12:02
Getting your first professional booking
On YouTube this video is called Mobile DJ How to Get Your First Professional Pro Gig and Make Money
What this lesson teaches
He opens by admitting the question is hard, and spends the video on a single answer. It is the most motivational video in the catalogue, and there is a concrete method buried in it worth extracting.
The question, framed precisely
Not a favour from a relative - our Derek's good at DJing and he's got the kit, we'll give him fifty quid. That is not what he means.
He means the phone ringing with a stranger on it: hello, is this Bright Lights Disco? We are thinking of booking you for our wedding on the 27th, can you send me some information?
Until that happens, you are wondering why not.
And the honest acknowledgement
You cannot make it happen directly. You cannot walk into a hotel and demand a gig. You cannot tell the neighbours you will be doing their daughter's eighteenth.
So the method has to be indirect, which is why the rest of the video is about something else.
The drop in the ocean
The analogy that holds the whole argument together, and it is the useful one.
You have hundreds of conversations. You go to restaurants, pubs, the cinema, cafés. In almost all of them, nothing happens.
But in one of them - the next table in the café, the row behind you at the cinema, the group next to you at the bar - there is somebody who needs a DJ. And whether they ask you depends entirely on what they heard while you were talking about something else.
So the strategy is volume and consistency: be the same person in all of those conversations, because you cannot know which one is the one.
Why energy is the product
This is his central claim and it is not as woolly as it sounds.
You are in the entertainment business. Most people in it are eccentric, because entertaining is the job. So whether or not you are working, people need to encounter somebody with a smile on their face rather than somebody down and depressed.
Then the test that makes it concrete: would you book a boring person for your wedding?
And the scenario that follows: a DJ with great music, a great light show, thousands spent on a PA - and behind the desk, a grumpy old so-and-so. You would want nothing to do with it.
So the thing being bought at a private function is not a mix. It is somebody who will make the evening feel good, and the evidence for that is how you are when nobody is paying you.
And why the recommendation is the mechanism
The part that makes this a business argument rather than a self-help one.
Somebody recommending a DJ is putting their own name on it. If they send you to their friend's wedding and you are a miserable presence, that reflects on them.
So nobody recommends a DJ they found depressing, however good the mixing was. They do not want the stigma attached to them.
That is the real reason this matters. A recommendation is a risk taken by somebody else on your behalf, and they take it based on what you are like in a café.
The concrete instructions
Among the enthusiasm there is an actual list, and it still holds:
Have the accounts. If you do not have a video channel, open one. Twitter, a Facebook page for the business rather than for you, Instagram.
Interlink them. A picture posted in one place reaching the others; a video description carrying links to all of them. One piece of content, several front doors.
Post the right thing. And his criticism is accurate: not the backs of people dancing, not it was a good disco. Post what suggests the best time of their lives - because somebody looking for a DJ is trying to picture their own night, and the backs of strangers' heads do not help them do it.
Fight or flight, 24-7
The practical bit inside the pep talk: answer the phone.
He is funny about it - nobody rings at four in the morning to book a disco, it will be a relative broken down on the motorway - but the principle is right, and it is the single most common way small operators lose work. An enquiry that goes to voicemail goes to the next DJ on the list.
Where he lands
That the answer to "how do I get my first gig" is you. Not a technique, not a listing site, not a price. The way you are in the ordinary parts of your week, consistently, until one of those conversations turns out to be the one.
It is a lot of words to arrive there. But for a business where almost all the work comes by word of mouth, it is also the correct answer, and no amount of advertising substitutes for it.
Contents of the video
0:01 How did you get your first mobile gig?
How did you get your first mobile gig? No, I mean really. How did you get it? You know? How? This is a really tough question to answer. But of course in life like anything there is always the problem and there's the answer to the problem. So there is an answer but it's quite difficult, it's quite intricate.
You've got the kit. You've got all the kit you need. I don't want to delve into that. You've got your insurance. The venues are there. You've got your transportation. You've got everything. But you still haven't had that first professional gig. How the hell did you get it? You know, you can't literally walk into a hotel, grab the manager by the scruff of the neck and say, GIFT! Give me a gig! You can't go to the next door neighbour and say, I will do your daughter's 18th birthday party. I will! You can't do it. So how did you get your first gig? Your first professional gig? Now here I'm not on about someone who knows someone in the family and they're like, well my Derek's really good at being a DJ and he's got all the kit.
Oh we'll book him for our party. We'll give him £50. You don't want to do that. You don't want to go there. You want someone to phone you up and say, hello, is this Bright Lights Disco? It is indeed. We're thinking about booking you for our wedding on the 27th of whenever. Can you give me some information? Now until that happens, you're going to be wondering why can't I get one of those gigs? Now there was a lot to this video. There was a lot to this video. And the most important part, the numero uno right at the top is it. It's about you. You are the one who will get the first gig. True. Seriously. It's like anything in life. If you put your heart into it and if you battle and battle and battle, you can get it.
2:25 You need to have your eyes open, your mind active
You will do it. You need to have your eyes open, your mind active. And you need to be ready, fight or flight. You need to be ready for the go 24-7. In other words, if the phone goes at 4 o'clock in the morning, wake up, answer it. Now I'm not saying that someone's going to phone you up at 4 o'clock in the morning and say, hello, I'd like to book a disco please. It's not going to happen. It's probably like an auntie, uncle, nephew or niece who just needs your help because they've conked out on the M1 and you've got to go and pick them up. I'd go back to bed. But how do you get your first gig? Okay. Now, a lot of it is about you being positive about yourself. Now this is the key here because if you think about it, we are, I am in the entertainment agency.
Now a lot of people think I'm mad and accept drink and wacky. Well guess what? Most people in the entertainment field of life are wacky. They're really eccentric and mad because we are entertainers. We are there to entertain people. So no matter whether you're working or not, you need to have this euphoria about you. You need to make sure that when people come up to you in the street, in a cafe while you're in the bath or whatever, that you've got a smile on your face. Not like, oh, here he is again. He's down and depressed. Because if you put that energy over, people are going to work off that energy and go. God, what a boring person. I mean think about it. Would you like to book a boring person for your wedding?
4:57 Wait, get down from there and tidy your wings
I don't think so. If you knew that there was a DJ down the road and you'd seen that DJ or someone told you about that DJ who probably played great music, great light show, fantastic PA system, thousands of pounds spent on all of that. Yet when they looked at the DJ behind the desk. All they saw was this grumpy old bastard. You'd think, I want nothing to do with that. So again, like I said earlier, it's about you. Be smiley. Be happy. Everything about you needs to have good energy. Now that is something that will help you because energy is all around us. Energy travels through walls, space and time. And I'm not going to start talking about fairies and stuff like that. Wait, get down from there and tidy your wings.
What I'm going to talk about is how... I mean it. Get down. Sorry. It's all right. She's always stuck up there. Green wings. Sorry. What I'm talking about here is that yourself, you, if you can give over good energy, then that will pass on to other people. Now think about it. You're around a crowd of people and you're chatting to them and you're like, oh God the other day, you know. Oh dear. Now one of those people could be chatting to someone else and that person could be talking to them saying, oh we desperately need a DJ. And they'd be thinking, well I know a DJ but my God what a depressing bastard they are. They're not going to say, oh book that person because they don't want the stigma attached to them that they were the person who booked some really crap DJ who was boring and depressing.
On the other hand, if you're the life and soul of the party, even if you're in a cafe, drinking coffee with your few mates and you've got a smile on your face, you crack a few jokes or you're a complete idiot and just like be stupid in a nice way. They're going to think, well that guy was off his head completely. Oh lady. But they had some fun about them. They're a DJ. Wow. Can you imagine what that fun might be like if they're at their gig and they're passing on that good energy to other people? Right. But I'm not really digressing because again, this video is about how you get your first gig. Now, sometimes getting your first gig can be like the drop in an ocean. How does that mean? What's the analogy there?
7:11 We're interested in booking you
Well, if you take an ocean, there are many drops in that ocean. So in other words, that analogy is very simple. You could have many conversations in life. You could meet many people. You could go to many venues. But sometimes that one venue that you go to, whether it be going to a restaurant, with friends, down the pub with your mates, going to the cinema and chatting to someone next to you where behind you in the other row, there's someone looking for a DJ. In the pub, the group of people next to you, there's someone looking for a DJ. In the cafe while you're sitting around, there's someone on the other table and they overhear the fact that you're a DJ. And again, if they hear good energy, if they feel and hear good energy,
Then you never know, they may go, Oh, by the way. Oh, you're a DJ. Thank you. We're interested in booking you. Now, the same applies with today's social media, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the likes. If you've got good energetic vibrant posts out there that look fun, they've got fun around them. The energy is fun. They're going to think I want to be a part of that instead of a boring picture of say, backs of people dancing or some kind of comment based on well, it was a good disco. We don't want to hear that. We want to hear we had the best time of our lives and it was an amazing fun evening and everyone was enjoying themselves. Again, how do you get your first gig? It's down to you. It's also down to how you interact with social media.
So for example, if you don't have a YouTube account after this video, go and open one. If you don't have Twitter, go and open one. If you do not have a Facebook page based on your business, go and get one. Interlink them all. Instagram. Bang! Interlink it because every picture you put on Instagram you can then have that picture go straight to your Facebook page. Guess what? When you say do a promotional video of you, as a DJ, on YouTube in the description you can put a hyperlink to your Facebook. You can also say follow me on Twitter and follow me on Instagram. How do you get your first gig? So far, hopefully I've inspired you and maybe opened your mind to you because I don't know you. I don't know you. I have no idea who you are
9:35 You become like this person you know what?
But guess what? You do know who you are. You understand who you are. You understand your traits. You understand the good points about you. You also understand the bad points. Let's turn those bad points into good points. Let's make the good points even better. Fill your day with euphoria and good vibe and good energy and trust me, if you were normally a dreary negative person all of a sudden you become changed. You become like this person you know what? I'm going to feel good today. The people around you will start to feel good too. As soon as they feel good they'll go wow, I like it. I like this energy. Let's work with this. They'll like to be around you and before you know it you're going to get loads of people who as soon as they meet you
They're like I haven't seen oh it's lovely to see you again. What they're actually saying internally is I need to be by you because I need to have some of your good energy because guess what I feel down and low and then word gets around about how good you are and before you know it loads of people will be saying well that guy's a DJ as well. He's a DJ? She's a DJ? Wow! I like their energy. I want that energy at my event at my 18th birthday party at my wedding at my bar mitzvah sorry my 50th birthday party my 40th my 30th the child's 16th sweet 16 you know? Okay, so again how do you get your first gig it's down to you it's all down to you open your mind think about what you want to do and who you want to be and just go for it because this life is an
Open book and you're the people you are the person writing down your life story so today tomorrow it's blank it's blank for a reason because you can write down whatever you want to write down in there and then the following day it's a new page now tomorrow the following day you cannot go back to the page that's written and rewrite it it's already been done okay what you can do though is open a new page and start writing what you want to write and that is about the first gig you're in control okay now if you get this video and if you understand it you can move mountains practice and enjoy thank you
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
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