Circus Desires and Critical Struggles: Lessons in Management from a Real Ringmaster

Dim lighting. He seems calm. The acrobat spins in the air. The sequins sparkle in the gentle heat of a follow spot, and my peculiar little thought wonders: “What does promotion look like for a traveling circus where each week brings with it a completely new market?“

After searching for the answer, I instead came across one of the deepest and most heartfelt conversations I’ve had in a long time.

And strengthening my acceptance is that, from time to time, a very powerful category for marketers… doesn’t come from marketers in the slightest.

Kevin Venardos

Owner/founder/director of Circo Venardos

• A truth worth laughing at: I’m sorry, what’s funnier than that him does he own his own non-public circus?!

• Request for recognition: Kevin has grown his circus from a rented tent to an honest state two traveling exhibits that delighted 45 locations across the United States and over 200,000 attendees!

Lesson 1: Use your dream to help others achieve theirs.

“All I owned was a very large amount of debt,” Venardos says, recounting his circus’ offering. “It all started with the need to keep working. To not have to rely on someone else who thought it would be useful to stay spherical.”

On the other hand, life had a lesson in store that could compromise his own motivation.

“I came across this little one [carnival] in Snohomish, WA. And I said, ‘Hey, let me make my little circus comfortable, and it’s not worth me a dime. And I’m going to work hard to put as many butts in those hay bales as possible.’”

It was simply supposed to be a shrewd exchange, an approach to stretch their limited budget, then again something clicked into place for Venardos.

“The potential we want to have a monetary impact. Where we place the circus, there are closed businesses. And once we are successful, they will enjoy it.”

That little lesson has turned into the philosophy that underpins how Venardos thinks about its staff, its partnerships, and even its audience.

“How can you use your dreams to help people achieve theirs? When I don’t ask myself this question enough, I usually follow the wrong practice.

Lesson 2: Invest in emotional connection.

“Each one [interaction] runs the risk of robbing them of their excitement or offering reasons to smile. Lift a burden on them or make our needs much more important than theirs.

This applies to both customers and colleagues and collaborators. And it is precisely to those spotlights that Venardos attributes the show’s good fortune. For example, he tells me what their lowest rank will have been.

“When 2020 arrived, that investment of love is what has carried us through the entire pandemic.“Social isolation may simply put an end to many live demonstrations. Alternatively, “people showed up and bought $25 tickets [to a livestream of the circus] when they could watch YouTube for free.”

And Venardos is quick to show that love isn’t just for customers. “It’s about other companies and other parts of your staff for whom the heat your flame generates.”

“The places where it’s simply a transactional relationship are typically not the places where we have the most success,” he says. “When you have an army of people whose excellent luck is somehow tied to yours, that’s when the problems really start to expand.“

Lesson 3: Proportionate your unique struggle.

As our conversation grew intense, I asked Venardos what he would have done differently if he could simply go back in time to 2014 and do it all over again.

“It will definitely be an incentive to torture yourself with one of these questions. Our identity as The Little Circus that perhaps would have been completely forged, and simpler, because I made so many mistakes”, he mentioned and looked into the middle distance.

The first time I did the Venardos Circus, the show ended when the ringmaster himself was brought here to thank the objective market. His voice trembled as he pointed out how close the show came to not making it. How he bet it all on a rented tent and a circus dream. As each of us considered one in all an entire family of dreamers was supporting us. I was hooked.

“I don’t need pain for anyone, after all pain is a spoon that carves out space in your heart for gratitude. I think it’s something that connects with people. There is an emotional resonance.”

People come to the circus for the show. After all, they arrive once again due to them to find something deeper.

“This is a problem for you think This is your flaw, if you happen to be willing to feel comfortable sharing, it’s actually your only struggle. Someone else is available in the market – and it is possible that you don’t even know them – who needs to look at the simplest thing you will offer due to the unique difficult scenarios you have gone through.

Bonus Lesson 1: Happiness is simple expectation.

“Make staff happy in an environment with clear expectations for everyone and protect each other responsibly.”

Even if you think the habit is very important in your business, consider in case you happen to live with all your colleagues for months! I asked Venardos how his staff deals with this dynamic.

According to him, the first step is “time and love spent finding the right people and taking care of them”. The second step is the promise you make to each other.

“Great people will really feel disrespected if people are allowed to perform at a mediocre level or don’t seem to be respected despite promising to do so” says Venardos. “I thought this was a cold-hearted philosophy, on some level. I’ve been through so many painful iterations since I came across that I create so much more pain by not addressing those things immediately than I do [addressing it].”

Bonus Lesson 2: Hierarchy does not emphasize value.

“The person who greets us at the door, our concessions staff, they are all very important equally to every artist,” he explains. “In recent months I have even come across people giving titles that would seem to suggest a certain superiority [is harmful to team dynamics].”

Which isn’t to say there don’t appear to be layers of oversight.

“It’s true, anyone can have tasks where they take care of some other people and protect them in a responsible way. On the other hand the idea that {that a} president will have to be recognized simply because that is their identity falls into the wrong way of what I have found to be a successful staff.”

In a car, the engine is not as important as the wheels. You want everything to be a work of art.

Persistent questions

In the question of the end times

“How do you see your promotion evolving as we enter the holiday season?” — Cristina Jerome, founder of Off Worque

In the response of recent times

Venardos says: “We don’t actually trade our promotion for the holiday season as our method is further targeted to whether we are participating in a new city or the city’s return.”

Occasionally it’s very similar to that!

Next week’s question

Venardos asks: “What is the most effective promotional tool in your arsenal?”

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