Sorry to hear that.
Show me where you saw it could be a lucrative career..my math rarely shows that when you're being realistic and honest about the numbers.
too many guru types sell the hype, not the reality ( in this and many other fields too) and I see people falling for it constantly.
they fail to do thier due diligence and be honest. Flipside is you gotta try to find out, no pain no gain, and without risk there can be no reward.
Watching a coworker that closed their towing business and about to open a pizza shop - because they've done it before (ok..if it was good why'd you stop?) picked a location because the rent was cheap (is it a good location for a pizza shop?) poo-poo any concept of research ( i know a pizza owner and a manager withing 2 miles of their location that are barely making it..domino's opened and the one shop saw a 30% drop in sales).
I wish them well, but don't expect success. When I asked 'why would anyone choose your shop over the others they already go to?' she said 'well, my husband has 20 years making pizza'...yeah, not a reason.
Success has many definitions - hers is if she can make $100/day she'll be happy. That may work.
I've yet to meet any of my business goals (12 years of trying) - I don't give excuses, I just set the goal up a bit and keep going.
Of late my goals have changed from "make 100k a year" or some such to 'book x gigs, bring in y per week' - these are very different goals, more concrete, which helps.
I've received all sorts of advice (most useless) over the years. One success I'm watching is a photog friend close his studio and turned it into a fudge shop and is doing very well. Exceeded first year's expected sales but 30%.
Locally i'm seeing some businesses struggle because we had practically no snow this past winter - can't make money shoveling nothing.
A friend in the HVAC business had a rough 3 months last year - it got warm enough you didn't need your furnace much come spring,but never really got hot enough to need your a/c..so he was laying people off.
Over the last 17 years I have tried to make being a DJ work, spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on a lot of stuff that was sworn by that turned out to be a crap shoot at best for me. I have always been a firm believer in investing what you have and not what you don't. I made a lot of sacrifices, VERY large ones up to and including my family to try to make being a mobile DJ work. On paper, it's looks very lucrative and could even be successful but the real world has proven to me that's not interested in me or what I have to offer it. It doesn't care for a minute. It's just not anything that can be done with me applied to it. Being short the many more thousands of dollars needed to make it work, I have had to stop and re-evaluate my life and the future of me trying to be a DJ.
Trying to be a DJ for me has been the number one source of conflict for me the past 17 years. Everyone has said do this do that , tried that, it failed now what? The what is, is that I am going to have to let it go. I just simply can't deal with the heartbreak and the conflict anymore. The time is gone and I'll never be able to replace it. I'm not going to be able to have peace in my life until I let it go. Everything has been a constant struggle and even a fight for me. I've decided that I no longer need that or want that. With my health beginning to fail, because I do not have the many thousands of dollars necessary to see a real doctor with, at this time I just have to draw the line right here and decide what is fantasy and what is dreams and histrionics.
The people on this discussion have been most kind, gracious and professional to me, more than I can say about the other discussion forums I have been involved with which will remain nameless. As I lay this hot mess down and bury it, to you all here I just wanted to say thank you and good night.
Mike Burke