Shakermaker Promotions
10-05-2007, 06:12 PM
Hi all,
Just read and replied to Cara's topic ('Flat Broke...') and it got me thinking. I'm thinking out loud here and I have no intention whatsoever of coming across as a big head / know-all or whatever, I'm just thinking out loud really but also the reason I am writing this is because (a) I am quite proud of myself in the fact that I always wanted to run my own business and, (b) A comment / compliment someone actually made me today.
When I started DJing in 1989 it was quite by accident actually. I was in a band, had toured the UK and Europe, been signed and just released our first single and album. The European tour thing had really done my head in and I was also seeing someone at the time who didn't like me being away for weeks on end. To cut this part of the story very short indeed, I was 21, in love and made the stupid mistake of leaving the band and staying with a gorgeous but very posessive and jealous girl. She ended up going on a Kabbutz (working holiday in Israel) for 3 months, did the dirty on me and we finished (everybody say ahhhhhh...thanks).
Anyway, like I said, I started by accident. I used to frequent a nightclub in Basingstoke called 'Martines'. It was a cheesy cattle market type place but it was all Basingstoke had at the time. I used to go down there with friends most weekends and got to know the DJ's and management. I mentioned a number of times that I wished that they would put on some kind of Alternative Night but it was always met by deaf ears. Then the management changed and I mentioned it again. This time they wanted to do it but didn't choose me to DJ as I had no experience. They actually picked a german guy I used to work with who did mobile rock discos and a few weeks later after a lot of promotion, the nights began (they were called 'The Nightmare Zone'). I was a bit gutted at the time as the nights were an instant success, they were packed but I was told by a number of people who went that they actually thought the music was rubbish, they only went because it was different. The management asked me in the end if I was willing to take over the DJing but I was going on holiday for a fortnight to Greece and it was already paid for. Whilst I was away, they promoted it with me DJing and mentioning our band name on the adverts too in order to pull in more people as we were a big name back then. It worked! When I got back from holiday and did my first night, it was an instant hit with the punters. I would go down there with all of my vinyl in crates in a taxi as I didn't drive. I'd go straight from work to play 5-a side football, finish there, leg it home and then get a taxi to the club. I didn't get paid for DJing, just re-imbursed for the taxi there and back at the end of the night and also free drinks. I worked until 2am on a monday night, got in at 3am and then was up again at 7.30am for my proper job working in a double glazing factory.
I did the monday night thing for quite a while. It was established as a great night in the end and I did other nights too, mainly the student nights at the club on a wednesday. It was still the same deal too but at the end of the day, I wasn't bothered about money back then, I loved the limelight and being recognised for being a DJ and not just a band member. Shortly after leaving 'Martines' I went to another club and got a different deal. It was bigger, classier but I was doing the same thing and getting paid this time. It was done properly by the way! Since then I have played allover the south of england in various clubs. I was flown to Newcastle in a friend of a friends plane about 5 years ago to DJ at a wedding and I have also had offers to play at a friends bar in Spain all summer but it doesn't interest me really.
Maybe a few people can relate to the next part of this story but I always found that I got lots more enjoyment out of DJing and entertaining people and for those few hours that I was 'working', I was happy and in a world that I loved. I did jobs that weren't really me, Customer Services Manager, IT Help Desks, Double Glazing etc to pay the bills and mortgage etc but they just weren't me, I felt like I was not actually being ME and I was almost pretending to be someone else, maybe the average guy (whatever that is?) and by that I mean, get up, go to work, get home, go to sleep and so on and so on Monday to Friday week in week out. I hated it.
I happened to be DJing at the local Ice Rink in the mid 90's when I met a guy who had plans to set up his own Disco Entertainment business. I gave him my details and said that when he was up and running, if he wanted me to do stuff for him then I would be interested. About 6 months later he called me and I gave up my Customers Services job and started working for him, going out and DJing, hosting Karaokes, Race Nights etc.. I loved it as it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't have my own gear as I had been used to going to nightclubs where the kit was already there. I was out at least 4 nights a week, sometimes 6 or 7 and it was great to start with but then one day I realised that I was actually working my preverbials off and lining someone elses pockets. I was getting an 'Ok' wage after my deductions but overall if you worked it out to the hour like we do these days, it was very poor in fact. Because I was doing so much DJing and entertaining at the time, it seemed like I didn't have a life and it put me off altogeather. The fact that I was still working for someone else wasn't what I wanted and I decided that I would stop doing it for a while and go and try and get myself a 'proper' job again and go back to the 9-5 routine.
I did this for 18 months before getting the itch again. My mate was still there offering me lots of work but I did it when I wanted to do it and calmed it all down a bit. It worked much better and I even started up a regular Indie/Alternative Night on my own. I hired the gear from him and it was the start of how I wanted things to go. I had learnt a lot about how things run etc whilst working for him so I knew exactly what I wanted to do in the future. The problem was that I had no money, lots of debts etc and didn't know where to start. I suppose it all started really when he decided to pack it all in and move away one day. He was all set to get married to a local girl who he had been seeing for about 5 years and the wedding was all arranged but she did the dirty on him a few months before the big day and it really mucked (sp) him up big style. It was a shame. He had a contract with a local bar where he provided 3 DJ Nights. I was the DJ there for all 3 nights. I mentioned it to the manager, asked what the deal was and we came to an arrangement and I took over. The lights and sound were all in house but you needed decks to plug into the system. I came to a deal with my mate in that I did a wedding for him for free in return for 2 x Pioneer CDJ500's and a Pioneer DJM300 Mixer in a flightcase (I still use them now as spares and they have never let me down!!).
The contract there went on for a while and everything was cool until the management changed and they decided to stop all of the entertainment and go back to a 'traditional drinking pub'. I was actually getting bored again at the time which I know sounds bad because that may happen again to me in what I do now but I can't see it. I still had the weekly Indie/Alternative Night to sort out and ended up speaking to one of the promoters at the venue and I hired all of his gear off him. It was very expensive at the time but it ended up worth doing as I established the night into something special and it is still as busy now as it was then.
So, Once again I went back to a 9 - 5 job only DJing my Indie night at the weekends. It was fine for a while but then I was made redundant and it took me a while to get another job. When I finally did, I was made redundant again after about 6 months and I was starting to get really aggravated to put it mildly. I'd met a gorgeous girl and we were planning to get married, everything was booked and almost paid for but I was made redundant....arrghh. Eventually just before we got married I got myself a decent job, very well paid for what I was doing and it seemed like I had landed on my feet again in a good way. Everything was fine, I was told I was great at my job. I travelled 20 miles everyday to work, was never late and hardly off sick either. I had great compliments from my managers and everything was rosey. In fact, a couple of days before I told them I had decided to leave, I had received a payrise too after an awesome appraisal. This all went out the window however when I was disciplined for saying 'Bloody hell' in the office. I was given a written warning, NOT for my work being bad (it wasn't), NOT for being late (I wasn't) and NOT for being off sick all the time (hardly ever), but for what they classed as swearing. It all seemed very petty to me and it was that night that I spoke to my wife and told her that I really didn't want to go back to that job again. Once again I felt like I was pretending to be someone else, putting on my suit and tie everyday, covering up my tattoos, taking out my piercings and putting on a 'front' and working with a bunch of 'wannabe's' who just kissed butt and would backstab anyone at any opportunity. It wasn't my scene at all.
I'm a lucky man. I have a gorgeous wife, both in looks and personality and she understood that I wasn't happy. I wondered how we would cope and was worried about the debts etc but she said to me that I should do what keeps me happy. I was 100% behind her when she started her business and endured the hard times before it really kicked off and she said that she would do the same for me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that was to run my own business and do something that I was good at, something that I had been complimented on for years and something that I could give my dedication and best effort towards...it was obvious but I knew it would be hard work. All I had was a couple of decks in flightcase for starters!
Luckily though, I started a new weekly residency in town so I now had two nights a week now and thought that was a good starter. I re-mortgaged the house and got some extra cash but I didn't pay off my debts, I decided that the most important thing to do was to get myself a full set up. I also sold my beloved car (a modified Peugeot GTI-6 which was taken to lots of car shows as it was stunning) to get more funds. The first thing I did was to get a good enough set up for small parties and pubs. I got some Gemini GX450 Active Speakers, Deck Stands & Speaker Stands, Leads and some second hand Twisters and Duos from Ebay. My wife made me up a velvet cover for the front and that was about it. I know it will sound silly but the day that I actually registered myself...yes ME, as a business...Shakermaker Promotions, was great. I sat back afterwards and thought "Yes, I've done it...all systems go!"
Once the word went around that I now had my own gear, I was inundated with requests for parties mainly from people that went to my Indie Nights. I got asked if I had a card which I realised I didn't so I went on to Vista Print after having them recommended to me and designed my own. I then decided to see how easy it was to do a website but gave up as it all looked a bit too complicated for me so I made do with my free MSN storage space which didn't seem to work. A friend of mine said to me in the pub one night that he had done his own website and that he found it easy. He gave me the software and I sat there for days trying to work it out. I got the main idea of it and then signed up with a company for my domain and webspace. Once my cards came through I realised that I had made a mistake and not added my website so I got new and improved ones done and then I went through my Thompson Local and Yellow Pages and got the details and addresses of local pubs and schools and did a huge (300+) mailshot to them all. I also went down the road to the hotel and asked to speak to the manager. Luckily he was there and after a short chat about what I was doing (he also said he wasn't happy with the Discos that were being provided at the time), he asked me to come back with a written contract including pricing etc.. (he also gave me the prices of what he was being charged at the time as an 'indication'). A few days later I arranged to see him and after about 30 mins the contract was mine. This included all weddings, birthdays and christmas parties. He also advised me about PLI and PAT and it was part of the contract that I had these. I was confused and didn't have a clue but the internet is a great thing and I found out everything that I needed to know. It wasn't as expensive or as difficult to sort out as I expected and I now look back and laugh at myself for being so worried.
Work started to come in quicker than I had anticipated and it was all beginning to work how I wanted it too. My customer services skills were coming out over the phone or when I met potential customers and work that I had done already was being recommended to other people and the classic 'word of mouth' effect was happening already. I still had my one set up though and my intentions were to build it up as a better set up but also to get more gear along the way so that I could provide 2 discos on the same day. I did wonder at the time if it would be better if I just got the best possible equipment that I could get for myself and just concentrate on making sure I had work every weekend but I had / have bigger plans than that. My wife's business was doing really well now and I was getting lots of work via her too (she designs and makes wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses etc etc) and the bills and mortgage were being paid so I decided to start working on investing more of my earnings into more gear. I got some more deckstands, more lights either from Ebay or off forum members or listings and a set of DB technologies Active Speakers along with more stands etc. It was funny because the day I set up both at the hotel to take some pictures (which came out rubbish by the way), I had a call for another function which was a late cancellation. It worked out well as I was working so I asked someone I knew if they could do it. They had their own gear already but I said that I would set my second rig up for them and they could use that. I paid them less doing it that way and it was a success.
As the first year of my business went on, the work increased, the word went round more and more, the hits to my website improved, the free listings proved to work too so I decided to go for a paid advert in the Yellow Pages and on Yell. I know they don't work for some people but for me they have worked wonders. They paid for themselves in the first week if I'm honest! When it got to around October / November I began to get worried as things seemed to have dried up enquiry-wise. I started to doubt myself as I had a lock up that was slowly getting full of gear yet the work wasn't coming in as much as it had previously. I began to get a bit peed off as I was working a friday night and a saturday night which were paying for my bills and the extra bits were supposed to pay for the extra gear I needed but it wasn't happening. I said to my wife that maybe I had made a big mistake and she said to stick with it. Was I happy or happier than I previously had been? - YES...Did I like being my own boss and not having to answer to anyone else - YES! Did I like not having to get up early in the morning to do a 9-5? - Definitely YES!!! So, stick with it is what I decided too.
It was the right decision. As November arrived, the work started flooding in...Christmas parties, weddings for the following year etc etc....and most of it was via word of mouth too. Then the hotel came up with a gem and requested 14 christmas dates. On some of these dates they needed 3 DJ's and I know it's probably wrong but I saw the £££pound signs!! Before the first christmas party I invested in another set up and this time I got some passive stuff. JBL JRX125 speakers, Crown XLS602 Amp as well as more stands and lights etc..I knew it would all be paid for from the money I was earning at christmas. Saying that though, I learnt a lesson at christmas and that was that invoices for large amounts of money have a habit of mysteriously missing the christmas post even though they have been put in weeks in advance. I've learnt quite a lot about business along the way. The Do's and the Don't's etc etc.. having clear Terms & Conditions on your booking forms do wonders. I ammended them after that episode, finally getting my money early february but it's all cool now.
Apologies for the long post, I look back and I know I made the right decision. I hope anyone reading this who is or was in the same position is encouraged by it in some way. Yes, it's hard work, takes investment if you want to go for it properly. I have a lock up now full of gear and enough stuff to provide Disco entertainment for 4 functions on the same night. Some of the equipment in the rigs is better quality than the others but as time goes on they will all get better. I could of course have just concentrated on myself having one big awesome set up but that's not my intention. All of the rigs are good enough quality to provide a professional show...and of course, the best quality stuff is always used by me. I now have 6 regular contracts in my town and all of them are happy with the service I provide.
I mentioned earlier that I had a comment / compliment from someone which made me think and that was today. Someone called up and asked if I was available on such a date. I said I was and then went on to tell them what I do etc and they stopped me and said that they had actually seen me a couple of months back. Don't ask me why but it seems like there was a lot of undercover work going on with reference to this booking (which is a good earner). Apparently, the lady who called had called me a while back (although I didn't remember). She had also called a number of other DJ's and had been out to various functions that they had done to size us all up I expect and to see who would get the job. She said she had seen me at a pub and that I was playing loud music which worried me actually because I didn't want her to get the wrong impression. I would have had my tattoos on show and I would've been playing requests only to a pub full of punks, rockers and Indie kids etc so you can imagine what the music may have been like. She said that I was very good on the microphone, very humourous and natural and I took that as a great compliment. She would've also seen me with no lights and a small set up (active set up) and I assured her that this was the set up I used in the pub and that it was what is requested. She wasn't worried, she wants a good DJ and she is willing to pay whatever.
Like I said, I don't want to come across as a know-all or someone who is up himself. I have done so much over the past couple of years since I registered as a business and it just seems to be getting better and better and busier and busier. I am not getting bored and there is nothing better than being your own boss. When I get in my van with my gear on a friday or saturday and travel around setting up for functions, meeting lots of new people, entertaining them and getting a great reaction, there is no better feeling and when I look back and think "I'm responsible for all of this, no'one else, just me"....I have a huge smile on my face.
Gary
Just read and replied to Cara's topic ('Flat Broke...') and it got me thinking. I'm thinking out loud here and I have no intention whatsoever of coming across as a big head / know-all or whatever, I'm just thinking out loud really but also the reason I am writing this is because (a) I am quite proud of myself in the fact that I always wanted to run my own business and, (b) A comment / compliment someone actually made me today.
When I started DJing in 1989 it was quite by accident actually. I was in a band, had toured the UK and Europe, been signed and just released our first single and album. The European tour thing had really done my head in and I was also seeing someone at the time who didn't like me being away for weeks on end. To cut this part of the story very short indeed, I was 21, in love and made the stupid mistake of leaving the band and staying with a gorgeous but very posessive and jealous girl. She ended up going on a Kabbutz (working holiday in Israel) for 3 months, did the dirty on me and we finished (everybody say ahhhhhh...thanks).
Anyway, like I said, I started by accident. I used to frequent a nightclub in Basingstoke called 'Martines'. It was a cheesy cattle market type place but it was all Basingstoke had at the time. I used to go down there with friends most weekends and got to know the DJ's and management. I mentioned a number of times that I wished that they would put on some kind of Alternative Night but it was always met by deaf ears. Then the management changed and I mentioned it again. This time they wanted to do it but didn't choose me to DJ as I had no experience. They actually picked a german guy I used to work with who did mobile rock discos and a few weeks later after a lot of promotion, the nights began (they were called 'The Nightmare Zone'). I was a bit gutted at the time as the nights were an instant success, they were packed but I was told by a number of people who went that they actually thought the music was rubbish, they only went because it was different. The management asked me in the end if I was willing to take over the DJing but I was going on holiday for a fortnight to Greece and it was already paid for. Whilst I was away, they promoted it with me DJing and mentioning our band name on the adverts too in order to pull in more people as we were a big name back then. It worked! When I got back from holiday and did my first night, it was an instant hit with the punters. I would go down there with all of my vinyl in crates in a taxi as I didn't drive. I'd go straight from work to play 5-a side football, finish there, leg it home and then get a taxi to the club. I didn't get paid for DJing, just re-imbursed for the taxi there and back at the end of the night and also free drinks. I worked until 2am on a monday night, got in at 3am and then was up again at 7.30am for my proper job working in a double glazing factory.
I did the monday night thing for quite a while. It was established as a great night in the end and I did other nights too, mainly the student nights at the club on a wednesday. It was still the same deal too but at the end of the day, I wasn't bothered about money back then, I loved the limelight and being recognised for being a DJ and not just a band member. Shortly after leaving 'Martines' I went to another club and got a different deal. It was bigger, classier but I was doing the same thing and getting paid this time. It was done properly by the way! Since then I have played allover the south of england in various clubs. I was flown to Newcastle in a friend of a friends plane about 5 years ago to DJ at a wedding and I have also had offers to play at a friends bar in Spain all summer but it doesn't interest me really.
Maybe a few people can relate to the next part of this story but I always found that I got lots more enjoyment out of DJing and entertaining people and for those few hours that I was 'working', I was happy and in a world that I loved. I did jobs that weren't really me, Customer Services Manager, IT Help Desks, Double Glazing etc to pay the bills and mortgage etc but they just weren't me, I felt like I was not actually being ME and I was almost pretending to be someone else, maybe the average guy (whatever that is?) and by that I mean, get up, go to work, get home, go to sleep and so on and so on Monday to Friday week in week out. I hated it.
I happened to be DJing at the local Ice Rink in the mid 90's when I met a guy who had plans to set up his own Disco Entertainment business. I gave him my details and said that when he was up and running, if he wanted me to do stuff for him then I would be interested. About 6 months later he called me and I gave up my Customers Services job and started working for him, going out and DJing, hosting Karaokes, Race Nights etc.. I loved it as it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't have my own gear as I had been used to going to nightclubs where the kit was already there. I was out at least 4 nights a week, sometimes 6 or 7 and it was great to start with but then one day I realised that I was actually working my preverbials off and lining someone elses pockets. I was getting an 'Ok' wage after my deductions but overall if you worked it out to the hour like we do these days, it was very poor in fact. Because I was doing so much DJing and entertaining at the time, it seemed like I didn't have a life and it put me off altogeather. The fact that I was still working for someone else wasn't what I wanted and I decided that I would stop doing it for a while and go and try and get myself a 'proper' job again and go back to the 9-5 routine.
I did this for 18 months before getting the itch again. My mate was still there offering me lots of work but I did it when I wanted to do it and calmed it all down a bit. It worked much better and I even started up a regular Indie/Alternative Night on my own. I hired the gear from him and it was the start of how I wanted things to go. I had learnt a lot about how things run etc whilst working for him so I knew exactly what I wanted to do in the future. The problem was that I had no money, lots of debts etc and didn't know where to start. I suppose it all started really when he decided to pack it all in and move away one day. He was all set to get married to a local girl who he had been seeing for about 5 years and the wedding was all arranged but she did the dirty on him a few months before the big day and it really mucked (sp) him up big style. It was a shame. He had a contract with a local bar where he provided 3 DJ Nights. I was the DJ there for all 3 nights. I mentioned it to the manager, asked what the deal was and we came to an arrangement and I took over. The lights and sound were all in house but you needed decks to plug into the system. I came to a deal with my mate in that I did a wedding for him for free in return for 2 x Pioneer CDJ500's and a Pioneer DJM300 Mixer in a flightcase (I still use them now as spares and they have never let me down!!).
The contract there went on for a while and everything was cool until the management changed and they decided to stop all of the entertainment and go back to a 'traditional drinking pub'. I was actually getting bored again at the time which I know sounds bad because that may happen again to me in what I do now but I can't see it. I still had the weekly Indie/Alternative Night to sort out and ended up speaking to one of the promoters at the venue and I hired all of his gear off him. It was very expensive at the time but it ended up worth doing as I established the night into something special and it is still as busy now as it was then.
So, Once again I went back to a 9 - 5 job only DJing my Indie night at the weekends. It was fine for a while but then I was made redundant and it took me a while to get another job. When I finally did, I was made redundant again after about 6 months and I was starting to get really aggravated to put it mildly. I'd met a gorgeous girl and we were planning to get married, everything was booked and almost paid for but I was made redundant....arrghh. Eventually just before we got married I got myself a decent job, very well paid for what I was doing and it seemed like I had landed on my feet again in a good way. Everything was fine, I was told I was great at my job. I travelled 20 miles everyday to work, was never late and hardly off sick either. I had great compliments from my managers and everything was rosey. In fact, a couple of days before I told them I had decided to leave, I had received a payrise too after an awesome appraisal. This all went out the window however when I was disciplined for saying 'Bloody hell' in the office. I was given a written warning, NOT for my work being bad (it wasn't), NOT for being late (I wasn't) and NOT for being off sick all the time (hardly ever), but for what they classed as swearing. It all seemed very petty to me and it was that night that I spoke to my wife and told her that I really didn't want to go back to that job again. Once again I felt like I was pretending to be someone else, putting on my suit and tie everyday, covering up my tattoos, taking out my piercings and putting on a 'front' and working with a bunch of 'wannabe's' who just kissed butt and would backstab anyone at any opportunity. It wasn't my scene at all.
I'm a lucky man. I have a gorgeous wife, both in looks and personality and she understood that I wasn't happy. I wondered how we would cope and was worried about the debts etc but she said to me that I should do what keeps me happy. I was 100% behind her when she started her business and endured the hard times before it really kicked off and she said that she would do the same for me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that was to run my own business and do something that I was good at, something that I had been complimented on for years and something that I could give my dedication and best effort towards...it was obvious but I knew it would be hard work. All I had was a couple of decks in flightcase for starters!
Luckily though, I started a new weekly residency in town so I now had two nights a week now and thought that was a good starter. I re-mortgaged the house and got some extra cash but I didn't pay off my debts, I decided that the most important thing to do was to get myself a full set up. I also sold my beloved car (a modified Peugeot GTI-6 which was taken to lots of car shows as it was stunning) to get more funds. The first thing I did was to get a good enough set up for small parties and pubs. I got some Gemini GX450 Active Speakers, Deck Stands & Speaker Stands, Leads and some second hand Twisters and Duos from Ebay. My wife made me up a velvet cover for the front and that was about it. I know it will sound silly but the day that I actually registered myself...yes ME, as a business...Shakermaker Promotions, was great. I sat back afterwards and thought "Yes, I've done it...all systems go!"
Once the word went around that I now had my own gear, I was inundated with requests for parties mainly from people that went to my Indie Nights. I got asked if I had a card which I realised I didn't so I went on to Vista Print after having them recommended to me and designed my own. I then decided to see how easy it was to do a website but gave up as it all looked a bit too complicated for me so I made do with my free MSN storage space which didn't seem to work. A friend of mine said to me in the pub one night that he had done his own website and that he found it easy. He gave me the software and I sat there for days trying to work it out. I got the main idea of it and then signed up with a company for my domain and webspace. Once my cards came through I realised that I had made a mistake and not added my website so I got new and improved ones done and then I went through my Thompson Local and Yellow Pages and got the details and addresses of local pubs and schools and did a huge (300+) mailshot to them all. I also went down the road to the hotel and asked to speak to the manager. Luckily he was there and after a short chat about what I was doing (he also said he wasn't happy with the Discos that were being provided at the time), he asked me to come back with a written contract including pricing etc.. (he also gave me the prices of what he was being charged at the time as an 'indication'). A few days later I arranged to see him and after about 30 mins the contract was mine. This included all weddings, birthdays and christmas parties. He also advised me about PLI and PAT and it was part of the contract that I had these. I was confused and didn't have a clue but the internet is a great thing and I found out everything that I needed to know. It wasn't as expensive or as difficult to sort out as I expected and I now look back and laugh at myself for being so worried.
Work started to come in quicker than I had anticipated and it was all beginning to work how I wanted it too. My customer services skills were coming out over the phone or when I met potential customers and work that I had done already was being recommended to other people and the classic 'word of mouth' effect was happening already. I still had my one set up though and my intentions were to build it up as a better set up but also to get more gear along the way so that I could provide 2 discos on the same day. I did wonder at the time if it would be better if I just got the best possible equipment that I could get for myself and just concentrate on making sure I had work every weekend but I had / have bigger plans than that. My wife's business was doing really well now and I was getting lots of work via her too (she designs and makes wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses etc etc) and the bills and mortgage were being paid so I decided to start working on investing more of my earnings into more gear. I got some more deckstands, more lights either from Ebay or off forum members or listings and a set of DB technologies Active Speakers along with more stands etc. It was funny because the day I set up both at the hotel to take some pictures (which came out rubbish by the way), I had a call for another function which was a late cancellation. It worked out well as I was working so I asked someone I knew if they could do it. They had their own gear already but I said that I would set my second rig up for them and they could use that. I paid them less doing it that way and it was a success.
As the first year of my business went on, the work increased, the word went round more and more, the hits to my website improved, the free listings proved to work too so I decided to go for a paid advert in the Yellow Pages and on Yell. I know they don't work for some people but for me they have worked wonders. They paid for themselves in the first week if I'm honest! When it got to around October / November I began to get worried as things seemed to have dried up enquiry-wise. I started to doubt myself as I had a lock up that was slowly getting full of gear yet the work wasn't coming in as much as it had previously. I began to get a bit peed off as I was working a friday night and a saturday night which were paying for my bills and the extra bits were supposed to pay for the extra gear I needed but it wasn't happening. I said to my wife that maybe I had made a big mistake and she said to stick with it. Was I happy or happier than I previously had been? - YES...Did I like being my own boss and not having to answer to anyone else - YES! Did I like not having to get up early in the morning to do a 9-5? - Definitely YES!!! So, stick with it is what I decided too.
It was the right decision. As November arrived, the work started flooding in...Christmas parties, weddings for the following year etc etc....and most of it was via word of mouth too. Then the hotel came up with a gem and requested 14 christmas dates. On some of these dates they needed 3 DJ's and I know it's probably wrong but I saw the £££pound signs!! Before the first christmas party I invested in another set up and this time I got some passive stuff. JBL JRX125 speakers, Crown XLS602 Amp as well as more stands and lights etc..I knew it would all be paid for from the money I was earning at christmas. Saying that though, I learnt a lesson at christmas and that was that invoices for large amounts of money have a habit of mysteriously missing the christmas post even though they have been put in weeks in advance. I've learnt quite a lot about business along the way. The Do's and the Don't's etc etc.. having clear Terms & Conditions on your booking forms do wonders. I ammended them after that episode, finally getting my money early february but it's all cool now.
Apologies for the long post, I look back and I know I made the right decision. I hope anyone reading this who is or was in the same position is encouraged by it in some way. Yes, it's hard work, takes investment if you want to go for it properly. I have a lock up now full of gear and enough stuff to provide Disco entertainment for 4 functions on the same night. Some of the equipment in the rigs is better quality than the others but as time goes on they will all get better. I could of course have just concentrated on myself having one big awesome set up but that's not my intention. All of the rigs are good enough quality to provide a professional show...and of course, the best quality stuff is always used by me. I now have 6 regular contracts in my town and all of them are happy with the service I provide.
I mentioned earlier that I had a comment / compliment from someone which made me think and that was today. Someone called up and asked if I was available on such a date. I said I was and then went on to tell them what I do etc and they stopped me and said that they had actually seen me a couple of months back. Don't ask me why but it seems like there was a lot of undercover work going on with reference to this booking (which is a good earner). Apparently, the lady who called had called me a while back (although I didn't remember). She had also called a number of other DJ's and had been out to various functions that they had done to size us all up I expect and to see who would get the job. She said she had seen me at a pub and that I was playing loud music which worried me actually because I didn't want her to get the wrong impression. I would have had my tattoos on show and I would've been playing requests only to a pub full of punks, rockers and Indie kids etc so you can imagine what the music may have been like. She said that I was very good on the microphone, very humourous and natural and I took that as a great compliment. She would've also seen me with no lights and a small set up (active set up) and I assured her that this was the set up I used in the pub and that it was what is requested. She wasn't worried, she wants a good DJ and she is willing to pay whatever.
Like I said, I don't want to come across as a know-all or someone who is up himself. I have done so much over the past couple of years since I registered as a business and it just seems to be getting better and better and busier and busier. I am not getting bored and there is nothing better than being your own boss. When I get in my van with my gear on a friday or saturday and travel around setting up for functions, meeting lots of new people, entertaining them and getting a great reaction, there is no better feeling and when I look back and think "I'm responsible for all of this, no'one else, just me"....I have a huge smile on my face.
Gary