Karaoke Forums

Ollie, thanks for your valuable contributions to the forums. I really appreciate it.  :)

Care to expand on this? Anyone else care to share your words of wisdom?

Thanks in advance!

Don't eat yellow snow  LMAO

I have a great relationships with our bar from the owner to the staff.  They are the dream gig!  15 years, they have bought lights for the dance floor, bought music to add to my own collection, bought speakers upon my recommendation for the back room.  The owner even knows if I don't have time, even she don't have the pull to force me to get someone up & there have been times I told her it was too late.  My favorite is that they will send any kj that comes in while i'm working my way to ask me about replacing their current karaoke  :D .  But we do work hand in hand, if they have a request that I find reasonable or they can convince me of something, I will take it into consideration - such as the no foul language rule would be one.  If they ask me to turn down the music because the staff can't hear their orders, then I comply (don't usually get to that point normally but has on occasion).  Little things go along way sometimes.  I am my own entity, however it IS their bar & have a right to say how certain things should go to a point as far as the entertainment they hire.  
But yes I have worked on the other end of the scale as well.  Bars that don't want to pay anything, or cut your pay if the draw wasn't there for a night or try to tell you who is going to sing next, etc.

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When I go in it is early. If there s a table reserved for a party I know what for and names. If there is a new waitress I introduce myself on a personal basis. My host is aware  about drink specials and other promos. These are only  a few of standard practices of the top of my head.. More?

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Hopefully the relationship is one of mutual respect if we're all doing our jobs well. As for me, any owner who has successfully been in business for a number of years has my respect. The restaurant/lounge business is so competitive that if they're still standing that means something to me. It's a big deal.

If he's pushing me I'll try to understand it from their perspective. If I have anything I'd like to bring up I'll do it quietly and privately.

To me the only exception is when someone with absolutely no experience in running a restaurant/bar buys out an established owner. And this happens all the time. There are a lot of people out there who have always wanted to run a restaurant and so they buy one that's already up and running. They have absolutely no idea what they're getting into.

I don't know how many times this has happened to me in a room I'm working. These guys almost always go down in flames in a few months. In the meantime they find a number of crackpot things they just insist you try out.  

Nowadays I'm outa there as soon as I see this stuff coming. You can feel that it's time to move on in the first week.

But that's not my situation today! Great owners.

I say it's the exception rather than the rule.   99% are morons and bad business people.

Most of the time the owners are never around.     If they are around you wish they weren't.   Many times customers won't come in if the owner is there.

I could tell bar owner stories to curl your hair.

I have worked for many that have reached the brink of bankruptcy, sold out or gone completely out of business over stupidity.

Relationship???    You're lucky to get paid.

I come in do the job i was paid to do and leave.   The job is to make them all the money i can.    If their stupid business decisions don't get in the way, my goal can be achieved.   If they interfere with stupidity the goals are diminished.

No they won't listen to you.   They are the bar owner, i'm not.   So what do i know about running a bar?    I have talked to many of them about bar business killing decisions i have seen in the past at other bars.   Doesn't matter they will do it their way.   They want to kill it all by themselves.

My current owner doesn't come in the bar at night that much anymore because of health problems. When she does she's definitely appreciated by those who know her. I love it because I get to show off the karaoke end of the business.

You and I are in different situations today SW. I've been in your place many times before though.

Yeah our bar owner is also very loved & appreciated in there as well.  Very much welcome.  One thing she won't do that many others will, is drink when she is in there - i've never seen her drinking in her own place.  This is a downfall of many owners.

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Bar owners that sit there and get drunk can't be too worried about how their business is run.   And it usually shows.

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Steven Hawkins isn't smarter than any bar owner.   In their eyes.  LMAO

I've had good and bad relationships with many of the people you have mentioned.........some were fantastic.....and sometimes....they just layed there, looking up at me and smiling, maybe thinking something like..." awww, look at him go, johnny sure looks like he's having a good time....oh my, it's almost time for Gossip Girls...I never knew three minutes could seem so long........"

I did have "one" bar owner that i was really surprised by.  :O   I thought man this guy is going to be great to work for.     He really seems to want to do everything right to increase his profits.

He eventually proved me wrong.

I have a job right now that i am seriously thinking of pulling the plug on.   I have to wait and see how this summer plays out.   How much the biker night is going to hurt my crowd.   I have already seen a decrease in people and the biker bums are starting to hang around on "not biker nights."

But i had a serious conversation about this when the owner wanted to start doing this last year.    I was hoping the idea died.   I know it helped to kill the karaoke night and bike night isn't my night.     I would never agree to do a bike night.

She has income concerns but doesn't realize that she may make some good money on bike night but the regular attendance on all the other nights is dropping from the "fallout."

A little money here is costing a lot of money there.

Dont worry SW she will continue to run it into the ground. Start looking for the next place. Mark my word.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

I have been extremely fortunate in my time as a KJ that I have had some solid relationships with bar management. Sure, there have been pushbacks on a few things (management trying to move certain favorites up in a long rotation, or trying to force dance music when singers have been waiting for well over an hour)... but, in many cases, I've managed to earn free reign to run my shows at my discretion.

Alarmingly, I'm filling in for a gig tonight where I know that the rotation will be deep, but the ownership will demand a stop to karaoke an hour early to flood the place with dance music... thus causing the singers to flee to another location.

As long as the bar owner isn't telling me how to run my show and pays me on time I'm happy.  :D

Let's face it no bar owner is going to run there bar how we think they should and it isn't a prerequisite that people have to like the bar owner to like your show either.
What the bar owner does doesn't reflect on me

It takes time to build a relationship with any bar owner. Time will tell if you can build trust ad loyalty.

Now the staff can drive away customers thats for sure, but a bad bartender or server won't last long if they aren't good at what they do. So I can usually count on that one taking care of itself.  :D

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The biggest problem with a bad bartender is, usually the bar owner has put all his trust into that person to be his right hand man.    Trusted with all the cash and locking up.  So it's hard for them to see that they are actually hurting the business.

I have had both types of experience with bar owners.  

One owner will always tell me what a good job I do and shrugs, when the bar isn't packed, and says "we'll get em here next week."

One guy would treat the customers like dirt and wonder why karaoke didn't bring in 100 people.  Usually I'd get 20 or 30 people in the bar, which was 10 times the number of people that were there when I was at another bar.  One night he told me he didn't want to pay me because "I" didn't bring in a big enough crowd.  I told him he owed me the money and told him not to call me again.  He paid.  He closed the bar last week.