Recruiting. Ugh. I think this is the hardest and most frustrating part of my job. Lots of wedding vendors I talk to hate doing the sales/business part of this job, but me, I love meeting potential clients. I'd rather get rejected by 10 couples planning their wedding then go through all these DJ applications and set up interviews with them any day. Hiring photographers is new to me and honestly I thought that was going to be easier. I was wrong. Photographers are worse. Okay, maybe all that was a bit dramatic. But seriously, what a pain. Now the people that do work with Platinum Mix, are some of my best friends in the world. I love each and every one of them, and have complete trust that they will do an awesome job. Its just so hard finding those people. And then after I find them, I have to get them to the point where I trust them with my client's weddings. Trust takes time to develop. A long time. No way am I risking my hard-earned reputation on some random dude who just bought a camera yesterday and is now calling himself a professional photographer. Or the kid with some loud speakers and an internet connection fast enough to download millions of songs just in time for his saturday job. Screw that. I've worked hard at this for 15 years, not giving away my rep that easy.
Recruiting makes me feel really bad for my clients. Honestly, if it were my wedding (and I wasn't in this business), it would be really stressful for me to pick vendors. Not because of so many good choices, more because its scary out there folks. Have you ever seen the show "The Riches"? Its fantastic. It got canceled. Maybe it scared people? It scared me, because I know how true it is that people believe way too easily. If you haven't seen the show its about how a family steals the life of another (much more wealthy) family. The father becomes a lawyer. No, he does not have a law degree. And no, he does not have any experience or know anything at all about practicing law. But he excels at his job, because he's got a gift for selling. He just said he's a lawyer, so people believe him. If you want to be a wedding DJ technically its super easy to get started. Buy some equipment, put up a website, print up some business cards and just like that - you are a "professional". Essentially, just announce to the world that you are now a wedding DJ, and people will believe you. And its true, you are now a wedding DJ. However you probably suck. And you are confusing your clients, who don't know how in the world to figure out why DJ option #1 is better than DJ option #433.
I dislike the recruiting process because I have to explain to these "wedding djs" why they need to participate in Platinum Mix's training program. Or why their equipment is not up to spec. Or convince them to do something different then how they have been doing it, because its not how we do it. And while I know there are many ways to do something, I have very high standards for how things are done here, and I insist those standards are met before I will book somebody for my jobs. I have an obligation to every single one of my clients to deliver talented, skilled, trained PROFESSIONALS for their events. Finding those people though, is the hard part of my job. What I really need is an HR department.....
If you're reading this and you are a DJ, photographer, videographer, graphic designer or editor, and you feel that you are a skilled professional please fill out the application located here:
http://platinummix.com/dj_app.php
We would love to hear from you!
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