Compete on value not price in service businesses

Most people think they're in the service business. They're not. They're in the trust business. When I started DJ Stash, the equipment was the job. Show up, plug in, play music, go home. That model works until a client calls you six months before their wedding in tears because their first DJ canceled. Then you realize what they actually hired: someone to protect the most important day of their life. That shift changes everything. From how you communicate before an event, to how you set up a room, to how you read a crowd when things don't go as planned. The music is the medium. The experience is the product. Building a premium service brand in any industry requires this same reframe. You're not selling a deliverable. You're selling certainty. You're selling the feeling that someone who genuinely cares is in control. That's the standard we hold ourselves to at DJ Stash, in every wedding, every corporate event, every production we touch across Austin and San Antonio. If you're building something in the events, hospitality, or entertainment space, I'd love to connect. This industry is stronger when its professionals lead with intention.

The best conversations I've had didn't start with a cold call. They started with a knock on the door. Over the past few weeks, I've spent more time walking into hotels, restaurants, and private clubs than sitting behind my laptop. Some stops last 30 seconds. Some end with, "The person you need isn't here today." And every once in a while, one turns into a 20-minute conversation that completely changes how I think about a property's business. You notice things you could never learn from a website. The atmosphere. The guest experience. The live music that's already playing. The manager who walks you through why they chose that artist, what they're trying to create, and where they're still running into challenges. Those conversations have reminded me that people don't buy because of the perfect pitch. They buy because they feel understood. That's why I love being in the field with JamJuice. Every handshake, every walkthrough, and every conversation helps us better understand what hospitality teams are trying to accomplish so we can build entertainment programs that actually fit their vision. Technology makes it easier to manage live music. Relationships are what make it possible in the first place. What's the best business relationship you've built simply by showing up in person? JamJuice Inc #Hospitality #FieldSales #LiveMusic #RelationshipBuilding #JamJuice

Most corporate events fail at the one thing they're for. People show up. They stand with the team they already know. They leave the way they came in. Nobody met anybody. We built the opposite. Dirty Rocks is a live cocktail competition where the crowd is the judge. Nine bartenders compete. Every guest tastes the drinks and votes. And here's the part that matters — → You earn more votes by networking. → Meet someone new, make an introduction, complete a prompt — you get another vote. → The room stops clumping and starts connecting. On purpose. We ran it May 5th. Sold out in 4 days, zero paid ads. Came down to a single vote. 121 people in the room, and not one of them was checking their phone. The next one is Sunday, August 2nd at Fringe Bar on the Old City waterfront. 3 to 7:30. Sponsored by Patrón. If you've ever spent real money on an event and had nothing to show for it Monday morning — this is the fix. Tickets in the comments.

Chet Caldarera is incredibly driven, yet just as coachable. That’s a rare combination. Some leaders are so focused on moving forward that they forget to pause, listen, and absorb the ideas that could make them even better. The best leaders never stop learning—they stay driven while remaining humble enough to keep growing.

My team hears me say this all the time. "We are a gym. It shouldn't be a pain in the ass to cancel." Recently, I got an awesome review from a gentleman who came in to cancel his membership. Every guest deserves an easy cancellation, just like they had an easy sign up. Here are some things I've seen over the years. To be fair, I've been guilty of some of these myself earlier in my career. 1. Not really listening because they're under contract anyway. 2. Catching an attitude because you're behind on goals and another cancel stings. 3. Trying so hard to save the membership that you make the guest uncomfortable. 4. Making someone come in just because you can. 5. Being reluctant to waive a 30 -day notice or make an exception when it's the right thing to do. 6. Sending someone on a wild goose chase to their home club instead of taking a few minutes to do the legwork for them. 7. Having a rock star sales process but no cancellation process. I hear all about role playing sales calls, but how often are you talking about cancellation conversations with your team? Why does it matter if they're leaving? Because when people search for gyms on Google or Reddit, one of the most common complaints they see is, "Why is it so hard to cancel my membership?" A simple and empathetic cancellation process is good for your brand. It's good for your reputation. And it's good for the chances that person comes back one day. People remember how you treat them on the way out just as much as they remember how you treated them on the way in.

I will drive further to avoid an annoying business. Our closest cinema has an annoying website. Specifically, tickets are advertised as the base price - £7.99- but that only applies to one row. Two more rows are advertised as “£7.99+£3.50” and the entire rest of the cinema is “£7.99+£7.50.” I do not want to have to do (3x7.99) add (3x3.50) and then (3x7.50), add the results and work out if the kids will be happy watching minions from the third to back row. The less convenient cinema a bit further away also charges more for seats that aren’t at the back. But it does it like this- back two rows are £7.50, the next four or five rows are £10.50 and the ones nearer the front are £13.50. Not a massive price difference, really. Not once you factor in a longer drive. But it’s not as annoying. It isn’t obviously designed to make it hard for someone being nagged in one ear calculate how much extra they’re spending. So, the less annoying one wins. If I have to spend two hours of my life being irritated by minions I don’t want to be pre-annoyed by obvious attempts to fleece me, thank you.

When a dispute reaches Court, judges won't simply ask whether an access provision was made or not. The examination goes further than that. Courts look at the commercial relationships across the supply chain: the promoter, the venue, the ticketing company, whoever else touched the event. They look at the production budget and what was spent on access relative to everything else. They assess whether disabled customers' needs were anticipated and planned for in advance, or only reacted to when someone complained at the gate. They also look at how requests were handled. Whether a disabled customer's need was treated as a legitimate obligation or as an inconvenience. Whether there was any process at all for thinking about this, or whether the organisation was simply operating in the dark. And the findings are published. They become part of the record. If you are involved in organising, promoting, or hosting live events, it is worth asking: if your commercials, your contracts, and your internal decision-making were examined this way today, what would they show? That is the question at the centre of a case I have written up at the link below. https://lnkd.in/e822BjKP #EqualityAct #LiveEvents

Stop talking like an amateur if you want to get paid like a professional. The way you present your vision is exactly why you are missing out on major deals, leaving your competitors to command the room while you are still hesitating. If your message does not hit like a freight train, you are completely invisible to your clients. Before you step foot into your next event, you need to lock in and get your pitch perfect. Refine your delivery until it sounds completely natural. Doing this forces you to get straight to the point and projects the kind of absolute confidence that closes rooms. Your competition is already mastering this, do not get left behind.

There are a hundred places to buy a burger and a hundred bands that can play the same three chords. The differentiator was never really the product itself. It's your voice, your story, your stage presence, why you got into this in the first place, or some combination of all of it stacked together. Businesses and musicians run into the exact same wall here: if you can't answer what makes you different, you're just competing on price or luck, and neither of those is a great long term strategy.

Jack Johnson brought a fan on stage last night. Not a celebrity. Not a planned guest. Just someone from the crowd who knew the song. He handed them a guitar. Let them play. 19,000 people watched C.J. from Eden Prairie have the moment of his life. (𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴. 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘐'𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦.) 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗱: Jack Johnson has been doing this for over 20 years. Taking requests. Inviting fans into the moment. Building something that feels less like a performance and more like a gathering. That kind of trust doesn't happen at your first show. It compounds. Every album. Every tour. Every time he showed up and made the audience feel like they mattered. That's decades of deposits into a relationship. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗹: Most businesses want the crowd that sings along. They want the loyalty. The referrals. The customers who feel like insiders. But they want it in year one. They might launch a campaign, start a community, and then expect an instant connection. It doesn't work that way. The businesses that build what Jack Johnson has? They show up consistently for years. They share the spotlight with their customers. They take requests instead of just broadcasting. They understand that trust grows like compounding interest, far beyond a simple transaction. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: You can't manufacture 20 years of trust in a marketing sprint. But you can start making deposits today. Is your business building a community, or just building an audience?