Did you lose an account? What to do next…..
“A series of hints, tips and advice of how to cope, what to do and how to plan when an account is lost – it happens to us all”
Welcome back to the blog and I hope you are doing well. I hope also that some of you reading today have looked at the title of this post and that it has peaked your interest a little bit as if you have been trivia hosting for some time, then this is bound to have happened to you. It doesn’t matter how good you are, no matter how much effort or investment you put into your trivia hosting, it happens to the best of us…..for one reason or another the account will be closed, your gig cancelled and you are back at square one. The first time this happens it can be rather devastating and I was pretty upset when it happened to me for the first few times but it becomes part of the business and if you are doing thing right then you will be able to pick yourself up and carry on. But, still, it’s a horrible occasions especially if you feel you have been doing well.
So, I am going to use the benefit of my experience, to perhaps give you a range of tips and advice on what you should do in situations when you have lost a gig and how to recover, as always if you have your own thoughts please feel free to add them to the comments as learning from each other is a great feature of the trivia hosting community –
Did you lose an account? What to do next….. – Get a reason!
This will all depend on your relationship with the bar owners. Chances are, and if indeed you are doing the job right, you should have a good rapport with the bar owner and therefore you would expect they will tell you a reason….is it your style? Is it money? Is it lack of business? If for some reason you cannot get an answer as to why they are letting you go then try and find on. Hound them until they tell you….has someone came in offering a better or lower priced service? Are they looking for people with a more diverse entertainment approach? Without having a reason you can’t act…
Did you lose an account? What to do next….. – Try to resolve
So when you have been given a reason….do not simply give up and move along to the next step of your trivia hosting. You need to work to keep the gig…..I am not saying beg or plead but what you need to do is try and resolve a problem. If the venue owner is telling you are too expensive then work out a new deal. If you price yourself out the market you will find yourself not in the market. This means you need to be willing to listen to demands and keep up with current trends. Even if you take a reduction as a short term solution whilst you look for other gigs it is a far better way than having no gigs at all. One thing I do is offer a longer package at a reduced rate….so if I usually charge $150 a show, I will offer to do 10 shows for $1000 meaning I get the longer booking and can build and plan around that.
Another easy fix is if they are not happy with your style or they have had feedback from the customers that they are not enjoying the quiz. This is a little easier to deal with as you can then do a sales pitch telling them of all the services you offer. Use DigiGames to boost your variety and repertoire and really go out there to sell yourself. If you get sacked for not having a good style or the latest technology and don’t offer to change it then you are breaking my key rule of trivia hosting – play to the audience.
Did you lose an account? What to do next….. – Circumstances
Maybe however its something that’s beyond your control. Maybe a new manager has come in and thinks the bar can survive without your needs….we have all came across these people in our working lives. They think just because they have enthusiasm that they can fill the bar on a Tuesday night but they will soon realize that it doesn’t work out! The best thing to do in this situation, if it becomes obvious they want to go it alone, is just take it on the chin, end things gracefully and follow up again in a few weeks. This is important because if you know you have been making the bar money then you will have the confidence that the owner will re-contact you at some point. Offer to switch nights, switch styles by all means but there are some occasions where no matter how much you sell, it won’t work out.
But the main thing is not to throw in the towel. Your players will be surprisingly loyal…that is why I have stressed the need to build rapport with them and keep in touch via a social media group or email list as that means when you go elsewhere you can take them with you. Players will be loyal and if they have been enjoying your quiz and it suddenly stops, they will flock to a new venue as long as it is pretty close, to support you.
All in all, one of the worst things about the profession of trivia hosting is getting that call to say you are no longer needed. It has put a lot of trivia hosts off from the game and especially if it was a first gig or a personal favorite….but forget all that. Take one step at a time, you should have a good marketing scheme in place by then anyway so utilize that to make sure you are contacting new people and treat it not as the end of one thing, but as a fresh start of another.
