Sunday 5 February 2012

The three pillars of GREATNESS (overview)

I was asked some time ago to write a piece for a web site to help couples find a great wedding dj. And being who I am, I started in a wild flurry of ideas and notes. I thought about that word "Great" and if I fell into that category (ego in check, I don't). I looked at the people who inspire me, I asked my family and friends to define it for me. I then started to think about the ideal wedding DJ from my point of view, from the clients and from the venues too, and then quickly got over taken by the real and immediate matters at hand. Making it happen, not writing about it, so, time to pull the notes and the thoughts together and put it all in one place.

I believe that there are three pillars that all "Greats" stand on, and yes there are exceptions to the rule, so first lets clarify what it is I'm actually writing about. "How do couples find a GREAT wedding dj" now those who've read a little of my ramblings will know that it can be exactly that rambling, but this one will keep circling back to that question above (see what I mean).

I'm approaching it from two view points (I hope) the clients, and of course, from behind the decks.

In my experience, (what little of it there is) people who are Great at what they do have similar traits. yes thats Great with a capital G, not "yeah great, wot ever" but the type of Great with a few exclamation marks after it ok? There are the practical aspects of their Greatness, the first of the two pillars.

1. SKILL; (Some are born Great) yes natural talent is the exception to skill. But only as a starting block, even those who are gifted, collect new skills and improve upon their existing ones.

2. EXPERIENCE; (Some achieve Greatness) there is no substitute for having a little dirt under your nails, if you haven't done the task, then reading about, watching others do it or talking to others about it, will not make you Great at it.

The third pillar is less tangible, yet in my opinion the most valuable.

3. PASSION. (Greatness thrust upon them) I touched on this last post, Passion is not passive. To be Great at any thing you have to be passionate about it, YOU HAVE TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT. No grey area here,  no grammatically correct lower case type: PASSIONATE. (maybe a litte too much  http://garyvaynerchuk.com/  for me today?)


Let me bring this home now, back to the question; "How do couples find a GREAT wedding dj" 

This first step is important, so don't skip it.

How do you find a Great wedding DJ? Look for one. Seriously. If you want a Great DJ at your wedding, don't go looking for the lowest costing DJ, don't go looking at your local club DJ (no dis intended guys, I cant do what you do at the level you do it). Don't go looking in the newspaper classifieds. Look where you would expect Great wedding DJs to promote themselves. Wedding related websites, Wedding venues, Wedding Forums are all good places to start. Also don't forget the DJ Association type sites like http://www.djaa.com.au here in Australia, (a newer site) or the state level ones, and the guys in the know in the US http://www.wedguild.com/

Thanks for reading that wall of text, over the next 3 posts I'm going to take each of the pillars and DJize (its my blog and I can invent words here if I want to ) them. If you're looking for a Great wedding DJ or your on this side of the deck with me, I hope you'll find it worth the read.
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