Time To Start Building My Business

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Thunder said:
...Just remember if you are promoting yourself as a wedding singer you are going to have to preform regardless of how you feel on that particular day!
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How true that statement is... I have thought to myself many times "Man, if I had to sing tonight, I'd be hooped." because my voice was screwed up due to a cold or whatever... With weddings, most of the time where you're set-up is not conducive to singing. At least not to me...
 
Yes I can vouch for Maestro's abilities I have even heard his single from his rock and roll days. I also got to hear him croon at his very own 40th bash which I was honored to both DJ and present him with a high class peeler. I do 90% DJ work but gained two nights Karaoke at a local Legion last night and tonight. It can be done but marketing might be best used if you seperate the two. I am in process of building a third portion to my business with all three holding web page space seperate. Stay Tuned!! You want to play in the big leagues it will force you to spend money to make money. Nothing good will stay fluid on the cheap.
 
Sometimes it is difficult tokeep a beat

When you have a bum Toe!! :sqwink:
maestro said:
How true that statement is... I have thought to myself many times "Man, if I had to sing tonight, I'd be hooped." because my voice was screwed up due to a cold or whatever... With weddings, most of the time where you're set-up is not conducive to singing. At least not to me...
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Interesting comments. I started getting a sore throat the day before my New Year's eve gig and I wasn't 100% on New Year's eve although everything went great. I am now sick and would have a tough time performing today. I appreciate the suggestions, I had no idea anyone(potential customers) would object to me singing . . .
 
Wiz,

I would like to hear you, post a couple of MP3 downloads for us!
 
Now that's an interesting idea. I have a couple of mp3s floating around somewhere on my computer..

i would love to hear other ppl as well

-James
 
I've been meaning to record some songs for months and months, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Now I have no choice, I have to make a CD for a calling card for restaurants and bars. I also need some audio tracks for my website and myspace. This project I need to get into high gear in the next two weeks.
 
My name is Ron and I'm in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area of Florida, near Tampa. I've spent a year+ paying my dues, learning about all of this stuff and now I'm ready to go out and do a bunch of gigs. I'm VERY ready.

I wasn't sure at first if I was good enough and so it took me a while to build my confidence doing some low paying and free gigs. I have no doubts now. I get nothing but compliments when I sing and DJ. I'm good on the mic making announcements and I'm not shy in front of a crowd.

I've spent a lot of money on equipment and music and I've put a lot of effort into rehearsing and learning new songs, practicing using my mixer, software, microphones etc. I know now that I've finally found what I was destined to do in life and that's comforting to me.

The next phase now is to put into place a marketing and promotional campaign and that's what I'm in the process of doing.

Performing and DJing is the easy part for me. Set up and tear down are the actual work. Marketing and sales are the hard part of this business IMO. There are a bunch of experienced guys out there and they want all the business. They don't want to see new, talented people coming up and taking away some of their business.

No one will help the new guy out, you have to scrape and scrap to get any jobs. Bars, restaurants and fraternal organizations don't want to take a chance on a new guy so it's rough going in the beginning. Little by little as I go along I'm picking up some scraps here and there and I hope to accelerate the process in 2009.

I was fortunate to find a corporate customer that does seminars every month that hired me to perform at all of their events. It's been a great learning experience and a wonderful confidence builder for me and I've made some money too.

I'm just trying to make a living doing something I enjoy while making other people happy . . .
 
On New Year's eve I started the evening at 9 pm DJing for about a half hour to give folks a chance to settle in and socialize. I started with big band and eased into Sinatra and then began singing a Sinatra song. I looked out over the crowd and saw a man say "hey look, he's singing". Most of the people in the room didn't even know or realize at first that it was me singing.

I've had people say to me MANY times "that was you singing? I thought it was a CD or the radio". I take that as a big complement. I've never said I'm a great singer, I've said over and over that I'm just good enough to be entertaining although I do get many, many complements. I don't have a big head and I'm quite modest about it. I have no aspirations to perform in Las Vegas or on any big stage anywhere, I just want to perform/DJ locally. If I was a better singer, hell yeah, I would love to move to Vegas and perform in shows and at casinos etc. Anyways, 2009 is the beginning of my campaign . . .
 
Hey Ron, welcome, it's nice to meet you! Don't underestimate yourself, Matt Dusk did it and I'm sure you can sing at least as good as him... Lol. Maybe Vegas IS in your future, who knows...

Another tip... One thing that I've found when I'm singing is that it would sure be nice to have someone cueing up the next song and being able to converse with that person in between songs. Kind of like me saying, "So Ron, what song do you think we should do next?"; a side-kick type of thing. I hate having to go and run behind the gear to take care of that stuff myself. Running back to adjust the volume is also a pain...

You could probably have some type of remote control that would at least prevent you from having to control the gear; I saw this one posted before:

http://www.hercules.com/us/DJ-Music/bdd/p/16/mobile-dj-mp3-preview-ed-/
 
The Wizard Of OZ said:
I'm not sure I understand Jeff, are you saying I can't DJ AND sing at the same function, because I really don't understand that at all? If anything I feel it makes what I do stand out over what most other DJs can offer.
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I am going to say what pretty much everyone is telling you Wiz. Sure you can sing but a singing DJ is going to be a niche and from my experience you won't build a solid business on a small niche like that.

As someone suggested you could sell it as an add on but from what I see when people hire a DJ they want a DJ not a singer. Think of it as extra money not the main income
 
I've decided to have 3 separate websites and to downplay the singing on the main wedding DJ website. It'll be mentioned, but it won't be prominent. If someone notices it, it will be available if requested. As much as I like to sing, I like paying my bills even more. This isn't a hobby, I'm going to try to earn a living at this. As far as I can tell weddings pay better than bars.

Anyone using WEDJ for website hosting?

Anyone have a Silver or Gold listing? I would appreciate any information, good or bad about WEDJ.

Right now they look like a good solution to me.
I just looked at their website more carefully and they look like a strong possible choice. They have templates for me to design the first version and when I start making some real money I can hire someone like Travis to create something better. For now I need to do SOMETHING to get started and moving forward.
 
Ron and Steve,

If you are going to do the singing bit do a backing track CD (or MP3s) mixed into a single file or track working one song into the next or with a given amount of time as a break between two songs to converse with the crowd a little. You can set up a 30 minute set easily and have a regular song in the mix at the end to allow you to get back behind the console to continue Djing. It works well if that is what you are promoting.

I have done a couple of karaoke concerts that way (without the screens) where I had my guys lined up and rehearsed and we went from one song to the next non-stop for one hour sometimes as a single sometimes as a duet and many of the songs as a group.
 
I have the Silver listing from Wedj.... never get any leads from it... but that's ok cause I only maintain it for Gigbuilder...

As for hosting check out what Travis has to offer or godaddy.com I think domain registration starts at like 1.99 and hosting is around $5.00 per month.

I use Dreamweaver to create my site but they do have a template service that would work ok...
 
The Wizard Of OZ said:
Anyone have a Silver or Gold listing? I would appreciate any information, good or bad about WEDJ.
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I think Wedj really depends on your market. I have a basic listing with them and I see it as necessary as all my other advertising but I haven't had a good lead in a year from them.

Personally I would take them up on the free listing if for nothing else the linkback value and assess in a year what the value of a paid listing is in your area
 
The reason I'm interested in WEDJ is with a Silver or Gold listing I can take credit cards, have my web site hosted, use gig builder on my website and one wedding per year will more than pay for it. They also have discounted insurance and automatic contract generation. I don't even have a contract that I can hand to someone.

There is a lot that I need and the more I can get from one place, it just makes it easier for me. Y'all who have been doing this a long time have a merchant account, you have contracts, you have all the stuff I'm trying to put into place for the first time.
 
The Wizard Of OZ said:
The reason I'm interested in WEDJ is with a Silver or Gold listing I can take credit cards, have my web site hosted, use gig builder on my website and one wedding per year will more than pay for it. They also have discounted insurance and automatic contract generation. I don't even have a contract that I can hand to someone.

There is a lot that I need and the more I can get from one place, it just makes it easier for me. Y'all who have been doing this a long time have a merchant account, you have contracts, you have all the stuff I'm trying to put into place for the first time.
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You're on the right track here with your thinking....

If you plan to take credit cards using their services you pay $10 per month to maintain the account and on top of that you pay a percentage for each transaction processed.... if you don't do a lot of credit card transactions you could be throwing away money. I use a Business Paypal account instead... for the few credit card transactions I do a year this has been my best option. Since there is no recurring monthly fee I save 120.00 per year.

I was just checking out GoDaddy for domain registration and hosting... with their deluxe hosting option and purchase of domain at the same time your cost out the door is just under $10.00 with a recurring 6.74/mo for hosting and 9.99/yr for your domain. Find yourself a simple web designing tool that supports FTP and your golden.... or use their online tools (not my first choice as they are very limited).

As for their contract... the generic one is simply okay. I would highly recomend having it gone over by your attorney. Plus, it really is generic.

Can't tell you about the insurance as I haven't investigated that option with them yet.
 
This is all true Rob, but what if I take 10 or 20 deposits and run all the final payments through the website too? The $10 per month seems well worth it to me. I'd rather take as few checks as I can. If possible I would run other payments through the web site too like Karaoke hosting, bar and restaurant performances and my corporate customer too. Right now they pay me by check.

Credit card or Paypal is just fine with me.
 
WeDJ only works if its used for SEO. A silver listing will accomplish the same SEO objectives as the Gold. Every market is different.

As a lead generator, its mediocre but for organizing (Gigbuilder 4.0), insurance ($170 per year and no Association to join), and providing several hundred PR-6 followed links (when you follow their instructions using Google & Alexa toolbars).

My $110 Silver membership saves me $500 per year on these benefits ALONE. The leads are just "gravy."
 
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