Hiring & Training a DJ Team with Paul Anthony – E145

Introduction Welcome everybody to the Wedding Songs Podcast. I am Matt Campbell. Today, we’re going to be talking about hiring and training a professional DJ team. To help me along with this, I have Paul Anthony, the CEO of EMP DJ and the former owner of Mobile DJ AU, which of course he DJ’ed in Australia, and as DJs do today, they DJ all around the world. Welcome to the show, Paul.

Unique Wedding Moments Thanks, Matthew. It’s a pleasure to be here. I really appreciate you helping me out with this topic today, and I know you have lots of experience with it. But before we get to it, can you just share a unique wedding moment that you had as a DJ? Yeah, so for me, I’ve been DJing for many years, so it’s quite a blur of memories. But one in particular that stands out is being on stage for an Arabic wedding. It was a big wedding with three to four hundred people, held underground in the city, but in a very grand ballroom with high ceilings. It had an Egyptian Aladdin kind of theme with pillars on the sides. It was very cool. I was on stage with a 10-piece Arabic band, with lots of drums and Arabic singing. It was really awesome being on stage with a band next to you, creating that live experience.

Handling Cultural Music One of the cool moments was when the Arabic band was really playing away, and the drummer came over and handed me the drumstick so I could start beating the drum to the music. It was really cool, being on stage, banging the drums, DJing, and all that sort of stuff for a cultured wedding. It was quite an experience. So let me just ask you, did you know the music, or did the couples help you with that music? How did that process go? Yeah, with Arabic music, my background is Greek. My father’s Greek, and my mother’s Maltese, so I’m kind of comfortable with music from other countries. I’ve DJ’ed a few Arabic events and weddings over the years. Melbourne is a very multicultural place, so I’ve DJ’ed Indian, Chinese, Italian, everything. With Arabic music, I would ask the client to provide me with maybe 10 or 20 songs. From that event, they would give me some really good songs, and I would keep them in my library for the next time I do an Arabic wedding, slowly building a collection of go-to songs.

Building a Music Library Most of the time, when you do cultured music at a wedding, you don’t necessarily have to play for five hours. It’s a challenge you can potentially take on, depending on how much of that music they want. For example, if it’s a Greek wedding, they might just want a 30-minute set of Greek dancing. It doesn’t have to be five hours, and maybe a few background songs during the meals to theme it a bit, if that’s what they want. Basically, speak to the client and find out, get them to provide a bit of a playlist. I think that’s a really important takeaway for new DJs: don’t be afraid to do it. Just start it, work with your couples, and then build your library. Research it, talk to other experienced DJs who have done it before, but the only way you’re going to learn is to actually do it.

Transparency with Clients You should obviously let the customer know if you’ve never done that music before, so they’re aware. You’re not going to lie to them and just say, “Yeah, I can do it.” You might say, “I’ve never done this music before, but if you provide some of it, I think we might only be doing a 30-minute set.” If you’re upfront about it and they’re okay with the fact that you haven’t DJ’ed that music before, then that’s okay. But you don’t want to pretend that you’ve done that music if you haven’t.

Introduction of Paul Anthony Before we go any further, can you please introduce yourself to our listeners? Yeah, sure. My name is Paul Anthony. I started DJing when I was 16, in 1997. My brother was a DJ working for another big DJ company, and he left some equipment in the garage when he went to Europe for six months. While he was there, my aunties and uncles would have 40th and 50th birthdays, and I would put my hand up to DJ for them for free. My CD collection was probably just 20-30 CDs and a few scratch CDs, and maybe I would buy a few new singles. It was a limited music selection, but you just work with what you’ve got. When you’re starting out, you just do what you can.

Growth of DJ Business Between 2000 and 2010, I expanded from that point to 16 sets of DJ equipment. To grow that way, there was a lot involved, and it wasn’t a straight line. Sometimes you think, “How am I going to get there? How do you get to 16?” When I started out, I didn’t have any money, and my parents never loaned me money. I asked them for a loan, but they never gave me one. So you just have to find a way. I eventually found a way, got some kind of finance, and managed to grow. Between 2010 and 2012 was the peak of my DJ business. I had 16 sets, and we were doing 80 to 100 gigs a month. I had a full-time manager and two full-time salespeople. The manager’s job was to start confirming all the bookings for the weekend every Monday. When you have 20 or 25 events on the weekend, it takes three days to get through to everyone. You need to confirm the address, start time, collect payment, finalize discussions about the music, and confirm all these events.

Challenges and Downsizing It was a lot of work, and once I reached that peak, I realized it was just too much work. I was waking up at 8:30 in the morning every day, working on the business until 9 PM, DJing Friday and Saturday nights, sometimes on Sundays, and I was getting exhausted. I had a lot of work coming from Google at the time, which helped my growth. But around 2013, my Google rankings dropped off, and my inquiries dropped dramatically. That caused me to retrospect and rethink everything. From that point, I started to downsize the DJ business and started building the EMP DJ application.

Business Structure When you had your team, were they full-time employees or contractors? The way my business was structured was that I used to buy the equipment and train the DJs myself. The reason I did that was because you can make a higher profit margin if you own the equipment. You can choose anyone to be a DJ, whereas if you’re working with DJs who have their own equipment, it attracts a certain personality type that may not be what I was looking for. I preferred DJs with no experience because I wanted a clean slate to work on. I looked for someone with a good personality, trustworthy, loyal, and able to follow instructions. I found that DJs who were already in the industry had their own stigmas and were harder to work with. So I preferred to work with people with zero experience.

Training New DJs How do you ensure that new DJs deliver the best experience for clients? For many years, I had eight sets of equipment, so I was always training new DJs. I was the only one to train them, and I had to keep training DJs to facilitate those equipment sets. Every six months, another DJ would leave, and I had to train another one. I would take the DJs out to five events. The first time, they would just watch me, help carry the equipment, and set it up. The next time, they would get more hands-on, choosing songs and doing the mixing. I would put them on the spot by pretending to go to the toilet and letting the song end, so they had to press play and move the fader. By the fifth event, they were doing the job, and I was just helping them carry the gear and watching them.

Client Interaction When sending them out for the first couple of jobs, I would put them on easy jobs like engagements or birthdays and follow up with the customer after the weekend to see what they thought. I would never tell a client that this is a trainee or someone new because people have prejudices and will start picking apart every little mistake. It’s best to have the customer think the DJ has been doing it for a while. If a DJ confesses to the client that it’s their first job, the customer might complain. Everyone has to do their first job at some point, so it’s best not to tell the customer in that circumstance and just follow up with the customer to make sure the DJ did well.

Evaluating Performance How did you work the feedback to evaluate their performance as a DJ? I would follow up with the clients early on, after their first few gigs, and then after that, I wouldn’t have to anymore. If people aren’t happy, they let you know. I would make a phone call for the first few jobs, asking the customer if the DJ arrived on time, introduced themselves, and did the things they were told to do. That was enough for me. I also heard another DJ and multi-op say they have their DJs fill out a form of what they thought of the event, so if a customer calls with a problem, they have the DJ’s perspective. Some DJs record the whole event, so if there’s a complaint, they have a recording to know what actually happened.

Music Knowledge How did you keep everybody’s knowledge fresh and the music current with your DJ team? I started collecting CDs in 1999 from a supplier that provided a monthly CD for DJs. For many years, I would buy a CD once a month for each set, which kept me up with the top 40. With older music, I built up a collection, and the DJs had the same classic collection. Once we moved to laptops, I made really good playlists, which were key to keeping consistency and quality. It was easier to make sure everyone had the same playlists. Nowadays, with record pools, you can keep up with new music and create playlists beforehand.

Wedding Planning I heard recently that you’re engaged, congrats. How is your wedding planning process going along since you have so much wedding experience? We haven’t done much planning yet. We’re going to get married on my fiancée’s birthday, which is Christmas Day. We’re going to have a wedding in Thailand because she’s Thai. We’ll do a traditional wedding on the mango farm and a destination wedding in Phuket for my family and friends. I have an idea of what we want, but I haven’t started piecing it together yet.

Music Tastes How about your music tastes? Are they similar? I’ve had quite a journey with my music tastes. I’m 43 now. When I was in my teens, I only liked classical music. I started learning guitar at 15, got into Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and then rock music. I joined a metal band and played heavy metal for five years. While that was going on, I started DJing. In the early years, hip hop and R&B were popular. Then house music took off with Ministry of Sound 2004. I went through dance, techno, and house music phases. In the last five years, I’ve been getting into glitch hop, drum and bass, and other genres. I listen to anything, from Spanish guitar music to Latin jazz.

DJing at Mobile Entertainment Expo I have to congratulate you too. You’re going to be DJing at Mobile Entertainment Expo. How did that process go? I’m attending the expo as an exhibitor for EMP DJ, a CRM for mobile DJs that I’ve been working on for the last 10 years. I put in one of my mixes and got on the shortlist to DJ for the event. I’m excited because there are only 10 DJs this year, and we have 30 minutes each.

Conclusion Thanks, Paul, for being on the show today. I really appreciate it. If you’re a DJ, make sure to check out EMP DJ. Stay tuned for another episode of Wedding Pro, learning tips on wedding music and the wedding industry. Thanks for listening and have a great day.