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And, if the Venue doesn't know You (the $250 Host) from "Boo" (the $75 Host), how is he supposed to know whether you can bring in a SPENDING crowd or not (likewise with "Boo")? From what I have seen, most of these Venues do not follow up and check a KJs references. There's no real interview. Most of it consists of the basic questions, "Can you bring in people?" and, "How much do you charge?".


So, going back to your statement... "venues are out to make money.", they see "Boo" as the way to go (because he is cheaper). Now, maybe it will work out for them, and maybe it won't. If it doesn't, the Venue is now soured on the thought of bringing Karaoke back. They now feel that it just didn't work for them. They're probably not going to believe you when you guarantee (???) them that you can bring in a SPENDING crowd.

The guy that undercut us will probably keep the crowd we had for a bit... then the crowd will dwindle...then the owner will just say 'forget it' to karaoke all together.

This owner was a trip... we booked 9-1, and often would play until 1:30/1:45 because of the crowd. We didn't charge extra for that. So... another KJ came in and offered to do the job for $25 less than what we were charging. The bar owner came to us and told us that so-n-so will do the job for less, will we match the price.. we said no, we were already giving him a $25 discount from our regular rate. SO.. bar owner says "well, what would you charge for 3 hrs instead of 4?' OMG! Well, we finally agreed to the $25 less for 3 hours. The bar owner who had been getting 4 1/2 hrs for the price of 3 1/2...but then, over $25 he got 3 hours for the price of 3 hours. *shaking head here*
Some of the karaoke folks weren't too happy because once mr. bar owner wanted us to play for less money.. we did play for the lesser time .. Three Hours Period.
So.. finally a different KJ comes in and offers to play for $50 + bar tab.... and we lost the job to him.

I'd be willing to bet in six months (if that), there will be no karaoke in that bar. The bar owner wounded his karaoke crowd when he cut our hours.. and he's gonna kill the crowd all together with this illegal guy. The illegal guy has a very small system... doesn't take any time at all to adjust sound... AND he drinks.... A LOT! Yes, I know the person.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

"No bar owner in his/her right mind is going to risk thousands in profits to save $175 up front."

i agree 100% Joe.
however i have yet to meet one who is in their right mind.
i have more intelligent conversations with my cat than most bar owners.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Please go back and read the part about being a better salesman- a required skill in this business.

1) I can pull out a list of successful and very long-running venues. That alone is a biggie, because venues don't keep someone for several years- at my fees- unless they are top income generators. I NEVER guarantee a big, spending crowd. I show them past results and let them take the gamble based on that. Six weeks minumum. After that, if they like what I do, and I like what they do, we continue. If not, we don't. No hard feelings.

2) I can also do what it seems very few other hosts can do: I can verbalize what it is that I do that makes me different from the others, and more successful.

You think that this isn't a big one?

I have started threads on several karaoke forums with hundreds or thousands of members, including this one. The thread was started as follows:

" Taking equipment and library completely out of the mix - because ANYONE with enough money can acquire both- what is it that would make a venue hire you over someone else?"

I think the thread with the answers from the most different hosts probably had 12 different hosts reply- in a large forum such as this one. Of those, about a third were rehashes of other replies.

Learn your strengths, and be able to use them in a sales environment. If you don't think you have anything above and beyond, either acquire the skills or move on.

3) I use several other techniques and facts as well. One of these is to use the same techniques I use to make patrons comfortable with me on prospects.

In other words, I know how to sell myself.

One might rightly state that a new KJ doesn't have the luxury of showing lists of long running venues. This may be so, but it also makes knowing how to use #2 and #3 that much more important.

The best way to sell yourself is to know your business better than the next guy, AND know your client's business better as well.

One also MUST understand that the skills make the difference. If one doesn't, and doesn't believe that they do, then one has absolutely nothing more to offer than the next guy, and honestly doesn't deserve and better consideration than the next guy.

I would also add that THIS misconception is a major component in driving the market down in some areas. If the KJs believe that hosting skills aren't the key, why shouldn't the owners? Educate you prospects, and it will pay off- but that can only be done if one has the knowledge to pass on in the first place.

As for "Boo" being cheaper: Believe me, a bar owner knows that cheaper does not neccesarily equal more profitable, which is why Blue Ribbon or Schmidt's isn't the most popular beer sold in U.S. bars.

They have to give the customers what they LIKE to make money...

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Agreed Joe. If a bar owner is having you cut prices down, you have to ask yourself. Am I really bringing the crowd attendance to its full potential? Most Dj's and Kj's feel like Legends in their own mind. If you can pack the house trust me no undercutting will bring you down. My gig just outside Boston is Not a karaoke Night, Me and My GF pack the house. People really do come for the DJ. In a city of millions ( due to bordering Boston area ) Dj's come and go. I am the seventh Dj thats been there. I have been there the longest( By almost double). We offer great sound,top shelf equipment, Good Mixes.I run 2 Scorpion lazers 1 eclipse and 2 smoke machines. ( I put on a show) I know there are at least 50 other clubs within 10-15 min drive. I also am aware of Buzzards dropping off their cards almost daily for dj work with the manager. Not once has he asked me to lower prices. Guess he feels The crowd likes me and wouldnt want to jeopardize the flow . My 2 cents when it comes to how people do their shows. Some people go above and beyond, some just do the bare minimum. Sorry this wasnt a Karaoke related story, but a story when it comes to Entertainment and presentation. Last thing I would NEVER bring up anything with Customers about working for less. Walls have ears.

Um, well, there are always exceptions to the rule. The bar that I've been referring to is not a club, it's more of a sports bar/neighborhood pub. The owner hated karaoke and was dead set against karaoke when I went in and talked to them three years ago. The owner was pleasantly surprised that he was actually making more money on Wednesdays that he ever had in the past. The bar owner, over time, started making more and more noise about paying for entertainment. We couldn't understand it because our nights there were busy! But see, this is where you can't fight.. another kj comes in and says they can do the same thing for less money and mr. bar owner figures he'll make a bigger profit... he knows that the economy is bad so begs us to lower our price. We don't agree to the lower price but we did allow a 3 hr shift. When, a year later, the second (illegal) KJ came in and said he could do the same job for a substantially less price, mr. bar owner couldn't resist.
I know he'll regret his decision, but once he does... I also know he'll just say 'forget it' and go back to having no entertainment at all. Job lost for all KJ's.


Some places, you just can't win for losin'!

So yes, I sold Karaoke to this guy... had a gig there for 3 1/2 years... and lost it to $50 and a bar tab.

I've gone over it and over it... there is nothing I could have done differently.

I haven't been in that bar recently but one of my KJ's has and said that the sound was terrible and there were probably 6 singers in the line up at 11 pm. Of those 6, two were the kj and his wife.

I know this bar owner will never admit to his mistake... he'll just stop the karaoke all together. bummer

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

sorry to hear it. Sounds like you tried .

Yes, I tried

And did a good job for that place. But, whatever... maybe this bar owner will notice that our other gigs are still doing well and he'll come around...but doubtful.

I don't like looking for gigs...been very spoiled over the years, to have places call us first. But I'm gonna brush up on it.. actually maybe it's not brushing up because when I think about it... the only place I ever really went into cold, selling karaoke was this bar!

Our longest running gig is the hotel.. where we've been for 20 years! We were the first in our area to do karaoke. Our two other gigs, one is 4 years now and the other 2 years.

We lost a 12 year gig when another owner got caught up with the lower priced KJ.... and they no longer have karaoke. We called them to see if they wanted to use us again but they decided to enlarge their restaurant and make the bar into just a lounge. Cut their hours to just dinner hours.

I'll have to work out a plan of action for talking to the venues.. I'm just not a salesperson by nature Our reputation has always done the selling for us.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

I sit abashed. As Lisah has pointed out, there are certainly bar owners that ARE idiots. She also pointed out that they usually end up learning that they are idiots with great regrets.

I should have looked a little deeper at what I was reading here, and I apologize.

I was posting in regard to using one's skills to compete in general. If one recognizes the need, has, and can sell these skills they will be successful the majority of the time.

That being said, nothing can fix "the stupid".

I'm not saying that I have never lost out, and in the case that comes to mind the owner had to be a moron.

The venue never had karaoke before. I made my pitch, which included:

1) I am local to the venue, and have a long time large local following.

2) I gave him a list of long lasting successful local shows- current and past- proving that I am successful at starting up and maintaining profitable shows, each of whom would gladly give references.

3) Establishing a pleasant relationship ( his own words) with him.

4) Offered a reasonable rate tailored to the day of the week, the venue size, and the location, and explained it.

5) Though I am anti- SC methodology, I am also( and always have been) anti-piracy as well. I explain how hiring a host that is orginal mfrs. disc based would limit business liability and how. This has been a sales point for me long before SC's actions, when pirate KJ's using burned sets were still much more prevalent than PC pirates.

In short, I pretty much proved to him that I was the best host for the job.

Who did he hire? A woman from out of the area with no following, and who's record was one of failure after failure- constant venue changes. She also charged more than I would.

What happened? She was fired after 4 WEEKS.

WHY did he hire her over me? He never told me himself, but his ex-wife-who still works there- says he's got a thing for women of the ex-KJ's physical type- which is why they are divorced.

The owner called me after firing the other host, and I turned him down flat. I have the luxury of choosing my venues, and I refuse to work with "the stupid".

Note: The venue, while still open, is pretty much on it's last legs.

Yes, I understand that there are idiot owners. However, the successful ones aren't. It's up to us to remember that any business relationship is a two-way street. we are responsible for checking out the owners and venues, just as they check us out.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

You can be the oldest (experience, large library)
You can be the cheapest (name your price)
You can be the best (subjective)

What makes you different is the question.

Exactly. It is also a Karaoke Hosts only real selling point, so the ability to verbalize those differences and strengths is almost as important as actually having them.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Right I lost a couple shows a few years back, we were packing the place, bartender (friend) said the till was ringing out on Mon & Tues almost twice what they did on band nights Fri & Sat. I was only charging a 'intro' rate for 3 months, during that 3 months, the ownership changed, after 3 months, they got a kj with a complete burned set of discs (visually verified) & a system that had blown subs (audibly verified) - didn't connect into house tv's at all & set up on the stage leaving the singer to sing on the floor. But hey, the owner saved himself $50 per week doing so. They went from $3000 for both of those nights to maybe $500 the bartender said. I went in there a couple weeks later to see my friend, and it was me, the host, the bartedner & 2 others playing a video game in the back that were there. They called me up a few weeks later, but didn't want to pay my price increase so I declined. They are out of business now.
Not in their right mind!

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This is definitely a bar owner that doesn't know what he's doing, except for one excellent bartender, there's nothing special about the place. We used to rock it good with our karaoke...and he may think he'd like us back... (don't mean to be racist here) but he's an older Italian guy..and stubborn as they come, he'll NEVER admit he made a mistake. When his illegal guy kills the karaoke crowd ... he'll get rid of him and say 'karaoke sucks'. Whatever.. I'll be happy working elsewhere for my usual rate. It was just one night.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

OH! And as for not risking thousands in profits... I know I've told some here about the hotel gig I've had for-ev-er.. Well, it's a corporate thing.. and we were majorly rockin' the place on Thursday Karaoke! The bar was pulling in $4500 + every single Thursday. It was so packed in there, you couldn't see across the place even a glimpse, capacity is 200 and I'm pretty sure we went over more than a few times. This had been going on for about 3 years. Well, one night there was a fight, then someone threw a street sign in the pool out back. Now, I'm sure those were bar patrons causing the trouble. But rather than hiring security, they shut me down for a month to "kill the crowd"! It did kill the crowd but within the year, the crowd was back. We tried really hard to avoid any problems and were doing pretty good at it when one hotel guest complained that someone was making noise in the hallway. Corporate blamed it on me and Karaoke.. they shut me down AGAIN! Just for 2 weeks this time, but the economy dumped right about then and I've not been able to get the crowd back. So, they aren't making the $18,000 a month anymore.. and then took away my bonus of $50 for having $1,200 bar receipts. (I still pull in more than the $1,200 per night) Mind you the $4,500 nights... were from 9 to 1:30, that's a $1,000 per hour! No band has ever pulled in that much, on a weekend no less! This is the only job I've ever had where I got penalized for doing a great job!
Go figure why they make the decisions they make. I am happy to still have that gig.. I love the place.. except for 'Corporate'!

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

I wouldn't do that to anyone. If there is a KJ working a place, I will not go in there and try to undermine him/her. I would go somewhere else. If I were to acquire someone else's crowd over time, that's one thing. But I would try to take someone's show from them. That is how they make a living. I understand that. I told my friend that I wouldn't look for a place anywhere near his show because I wouldn't want to take any of his people away from him. I meant that. He's one of my best friends. I have no intention of hurting him.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

There's room to compete without taking crowds. I have several kj friends in this area, 1 of them just landed a 7 night gig about 2 miles from my show - actually going to be the only MAJOR competition to our shows. However it's not affecting our crowds any at this point, they draw their own crowds because it's a completely different atmosphere than ours is - slightly more 'standard' karaoke type music where we get alot more heavier rock and new country crowds. We don't go into each others shows to solicit our own, but we do support each other by going to each others shows on occasion.

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I would like your competition's show. I am part of that heavy rock crowd. . I while back, my friend had a show at a bowling alley bar. His ex-wife got tired of having to be there every Saturday night, so they asked me to run it every other Saturday for them, so they could go out. His regular crowd is pretty mixed, a lot of Country, some rock, and a lot of pop. After a couple of months I started getting my own crowd, on my nights, that were mostly Metalheads. It was quite fun. Personally, I hate Country Music, so I wasn't complaining when the Rockers came in.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

What I meant about acquiring someone else's crowd was migration from one show to mine. I would never go to someone else's show and tell their people to come to my show. If my Customers want to do that, I have no control over that. But I, personally wouldn't do that.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

No I meant theirs is more standard where ours is more rock.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

That's what I was talking about. We do support each others shows, however don't try to solicit any of the patrons to come to our own.
Customers, no can't stop that, that's just word of mouth. But hopping between shows isn't always a bad thing either.

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