The Lowdown
If you’re serious about mobile DJing, you can gain one or two pieces of solid gold advice from books such as this. Basically if you need solid advice about expanding a DJ business, you’ll find something here that helps.
First Impressions / Setting up
Want to know what software successful mobile DJs use to manage their bookings? How to employ DJs as you expand a mobile DJ business? The right kind of company structure to go for? How to write press releases for free publicity? How to differentiate yourself from other DJ businesses? What a DJ contract looks like?
Most of our readers aren’t aiming at establishing local DJ businesses, but for those who are, this 130-page book from DJ Times columnist and veteran mobile DJ Stacy Zemon could be just what you’re looking for.
Being mainly a marketing and sales guide, you get chapters on networking, how to follow up enquiries and close bookings, how to sell your benefits not your features, how to hook up with complementary businesses to get bookings, how to use guerilla marketing techniques, how to write press releases, and so on. However, it’s also got some interesting stuff on adopting the right “mindset” – how to overcome obstacles, working out your USP (“unique selling point”), how to deal with the competition and so on.
Some of this content is quite specialised (so you’d expect with a title like “MBA”…) but if you’ve ever wondered how to incorporate a DJ business, whether to use sub-contractors or actually employ DJs as you build your team, how to capitalise on seasonal DJ bookings, how to use direct mail to generate business, and a host of similar topics, you’ll definitely find it useful.
Being a compilation of DJ Times articles, it’s maybe not surprising that there’s no overall structure here. Also, this material is certainly going to be of most use to US-based mobile DJ. Bear in mind too that for a 130-page book, it has lots of photos, of which only some are really relevant (business card designs, logos, some more esoteric mobile DJ set-ups) – the pics of Stacy and her pals, for instance, bulk the page count but don’t add much.
Conclusion
Overall, though, I always feel if you’re serious about the subject and you can gain one or two pieces of solid gold advice from books such as this, it’s worth your time and money to invest, as you’ll make you both back in spades. Basically if you need solid advice about expanding a DJ business, you’ll find something here that helps.
Of course, you could already be an avid reader of DJ Times, and already have all of these articles – but if you didn’t happen to be subscribed to that magazine in the lead-up to 2010 when this book was first published, this is a good way to catch up.
