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Thread: My view on client meetings

  1. #1
    theoloyla's Avatar
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    Default My view on client meetings

    Having mentioned this in another recent thread and found I was in a minority I thought I would give this analogy.

    Suppose you have a really big event and you want to book Status Quo to appear what do you do?
    Answer: you ring up their agent and ask if they are available, negotiate a fee, check how long they will perform for, check they will play all their well known songs, discuss facilities and riders they require and then confirm and make payment and arrangements as necessary. You can do it all on the phone with their agent. You don't need Francis Rossi to come round to your house and sit down over a drink to discuss the event with you.
    I am the same. If I work for an agent I expect him to have discussed requirements with the client and to give me the relevant information. I generally will also telephone the client myself out of courtesy and reassurance and to confirm and question anything I am not sure of. If I have taken the booking myself then I will do all of the relevant research with the client on the phone and/or by post and again ring them to confirm and iron out any queries. I honestly don't see the need to take time out of my day to meet them and discuss the same things that I can do in a phone call.
    My most recent wedding where the client insisted on not one but two face to face meetings where we discussed music and timings etc etc which could all have been done on the phone ended up with me being unfit to do the job and a fellow trusted dj covering for me and him getting all the said information in written form from me and not meeting them until the day. He did a good job and they were very happy.
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  2. #2
    Jim - Scotland's Party DJ's Avatar
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    I don't think anyone's ever claimed that you couldn't do meets over the phone. That being said, I'm driving almost an hour for a full day meet tomorrow because there is a tonne of things we need to go over and I don't want anything left to chance or missed out.

    Back to your original point - proportionally I'd imagine most people see a lot more bad than good DJs so why would they not want to meet and make sure you're not a total clown?

    Aside from that, if I'm paying someone 400 quid to DJ at my wedding, I'd expect a higher level of service and attention to detail from someone doing it for £200.

  3. #3
    Ezekiel 25:17 funkymook's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by theoloyla View Post
    Having mentioned this in another recent thread and found I was in a minority I thought I would give this analogy.

    Suppose you have a really big event and you want to book Status Quo to appear what do you do?
    Answer: you ring up their agent and ask if they are available, negotiate a fee, check how long they will perform for, check they will play all their well known songs, discuss facilities and riders they require and then confirm and make payment and arrangements as necessary. You can do it all on the phone with their agent. You don't need Francis Rossi to come round to your house and sit down over a drink to discuss the event with you.
    I am the same. If I work for an agent I expect him to have discussed requirements with the client and to give me the relevant information. I generally will also telephone the client myself out of courtesy and reassurance and to confirm and question anything I am not sure of. If I have taken the booking myself then I will do all of the relevant research with the client on the phone and/or by post and again ring them to confirm and iron out any queries. I honestly don't see the need to take time out of my day to meet them and discuss the same things that I can do in a phone call.
    My most recent wedding where the client insisted on not one but two face to face meetings where we discussed music and timings etc etc which could all have been done on the phone ended up with me being unfit to do the job and a fellow trusted dj covering for me and him getting all the said information in written form from me and not meeting them until the day. He did a good job and they were very happy.

    No one is saying it’s essential, we can all do a great job without a client meeting as well.

    Some DJ’s like to do meetings, some don’t.
    Some clients like to do meetings, some don’t.

    If I do a meeting it’s always after I’ve been booked - I’m a people person and I enjoy doing them, it gets me out of the house. It’s usually at the venue as well so it’s a handy site visit. (and on more than a few occasions I’ve pre-empted something that would’ve been a real issue on the day).

    My meeting expenses and time are built into my fee. It's swings and roundabouts, some meetings might cost me a bit more petrol and time, some clients might not want to meet at all.

    As for booking Status Quo - all very valid comments, but they’re a known quantity (with Quo a very know quantity indeed). Now what if it was a totally unknown band, you’d want to hear them and see them, see their set-list. They will probably have videos which will give you a good idea of what they do, there may also be a live gig you could go to, you just choose whichever suits you.

  4. #4
    Resident Antagonist Benny Smyth's Avatar
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    I find that about 10% of client meetings is about music and timings, 40% about building a rapport and 50% is about them wanting to see the colour of your eyes. It's reassuring on their part to see a real person beyond those emails and phone calls. I actually get get most of the info that I need in the days/weeks after the meeting. Sadly, I don't have a Quo profile just yet but if I do, I may change my mind.

    On top of that:

    Quote Originally Posted by theoloyla View Post
    My most recent wedding where the client insisted on not one but two face to face meetings where we discussed music and timings etc etc which could all have been done on the phone ended up with me being unfit to do the job and a fellow trusted dj covering for me and him getting all the said information in written form from me and not meeting them until the day.
    Horrible from your perspective but from the client's point of view, I would rather find out that my DJ didn't quite 'get me' from a meeting before my wedding than at my wedding.

  5. #5
    Dinosaur Excalibur's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Benny Smyth View Post
    I find that about 10% of client meetings is about music and timings, 40% about building a rapport and 50% is about them wanting to see the colour of your eyes.
    As little as that? The meeting is your chance to demonstrate that you're a human being who wants to make their special day happy, and not some bloke who cares only about the fee. ( However low or high that may be )
    I love meetings. They make the gig so much easier.

    Quote Originally Posted by Benny Smyth View Post
    Horrible from your perspective but from the client's point of view, I would rather find out that my DJ didn't quite 'get me' from a meeting before my wedding than at my wedding.
    Agreed, though getting as far as that would seem to indicate a fault somewhere to me.
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  6. #6
    Ezekiel 25:17 funkymook's Avatar
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    And lets not forget a meeting (or any enquiry/booking process) should work both ways. Or are we so desperate to get the job we’d take anything offered as long as it’s the right price?

  7. #7
    Resident Antagonist Benny Smyth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Excalibur View Post
    As little as that? The meeting is your chance to demonstrate that you're a human being who wants to make their special day happy, and not some bloke who cares only about the fee. ( However low or high that may be )
    I love meetings. They make the gig so much easier.
    Oh I concur with that wholeheartedly.

    With regards to the rapport, I've personally found that most of the rapport you build with your clients has already happened from the initial enquiry, to every bit of communication after that. The rapport at the meetings is just you putting it into practice, as it were. I do firmly believe the biggest benefit from any client meeting is the client seeing you. Once they see the colour of your eyes, they know "that's my DJ, with his/her cheeky little smile."

    I know someone who has a team of DJs, and I was close by when he was having a mildly heated conversation on the phone with a client. What had happened is that he turned up to the consultation, then a few weeks later emailed the clients to let them know that DJ [whoever it was] would be performing at their event. The client called him up and questioned this, and was worried that he had palmed off the gig onto someone else, and he spent the conversation reassuring them that the DJ does work for him and the gig hasn't been outsourced.

    He didn't understand their point of view and said that he never once told them that he would be their DJ, but that the disco would be provided by his company. He still didn't understand it when I told him that "Actually, the moment you turned up to that consultation was the moment you told them that you are their DJ for their event".

  8. #8
    Dinosaur Excalibur's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkymook View Post
    . Or are we so desperate to get the job we’d take anything offered as long as it’s the right price?
    Well yes. Have I ever made a secret of that?

    Quote Originally Posted by Benny Smyth View Post
    Oh I concur with that wholeheartedly.

    With regards to the rapport, I've personally found that most of the rapport you build with your clients has already happened from the initial enquiry, to every bit of communication after that. The rapport at the meetings is just you putting it into practice, as it were. .
    Well to an extent, yes. Some customers establish that from the first ten seconds of the first phone call. Some don't. I had one last week where the Dearly Beloved was in earshot, and decided that some heavy duty flirting was going on both ways!! I have a story about that from many many years ( decades, actually ) ago, another time perhaps.
    Some folk are a tad nervous on the phone, and thus:

    Quote Originally Posted by Benny Smyth View Post
    I do firmly believe the biggest benefit from any client meeting is the client seeing you. Once they see the colour of your eyes, they know "that's my DJ, with his/her cheeky little smile."

    .
    Err, for " cheeky little smile", insert " white hair, and benign appearance "
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  9. #9
    Jim - Scotland's Party DJ's Avatar
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    Case in point. Todays meeting has chewed up 3 hours of my Sunday (2 hours driving, 1 hour meeting) but for them to have a walk round and envision how everything is going to be and us to properly talk logistics (they're having a band do their first dance, ceremony music etc.. Im doing speeches for mics, background for breakfast etc... is so much more tangible than doing it over the phone. Makes my job on the day easier too as I'm not running around going - OK where do you need me set up in the drawing room, who's doing the speeches, when's the cake getting done.

    Aside from that (and you can disagree all you want but you'd be wrong) it's providing quality and value to the service that doing the same thing over the phone just can't match and clients do appreciate that.

  10. #10
    Shakermaker Promotions's Avatar
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    I only meet the customers when they have booked me and that is around 2-3 weeks before the booking.
    I am a people person too (not nicking Martin's line by the way) and I enjoy the meetings and my feedback tells me that the customers do too. If it's a wedding for example I can go over details without distraction and there are questions I ask which they haven't even thought about and it prompts them. For example: A simple question like "How would you like to be announced?".

    Yes, all of this could be done over the phone but it's not the way I work.

    Now, on the other side of things....Do I meet customers before they book me?
    No!
    I've done it once before a few years ago. I got up early one Sunday morning after a late finish the night before and I drove 10 miles to a residence where the couple were going to get married. I waited 15 minutes before I got a phone call from them apologising that they were late and then a further 20 minutes before they actually turned up.
    I spent an hour with them talking about their requirements and came up with a decent price for them. I walked away thinking that I'd got the booking but also felt very uncomfortable and as if I had been in some kind of audition. It was probably the first and only time that I've been wrong about a booking. The way they were talking and the way we got on....well, I was convinced the job was mine.

    I received an email a day later saying that they weren't going to book me. No other reasons at all (not that they needed to tell me anyway).
    I said there and then that I will not meet anyone unless they've booked me.

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