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Yesterday I spent a very enjoyable day in the company of other passionate and professionally minded mobile DJs at the Pro DJ UK event hosted by our friends at NADJ, SEDA and AMPdj. Their aim for the event was that ‘every attendee will leave the day with at least 5 new ideas that they can implement to improve their DJ business’ and I’m sure that this goal was more than accomplished. The standard of seminar content was, on the whole, very high with a wealth of information, ideas and experiences shared by a group of interesting and engaging speakers. While a good number of our readers were able to attend, I realise that many more were not and therefore I thought I’d share my own experiences of the event in this blog posting.
The programme for the day was due to kick off at 10am, at which point the assembled attendees in the main seminar room were sparse to say the least - but then expecting DJs to be up at that time on a Sunday morning was probably a bit optimistic! In the end the event was formally kicked off at around 10:30 when the room was looking decidedly busier, partly thanks to the arrival of a mini bus containing a large contingent from the NADJ Wales branch.
A brief welcome was given by Paul Arnett (NADJ Chairman), Paul Forsyth (SEDA Chairman) and Sandy Sounds on behalf of the third Paul (Smith from AMPdj) who was en-route from his home in Northern Ireland where he had been DJing the previous evening. The organisers welcomed the attendees, gave an outline of the day before announcing a short break prior to the start of the seminar sessions. Two streams of seminars ran throughout the day; one in the main room featuring broader topics of interest to most DJs and a another in a smaller room featuring more specialised topics.
The daunting task of presenting the first seminar in the main room fell to the NADJ’s Paul Arnett who spoke on the topic of ‘Exhibiting Your Wares’. Drawing on his own experiences and information gleaned from his trip to the Mobile Beat DJ Conference in Las Vegas, Paul gave a good overview of the principles and practicalities of exhibiting at Bridal Fayres as well as the new phenomenon Prom Fayres. Covering everything from establishing goals and setting up a display, through to talking with customers and then effectively following up on leads, the session provided a huge amount of very useful information.
The second main room session was hosted by Sandy Sounds from AMPdj on the topic ‘Recipe For Conversion’. This interesting seminar looked at the nitty gritty of turning enquiries into confirmed bookings for a mobile DJ business and addressed the difficult topic of dealing with customers whose first question is simply ‘how much?’ Sandy began by walking us through the process she herself went through in refining her standard email response from one that never had any success to what she currently uses to regularly secure client meetings and ultimately lucrative bookings. Sandy’s advice was to maintain a professional tone, personalise each message, provide plenty of information, lay that information out into short coherent paragraphs and also ensure that your own unique personality is conveyed through your email responses. The session then moved on to fielding telephone enquiries, especially those dreaded price hunting calls. Sandy’s advice was to side-step the price question and enter into a conversation about the prospective customer’s unique event finding out as much information as possible. The key is to prompt the caller to think about aspects of their event that they may not have previously considered, find out what they are specifically looking for and then explain how your unique services can provide what they want and need. Listening closely to a prospective client, showing genuine interest and finding out their exact requirements is much more effective than giving a ‘standard’ sales pitch.
Next up was Alex Taylor whose presentation ‘Web Design – Quick & Easy’ provided plenty of advice and ideas both for DJs who design and maintain their own websites as well as those who commission professionals to do the work. Alex began by going over a few design basics, then moved on to discuss current trends and finished off by providing a few hints and tips on the elusive topic of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
After an educational morning it was time for a break for lunch and also a spot of networking. It was great to catch up with friends and colleagues as well as meet some fellow DJs for the first time. I spent much of the lunch break talking with DJs at our makeshift book shop. We had brought along a selection of the DJ related reading material available from the Pro Mobile DJ Book Store and many visitors went away with a least one piece of new bedtime reading!
After lunch the infamous Dave Reed gave his presentation ‘How To Be A Happier, Richer, Mobile DJ’ to what was probably the biggest audience for any seminar of the day. Dave repeated his controversial claim that the MINIMUM fee for a mobile disco should be £450 and went on to explain both why he believes this and how he suggests interested DJs should go about achieving the goal. You can find out more about this from Dave’s article in Issue 47 (May/June) of Pro Mobile.
Having made it on the first plane from Belfast, Paul Smith gave the next presentation on ‘The Benefits Of Being A Specialist’. Sharing from his own experience, Paul explained why choosing a specialism and then targeting marketing, performance and learning in that one direction can allow DJs to attract more enquires and also charge more for their services.
The next session was from regular Pro Mobile contributor, and my good friend, Mark Walsh. In what was undoubtedly the most energetic seminar of the day Mark shared lots of different examples of how good presentation can make a huge difference to a DJ’s performance and how bad presentation can have the opposite effect (often backed up with humorous video clips). This session followed perfectly from Dave Reed’s earlier seminar by explaining how excellence in presentation can allow DJs to justify the higher fees that Dave feels we all deserve.
The day’s agenda in the main room was wrapped up by an open discussion and Q&A session with the ‘three Pauls’ on the topic of ‘Part Time To Full Time’. Two of the association leaders are currently full time DJs, while Paul Arnett currently runs his DJ business alongside a ‘day job’. Many mobile DJs are also in this position, with a good number of those considering the possibility of taking the plunge and going ‘full time’. This session provided a candid insight into the industry, the businesses of the three men at the front, and also the views of many of the other DJs in the room through input from the floor. The consensus was that as well as the ability to entertain and fill a dance-floor full time DJs also need sales, marketing and customer service knowledge and skills, all of which can be developed through events such as Pro DJ UK.
I’ve only written about the main room sessions as unfortunately I wasn’t able to spend much time in the second room (I’ve not yet perfect the skill of being in more than one place at a time!) I did catch about half of Will Perkins’ presentation ‘A DJ’s Guide To Basic DMX’, which gave a very clear insight into this often confusing topic as well as providing some handy tips for lightshow design and operation. I’m sure that all the other sessions ‘DJing In The Digital Realm’, ‘Mixing For Mobile DJs’, ‘From Single to Multi Operator’ and ‘Mesmerising, Dazzling, Ambient & Dramatic Lighting For Your Event’ were all of an equally high standard to the presentations that I watched.
Overall the day was hailed as a resounding success by both the organisers and those who attended. I was personally pleased to see the high level of enthusiasm from everyone who attended the event, which was particularly evident by the amount of networking and idea sharing that was clearly taking place throughout the day and that continued well after the seminar content was concluded. I strongly believe that if we are willing to invest in ourselves and work together with our peers there is a lot we can achieve to positively enhance public perceptions of mobile DJs and ensure that the fees we receive reflect the efforts we put into ensuring each event is a memorable experience for our clients and their guests. |
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