G.J. McCarthy photos

In a large storage closet, Guy is surrounded by bins filled with wristbands, which can be ordered wholesale with embossed phrases of the customer’s choosing. Guy boasts more than 7,000 clients from around the world. They can choose from more than 1,000 different wristband colors.

It’s no illusion: At 22, Adam Guy is a successful businessman in multiple fields. The Rock Bridge grad is the mind behind not only the magic act he’s been putting on since childhood, but also burgeoning enterprises that sell customized wristbands and ice cream treats by the thousands.

Adam Guy sat outside a crowded banquet room at the Holiday Inn Select Executive Center, waiting to start his magic show for a host of Kiwanis Club members from Missouri and Arkansas.

Adam Guy, owner of Directwristbands.com, fields a phone order from an Elgin, Ill.-based customer last week at his company’s central-Columbia location. Guy says the company receives between 75 to 100 phone call orders a day for his wholesale plastic wristbands. Below, Guy puts together an order at Cold Stone Creamery in downtown Columbia. Guy purchased 80 percent of the business this summer, citing a desire to enter into the restaurant industry.

He was energized, perhaps somewhat fidgety, but not nervous.

How many shows has he performed?

“Oh, gosh,” he said. He’s been doing magic shows since he was 7.

Unable to do the arithmetic quickly in his head, the 22-year-old shifted gears.

“I now do about two shows per week,” he said.

Moments later, snappy music began to blare over loudspeakers. Guy’s assistant, his 20-year-old sister, Ashley, wheeled several black boxes full of props onto the stage. Smoke billowed from under a screen partition.

Adam Guy, magician, emerged.

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The real magic of Adam Guy, a former Rock Bridge High School basketball starting guard and now a communications major at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is more than entertaining audiences with tricks and illusions.

Outside the classroom, the whiz kid has magically transformed an idea to sell “Go Tigers” wristbands into a thriving online sales venture that reaps orders for thousands of wristbands each day.

Recently, Guy bought controlling interest in the local Cold Stone Creamery franchise from businessman Fred DeMarco.

The secret to his success: the magic kit his parents gave him at age 5, which he credits for launching his magic career and the confidence he learned along the way.

“He has no fear,” agreed his father, Tom.

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Guy knows how to work a crowd, and the Executive Center show last Saturday for the Kiwanis was no exception.

One minute, a dove magically appeared, then disappeared in what seemed to be a plain silk scarf. The next minute, a rabbit appeared and disappeared in what looked like an empty box.

Guy introduced himself and started to interact with the audience.

“How’s everyone doing tonight?”

Applause and scattered comments.

“All right,” he said. “How was the meal?”

More comments and applause.

The meal question launched Guy into a brief monologue about his childhood and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

He brought out a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly and placed them on a small platform. The side-by-side jars were covered with opaque cylinders. Guy waved his hands and said he magically made the jars switch locations, but he didn’t uncover the jars to prove it. He waved his hands again and said he switched them back. He uncovered the jars to show they were in the original position. A ripple of laughter came from the audience.

But the next time Guy waved his hands over the jars, he lifted the covers, and the jars had, indeed, switched location.

Applause.

On hand for the show were Guy’s parents, Tom and Lori. They’re frequent audience members for “The Magic of Adam Guy.”

Ashley has been her brother’s magic assistant since she was 5. Their first show was at a retirement center. Then there were appearances on the local variety television show Pepper & Friends.

Now a junior at MU, Ashley also decorates cakes at Cold Stone Creamery and works at her mother’s retail stores.

Lori Guy owns both Columbia locations of Girl Boutique, a women’s clothing and accessory store, and Keeping Good Company, which sells furniture, home accessories, baby gifts and more.

Tom Guy sells Guidant Pacemakers for Boston Scientific Corp.

“I’m the only one” in the family “with a normal job,” he said with a laugh as his kids prepared to do their act at the Executive Center.

In another trick, Ashley went inside a box with a separate section above her shoulders. You could see her face through a circular cutout in the top section. The song “The Twist” by Chubby Checker began to play. Doors in the lower section of the box were opened and exposed legs doing the twist. Guy grabbed the top section of the box and spun it, making Ashley’s head appear to rotate like the little girl in the movie “The Exorcist” while her legs appeared to stay in the same position.

“You should see my little sis’,” Chubby Checker sang. “She knows how to twist.”

There were more tricks and jokes, but after about an hour, the show ended with Guy’s trademark snowflake illusion to the music of “Do You Believe in Magic?” by the Lovin’ Spoonful.

“God bless you,” he said.

Guy just earned $600. For more elaborate gigs, he charges as much as $2,500. His magic shows often benefit charities such as the Children’s Miracle Network and the Children’s Hospital.

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For his online business, Guy subleases a few hundred square feet of space at 111 E. Walnut St. from his uncle Gary Freeman, a fundraiser for conservation groups. Empty boxes are stacked and strewn throughout the rooms. Shelves are filled with past orders and other paperwork. Walls are decorated with travel posters of Hawaii. Pictures and sheets of paper are pinned or taped all over the walls. Cartons of Coke and Mountain Dew are on the floor. On one desk is a shoebox labeled “Adam’s To Do Box.” There’s a phone, fax, personal computer and, probably most important, a credit card processing device.

“It’s amazing,” Guy said. “This is where it happens. No one ever sees this. Our storefront is our Web site.”

The phone rang, and Guy answered. It’s a mom from Elgin, Ill., who volunteers with the local PTA. She Googled “silicone wristbands,” and Guy’s www.directwristbands.com Web site popped up as a sponsored link. She clicked on the site, which added $5 to Guy’s monthly bill from Google, and decided to call.

The woman was interested in buying customized wristbands for a PTA fundraiser. Guy patiently answered her questions about the wristbands and the ordering process.

He put the woman on hold and grabbed an order form from a nearby plastic box filled with hanging folders.

“This is how it starts,” he said, snatching a form.

“We just need to go through some information,” he told the customer.

After getting information on shipping address, color and customized message, Guy politely asked for prepayment on a credit card. “It will allow us to get the order started immediately,” he said.

The woman ordered 450 wristbands at 55 cents each plus a $50 mold fee for a total of $297.50.

At the end of the day, Guy e-mailed all orders he’d received to a factory in China that makes the wristbands and ships them directly to the customer, usually in less than two weeks.

Guy launched his wristband venture less than two years ago. Inspired by the yellow Lance Armstrong wristbands popular at the time, he and a friend, Hunter Graves, ordered 10,000 “Go Tigers” wristbands. They flew off the shelf and sold out in days.

“I realized that this was an item that was hot, what people wanted, a new trend,” he said.

Guy decided to expand the idea into his own online business. He traveled to China and cut a manufacturing deal with a factory in Guangzhou, a city of some 12.6 million in the southern province of Guangdong. He now claims to be one of the largest online wholesalers of customized wristbands, which he sells for 20 cents to $1.95 each, depending on order quantity. Guy is mum about his cost to make and ship the rubbery bracelets, but he said retailers and fundraisers typically fetch between $2 and $3 apiece.

The online business receives between 75 to 100 phone calls each day and as many as 50 e-mails requesting samples. Daily clicks on his Web site exceed 1,000 and orders average 10,000 wristbands a day.

Most orders come from schools and sport teams for fundraising. But corporations such as Coke and Wal-Mart, along with sports teams, including the San Antonio Spurs, also are Guy wristband customers. Guy made Hurricane Katrina bracelets and raised some $1 million for relief efforts, and total fundraising efforts using his wristbands or lanyards have garnered more than $10 million, he said.

Guy tried to keep the venture small and manageable, he said, but “the phone was ringing too much.” Patti Freeman, aka Aunt Patti, and Tom Spencer have been hired to help with the load.

Guy knows he’s riding a wave, and he expects that the wristband fad will fade. But he’s getting ready for his next trick — an online venture selling covers for iPods, cellphones and other electronic gadgets at www.spiritskins.com.

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About three months ago, Guy had an idea and a business plan to launch a pizza restaurant. He approached local businessman and comedy nightclub guru Fred DeMarco for advice.

“You don’t want to do that,” DeMarco told him.

Early in 2004, the former owner of the Déjà Vu comedy club became a franchisee for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cold Stone Creamery and opened an outlet in the lower level of his 28,000-square-foot building behind the food court at Ninth and Elm streets.

DeMarco said Guy’s visit coincided with his decision to slow down and smell the roses after decades of doing deals. He offered to sell Guy 80 percent of the franchise, saying the business needed “new blood.”

The proposed sale still needs approval from Cold Stone, DeMarco said, but Guy already has started working his magic on the business. He’s been calling on local business owners and fundraisers pitching ways to promote their organizations with Cold Stone ice cream cakes.

Machens Toyota is the first to sign on. New car buyers get an ice cream cake delivered to their workplace for a celebration office party. Guy’s also pitching an idea to pharmaceutical representatives to buy ice cream cakes for the lunches they sometimes cater at doctor’s offices.

DeMarco shook his head and grinned with amusement as he listened to Guy’s promotional ideas. “This kid is something else,” he said.

Joe Johnston, MU professor and director of career services, advises campus entrepreneur clubs and teaches a course in entrepreneurship. He said Guy, a former student and 2005 finalist for University of Missouri Entrepreneur of the Year, is a “true model for other students” who want to learn about risk-taking.

“Most people talk about going to China,” Johnston said. “He goes.”

A big part of Guy’s success traces back to the hearthstone, Johnston said. “A lot of it is the family,” he said. “His mother and father are both very entrepreneurial and they have supported him in a variety of ways.”

So what’s up Guy’s sleeve for the future?

“I don’t know. I get bored really easy,” he said.

“I’ve never been diagnosed, but I’m sure I’ve got something,” he added with a laugh.

That something might be magical, but it’s no illusion.