I was reminded of two very important things recently in connection with our business of mobile DJing….
First one was all to do with perception. I paid a passing visit to a DJ with whom I was playing at the same venue on the same night, albeit in different function suites. I’d previously seen this guy’s website and upon briefly looking it over, he appeared to be very neat and tidy, with good equipment and presentation skills. In the flesh however, things were very different. The whole set up looked haphazard, dangerous even, and most of his components were sadly dated. As a DJ, he didn’t seem too bad from the bits that I witnessed, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was letting himself and his customers down with such a poor quality set-up, especially as he was earning just £25 less than I was on the night. His website had boasted top quality equipment but none of it was on show here! My main issue with this is simply that he wasn’t being dishonest on his site, but that he genuinely believes that his equipment is top notch because he knows nothing about the technical side of DJing. And take my word for it, there are hundreds of mobile DJs out there with the same naive approach! My personal mission statement is to provide the best quality sound and lighting that I can afford, and to ensure that I stay closely in touch with all technological advances…….reinvestment, reinvestment, reinvestment!
The other thought was regarding my own personal performance as a DJ/compere. Always concentrating on the equipment around me, it never even crossed my mind that some customers book me for, er……me! And it’s quite amazing how many DJs don’t sell their most valuable asset (themselves) to their prospective customers properly. It was brought to my attention last week, when I ‘hosted’ a charity gig and had to take centre stage with just a microphone and a few cheeky lines for about 45 minutes whilst we done raffles and auctions, etc. To me, it just comes naturally and I certainly didn’t regard it as a talent…..but when the staff pointed out that their two other resident DJs could never have undertaken such a task in the same entertaining way, I was humbled and quietly very proud. So from now onwards, I shall start to value my own contribution a lot more!
