I'm Curious About You Guys...

Bear, I have no advice that will help, but I fight the same thing every day. These days, most people are only concerned about the initial cost - instead of the return. They're fair game for sleazy operators, and they get what they pay for. It doesn't just happen in entertainment...it happens in Corporate America, too. It's bad business, and it's pulling this country down.

Could you get a bunch of your fans to start requesting your band at their clubs?

It happens in corporate Canada too, Eva, especially in catering. Before SARS, corporations would have no problem plopping down ten grand to hire an event planner for a team-buliding event. Now they call me, and balk at prices half or a third of that, and end up having a pizza party instead. Advice for CEOs: Your people don't work hard enough for you because they feel underappreciated. I wonder why.... By the way, most of the event planners I used to work with are out of business.

the band is not a problem.....it's the karaoke and dj shows...part of it is also that the cost of admission to the game has gone down.......there are many reasons....I actually had a guy who charges half what I charge and works twice as many gigs tell me with a straight face that if I would drop my price I could work more.......I was so stunned by his stupidity I didn't bother replying that if I could get one one thousand dollar gig a week I'd only work once a week :wink: the prevailing attitude of stupidity in the business world is astounding.......

We had a huge event planning business a few years ago...it went under after 9/11......every single large scale event planner that was in this area save one washed out over the last few years......

edit some to most and you're there.....

Well, my band doing the spandex big hair makeup thing in a dressed down world is working well.....maybe I should do transvestite karaoke? Strictly Pre-Op of course.....or squinney wouldn't approve.......

Arggh...dropping prices for a quality service....what kind of whore would you be to do that?? Nah, I'm sticking to my fees. They are reasonable for the quality, but I still get it from both sides. Those who appreciate the service think I don't charge enough, those who don't think I'm pricing myself out of the stratosphere.

I NEVER drop my prices...it's costing me money but I won't go down that road.....if I drop my price 25.oo this week, someone 25.00 cheaper than that will be along after awhile.....I told this guy last week that some people buy their shirts at Lords and Taylors and some at Wal Mart and the Wal Mart shoppers usually don't know the difference......

Bear, that really is the problem with the general public. They DON'T know the difference. I find that half of what I need to do for my business is educate and spoon-feed clients, time for which I do not get paid for. But, I'm in a service industry, so I suck it up. If more people were calling, I could hire a lackey to deal with that.

I'm sort of in a transition now looking for a new hustle.......the band and a little karaoke will carry me over until....if you choose to be an entrepeneur you resign yurself to ups and downs...a bad day working for myself is better than the ever decreasing feeling of having a safety net that comes from working for some other ass wipe in my opinion.....

I'm with you there, BPB.

I use a similar metaphor, Bear. I tell prospective clients they can have steak, or they can have hamburger, but they cannot have steak for hamburger prices.

Then if they tell me they want hamburger, I tell them to find someone else. I only do steak.

I'm passing up more and more clients these days, though. <sigh> And, sadly, I'm not doing events any longer, either. I refuse to work the kind of hours that events require for the pittance they're paying now. It's not enough to entice me away from my family on weekends and evenings (which event direction always requires.) I gave up my last event just yesterday, in fact. Told them I wouldn't do it any longer.

Once the satisfaction of creating them wears away...it's all money then.....no money....no thank you.....

i work at a company called Merck... we make and package medicine, mostly tablets.... a druggies haven....

treck up to Clayton everday huh? another paradise..... :wink:

Lots of PR, entertainers (with spandex, even!), drugs and sales. Those tend to go hand in hand, don't they? Cool group. I do know Kicky -- he is the guy who closes us down on his nights off from the peepshow after tirelessly attempting to make the work stories more enticing to women by offering them shots of Jagermeister.

Every forum has a Kicky. We're just blessed by having the original one.

But Eva, are you a Salisbury steak? Salisbury steak isn't that good. If you're like a NY strip or something then....

BPB, next time you get into negotiations with a client, prepare by watching the Baldwin scene in "Glengary Glenross." You'll either get the sale, or end up getting into a fistfight. You can make fun of the car they drove to the bar in. Good times.

good scene