EPISODE 121

Denny I think, like many people in clubs, I don’t know if I found clubs or if clubs found me. But you find you’ve stumbled into your kind of place here. Many, many moons ago, when I was becoming full-time, I was finding my place. You know, you try to find your people, find your gigs, find where you fit in the best because there are so many different types of clubs and entertainment and things. So I did a couple of private clubs, and I was like, hmm, these were really good shows. Just like, the vibe was good. The crowds were good. The energy was good, and I was like, there’s something here. So I just started focusing more and more on just private clubs. And then you just find your people, right? I just connected really well with some of the GMs. And when you can come in and sell a service that’s making their members happy, like when it’s a product like that, and you could make their members happy, they laugh. You give them an experience and a memory. It’s a different experience with the club managers and the club professionals. Plus, I just enjoy people and connecting. So it was just a natural fit, and I started doing more and more and more of them. The pandemic happened. That was a weird time, and clubs helped me get through it. I talk about it now, but I was having a great career and then just saw it kind of collapse because of the pandemic. All in-person events were done. I went back to work for my dad in the family business, cleaning the warehouse, because they needed help there. I don’t know if many people did, but I sulked at home for many, many days, probably about a week or two. And I was like, okay, you gotta do something because we didn’t know if it was a month, two months, however long it was going to be. And I went to my dad, and I was like, hey, do you guys just need an extra hand? Well, we just acquired another group, so if you can help us with the warehouse. So I was cleaning the warehouse, and I was listening to my audiobooks and stuff. And I was, like, man, the clubs have to be suffering a tiny bit. You can kind of see it on LinkedIn. Clubs were trying to stay relevant because it’s an expendable income thing. So if stuff really does hit the fan and people start losing their jobs and income and all that, clubs are sometimes one of the first things to go. So, how do you show value? So I just did really cheap virtual shows to clubs. I just said, Hey, I sent an email blast offering virtual shows. Like, no one’s going to pay for this. No one’s going to want this. It just flooded. So then that kind of got me through the pandemic. Didn’t have a virtual show. Big fan of commit first, figure the rest out later. But I put a virtual show together. It ended up being great, and that kind of got the juices back going. And then I was trying to think of how to provide more value to the club space. Here we are. Private Club Radio – Gabe Aluisy had it – and I just reached out to him because he kind of pivoted during the pandemic. It affected all of us differently. So he pivoted to some other stuff – more B to C instead of B to B. And he’s crushed doing what he does. And the podcast kind of like went stale a little bit. So I was like, hey, let’s work out a deal here. So I acquired Private Club Radio. I wanted to bring a voice to people in clubs. I meet so many cool people, and I just wanted to be a voice for people and just kind of bring cool value to the space, just like you are too. That is the short story long.

Derek I’m just totally curious how much of your time is split between what I would call entertainment versus the podcast specifically.

Denny It all kind of like blends sometimes, especially when I could be talking to a GM, we’re talking about a show, and then I was like, oh yeah, we should do an episode. And then it’s like, you know. It’s hard to say sometimes, but not too much time.

Derek When a club books you, and they’re thinking they’re booking entertainment, but I’ve been in the room when you’ve been on stage, and what people are getting is more than maybe what the club even aspired to when they booked you. Do you know what I’m saying? I think that you’re providing something much more than just quote unquote entertainment. Are you able to put into words what you’re actually doing for that crowd of members?

Denny I love when people leave going, You just had to be there, meaning that spontaneity, and I think the best hospitality isn’t always spontaneous, but it feels spontaneous. So it’s almost like never accidental. So I kind of want the show to be like that. So I kind of focus it on the people. The tricks are good, and all that. But to me, it’s really about how you just find the best people and create callbacks, funny moments, and really just kind of chameleonize with the room to make it about them. The show is important, but to me, to answer your question, connecting hits the best there. I think that’s what it really boils down to. Connecting.

Derek I agree, it’s a shared experience.

Denny Because it’s the conversations at the bar after, or next week, and it’s, Yo, remember when that guy did that? Remember when, and then they start describing things. Remember when Phil got up, and he was really in the other card, or whatever. So It’s just those sort of things I think are really important. Yes, the show is important. The magic is important. But the goal, I think, is how to bring these people together. How do you connect them? How do you give them an experience that they go, Oh, that was so much fun. And my show is not a set show. I have my repertoire, plus a whole bunch of other stuff on me and with me that I know. So if I bring somebody up – maybe they yelled something like, What do you like? And then maybe I’ll go into a different bit because he mentioned something. So it’s fun for them. It’s fine for me. It just kind of makes it that fun experience. They think some people have a show, and there’s nothing wrong with that, where it’s very scripted. And there are people who do that well, and you can never tell it’s scripted, but for me that’s just my vibe and style, you know, that sort of thing.

Derek Specifically for clubs, when a club hires you and you’re on stage, because you’re on stage, you have a unique perspective of looking across at the membership and the staff and gauging their reaction, but also gauging their interaction with each other. From the stage, from the way that your shows go, whether it’s the leading up to it or even right afterwards, are there experiences where you can tell the culture at this club is really tight and united versus maybe other ones that aren’t?

Denny Oh, all day, all day. It kind of goes down to as soon as I walk into the building. You can just feel it. You can just feel it. Usually, when the staff knows I’m coming and they’re excited, you can kind of tell. A lot of it boils down to excitement – just like happiness, excitement – for just work, life, the events. But I think it’s excitement that starts with the top and then works its way down. And I’m sure it’s the same for you. You get some clubs and people who book you and use you and hire you for your services. And they are all in. They are, Whatever you need. Yes, they’re excited. They’re excited about the event. They’re, Hey, we were thinking about doing this. Hey, we want to maybe put high tops in the back to give a stadium-style scene. Like, Oh, I love this. This sounds great. You can just tell they’re excited. And there are others where you can tell they book you just because they need something for September. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t have to be a master magician or entertainer. I think a lot of clubs know and can feel their energy of their club and their leadership and the excitement and how happy their people are.

Derek You mentioned staff. And you mentioned a lot of times you can tell the energy and the vibe when you first interact with the staff when you show up at a club, which makes sense. Like, I would argue that the staff is almost always the first impression of that club. They’re the ones that I would refer to as the ones living the brand. They’re sometimes the first impression, the last impression, across all the members, guests, etc. Do you ever perform specifically for a room of staff?

Denny Yeah, I’ve done a bunch of staff events. So I’ve done the full-day staff event. I’ve hosted and MC’d it for the clubs instead of the GM having to do it. Because it’s a lot of work to hold a full-day event, even when there are other speakers and things. So it takes some pressure off the GM. So I have co-hosted or just helped host, kind of like what I do for Florida, sprinkling in some magic, maybe some trivia, maybe some of this, just keeping it fun and light, throwing in some edutainment maybe. So I’ve done that, but I’ll try to do something for the staff, whether it’s their pre-shift or their meeting. And sometimes they ask, sometimes they don’t, and you can kind of feel it, right? As you’re setting up, there are some that’ll just come over and ask, Hey, can you do some magic for us? So you get that whole gambit. You get the whole spectrum. I try to do something for them. Or I at least try to say, Hey, it’s better if you guys get rid of all your plates in the beginning, do all the work then, and then try to watch the show for the rest, if you can. And there are some clubs that do not use a staff. They just use members. And I totally get that too. But I try to also use, like once in a blue moon, if they’re all sitting at the back, you can kind of tell who is the most fun, who all the staff likes, who all the members like. Hey, Bill, why don’t you come on up? They’re all like, that’s Bill. And then it helps kind of create another bond with them too. It goes back to that connection. So now it’s later, a week, a month later, whatever it is, it’s, Yo, remember when you helped them out? That was crazy. Remember when the money was in the shoe, whatever? So it’s just all about those connections, those shared experiences that you can come back to. That’s why they join the club. It’s not just the amenities. It’s that belonging.

Derek Belonging is a great word. In preparing to entertain a room that’s full of members versus a room full of staff, is your prep the same for either, regardless, because they’re both people, or do you modify that a little bit?

Denny At that point, it’s probably two different gigs a little bit. So it’s a little bit of prep. If I’m working with the staff, it’s usually more edutainment-style stuff. So kind of like what you saw me do at the Florida Conference. That takes a different amount of prep and a different kind of prep than show prep. The show might change. The show energy might change for staff. And this is not always, but it depends on the time of day. There are so many different factors and things. I keep saying the words energy and feel, but you can just feel it. When you’re in it, when it’s your job, and you’re going to be on stage, you can feel it. As you probably know, when you take a second and look at the room, and you put your phone down, you’re just in it. You’re looking at the room, and you can feel and experience and see all that.

Derek I’m laughing because if I’m on stage and it’s the first event of the morning and that followed an evening full of late-night, very fun activities, it’s not uncommon for me to have somebody dozing off right in the front row because they had a lot of fun last night. But because of the energy you bring, I’m guessing people falling asleep at your shows can’t happen.

Denny I’m very interactive, as you probably know. When I’m up there, I call people out for being part of the routines, for just whatever, or I just call people out on stuff. Because to me, the stage is not like a wall. I break that wall. To me, there are no walls. It’s everybody’s fair game. Everything’s fair game. There are some things where it’s magic. Sometimes people just don’t enjoy it, whatever. And they’re voluntold to be there. So sometimes, yeah, they nod off. They’re just not all in. And that’s fine too, but you just got to realize that, understand it. And you focus on the people who are all in, who are keeping eye contact, who have the smile on. You focus on those people.

Derek When you spoke in June in Florida, you put a slide up. I actually took a picture of it, and I keep coming back to it. It had three questions on it. What’s the energy I want to bring? What does this room need from me? And what should people feel when they leave? Love, love, love this. And I keep coming back to it. What I really love is starting with the end and then working backwards. The way that I read it, when you put it up there, is that’s part of your own mantra. This is part of how I work, but this is also absolutely relevant advice and inspiration for everybody in this room who’s going to be walking into a room or a setting, etc. How’d you come up with those three components?

Denny Just from years of doing shows and gigs and beating myself up, which I still do after every single show. It doesn’t matter any of this. I’ve learned to ask what the audience needs from me. And I ask that a lot of my clients, other people. Everybody has a different expectation, a different feel, a different thing for their event, for their shows, for bringing me in. So, I often ask, What do you need to see from the show or me that lets you know the event was a huge success? And that sort of brings me back to that question. I love when it’s standing ovations and people are ba-ba-ba. I love when people come up to me that day, the next time they see me, going, That was so much fun. So everybody tells you something a little bit different about them, how they operate, their MO. It’s not always about them. Sometimes they go, Oh, I love when people go up to the owner or the GM after. And maybe they tell me directly or indirectly. I love when they go up to tell the GM how much fun they had, or I love when members tell me how much fun they had. So every time it’s a little bit different because every club’s a little bit different, every show’s a little bit different, every audience is a little bit different. So it just kind of helps. So that question was a two-parter there, but I asked the one question early on, which helps me kind of formulate that one for the actual in-person.

Derek And it applies one-to-one to a general manager running their club where they’re, same exact thing, I’m hosting an event tonight, or maybe it’s just a Wednesday night dinner – what’s the outcome that I want? Like you, that GM is working several steps ahead in anticipation to guide people along the way. In magic, and in the mentalist work that you do, I would say you’re literally manipulating. But the payoff is fun. The payoff as a joke. The payoff is laughter. The payoff is entertainment. What separates a GM who’s working several steps ahead to make sure that they’re doing that the right way and sort of staying on the right side of a line, versus manipulating staff or manipulating members to get what they want, versus providing the experience that they want to provide?

Denny Magicians and con men have the same skill sets, use the same skills. Let’s just say magicians and card cheats. So it’s the same skills. It’s the same thing. It’s just how you go about it. You know what the room needs. You know what the room wants. It’s adapting – I guess wanting to and adapting your own self to help the room get there. So you, as the leader, personally, IMO, it is your job to not change who you are, but enhance different parts of your character to help the room get to where it needs to go. So kind of like you said, a Wednesday dinner might be different than the board meeting, which is different than this. And you might know, Hey, man, this energy is really down. And I know that it’s so-and-so’s birthday, so there’s a party in this. And I really got to get this up because so-and-so is going to speak. It’s looking at the room, going, Okay, maybe I can’t just stand here. I have to go shake hands. I have to go work the room. I have to get people laughing, go get people excited. Maybe I have to buy a round of drinks for some people just to get some energy going. I don’t know what that entails. I never run a club, but I think those are the things that you just have to look, adapt, acknowledge, and go, okay, is there anything I can do? Can I adjust my style in any way? Do I need to bring the energy up? Other times you might need to bring your own energy level down, maybe. Or you don’t need to really bring it up. There are some shows where they’re like, Hey, we want the energy. I’m like, All right. And I show up, and the energy is already here. I just got to keep it going. It’s like, my job is done. Not done, but this is easy. It’s when you show up, and you’re like Oh, I’m going to earn it tonight. It’s going to be a day. I don’t know if that answered the question or not. But I think it’s just being willing to, and able to, and wanting to adapt and look at it and go, Hey, something’s off here. Can I help change this? Can I do this? I think it starts early in the meetings with the staff sometimes. How do I get the staff a little bit on board? Can we make tonight a game somehow to keep them engaged and involved and all of that?

Derek Are those three questions and the cadence, basically the framework, something a GM could train their staff on? Or is it something that you either have it or you don’t, or you get it because you’re an introvert or an extrovert, or is that teachable?

Denny I think anything is teachable. It’s just like anything. Do you keep it up? Are you going to do it for a week and then it’s done? Or are you going to keep on doing it? So it’s more of a commitment thing. The older I get, the more introverted I am getting. But everything’s learned. Everything’s a learned skill, and whether you pay for the skill online or between YouTube and chat claw, there are so many ways to learn and engage. You can learn anything. It’s just, do you want to? Especially nowadays, anybody could do anything. It’s crazy.

Derek I think sometimes these things are so simple, they’re so obvious, but yet I haven’t thought of this yet. So when you literally just say, let’s start by focusing on how we want our members to feel when they leave, when they go home tonight, and then we’re going to work backwards, I feel like that could be something that operators could take for granted because they start at the beginning. The way that I would probably unfairly describe somebody in operations is that they’re thinking in a linear fashion. I’m sure they have the end in mind, but if somebody’s taking that for granted and they’re listening to this and they saw that slide and went, You know what, I can start doing this right away. I could do better at this. I have been too focused on doing this step and then this step. Is there a first step somebody could take? Is it just self-analyzing and realizing I can be doing this better, and this is a philosophy that I just haven’t come across yet that would help me? Is there a first? Is it just asking the question?

Denny That’s really good. It’s actually one of my favorite phrases. Something my dad has ingrained in me for years is if you don’t ask, you don’t know. So what you just said – yes, if you don’t ask, you don’t know. I’m not afraid to ask questions and look dumb and sound dumb, but the first step is asking the question, and then also it’s asking the question and going, but then what can I do to make it better? So I always go back to my responsibility, my control, like stoic stuff, I guess. Even though I don’t follow it like super, super heavy, but that’s sort of one thing I took from a bunch of Ryan Holiday books is that I can only control what I can do and say. You look at the room, the experience, whatever, and just go, Okay, what can I do to help? What can I do? It’s just putting in the work. It’s just effort.

Derek When you do your thing, the night ends, you pack up, you clean up all of the debris that you’ve left from all the cards you’ve torn up from the awesome tricks that you’ve done, and you’re gone, a week later, at that club, at that company with the people that you stood in front of, what do you hope stayed with them? What do you hope is still there?

Denny You just had to be there. Even though it’s probably not the best thing, I just love it when people talk to other people like, oh, man, you just had to be there. To me, there were those callbacks, those into-them, what feels like those sporadic, those improvy moments, when they just feel like they were part of something that won’t happen again, or like that wasn’t the same show he does every night. Whenever I go to concerts, even like years ago, even in high school, there was a thing – setlist.fm was the website – where people would upload the concert setlist. Like, I would go get the setlists for the previous shows just so I knew the shows, but also I wanted to see if they switched up their stuff any night. And some bands did, and some groups did. But I kind of like it when the members, the audience, whoever goes, Aww, man, you just had to be there.

Derek One last question, give me a super brief synopsis of what it was like to meet Penn and Teller.

Denny It was the bee’s knees. It was so surreal. I think at that point I was maybe doing magic full-time five years-ish, maybe six full-time, and just being on that stage with your heroes. Uh, do I have it back here? This is the menu from the show, when I did the trick, the receipt. And then this is a ticket stub from when my parents took me to see Penn and Teller in Scranton on Sunday, February 4th. That’s when they were in Scranton. I was on their stage in Vegas on March 4th, recording for Fula. So almost 18 years to the day, they were in Scranton on my stage. I was on their stage in Vegas. They were just super nice. They come out and talk to you for a few minutes after. It was just a wild experience. Out of the hundreds and thousands of magicians who apply, to be one of the 52 to be picked every year is mind-blowing.

Derek Super cool. And then give a little bit of background on Management in Motion, which is coming up later in September.

Denny Okay, short story long. Now, Management in Motion, I am so proud of that. It cost me the most money, but it is so much fun. It’s a day and a half, pretty much kind of ripping up BMWs and learning from fellow club managers. So, the GM up at Monticello Motor Club – great, great, dude, great, great leader, big in the CMAA space – had him on Private Club Radio. And I jokingly was like, Oh, I’d love to do a thing here with club managers. He’s like, Oh, I’ve had some of the chapters here. I was like, No, no, I get that to do the driving, but also I would think it’d be fun to have other GMs who have their emotions, whatever those emotions are, talk about how they use that in their professional and personal lives to come in and be like, Hey, here’s how I use my emotions and here’s how my emotions help me professionally and personally every single day. So just more like peer-to-peer and just really fun. So we rip up BMWs, drifting, drag racing, high-speed laps, auto X, lead follows, go cart. It’s bonkers. And then we have the education kind of broken up in between, and it’s so much fun. Then at night, I have a poker tournament because the hotel is Resorts World. So we host a little private sit-and-go poker tournament for all the attendees, and it’s just great energy. It’s great people. I think it was a Seth Godin thing – your vibe attracts your tribe. And to me, I wanted to get fun club managers and club leaders together and just kind of create a space that helps foster that a little bit also. So, fortunate to say, we’re almost sold out-ish, maybe like 15 more seats, because I capped it at 50 people because I want people to connect. I want to have a good time. Like, there’s no vendor expo. I have some sponsors who help – a big shout-out to them. But they’re just in it. They just see the vision and the vibe and just want to be a part of it. So it’s a really fun day, really, really fun adrenaline and education. You can’t ask, ask for more…

Derek Adrenalation.

Denny Adrenalation. And for people who might be thinking, Hey, this is maybe too much for me – the excitement – because it’s M2s, 3s, and 4s. These are vehicles built for this. Most people don’t even floor it in their car. I’m getting so hyped. It’s a couple of weeks away. So I’m just super, super stoked.

Derek Where can people sign up?.

Denny Dennycorby.com.

Derek And is dennycorby.com also the best place to learn more about you, to book a gig, to get you in their club on their stage?

Denny Yes, sir.

Derek I think you’re pretty active on LinkedIn as well. You can see a lot of the social side.

Derek All the shenanigans, which are awesome.

Denny Unless I try to keep it profesh. And then my Instagram is where I kind of put some more magicky things, dogs, bulldogs – two English bulldogs – CC and Michi.

Derek Danny, thanks for joining me today. This was a blast.

Denny Derek, thanks so much for having me.

Derek And I’ll probably see you in a few weeks. It’ll be after this recording. I’ll see you at another CMAA event coming up.

Denny So soon, I can’t wait. And I’m hosting, and you’re speaking. This is going to be bonkers.

Derek Can’t wait, can’t wait. See you then.

Denny See you, Bud.

Derek If there’s one thing I’m taking from today’s conversation, it’s the order that Denny works in. He decides how a room should feel when people walk out and then builds everything backwards from there. A lot of clubs might work in the other direction. They start with what’s on the calendar, book the band, set the menu, and hope the feeling arrives on its own. And sometimes it does. But that’s a hard thing to repeat on purpose. Deciding the ending that you want first is a discipline that any club can borrow from, and it doesn’t cost you anything. Denny puts it in one question, and it’s the one that I would write on the whiteboard before planning anything. What should people feel when they leave? And if you want to watch Denny work a room yourself, he’s hosting Management in Motion, which we talked about a little bit in this episode at Monticello Motor Club on September 21st. You can learn more at dennycorby.com. One last thing before we go – we publish Clubs Made Meaningful Insights, and we would love to have you as one of our readers. Not episode recaps or show highlights, but rather original content, frameworks, perspectives, and ideas on identity, belonging, member experiences, and club culture. Something that you can share with your board or your leadership team. Sign up at clubsmademeaningful.com.