Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Ryan Johnson from Arizona.
One of the things that we often run into is looking for unique vehicles to package up what we do.
Ryan is a comedian. He works with other comedians, and one of the neat things we explored here, is the possibility of creating a unique comedy tour in a way that most comedy tours don't exist.
Creating a new opportunity, a blue ocean strategy.
We have a lot of fun talking about the idea of creating something new and different, something you can control, and there are some great ideas here that you can use in your business.
Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
BreakthroughDNA.com
EmailMastery.com
Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link on the left & I'll be in touch.
Download a free copy of the Breakthrough DNA book all about the 8 Profit Activators we talk about here on More Cheese, Less Whiskers...
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 186
Dean: Ryan.
Ryan: Dean, how are you doing this morning, sir?
Dean: I am good.
Ryan: Great.
Dean: So you want to make me funny. Is that what this is all about here?
Ryan: Yeah, I'd like to make you funny, and everyone else you know as well.
Dean: That's awesome. Well, welcome.
Ryan: Thanks for having me.
Dean: I'm very excited to hear all about this. Where are you calling from?
Ryan: From Phoenix, Arizona.
Dean: Okay, nice. I spent a lot of time in Phoenix. The Henry is my favorite spot there, in Scottsdale. Do you ever go there?
Ryan: No, I haven't. I have not been there. I grew up here, born and raised. I live in Ahwatukee, in the East Valley.
Dean: I know all about Ahwatukee, that's funny. Yeah, well there you go.
Ryan: That's where I'm at. Yeah, and I perform at a comedy club in Chandler, Arizona. Yeah, so that's where I am. My main life is here in the East Valley of Arizona.
Dean: Awesome. I'm very excited to hear all about what you got going on in the past, to how you got here and what we want to focus on. Maybe fill me in on some of the backstory here.
Ryan: Oh, yeah. Okay. I grew up, like I said, in the valley here. My dad was a pastor, and so I grew up a lot of time on stage, on speaking and talking. I went to Phoenix Seminary here in the Valley, and after completing that degree, I have a Master's of Divinity, I went on to Duke University to do another Master's in Theology. While I was there, I realized that I just, I didn't like it. I couldn't imagine seeing myself doing this any longer.
Dean: Right.
Ryan: So I stopped doing that. I came back and I started into real estate. I've been doing real estate for about 12 years.
Dean: Oh, nice.
Ryan: Yeah, so I sell houses. That's how I found you, it was through the real estate marketing.
Dean: Oh, nice, okay.
Ryan: Six years ago now, I went water skiing with an organization called Arizona Adaptive Waters ports. Another thing about me, I broke my neck when I was a kid. When I was 18 years old, I broke my neck in a snowboarding accident.
Dean: Oh, no.
Ryan: I was completely paralyzed after that accident. They told me I would never walk again or anything, and I've made a really great recovery.
Dean: Wow, nice.
Ryan: So I can walk and I limp, but I get around really easily, much better than anyone thought. But the experience of going water skiing with that organization just opened my mind to all the possibilities of what I could do with my life. I'd always wanted to be a comedian, so the day after I went water skiing, I signed up for improv classes, and then basically I've been performing ever since.
Before the shutdown happened, I was producing three weekly comedy shows at this little comedy club in Chandler. We had a show Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I had just started teaching stand-up comedy at that club. We had rolled it out, and I was on my second group of people that I was teaching there.
Then that shut down, so now we can't get together. I moved online with a lot of students, or with all of those students. But now I'm trying to figure out how I can find more ... Yeah, I want to teach more people about comedy, or just get more students. Yeah, so that's kind of a little roundabout, but that's where -.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. Okay. How long has all this been going on, the shows and the ... How long have you been doing the comedy stuff?
Ryan: I've been at that club for five years. Then for two years, I've been producing the stand-up comedy shows over there.
Dean: Okay. Was this a comedy club and now you've taken over producing the shows? Or was it not a comedy club and you introduced comedy to it?
Ryan: It was an improv comedy club. The way that that worked was, it was a short-form improv group. We'd get together and, yeah, we'd do short form improv. They were doing shows on Fridays and Saturdays at 9:00. Then the club got the liquor license, so we'd have a sold out show at 9:00, and then there'd be a hundred people, and then they'd just all leave.
So I was like, "Hey, if you let me do stand-up after the show, we'd probably keep a lot of them and we'd sell a lot more beer." So that was why I got to start doing the stand-up shows there, was just because of ... Yeah, it was that, "We'll sell more beer if I get to do this." And the guys said, "That makes sense."
Dean: I get it. Well, that's the whole reason, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Dean: That's the whole reason that comedy even exists, is to sell beer.
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much.
Dean: And that really is the truth, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Dean: I mean, you've got to get to the bottom of it. Same with music. I heard somebody once say that one time, "Any time you hear music being played in public for free, it's to sell something, to sell beer." Probably, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Dean: It's interesting to really have the perspective on what's the real purpose of what's going on here. The real purpose is not so much to appreciate the artistry of comedy and all of that. That's all great and it's true, but the reality of it is that there has to be ... Art is always hand-in-hand with commerce in some way, right?
Ryan: Well, yeah-
Dean: And when you understand that, that's great.
Ryan: Yeah. The reason I'm there, was just to sell beer. I appreciate that though. I get it.
Dean: Yeah, and so do you perform every weekend?
Ryan: Yeah. Pretty much. Me and my wife, we've ... I've been taking a little time off to spend more time with the family. But pretty much every weekend. Now the club's been shut down since the beginning of March, middle of March. So I can't perform anymore, so trying to figure out how to teach more people, get more students for the comedy thing.
Dean: Oh, okay. I grew up in Toronto, so we had Second City was a big part of Toronto. That then transferred into SCTV, Second City TV. In Toronto, it was this silly show that was kind of ... I don't know whether you've ever seen SCTV, but it was John Candy and Doug and Bob McKenzie, Rick Moranis, and-
Ryan: Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Dean: ... Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy and Martin Short and all these people who had this long history of being in Toronto in the '70s from SCTV but then went on to big stardom. But their model was to create, was to make this show that was almost like a behind the scenes at a community access television station kind of thing.
Ryan: Right, yeah.
Dean: So there were sketches and stuff like that. So you've got kind of a nice background in terms of the improv and stand-up, which is, they're two different things. But it makes you like, being a singer-dancer, or a Broadway sensation.
Ryan: Well, what's interesting, too, is all the speaking, from being a kid and the pastor or stuff, and all the teaching and that's really ... Yeah, I've found that all of that experience has helped me a lot more than I would've thought, in the beginning. All of that time in front of people and speaking and all of that is really ... If I have 10,000 hours at anything, it's probably standing up in front of people talking.
Dean: Right, perfect. That goes a long way, because you're naturally comfortable with it. I know people who are, that's part of the thing they have to get over, I guess, is the fear of being in front of people.
Ryan: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: Do you do the same material every weekend, or are you constantly developing new stuff as you go? How does that-
Ryan: Yeah, so Thursdays, the way that is, Thursdays is our open mic, it's like comedy gym. So, that is always brand-new. I usually do 10 minutes of brand-new material every Thursday, and just try stuff out. Then the Friday show and the Saturday show, I have a lot of ... It's not always exactly the same, but I kind of tend to fall into certain routines that just, I get up there and it's almost habit and just kind of starts coming out of my mouth.
Dean: Yes.
Ryan: So it's really-
Dean: Who are some of your favorite comedians, so I get a sense of what you might be about?
Ryan: Oh, sure. Probably, I really like Louis C.K. I find things in his material that makes a lot of sense to me. It's personal, because of my disability I talk all about my life, and what it's like to live in this body. Who else? I get this question a lot, and I have trouble with it. David Letterman, I grew up watching him. I love him. Conan O'Brien, those guys. Kind of the irreverence, like this is all just a big joke, that idea.
Dean: Yeah.
Ryan: So, my delivery's pretty deadpan, I guess, I've been told. I'm observational, so like Jerry Seinfeld probably, or Larry David.
Dean: I love that.
Ryan: Do you know Nate Bargatze? Is that how you say it?
Dean: Yeah.
Ryan: Yes, very funny. To me he's pretty funny, pretty deadpan like observational stuff. And Gary Gulman is one of my favorites, too.
Dean: Okay, yes. Great.
Ryan: Love it.
Dean: Okay. So these shows, when you say you're producing the shows, are you giving people the green light that they're in the show? Are you finding the people, scheduling them?
Ryan: Yeah, for the weekend shows. So then it would be me and then usually two or three other comedians. Yeah, because I would-
Dean: Are they all local comedians or are you bringing people in from out, from touring comedians coming in, too?
Ryan: Yeah, so I book pretty much local, but because I've been doing it for so long, ever since we had the show for two years, our stage was kind of the only B stage in town, if that makes sense. So every weekend, the other club owners would call me and be like, okay, I got a guy in from New York. We can't get him up, can you put him on?
So I would end up getting, typically it'd be mostly local, but then every, probably three times a month, two times a month I'd have a touring comic come through and do a show for us.
Dean: Got you, okay. Now, I'm curious about the economics of everything. When you do a show, how does the club owner ... or how does it all work in terms of what kind of money can it bring in? Is it profitable? Where's the opportunity in that?
Ryan: Yeah, it's not very profitable. It's pretty much, the whole thing, I couldn't get paid to perform. I would get paid primarily through teaching and those kinds of things. The club, the economics of it, I don't know, I'd say I would make 50 bucks a show probably, generally.
But I'm not sure how much the club would make. It was kind of like we would just get the opportunity to perform, the experience, kind of all that stuff.
Dean: Okay, so you don't know what the incremental improvement is going forward, like how much of a difference that made?
Ryan: Yeah, I mean-
Dean: If they had a track record, right, of doing just the improv shows, and then it would end, and then you said, hey, if we let me do the comedy thing we could probably sell more beer. But then nobody checked to see, have we sold more beer? Is that-
Ryan: Well, no. We definitely did sell more beer. But as far as keeping track of the whole thing, there's no ... I mean besides ordering that would be the best way that I could ask the guy, like how much more. Yeah, there wasn't a before and after study done, or anything like that.
Dean: Got you, okay. But it would just seem logical, how long is the comedy show after the improv?
Ryan: Yeah, so it's another hour you would do.
Dean: Yeah, so you do an hour from 9:00 to 10:00, and then you go ... you just keep it going, or you go have a break and then start the comedy show at 10:30 or something, you just roll right into?
Ryan: Yeah, there usually was about a 10 minute break. So -
Dean: Right, but then you'd roll right into it, you'd go until 11:15, and everything's over?
Ryan: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: Okay. So I guess it would be just that extended ... How many people typically come to a show?
Ryan: Friday, there's probably about 50, and then Saturdays, we'd usually average around 80.
Dean: Okay, how much of capacity is that?
Ryan: The place holds 113 people. In the room, if you had 20 people in the room, it felt full.
Dean: Okay, so it's one of those nice set ups where it doesn't ... it can expand or contract and still look nice, still look like you've got people there?
Ryan: Right. Yeah, it's not a huge space, so yeah. It feels full with not a lot of people in it.
Dean: Love it. Okay. Yeah, I noticed, I've been to not a lot of comedy clubs, but I've been to all the ones in New York, or a lot of the ones in New York and Toronto, and I've been to The Improv in Phoenix and in San Diego and L.A. So yeah, I get that sense that some of the smaller ones are kind of low ceilings. The whole thing feels intimate. The Comedy Cellar in New York, that ... So I get that. Now I understand, that's an intimate thing.
Ryan: Right. Well, you want people ... There is a lot of the laughter. People laugh at laughing. You need to have ... I mean, the worst thing I would say when I do a show, and there isn't an alpha in the room, or there isn't someone who is just laughing, be okay with it, because you need that alpha laugh, or someone who is just willing to go for it, and then the whole room feels free.
So it helps smaller the room, that everyone can hear the laughs than-
Dean: That's an interesting. It might be a job opportunity for someone to be an alpha laugher for hire.
Ryan: Oh my gosh, yeah. Well I kind of collect people. In all of my shows, I'll be like, oh my gosh, I need you to come back here.
Dean: That's great. Do you know there was a term in theater in Italy, I think it was, or France it was called slackery, where playwrights would hire people to clap and cheer loudly at their performances. So they would feed them throughout the audience. They would be professional clappers. That's what they would call them.
Ryan: What's funny is I realized that in our room is like we will start our own applause breaks during the improv show. Like we'll get done into something and then it starts to learn. If one of us started clapping real loud, yeah, the whole room will do it. So it's a very funny. There's a bunch of those things where we figured out like, oh, if we do this as a performer, it actually makes the audience think that they're doing it.
Dean: Awesome, and then tell me about the teaching comedy now. So that's so I can get the whole scope of what you're working on.
Ryan: So the theater, I mean we teach the taught improv classes. That's how most people get into the ... That's where they find all the talents. Everyone who performs, there's kind of been home grown, they come pick out ranks and learn how to do it. So there wasn't ... So then just people started ... Then I started doing the open mic for standup and I just started getting people asking like, oh, do you teach stand up?
And so it was kind of because people started asking, I didn't really know how to teach. I didn't really understand what I was doing almost in performing. I just kind of knew how to perform. And so I had to ... When people started asking, I was like, okay, I guess I can start teaching you. So I kind of learned through teaching what I was actually doing in comedy, if that makes sense.
I kind of knew a bunch of the basics, but then as I started talking to people I'd be able to ... I realized I knew a lot more than I thought I did. And I was able to talk to people a lot more in depth about their material that I kind of realized I was able to in the beginning. So it kind of is drone. It was like they said, hey, do you want to do it? And then I taught a couple of people and I was like, oh wow, I'm actually pretty good at this.
And so it was really the only ... The reason was to make money honestly because there's not a lot of money. You have to charge people for something, right? And so there is people who come to the club, they just want to see the jokes and buy the beer. People who want to get better at something, I'm like, oh, these are people I can help. They're interested in this. And so that's kind of where it started from.
I was asked and then I just started doing it. I realized there's an opportunity here, I'm just not trying to ... I don't know how to capture it though, was my problem.
Dean: So when you were talking about doing stuff, did you mention doing stuff online or?
Ryan: Yeah, so now I'm teaching ... I've been doing Zoom calls with people.
Dean: What would you cover in a Zoom call? In a group you mean, or in?
Ryan: I've been doing one on one sessions.
Dean: So how would that ... That's kind of an interesting thing. So how would you ... What would one of those lessons look like? What kind of things are you ... How would that work?
Ryan: I have a six week process that I take people through. So I like my own philosophy, and I think all comedians are either yourself or kind of like a heightened raw self image of yourself, or you're completely a character like Larry the cable guy or something. Those tend to be the two things. And so my philosophy is getting everyone just to be as bare and as raw as they can on stage.
So the very first thing I do is just an interview with the people where I just say, hey, tell me your story and then I'll ask you as we go through it, things that you're interested in. So then people just start talking and as they go through, I'll pick up, I make notes and then I'll go back and I'll ask them for details about certain things that I think are interesting.
My whole purpose of it is if nothing else, you're not going to be boring to listen to. Like Ryan, I mean to tell you these are the interesting things in your life. These are the things people want to hear about. So, at the bare minimum people will still want to hear you talk. So after I do the initial interview then I will create an outline for them, that I think is this is your five to 10 minutes set.
Because that's what everyone wants to get booked on a weekend show. And so to get booked on a good show, you need to have at least five minutes of material that you can consistently perform so that people like me, who produce shows are comfortable putting you on stage.
And so yeah, I give people an outline and the outline is generally like, here's your introduction. The introduction introduces topics that then that are explored in your materials. So the introduction has usually three topics and then it's like you do bit one, bit two, bit three. And those are kind of tied back to your introduction that kind of things you introduced the top and then the closer is I find a way to tie it all together at the end.
We find a button that they kind of call back. Yeah, exactly. That brings the top to the bottom and it makes it feel like a whole thing. So I give them the outline, I send it to them and I tell them now from this outline, I just want you to collect stories in these areas of your life. They don't have to be funny, just as many stories, as many things as you can think of that fill in the street areas is your topic areas.
And so then the next week they come back with their stories and then I just have them telling me like, we go through the stories that they have. And I kind of find ones that I think are funny. We'll hand pick the ones that I like. And so I'll tell them like, okay, these are the stories. Now we've decided we kind of get rid of, we narrow it down and say, these are the ones we're going to be working on.
And so then I tell them for the next week, go back and really write these out so we have like a full thing. So then next week, you can really tell me these three stories. So then the next week they come back and we work then for the next four weeks really is crafting those stories into a whole five to 10 minute piece.
So then at the end of the six weeks, there would be a showcase where they would get up and they perform in front of all their friends and family and everybody, the material that we had worked on over the past six to eight weeks. And so that's the process I've developed for it. And everyone who I've taken through it, I have really good results. People telling me that they're surprised. They're surprised that this stuff works, I guess, because no one thinks ...
Everyone's like, well, these stories aren't funny, is what everyone tells me to begin with. Well, why didn't that ... No one gets it in the beginning, but then by the end they're like, oh, they are ... Everyone's just like, yeah, pleasantly surprised that I've been able to take their thing and teach them how to make it funny. What's the funny stuff here? I think one of my skills or talents is pointing out or knowing what's funny, pointing out what's funny, explaining to people why something's funny.
Because I found lots of people they'll come in with jokes and I'll ask them like, what the funny thing is, and they won't know what the funny thing is. They won't be able to say oh, this is the thing. And a lot of times what they tell me is the funny thing, it's not. They're wrong about what the funny thing is, so.
Dean: Interesting. I mean, it's an interesting thing that somebody has got an opportunity to find the funny in their own stories, kind of thing.
Ryan: My real dream thing would be to work with public speakers, like national speakers association people, because I know they have money. I know they pay coaches.
Dean: Right, what was I was thinking exactly is how they help people add humor into what they're already doing, even just if it's just in their intros or their ... Make it seem lively kind of thing, not that it's a funny story in the situation.
Ryan: Right, yeah. And then I'm a member of National Speakers Association here in-
Dean: Right there in Phoenix.
Ryan: Right, and so the most of the people I teach now are people who want to be comedians typically. So I'm not charging a ton of money to those people, just because they won't pay it basically.
Dean: What's the going rate right now? Like somebody if they want to ... Is it a six week thing?
Ryan: Yeah. So the six week classes where it's $250 for six weeks.
Dean: And it's one on one or how many people?
Ryan: Well that was up to six people because we were at the club, they could just come to me and I could sit there with them and we could do-
Dean: But now the good news is now you've got it opened up to anybody. I think being funny is that's a neat opportunity. I said to somebody, I don't know whether you remember a company called the Learning Annex. They were in Toronto and LA and New York, big cities. And they would put out these, this was in the 80's and 90's, they put up these catalogs in boxes where all the newspapers are kind of thing.
And it was a little catalog that was all these courses you could take, right? So this would be the perfect sort of learning X type of thing where you would learn about a six week course. You could take on whatever you're calling it, let's make you funny or whatever. And you would go to this improv club or you go wherever it is for six weeks and you'd sign up for the class through the learning annex and members would get a slight price discount than nonmembers.
So the whole idea was they were trying to get learning it X members and they gave you something to do and to learn, and it's pre-internet. And now I was saying to somebody as all this virtual gathering is becoming enabled in our households and things, that there's an opportunity to bring back things like the learning annex where there's educational opportunities, entertainment, edutainment, kind of opportunities to be funny or learn to improve your memory or to ... All the kinds of things that would make learning annex classes.
And that's of course now you open up not just Phoenix as the opportunity for that, but everywhere, you know.
Ryan: Yeah and I realized that. When I moved, when we went online, well two things happened. When everything shut down we went online, it was like I went from teaching three or four or five people at a time to basically have just one person, because I didn't know how to do the group thing anymore without a room and a stage and the whole thing.
Dean: Well, I think it could be an interesting thing if you instead of making or maybe after people do their story or maybe even as an entry into it, one of the things that might be a good thing is how to find humor in everything that's going on right now. Like almost you can teach the way people work with almost creating a monologue on the nighttime shows. They'll start with a monologue that's ripped from the headlines kind of thing, finding humor in those situations. There's formulas and stuff for that, right?
Ryan: Oh, right, yeah. Just like how to write jokes and that's all. I do go through that with people. Kind of like what is a joke? How do you write it? What's -?
Dean: But it's an interesting thing that there may be this opportunity is what do you do with that stuff then? It's almost like I just ordered a book by the guy who started the onion newspaper. Do you know about the Onion?
Ryan: Yeah.
Dean: Okay, and that kind of was that's an interesting thing that those guys are very ... That newspaper, that whole context of being like a real like, the earnestness of the real media and just making it ridiculous is a pretty amazing thing. And I think that that may be an opportunity. It's like what's the byproduct that you can create out of that? It's that people are taking these improv classes, are taking the comedy classes with the life too as a meritocracy. You're getting their things up to be published if you had a media outlet for it.
Ryan: That makes sense.
Dean: Almost like you're able to crowd source. And that's part of the thing about ... I mean, comedy is really the ultimate meritocracy. You're not going to sell somebody on this type company. You either, it makes you laugh or it doesn't, that's involuntary, right? You're not going to convince somebody that this is funny or nobody's going to kind of just go along with it just because that's what the norm is.
I mean everybody, you can't ... I think that's really the thing that even the top comedians, they still have to be funny. I mean, that's the thing that even Louis CK can't just mail it in. He'd be up there and be ... So there's an interesting thing of you start ... I think I would take a holistic view of how can you create a marketplace for the comedy, right? Because the comedy in itself is what's the beer that we're going to sell?
If it's weaker that they're going to get a higher rating and people like them and get invited back, because they're funny and people like them. That's the benefit for them of having comedy in their stuff, tight? Or people who are selling stuff. If they can make people disarm people, make people feel uncomfortable or feel comfortable that they can sell more stuff. All of these are measurable outcomes. Now our opportunity is in taking, creating a marketplace for the comedy where it doesn't exist.
What's interesting, I did ... When we first launched the I love marketing podcast, Joe Polish who lives in Phoenix there too, before our second, we had two big out of marketing conferences. And before the second one we had, we did a case study program for the eight profit activators. I created the breakthrough DNA program. And I had one of the businesses that was in was a comedian who created what was the grassroots comedy tour.
And what he did was he created comedy that or comedy shows that would go to places that normally didn't have comedy. And he would create a turnkey comedy happy hour type of program for them, because he was all was touring around. And if he did the late night shows seven to nine and whatever, he would go to a restaurant, or a bar, or lounge, or somewhere where people were and propose to them to create a comedy happy hour, where they would now have something on, an opportunity to create some additional revenue.
And so I started thinking about that as what would be the opportunity around creating some kind of comedy environment. When you look at ... I was thinking about ... Because I do a lot of work with real estate agents and they're always looking for fun events to have with their clients and stuff. So they'll often do like rent out a movie theater and do a client appreciation party where they'll have their clients come and bring their kids or whatever, and go to the new release of a movie on a Saturday morning, kind of thing.
And I thought that might be this similar kind of opportunity to create a comedy show in most towns, most city, what you would call like a B venue would have like a 250 seat theater kind of thing, which would be like a soft seat, the kinds of where they would do the community theater and that kind of thing. It would be an interesting thing to create a show for that kind of a venue that the tickets were all ... The whole show was put on and sponsored by the real estate company who could invite their clients kind of thing.
Ryan: Oh, yeah, I've done that.
Dean: You have?
Ryan: Yeah. Well, I didn't do with a bunch of agents. I did it for one agent. He was the top performing agent at my brokerage in the United Birthright Group here in Phoenix. So he invited all his people and I put on a show and it was a train wreck, but it happened. It was a great learning experience for me. I realized that you can't do comedy in just any room. There's a lot of other things that actually go towards having it be funny and entertaining-
Dean: The comedy needs the beer as much as the beer needs the comedy.
Ryan: Yes, you're very ... Yeah, I mean the beer and then the room and the whole thing, because it was in this giant conference room and and it just like no one could hear anyone else laugh and it kind of, everything was just like ... Everyone smiled. It wasn't a laugh time.
Dean: Got you. So that's why I was thinking about the theaters which are made for the good -
Ryan: Yeah, having it ... That makes a lot of sense making it like, oh I have like four different, five different agents bringing your people to this.
Dean: Yeah, exactly.
Ryan: That makes sense. Well that's a good idea.
Dean: It could be an interesting ... Because what wouldn't cost much to pull something like that off.
Ryan: Oh, right, no. Yeah, it wouldn't. Interesting.
Dean: And then you'd just wonder what the opportunity could be there. That's really an interesting exercise. I wonder what it would cost to rent a theater for an evening.
Ryan: Yeah. Well I know that the club that I'm at, he's really good about that. The thing that I find though is getting the right nights for those things because doing a ... Like ate the 10 PM improv here, I've done an annual benefit show now for Arizona adapter water sports for four years. But they only let you do it on off nights. They'll let you do the room on a Wednesday or a Sunday. And I found Sunday at five o'clock is the best time to do a comedy show.
If it's not on a Friday or Saturday night, you get the times when people actually want to go out. My best response has been doing it on an earlier Sunday, not late on Sunday, but earlier. People can get home by 7:30 and get to bed. I found that to be the best thing for that, but getting venues on a weekend, that's tough or that can be tough.
Dean: But I wonder about some of those, like the soft seat theaters. I wonder how would you rate some of the comedians that you have access to?
Ryan: Oh yeah, I have access to, as far as the local talent goes, Phoenix is a ... We have a pretty big comedies team. We're like a staging ground for California. So people move here and will do the year, four or five years before they moved to California to try and make it out there. So there's a lot, I would access to a lot of really good talent that's local.
Dean: So I think there's something, part of being, if I look at these things, because I'm always overlaying the eight profit activators on everything. And so I'm thinking about selecting a single target markets and if you're thinking about, during unit of this, what's the outcome? What would be kind of ... Is there such a thing as a family comedy show? Or would that make sense? Or is it really make sense for it only either to be all for kids or for adults?
Ryan: Oh, no, well the improv club now, we do a family friendly show at seven o'clock, so that's Fridays and Saturdays at seven. Same with friendly improv show. So there's that, and then I also would perform on clean comedy shows that go on churches and basement kind of things. So there's those as well that it's harder though to, it's more difficult to find clean comedians. People who can do that material. I have a harder time with that.
Dean: Yes, so I'll be part of the ... And how much of a difference do you think that makes? I mean it would be an even shot. I'm thinking about the audience again. If we take like the realtors as an example or financial advisors or anybody who's got their clients that they want to bring in, we're looking for creating a vehicle that allows them to pay for the whole thing.
Let's say, how much would people pay for individual tickets to a comedy show at a theater like that as somebody at that level kind of thing?
Ryan: So at our little club, we charge $14 a ticket. They were going like 10:00 PM improv, you're probably looking at at least 20, probably.
Dean: We said that $20 a ticket that if there's 250 seats at this venue would be $5,000 as what the whole thing would net right? Would revenue that's available there. Now I don't know whether there's ... Do theaters like that have a beer and wine license or things like that or?
Ryan: Well, yeah, it would be a matter of taking the right rooms. Some do and some don't.
Dean: Concessions, anyway if they had the concessions would be the thing. So you start to see whether that might be an interesting opportunity.
Ryan: Oh yeah, that does sound like ... I had never thought about it like that before. Like if it's-
Dean: Right, because then they'd go to one real estate company to give them the opportunity to have a turnkey evening of comedy sponsored by either whatever the comedy, whatever the real estate company is. And then let's say there's an agent in the office that gets 25 tickets each, for $500, they get an event that they can give to their 25 of their clients or whatever. And it's more likely that one or two agents could sponsor that whole thing.
What you're doing is you're packaging up where who else then would like to get in front of those people. The real estate agent may be able to do a joint sponsorship of it with one of their service providers that their access to their homeowners, to their audience.
Ryan: Right. Oh yeah. No, I've never thought about it like that. That makes a lot ... Yeah.
Dean: Part of the thing is you have to think about ... You have to create the revenue opportunity. You're packaging the comedy, is just the vehicle to package the plumbers around it, and you either have to figure that out, or I think that's the big thing is that often musical artists and comedians is that same thing. Performing artists often focus on getting really good, but then that's not enough. Not enough to be really funny, right?
Ryan: Yeah, unfortunately. But you don't know that when you start, you think is this funny enough? That's all it's going to take.
Dean: Yeah, I feel like that too. I'm funnier than them. -
Ryan: You're very true. That happens a lot. Like what the heck, that guy is not even funny.
Dean: Right, how did he get a Netflix special? So that's the kind of thing that I would look at. I've had this idea for a while yeah of creating that kind of thing, because then you could create that kind of a tour almost. Like set up a network of these soft seat theaters that would make a good thing for this in all the top 200 cities kind of thing. Then you've got a nice thing where you could have four shows a night going on somewhere all over the country kind of thing.
Ryan: No, that really does. I haven't thought about giving ... Yeah, because I've done it. I was thinking like the other way I guess. I was trying to find the people to want me to do it instead of just having thing to create the whole package.
Dean: Yeah, you create the package and I used the realtors as a perfect example, or financial advisors, or insurance agents, or anybody who's got personal relationships with people, that would love to have that. I think that's a winner.
Ryan: That's really a great idea. My material in particular, it's really inspiring because it's a story about getting a spinal cord injury and everything. So people will love to hear me perform. It's very uplifting, inspiring, all that kind of stuff too. So it is kind of like I'm giving the whoever, the agents, all those people like, oh, you get my story to benefit your group. No, that's really smart.
Dean: And that way then you've got something that now you can take to ... Then you can duplicate it. You've got a duplicatable model there.
Ryan: Yeah, and I've been thinking that comedy has been like how do I have a model? That was exactly it. I don't know how I can create a model to teach people is just like-
Dean: Yeah, but then you've got the audience, then everybody in the program, you get to advertise, you learn comedy. You get 250 people a night sitting there looking at the program with invitation to see the show online. If you record it too, then you're creating content, you're creating stuff that's...
Ryan: Yeah, that's really smart.
Dean: I think there's something to that.
Ryan: Yeah, thank you man. That's a great idea. I appreciate that.
Dean: Yeah, I really love that. I love that idea. There's something to it because I think it's a little bit outside the box. I've never heard anything like that, but I think it would probably work. Because I've traveled both ... I really enjoy comedy as a consumer. I've been very connected to the real estate world, so I know that this would be something that would be valuable for them.
Ryan: Yeah, I think you're right. It really would be, cool.
Dean: And the tickets could have a $40 face value that they get, that they buy the tickets for $20 kind of thing, because they buy them all. But the tickets that they get to give to their clients say $40.
Ryan: Oh yeah, there you go. No, that's great.
Dean: Could be which makes them the hero.
Ryan: No, totally. Like oh wow, you spent all this money. Yeah, that's great.
Dean: I think there's something to that. So with that, I'd love to stay in contact on that. Let's see what you pull off with that because I think there's something there.
Ryan: No, I think you're right. Yeah, that gives me ... I think that would be ... I teach improv to realtors at my board at National Association. So right now, well it was like once a quarter and I had like 27 folks come in. But I started doing that and then teach it kind of similar what you said, I can ... That's another market now. I was kind of getting those people and then trying to have them come in and do the one on one classes.
I've gotten a few students like that, but they all know me maybe hear my story and they say, hey, I'm doing an event for your clients and they can come and hear my story. Yeah, that'd be great. I think there's someway to do that. Thank you man, I really appreciate your time this morning.
Dean: You're very welcome. That went fast.
Ryan: Yeah, right? I mean I said an hour, right? You do an hour or so -
Dean: Thank you and keep in contact. I'd love to hear how that plays out.
Ryan: Yeah, I will for sure. So thank you Dean. I wish you all the best man. I hopes you have a great weekend. Okay, talk to you later.
Dean: Thanks, bye.
Ryan: All right. Bye-bye.
Dean: And there we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation or go deeper in how the eight profit activators can apply to your business, two things you can do right now. You can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book and you can listen to the back episodes.
Of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes. Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process. And you can download a book and a scorecard, and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at breakthroughdna.com and that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business.
That's really the way we think about breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there. So that's it for this week. Have a great week and we will be back next time with another episode of more cheese, less whiskers.