Say What You Do
I’ve been designing a one pager to go on my website, just for somewhere to direct people to. The idea is that I really want to get out there re: DJ-ing and the electronica set.
Those go really well together, and they’re both kind of selling the same thing. If you’re having a big event, I can be the DJ supplying the music. If you’re having a little event, we can do some cool electronica. It all depends on what you’re looking for.
But you have to be concise in this scenario, right? You have to be able to say exactly what you do, how you do it, how easy it’s going to be, and how you make the promoter look—and that it’s about the event -- not about some douche DJ.
Being concise, more often than not, time after time again, it is really hard to get a musician to tell you concisely what they do. It’s Derek Sivers 101—be able to tell someone what you do in one sentence, and then expand from there. Because people always ask you, “What kind of music do you do?” and if you can’t say it within 10 to 15 seconds, you’ve already lost your audience.
People who can’t describe what they’re doing don’t know what they’re doing. End of story. There’s no way around it.
So this as an exercise, it’s great for me because I’m sharpening what I want to do as I write this page. Just exactly hat kind of DJ do I want to be —which I know—but Lordy is it helpful to try to put it down into something that somebody’s going to spend 20 seconds reading, maybe.
And then it’s got to be in an email too, right? Of, “Hey, this is me. This is what I do.” Now the email is over.
You’ve got to make it about you, but you’ve got to really make it about them. It’s like, “Hey, this guy’s going to make our life easy and make us look good.” That’s all you want to say.
So you do have to say, well, if I’m going to tell people what I do, what are they looking for?
When your friend ask, they just want to know what you’re up to. So tell them. Don’t waste your time, and don’t talk about your childhood pain or some ridiculous shit like that that no one cares about. Because really, people are just asking for themselves.
When people ask me what kind of music I do, they’re just trying to figure out their thing too, right? They have a thing, and by many degrees, they’re not doing it. This is super obvious, but people just want an opportunity to talk about themselves.
The general guiding principle is all of this stuff is about your audience. Including music, right?
So maybe you have a few different versions, but generally the message needs to be exactly the same. Because when people ask me what kind of DJ I am, what kind of music I play, these are all people looking to book something. Just like every DJ gig is a business card into something else.
When I’m in Round Top this weekend—all these people--do they have parties? Do they have events? 100%. They all have 50th birthday parties, and I want to be there.
So if I’m really into indie dance right now, and 80s and 90s stuff, maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I go with the country playlist that JD Junior put together for me—which I think I’m going to do.
I woke up today thinking I start the whole set with “Gettin’ By” by Jerry Jeff Walker and then see what happens from there.
The good ole subconscious at work. I trust it more than I do me!