Mike Fernino, owner of Music in Motion Entertainment in Seymour, Connecticut, will be presenting a solution to a problem that’s surfaced over the last couple years in many markets: Venues taking more of the pie from DJs at weddings.
“Increasingly, venues are trying to do everything you can imagine to take a piece of the DJ’s revenue stream — buying photo booths, putting in their own pre-installed lighting, even having an in house DJ that gets paid $300 bucks, for which they charge $1,500,” said Fernino.
To combat this, Fernino has designed “Why The Caterer Should Not Do the Lighting,” a program to help DJs sell lighting packages to their wedding couples even if the venue has its own lighting. “The approach that I’m taking is marketing and sales, because while other guys can teach you how to program the lighting, I wanted to give people ideas on how to sell it — because if you can’t sell it, it doesn’t matter how much lighting you buy, or what you buy, or how good you are at programming. If you can’t sell it to your customers, you’re not making any money.”
Attendees will learn how to sell lighting packages that will convince brides to say to their venue, “I don’t want your lighting. I’m having my DJ do it, he’s a specialist at lighting.”
How?
This is a sales and marketing seminar with a specific niche concept to combat venues who try and steal away your lighting work — and who do an inferior job at that.
Covered in the seminar:
• Social media to establish a subconscious awareness of your services
• How to sell lighting to your customer
• How to establish the difference between good and bad lighting
• The enhancement concept
• Establishing yourself as expert
Fernino, who runs the DJ Idea Sharing Facebook group, says that he sees the problem as nationwide. “I’ve seen people in my group saying, ‘Well, I’m giving up on lighting because all the places have installed their own lighting and I can’t compete against that.'”
“It’s a very specialized, highly specialized seminar, but it’s effective,” he said. “Because ultimately, one would think that the bride and groom, since they’re the ones signing the check, have the authority to tell the venue what they want to buy? No, not necessarily. We actually had a couple of venues in this area that basically told their couple in their contract, ‘you must get the lighting from us, you not from any other provider.’
“Obviously, I have a major problem with that.”
Stay tuned for “Why The Caterer Should Not Do the Lighting” at DJ Expo.
Read More: Be our guest — enter contest and win Expo passes and hotel stay
