It's just not something you think to do. And you're not alone. Jackie admits that a magic show wouldn't be her first thought when planning a night out with friends. That is the voice of Emily.

0:43I'm Emily Washkovic, Yelp's small business expert. And you're going to hear a lot from Emily and Jackie, who she just mentioned, and someone else in just a second. But why don't I step back and tell you why I'm talking about these people and about comedy magic shows? because I want to answer this question, or rather, I'm excited for Emily to answer this question. And it is, how does a small business compete in the kind of incredibly competitive marketplace that is entertainment, evening entertainment, and succeed? Especially when you're doing something that isn't always top of mind to people. But maybe, just maybe, that is also what helps it stand out?

1:28And to answer that, let me step way back for a second. I'm going to tell you about an incredible list that was produced, one of the companies on that list, and then a podcast about that company. All right, ready? So here it is. The list. Entrepreneur and Yelp partnered together to create an incredible list called America's Favorite Mom and Pop Shops, where we identified the 150 most beloved local, local, local businesses based on all sorts of interesting Yelp data. And we put that list together. You can find it. Just go to entrepreneur.com, search for America's favorite mom and pop shops. And on that list is a company called Trickery, which as Emily describes it is a magical comedy experience in Chicago's Lakeview East neighborhood.

2:17So, okay, we made the list. Trickery shows up on the list. Now, Emily and Yelp have a podcast, which is on the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. It is called Behind the Review. I love the concept. So Emily picks one review on Yelp and then talks to the person who left the review and the business owner to understand both sides of that very important exchange. Someone showed up at a small business. They were happy. How did they get happy? What experience did they have? And how did the owner of that business create that experience? That's the idea of the episode. So today, what is going to happen on Problem Solvers is I'm going to play for you the episode that Emily created about trickery and about this woman, Jackie, who didn't really think much about going to a magic show and then went and had a good time.

3:14What happened? And how does the one person, the sole employee of trickery, the person who runs the business and also the magic on stage, how do they put it all together into something that is magical? Well, that is all coming up after the break. This episode is brought to you by Walmart Business, proud sponsor of Entrepreneur Magazine's America's favorite mom and pop shops. It's the Walmart you love now for your small business. From boardroom to break room, enjoy everyday low prices on an ever-expanding assortment of the things you use every day, all organized into key categories and easy to order.

3:53Plus, you can open one shared account for up to five users. Create a free account today and start shopping at business.walmart.com. That's business.walmart.com. All right, we're back. I'm about to kick it over to Emily to take over for the rest of the episode. But just a recap, you are going to be hearing an episode of a podcast called Behind the Review, where Emily is going to talk to two people who were on both sides of a very nice Yelp review about a company, Trickery, that ended up in our list of America's favorite mom and pop shops. You're going to be hearing about the owner of Trickery, Aaron Rabkin.

4:34The owner, headlining performer, and sole employee of Trickery. But to start, you're going to hear from Jackie, who, yeah, may not have wanted to go to a magic show. But she had way more fun than she expected. Not only did she get to go out and enjoy time with friends, but she was thoroughly entertained. It was really nice. I didn't have any expectations for what this show could be. Sometimes when you go into a magic show, it can be cheesy. But I think maybe he got our sense of humor. He was able to entertain little kids and able to entertain adults, too, with his sense of humor and his character and pizzazz.

5:08I was actually very impressed with the level of performance that he gave. You can go see a super pricey show in Vegas, and here's this one-man show guy who's in Boys Town, and he's able to pull off that caliber. I didn't know what to expect, and we all walked away nodding our heads and saying, oh, wow, that was really good. I think he did it all by himself. So you're still not sure how he pulled it off. Jackie was impressed enough to leave a five-star review for trickery and Aaron's performance. Let's take a listen. My friend had booked a Saturday afternoon party event for a birthday at the trickery.

5:44The place is cozy and intimate. There's definitely a moody, mysterious vibe. One room is sort of the lounge, and off to the left lies a smaller room with rows of seating for the show. Good tongue-in-cheek entertainment, jokes and all. Check out the room near the bathroom. In fact, there's a lot of little fun photo spots and novelty in the small space. Trickery itself is celebrating its sixth year in business. But Aaron's been performing for most of his life in cities like L.A., where he trained at the famous Magic Castle under some of the best magicians in the world. He spent some time doing street performances there and in upstate New York before settling down in a corporate job in Chicago.

6:24It didn't take long for Aaron to feel that pull to perform again. I'd always wanted a storefront venue. I loved that idea. And Chicago has a very burgeoning sort of storefront theater scene as it is. So it seemed like the right place. And I'd always been scouting out locations just in the back of my head. But that's when I got really serious about it. That was my shot. So I put together a business plan and just started pursuing all the licensing and finding a location where I'm currently right now. I founded, I think, around like February, March of 2017 and signed a lease sometime in like May.

6:59It was more of a pop-up at first when I did shows. Getting the license in Chicago is a whole thing because I'm under the same rules as if it's the Chicago Theater or United Center. Some of that holds thousands of people, whereas my capacity is barely 35. But regardless, I had to fulfill all these crazy qualifications. So while I was waiting to get officially licensed, Chicago has a loophole that you can be a under 100 seat venue. And as long as you don't officially charge, you can put on shows. And so then I basically became this pop up concept. And I started in July of 2017. And I did this for until about mid-November when I finally got the official business license.

7:39And I was doing shows every hour on Friday, Saturdays, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 1. and they were about 25 minute shows, maybe got up to half an hour. And I was just turning people over. I had the window open to the street so that people could see into the show. I had the door open and the guy, and I went back to my street performing roots of just drawing a crowd, putting on a show and passing a hat. As they say on the street, if you're not good, you don't eat. Nobody has to come to the show. And even if they stop for the show, they don't have to stay for the show. And even if they stay for the show, they don't have to give you any money.

8:08So it really was a testing ground to get back and repolish my skillset because I really hadn't been performing in a while, given that I put it by the wayside. So that was an amazing opportunity to reestablish myself as a performer, refine my voice, but also, and this can bring in Yelp, building some sort of credibility. Because if I had just officially opened and said, hey, that'll be$20 for what? They're like, I don't know. What is this? How would I know? But by having that time to build a little buzz and at no expense to the audience, that way they could start leaving reviews, start talking about it.

8:45And that way, once I officially was opening, I could then have a jumping off point of see everybody who's been so far loved it. It's not a total far cry to say maybe, you know, this is a show worth paying for upfront. Aaron sounds pretty casual about the idea, but I don't think he gives himself enough credit for the strategy he used to start getting traffic to his brick and mortar business. Rather than stay closed and wait for licenses, he used his street performing routes to his advantage. In fact, the free show idea in the beginning of building this business might be one of the most genius grassroots marketing hacks of all time.

9:25And to this day, he still doesn't use paid marketing. I just want to put on a show. That's all I really want is to put on a show. I think I've gotten swept up in all of it in the sense that if you want to make it as a performer, there's certain channels that are more traditional. And I think growing up in Los Angeles, I got to dabble in many of those, if not all of them and learned the true and honest way. It doesn't go as planned for pretty much 99.9 % of people. This was my way of getting creative is basically said, look, if no one else wants to produce my show, I'll produce my show and I'll kind of do it the scrappy way.

10:02And the way it is now, I mean, this place has come a long way over the course of years, where at first it was just very modest and not even, I blocked off most of it. And all I had done was painted some stuff black, but over time it's now become much more of a robust setup. I've done everything, but it's just kind of piecemeal to get to where I want it to feel like it's a professional operation, but yet it has no affiliation to any traditional path of what anybody would traditionally do for like a theatrical. And it even blows people's minds when I don't do any marketing. So it's all, it's either word of mouth, pass by, or whatever comes up on the internet, searching fun things to do on Yelp or just doing an online search.

10:44But that's my philosophy is I don't think that if you build it, they will come is necessarily the classic approach to a business. But I'm really opposed to our current time where it's a lot of this hype culture. So it's just like people put a lot of money into these really well-produced ads that are eye-catching and people book a ticket and then they go to it. And it's probably not even half as cool as it looked, but too late. We already captured your money. We don't care if you don't tell anybody because we're just going to keep advertising. For me, I want to put all my bandwidth into the show.

11:14I want it to be the best show and experience possible. And if it's meant to be seen and experienced, I think people will find out about it. And thankfully that has worked for me and it's only gotten easier over time. The longer I've done it, the more people know about it. So I'm always stressing that this is going to be, this will be my last week in business. Watch Nobody Comes This Weekend. And then somehow in the last 24 to 40 hours before a show, it'll just like sell out. I'll be like, okay, dodge this. But it happens every week. So you'd think I would have learned by now to just be at peace with it.

11:45Although there was one weekend at the beginning of June when Taylor Swift was in town. Taylor Swift won that weekend. Hands down, Taylor Swift won. And that was a slow weekend. I think it's fair to say that over the last six months, a number of businesses, big and small, have learned you can't compete with Taylor Swift. But for many businesses, having a famous performer like Taylor or Beyonce in town means an influx of spending. Yelp actually dug deeper into the impact of Beyonce's renaissance tour in local economies. We found that when she was in New York, searches for nail techs were up 178%.

12:22In Chicago, searches for women-owned hotels and travel businesses were up 44%. And when she performed in Philly, searches for LGBTQ-owned shops were up 194%. As a business owner, you can maximize these types of local surges by offering themed menu items or special offerings. You can also do collaborations with other businesses in your area that might be getting traffic due to an event. We're going to take a quick break. Be right back. Hi, I'm Robert Tuchman and I host Entrepreneur's How Success Happens podcast. Each show I get to interview a successful entrepreneur. Many have built some of the biggest brands in the world like Lululemon, Warby Parker, Patron, and Drybar.

13:08But here is the part I love, because after doing hundreds of episodes, I've noticed regardless of one success, we rarely get to hear about all of the challenges they faced and overcame to get there. They all had to pick themselves up off the mat at one time or another. I love hearing their stories and how these people we find incredibly successful today are really just like you and me. They all faced difficulties, but they all kept going and got through them. On How Success Happens, we dive deep to find out how they overcame these issues and what was it that drove each of them to keep going and never quit.

13:52Because let me tell you, they all face difficult times. It's a great podcast if you want to learn from the best while inspiring yourself. Trickery isn't a big space. And as Aaron mentioned, capacity is usually topped out around 35 people per performance. That intimacy is something Aaron uses to his advantage by creating a somewhat personalized performance each and every time. It also means he has to do multiple performances on those key days in order to drive enough revenue. That means Aaron had to learn how to balance the demand for shows with his capacity to perform. Where I'm located, there's a really well-built in nightlife.

14:33And so I was just trying to piggyback off that. And that was my starting point. Then when I got to doing a real schedule, I knew I should probably stay two weekends, but I did need to have enough shows where I was at least giving myself a chance because at first I wasn't selling out all my seats. So I wasn't having enough. I needed to have enough shows where that time's attendance equaled enough to cover expenses. So that was where I was thinking in terms of probably, I guess Thursday, it's kind of like become the new Friday somehow where people go out on Thursday. So it's like, hey, Thursday seems reasonable.

15:06Sunday, I liked the idea of Sunday as a matinee show. And I also based it on just looking around and seeing what other shows are doing, whether it be like the Broadway in Chicago series or Steppenwolf or Goodman or just there's a lot of theater in Chicago. And so I could kind of see, OK, what when are they doing shows and what times My times used to be 8 on Thursday, 8, 10 Friday, 8, 10 Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday. With my first winter when things picked up and those 8 and 10 shows were selling out on Saturday, I remember talking to my sister and saying, I'm selling all the shows. She was like, what if you added a third show at 6?

15:44And I was like, oh, I guess I could. So now I actually usually do 6 and 8 before I add a 10 o 'clock show. And then in subsequent winters where things have even picked up more as my sort of snowball has picked up speed, I sell out 6, 8, 10. So then I was like, could I do a fourth show? So that's where I was thinking, okay, I need to maximize the shows I can do. So then I added a four o 'clock. So I was doing 4, 6, 8, 10, four shows, which is a lot. It makes for a long day, which is weird, though, because now as I'm doing two shows, I'm like, I'm spent. I'm like, how do I do four shows, let alone three?

16:21But it's kind of like somebody who trains for a marathon. You just have to get in the shape for it. I find the energy. I feel like it's not unreasonable to add another showtime and play that gamble. In essence, I'm also the producer. I'm the writer, the performer, the director. So I'm wearing a lot of hats. So that's why I always say the art has to thrive so the business can succeed. But the business also has to succeed so the art can thrive. So the two have to coexist. And it's very rare that the same person has to juggle these two things with some sort of a theatrical production. It's a balancing act to want to give the art its room to breathe, but also it has to be commercial enough and all those things.

16:56While it might be a one-man show, audiences really don't know that. By design, Jackie certainly didn't notice it was just Aaron, and only Aaron, running things at Trickery. Actually, I didn't know he was a one-man show. It was an afternoon event, so I don't think this is like a typical setup. Usually the shows are in the evening. And so because it's a private show, we got let in early and I think he let us in. And we thought he was just kind of the host. And so we're just co-mingling in the party. And then maybe about 30 minutes in, the show's about to start. We get seated and he puts on a different jacket and puts on his showtime face.

17:35He actually, once in a while, he'll refer to someone in the back to help him out. But you never see the other guy behind the stage. So I'm like, wow, I think this guy is really a one-man show. he's like putting on the performance, he's putting on the music, maybe the lights and whatever else he does. And I don't see anybody else. I think towards the end, I realize I think this guy is just doing this all by himself. That's really impressive. The rest of the business behind trickery is also a one man show, which can really burn out a business owner if they aren't careful. But when it's handled well, no one has to see you sweat.

18:11People still even don't quite grasp what goes into it where they'll say like, oh, so you just do the show. So what's your day job? Like, what do you do the rest of the week? As if you're right, I just show up. I do a quick performance. I leave. Everything cleans itself up, resets itself. The toilet washes itself and the phones answer themselves and the emails and all the admin. If I make it look that easy, then bless your soul. Thank you for the compliment. I don't get a weekend in the normal sense because I'm doing shows Friday, Saturdays. So I have to get creative the few Saturdays and Friday, Saturdays that I really allot myself in a year because I can't do 52 weeks a year.

18:48That's how you immediately are going to burn yourself out. So I obviously can't do that. Even just working on the show, even people thinking like, how often does the show change? As if I'm just going to write and polish and install a whole new hour of material and have it be perfect and just throw a whole show under the bus. And I don't disagree. I'd love to have people come back. And I do get a lot of repeat guests where sometimes they'll come back in the same year and maybe just bring somebody else and then live vicariously through them or they just love it so much. There's people who have probably seen Hamilton a dozen times and not gotten sick of it.

19:19It's not like you go to Hamilton and you're like, really? Hamilton again? Come on, learn a new song already. I just feel like this is trying to be more of a theatrical production where even I'm kind of blown away that I'm still, like, that's my golden rules. I still have to have fun at every show because as long as I'm having fun, it's not unreasonable to expect that, okay, you were what? You were here three years ago and you came back. Thank you. First of all, thank you so much for repeat patronage. But also it's easy to forget stuff. The show is ever evolving enough where the energy is always ebbing and flowing and I'm finding little things to tweak, even if it's the same set list more or less.

19:52But it is neat when it's those really unique moments that people, because that's part of what makes this live entertainment is every show is technically different. As much as I may say the same lines or do the same movements, in the grand scheme of the moment, it's an unpredictable situation. Whatever somebody is going to say or do or what can happen. So I am very much improvising and ad-libbing and just being present and getting to enjoy that show myself, which is part of the fun of it all. As a regular reviewer, it's important to Jackie to support local and small businesses. But she admits it's sometimes the novelty of a business that really stands out to her, as it was the case with Trickery, which checked both boxes, small, locally owned, with an element of uniqueness and fun.

20:37I'm a person who's attracted to novelty. So if I see something that looks interesting, then I'll go check out the place. Typically, I want to write positive reviews because I know I want to support small businesses. And if my reviews will help the business owner, and it also helps the people who are reading the reviews, saying like, hey, you know what, maybe the person who's reading is similar to the other reader. And if they're interested in certain aspects of a business, then hopefully I can highlight that for them. So the reason why I write reviews is number one, to keep notes for myself, just like you showed me.

21:09And then the second part is helping the wider audience kind of narrow down their choices. Some people are hesitant and the reviews might push them one way or the other. That's totally fine. And hopefully at the end, I can, especially small businesses, the reviews, these reviews will help them out. And do I write everything? No, I write when I feel I think I'm inspired to write. If it's a mediocre experience and it's a place that's super popular, I'm like, you know what? Let's get your expectations a little bit more normalized. But for majority of my reviews, it's mostly focused on the places I find are really good.

21:45And I want to go back to them. The support of small businesses is one of the top reasons people write reviews. And it goes without saying it is appreciated by owners. Aaron found out quickly how important they can be to creating a thriving business. So before starting Trickery, I maybe would look up reviews for businesses here and there, but I never really thought much of them. But since starting this, it is clearly what drives business. People tell me all the time that they found it and then they looked at the reviews and the reviews were so good that they had to come. So clearly the reviews are mission critical.

22:24I could not do this without all of the really positive feedback and that there are landing pages like Yelp for people to go and look it up and have it be pre-vetted. It goes a long way. I do read every review. I actually, more than even me, it's become a game. My dad, he is obsessed with people leaving Yelp reviews for trickery. Five stars only, of course. If somebody left one right now and I saw it, it would be a matter of hours before he sends me a text going, new five-star review on Yelp. And he doesn't have the business profile to even tell him. That means he is manually going into the Yelp app, searching trickery, and seeing if there's a new one.

23:09So he loves Yelp reviews. I love that reviews are something Aaron and his dad bond over. And according to our research, consumers don't necessarily trust a business that only has glowing five-star reviews. They might even assume it could be fake. Though, as Aaron thoughtfully pointed out, Yelp has mechanisms in place to prevent and eliminate fake reviews. Trickery is one of Yelp's more rare birds in having only 100 % five-star reviews. According to Aaron, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's actually very stressful because then that's part of where I have this level of expectation that people are coming into, whether or not they've been aware of it necessarily, I guess, because just like I know that I need to live up to this.

23:53So part of the stress for me is running this thing and making sure everything goes swimmingly and hits all these marks and I have to be consistent. And that's part of why I can't just have it be a brand new show. And most of my audiences, their first time I'm playing to very small audiences. So it's not like I'm going to burn through all of Chicago and its tourism community within two months. And here I am years later, I still meet people who live around the block, live around the corner. And they're like, oh, we've been passing this for years. We finally decided to come. I was like, amazing. Even just within this neighborhood of Lakeview, there's 100 ,000 people.

24:22Just in this neighborhood, let alone all of Chicago metro, even the Midwest, up to Milwaukee. I meet people visiting from the immediate areas. I meet people from abroad. People are making this part of their trip to Chicago. There's billions of people. I don't think I'll run out anytime soon. And that concludes our episode. Be sure to subscribe so you get new episodes every Thursday. I hope you enjoyed it and were able to take a thing or two away to implement in your own life. Whether it's a new idea that you can bring back to your business or a fresh perspective on how to be a positive influence as a consumer, we share these stories to inspire and create more meaningful connections in your local community.

25:00For more information about today's business or to connect with me, check out the show notes.