Episode 63: Competing with Freejays

A travel agent sells products and services (such as tickets to a resort) on behalf of a supplier. The tickets are bought by the agent for a discount, and then sold to the end customer. The agent’s profit is the difference between the advertised price and the agent’s discounted price… in other words, commission. But travel agencies were realized in a whole different era. These days, there are so many free alternatives to the traditional travel agent… one might wonder why they need one at all. How does a travel agent compete against convenient and free alternatives which serve the same basic purpose? A similar thing has happened to DJs. A common question is, “How can I be paid as a DJ when so many people are willing to do it for free?” 1. Sell Something That’s Better Than Free The idea: make your service as a DJ (or promoter, for that matter) something that’s worth paying for. 2. Get Serious About Your “Why” Get honest with yourself. Clarify your personal philosophies on music, DJing, and your local scene. Then, find out the best ways that you can support your music and your scene while staying true to yourself. 3. Add Value Common complaint: we have to be marketers, promoters, writers, PR experts, social media gurus, etc. This is the world we live in. Don’t lament this fact. For the first time, we are all actually in charge of our destiny. It’s easy to get jaded or frustrated, when “those darn kids” keep showing up in the booth with their laptops and 2 months of experience. But it’s important to remember that what they do has no bearing on what you do. Being shut down because of the “state of the scene” is not being fair to yourself and to the work you’ve put in thus far. Viewing this as motivation, instead of defeat, would be a much more productive use of your time.