yes, yes, yes, and yes.
- That happens as well..but they may also just move to another nearby school and if a valuable and mutually beneficial realtionship has been established, you can move with 'em and add that student body to your audiences.
- There are no magic elixirs or "tricks"...simply be honest, fair, professional and provide them with the results they request and that you promise to provide.
- Respect and honor their rules and standards as they have, or should have a higher responsibility for the behavior of and influences on their student body. Just know that displaying your "wikkid awsum" dj mixing and programming skillz are substantially less important than the standards they rightfully expect you to uphold.
- Take the necessary actions to assure they are aware that you appreciate their business and will make every effort to grow and improve so that you can continue to provide your unique and professional entertainment talents and service to their events.
You can't win 'em all but you can win often enough if you try.
I can't add much to what wifedj said. Yes, schools still come and schools go. We lost a school a couple years ago because we didn't have a particular request that was fairly explicit. The advisor wanted to be buddies with the students...the students ran the show. We prefer not to follow their path because the outcome is not good--they are increasing in gang problems, including violence. We can see the direction they are going and don't need to be part of it, so no lost love there. We've lost schools when faculty changed, sure. Some schools we've dealt with the same faculty for 10-15 years. The larger schools don't seem to have as much turnover as the smaller ones...or at least the ones we have worked for. That helps. In some cases when the dance advisor is changed the principal tells them they are hiring us. We've had principals say they aren't having any more dances unless we're the dj's. I don't think they've held true to that, but it's nice having the principals realizing our value. It's not often that the homecoming dance advisor has more to say in the homecoming date than the athletic director, but I know of some.
Loyalty has done us well over the years, and as of late, we've leaned on that heavily as we've had other business that has taken much of our attention. We have not been actively marketing the dj business. It's taken a toll with decreased bookings. We need to kick back into gear and get back on that. I don't think we've done any marketing for close to 5 years now. It will take some doing to build back up. A couple years ago we did 12 proms as a single system operator. Obviously we have not retained 100% of our clients. Some we don't particularly want to continue, and others for whatever reason aren't loyal; sometimes because we didn't follow up well enough and sometimes because staff changed and sometimes because a kid knew someone who could dj...the list goes on. In the past 25 years that we've been doing this, we have lost more due to unavailability/already-booked dates than any other single cause.