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Sujet: Can't afford me anymore....who does their math?

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Okay boys and girls follow along this fuzzy math problem.

Club opens in 2005, investment proposal says club is expected to do $30,000 per week in sales at it's peak. Club is trudging along at $28,000 week average. They hire me as Dj and music director and in less than 6 months they are doing $60-$65,000 per week and they maintain those numbers for another 15 months at which point I ask for a $200 per week raise...not much I think only $10,800 per year...they say they can't afford my raise, I take job in California, in 3 months their sales are down to $40,000 per week and in 9 months down to $25,000 week and they have turned a nice 30+ $75000 per year income customer base into a bunch of 21 year old gang bangers and the city forces them to hire 8 off duty cops for security because it gets so bad. After another year of dissmal sales and fights they bring me back on Wednesday nights (which are down from $8,000 per night when I worked there before to under $2000 per week). In just 4 weeks of being back, Wednesday sales have increased over $1500 per night and climbing and there has not been a single fight. Tonight they told me they were letting me go becasue they said they couldn't afford my rate anymore and they were bringin in someone cheaper! I should have seen it coming as last week they fired the manager and replaced him with the owner's daughter and replaced the promotion director with the owner's son.

3 months after I left the first time they lost enough money to have paid my raise AND my salary for 2 years...but they thought they couldn't afford my raise.

In just 4 weeks since being back I have raised their sales enough to cover my salary for another 28 weeks but now they say that can't afford it, who does their math I ask?

It will work out in the end as I have another offer for more money anyway starting in May at a new club opening up.....but trying to figure out their fuzzy math just astounds me.
 
Posté Thu 23 Apr 09 @ 6:07 am
I've seen this too many times. It's a false economy on behalf of the people running the club. Never underestimate the power of a good DJ as I've seen places empty in weeks by losing someone because of money and hiring a useless replacement. Let them rot in hell.

Good luck with your new job!
 
dj-e-lectric wrote :
cheaper!


That's the reason.

They are trying to find someone who can make them money and do what you do for cheaper, 9 times out of 10 they don't find anybody.

Sod them and move on to your next project that's what I would do.

Good luck mate.
 
ditto...
 
Its not just clubs. Broadcast radio does this too. They plan on one entertainer, give him a large sum of money. After a while they hire someone similar, but not as good, for a lot less. Expecting a drop off, but not total loss. The business reason behind this is, if they are not paying a high salary, and still make a % of money equal to what the club/radio station was making it is a positive mark in their end books. I have suffered this at both clubs and radio stations....

This is where the rubber meets the road. Do you stick with your price? Or drop it to keep working. I personally know big name US radio on air talent getting paid millions of dollars to NOT WORK because of this mentality. I also know guys who are still looking for work because of it.....
 
dj-e-lectric,

Respect! You know how it works, their are so many that just don't get it.

You price is fu*k all they should of just paid it. Loosers
 
its funny how the price of our equipment keeps going up but my prices unfortunetly have gone down because there are so many wanna be dj's out there who use itunes and an ipod and call themselves dj's. I have been on several interviews in the past few months and haven't gotten the job because someone beat my price by a few dollars. Between equipment, promotional service subscriptions and mp3's its hard to make money in this business. The club is going to miss you when their profits drop and everyone hates the new dj because he couldn't beatmatch if his life depended on it. Good Luck at the new club!
 
I say "So long losers" Well at least you get paid!! I have noticed these wanna be's working for drinks!! and now people around here are expecting me to accept drinks!!! Hell I don't even drink!!!...

There loss bro move on and good luck
 
Thanks for all your support, the new club opens in 3 weeks anyway...I'll look at it as a mini-vacation. I kind of need it anyway as for the last couple weeks I have been working 7 nights anyway.

This is by no means the first time this has happened (it happens once or twice every couple of years) I just had to put it in writing so I could see for myself how ridiculous it really is.

This is the business we chose though, so we fight through it and luckily everytime something new and better eventually comes along to make it better and complete the grand Dj design!
 
e-lectric...

You know the drill.

You fill the club and make the establishment profitable, them when they think the club is doing well and won't fall down without you, they find someone cheaper.

It sucks but it's a part of the game.

Glad you have a new gig. as far as the last one...Fu*k em amd feed em beans.
 
dj-e-lectric, i know this is not what you want to hear but, as a former club owner and dj ,i see both sides.
when i quote a price for a gig ''that's my price'' if 1 person shows up or 1500 people show up that's my price.
that's what it cost to get me in your club as long as you need me. if the club is sucsessful while i'm there
or if the club is unsucsessful my price always stay the same.(no discounts/no raises)

on the other hand......the club owner tries to budget six months out based on current sales,and when a dj came to me
wanting a raise, i just let them know we had an agreement if the club lost money i won't cut your pay.
if the club makes money i won't raise your pay. i wanna make money too.

a dj uses ''close to'' the same effort to entertain 100 people or 1000 people. dj-e-lectric, i say quote a firm price
and stick to it. p.s. if the sales are off the charts i would give a monthly bonus as a ''good will'' jesture.
 
steelwill wrote :
dj-e-lectric, i know this is not what you want to hear but, as a former club owner and dj ,i see both sides.
when i quote a price for a gig ''that's my price'' if 1 person shows up or 1500 people show up that's my price.
that's what it cost to get me in your club as long as you need me. if the club is sucsessful while i'm there
or if the club is unsucsessful my price always stay the same.(no discounts/no raises)

on the other hand......the club owner tries to budget six months out based on current sales,and when a dj came to me
wanting a raise, i just let them know we had an agreement if the club lost money i won't cut your pay.
if the club makes money i won't raise your pay. i wanna make money too.

a dj uses ''close to'' the same effort to entertain 100 people or 1000 people. dj-e-lectric, i say quote a firm price
and stick to it. p.s. if the sales are off the charts i would give a monthly bonus as a ''good will'' jesture.



I too have been a partner in a small club, owned two non-alcohol clubs and promoted several clubs hiring other Djs. In each case I paid the Dj a salary (an employee's time and talent are worth a given amount of money just to show up and perform the job description competently) and then I also gave them a pre-arranged bonus structure based on sales goals because I believe the people directly responsible for generating your income (managers, promotion/marketing and entertainers) deserve compensation for producing and providing me with my income and lifestyle....unfortuanatley I am a minority in that thinks that way in the business world and probably one of the reasons I despise most business owners (not just bar owners but business owners in gebneral) because they are all about the take and rarely the give!

To an extent you are correct and I do quote a firm STARTING salary with the expectation that at some point we will renegotiate. The main point I think you are wrong on is that when you are at a club for an extended period of time (over a year in my opinion) a Dj should be given a raise REGARDLESS of sales if the Dj is retained just as all other jobs get annual or semi-annual raises....hell even wal-mart gives 5-15% annual hourly raises depending on your position. Bartenders, Servers, Barbacks all make much more in tips as the club gets busier (in most cases because of the Dj) so their raises are built in....as far as cutting pay when the club slows down, that usually doesn't happen because they cut you entirely.

That being said, the point is if they can afford to pay me (using round numbers) $400 per night when they are doing $28,000 in sales then when they are doing $60,000 (with very little additional expense I might add...other than pour cost which is a built in percent of sales) they certainly can "afford" to give me a $400 per week raise. Whether they WANT TO or not is a different matter, but don't play me for stupid and tell me you can't "afford" it....I guarantee I have a higher IQ than most any bar owners.

Based on sound business practices It makes REALLY GOOD sense to spend and extra $400 per week to retain an employee who raised, and maintains, your net sales over $30,000 per week more than before you hired them. Trust me if I could make that kind of return on my investment in real estate, stocks, e-bay or even gold I would do it and get the hell out of this business!

I guarantee you if sales had fallen below that $60,000 while I was there they would have totally forgotten they hired me at $400 a night to maintain $28,000 in sales and they would have shown me the door for not producing, even though I was still significantly above the sales they expected when they hired me.

Since this is such a wide spread occurance and common mistake by bar owners and many bar owners know each other and talk to each other you would think they would realize (or admit to themselves) how much money they continually loose by being such tightwads, can't one of them wake up, pull their head out of their tight ass and get a clue (and keep their bank account full)!
 
Tough economic times force buisnesses to do upredictable things. I know many people who have not gotten raises in years and work very hard as I am sure you did. I would not take it personally. Good luck at the new place.
 
I don't think the owner / manager associates the increase to the Dj. I think they think its word or mouth and time of the season. When the numbers are down they may think its the time of the season or poor economy. In my case I was there for 3 years so the new DJ'd hawk on the manager for 6 six months ( so I hear ) and did the first night for free. His side kick drank all the bar tab and everyone complained so he was fired withen 2 wks. I think they have had 4 -5 dj since ( 6 mo period ). I got the phone call saying "we're going with a different sound". WHAT THE HELL!!!

They still haven't recovered... So I say most location don't associate bar sales with a good DJ. I can't count how many time the staff would joke and say " anybody can do my job " Just because they has x amount of songs on the ipod and all we do is play the hits.
 
fatkatzdj wrote :
... So I say most location don't associate bar sales with a good DJ. I can't count how many time the staff would joke and say " anybody can do my job " Just because they has x amount of songs on the ipod and all we do is play the hits.


That is just it, they are in business and they should know what effects there sales ESPECIALLY in a business where the main focus is the music. I will agree not every case is the Djs credit for sales swings, especially in the short term, but over the long term when virtually everything else has remained the same (same location, same management, same promotions, same marketing) and the Dj and music changes it is a no brainer....especially when it happend repeatedley witht the same Djs no matter where they work.

Even if an owner doesn't think a Dj can bring in more people the registers and their own eyes can tell the same people are staying longer, having a better time and drinking more.

It goes back to what I have always said is that MOST managers and owners are in the bar business because they don't possess the intellect, the problem solving abilities and maturity it takes to make it as a competent manager in a "real job". Whether these character traits are absent due to alcoholism, drug addiction, battling a midlife crisis or just born with a shear lack of business IQ. Most people in the bar business are there because of the drug, sex & rock n roll mentality and it gets really frustrating to someone like myself that approaches it as a career and serious profession with a desire to have it done properly.
 
dj-e-lectric, in a case like yours, i know the club regretted the move of letting you go. that's why they came crawling back when
they realized it. in my opinion, when you came back they put a spy on you to copy your style,your habbits and music choices.
that sounds like a bit much but all of us has a replacement ''on deck'' at all times. he'll work for half pay, he'll try to clone your
style and he'll be a puppet for the boss. now when they come calling (and they will) pull out a contract and get both of you to
sign it............ mj got ran off from the bulls,emmit smith got ran off from the cowbows,the head man is sometimes is on a power trip.
''i'll do it with out you!!!''
 


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