Month: November 2012

Because wedding season slows down a little over the holidays, I decided not to write about the nice little reception we did at The Stockade Inn that I did over the weekend, and focus on “Black Friday” for this post.

First off, unlike the wedding I was the DJ for at there in Schenectady, there was nothing “nice”, nor “little” about this year’s Black Friday.

For the past 8 years or so, a friend of mine has been meeting up with me at the crack of dawn to run around like fools the day after Thanksgiving, looking at the deals at all the major stores in the area. However, the deal with this year’s Black Friday, in my opinion, was there were no deals.

It looks like Black Friday may have a very grim future and the downward spiral has begun.

NO LONGER JUST FRIDAY – I think this greedy move by retailers to try and get all of your holiday money spent at just their locationis going to backfire in the end. Target said, “lets open at 9pm on THURSDAY,” so Walmart opened at 8pm, with two other “sale events” kicking in later at midnight, then early in the morning on Friday.

Creating a “Gray Thursday” is a bad idea, in my opinion. This also grays the line for when Black Friday actually starts and creates lees of a sense of urgency on the buyer’s behalf. Why wake up at midnight or 5am or whenever for Black Friday sales, if places have already been open since immediately after you ate your pumkin pie the night before.

DOORBUSTERS FAIL – Sure there were a couple of bucks to be saved, here and there, but there were no real great saving doorbusters, as there were in the past. Since downloading media is huge now and you can just rent movies for $1 at the Red Box, CDs and DVDs at $5 really didn’t seem to be as big of a deal as they once were to everyone.

FLAT SCREEN FAIL – And on bigger ticket items, every store was pushing flat screen LED/LCDs. However, this can’t work forever because face it: PEOPLE CAN ONLY HAVE OWN MANY TVs! Once you have one in all the major rooms, you are done with this need. While some people may have taken advantage of this for this year, I think it must have been less than last year, and will continue to be less of demand by the consumer.

I noticed that many stores were trying to crank out LCD tv’s with deeper discounts than previous years for their Black Friday deals, but seemingly to no avail. Go into some of the stores like Best Buy, Target and Walmart and look at the huge stacks of crappy no-bame brand flat screens that people didn’t bother with like Emerson, Symphonic, and Dynex.

The reason for the size of these unpurchased piles of TVs is probably two-fold: 1) Most people who wanted a huge flat TV already have a flat screen by now, and 2) why buy a crappy brand, when you can spend a little bit more and have something with better quality?

I asked a guy at Best Buy why there were so many flat screens in a pile marked at $159. He said he didn’t know. Then I asked, “Do you know why they are called ‘Dynex’? …Because they die the next day!”

Anyhow, to make a long story short… I didn’t get anything at at all on black Friday, except for a pretty sweet omlette at The Wolf Road Diner in Colonie.

I just hope that next year, Black Friday doesn’t start before I eat my turkey. If so, stores will probably be serving cranberry sauce in line to the idiots waiting in line on White Wednesday for $9 thumbdrive.

Do you want the wedding of your dreams, but don’t think you can afford it? Paying for a wedding can be really expensive, to really get everything you want. However, where there is a will, there is a way…

FOOD IS NOT CHEAP – No matter how you slice the wedding cake, your largest bill at a wedding will waht you pay to the caterers. If you will be feeding say 120 guests or so, by today’s industry stanards you are probably looking at $50 a plate, or more. Then, add $6,000 for meals to additional venue costs, and whatever package you are choosing for booze, and you will quickly come close to the $10,000 mark. If you are like many people in today’s economy, you may be asking yourself, “how can I pay for it all?

Breath easy. Aside from the most important way to save money (keeping your invite list down to save on catering), many brides & grooms have been same boat as you are in, and have come up with ways to still make their dream wedding happen.

ONLINE INCOME SOURCES – If you are like many people today and do not have a whole lot of time in your week to work extra hours, some customers have told me that offering a skill on Craigslist is a great way to pick up some extra work here and there to generate some extra income. If you do well with landscaping, carpentry, housekeeping, babysitting, or even bartending, you can go online to craigslist at any time and pick up some extra temporary work to supplement your income.

If you have a product you can sell, others tell me that Ebay and Amazon both offer storefont potential with no overhead. That means, if you have a product you can sell, you can do so on these sites and reach tons of customers, without having to pay rent or employees to man a store. If you don’t have anything to sell, some of my customers have told me that they make thousands by finding collectibles at yard sales and reselling them on Ebay/Amazon.

PART TIME JOB – However, I have found that a number of my DJ customers have decided to treat their wedding budget the same way as some families treat huge Christmas lists; by taking on a part-time job for a short period of time to make it happen. A part-time job really is a great way to pay for things, with the potential to just go back to your comfortable lifestyle, soon after the wedding kitty is full. Here are some good resources to use, in case you are thinking about taking on some side work, so that you can have the wedding of your dreams!

However, if you don’t mind throwing a few hours into the dream wedding kitty, a part time job with an additional hundred or two dollars of income for a few months may really be the way to go!

PROFESSIONAL RESUME – To get that extra little job, you really need to stand out from the rest in today’s economy. It is alll about packaging. If it is skill-based, bringing a portfolio to your interview with lots of great pictures is a good idea. But first of, you need to have a professional resume to get your foot in the door. Sometimes 100-500 people may apply to the same job, so you have to stand out from all the rest. Professional resumes are not just lists of dates and addresses, today they have finely crafted bullets with action phrases displaying what it is you did at a past work experience.

I am a succesful wedding DJ and have seen it all. Also being a certified English teacher in a Career & Technical school, I have some career resources that I would like to share with you, in order to help your dream wedding become a reality.

Resume Template <- Here is a link to a great RESUME TEMPLATE that I have created. TIP- make sure to make EVERYTHING uniform on your resume. This is your first impression to a potential employer. Make it count!

Resume Action Verbs <- It is always important to add ACTION VERBS under your work experiences. These will help the potential employer understand what kind of experience you have that may be a good match for them. This link is a list of those words that will better help them to visualize you working for them.

Resume Sample <- Here is a sample of what the RESUME might look like when you are done.

ADD A COVER LETTER – Don’t forget to add a COVER LETTER along with your resume, before sending it out. Here is a few links to some cover letter resources that I have created to help make your resume stand out from the rest:

COVER LETTER logic <- Here is a link to a list of things to think about when writing your cover letter.

Cover Letter Sample <- This is a sample of what a cover letter might look like when it is done.

Cover Letter Template <- Here is a template on how to write a cover letter.