We recently connected with Alex Updike and have shared our conversation below.

Alex, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

I think the biggest challenge to running a profitable private event and wedding DJ (or just entertainment) company is standing out from the competition and proving your value. The wedding industry especially is one of those places where there is ALWAYS a cheaper option for couples if they choose to go that route. So to be able to charge your value, and be able to prove that value to couples when they inquire with you, is a challenge. This challenge is then made more difficult by the fact that most couples don’t really know what they’re doing. And it’s not their fault! But most couples planning a wedding have never done so before. So everything is new, there are so many details they don’t even know that they should be asking about, and it becomes very easy to become enamored by a “cheaper” option that sounds good but may or may not end up living up to your expectations.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Alex Updike and I got into the DJ business basically by accident. I was sitting at my parent’s kitchen table after graduating from college, with a degree that I didn’t know how to pursue, and not a lot of ideas on what I wanted to do with life. I came across DJing and thought “I can do that.” I taught myself how to mix and ended up doing crappy little gigs for basically no money for about a year before doing my first wedding.

Funny enough, what really got the ball rolling for me was when I created a Yelp page. Being based in Palm Springs, California, a lot of couples come from out-of-town to get married there, so they end up looking for vendors online. For some reason, not a lot of DJs had put themselves on Yelp, so it didn’t take long for me to become the top option. There was basically a snowball effect as I began doing more and more weddings and I just kept growing all the way until 2020 when Covid hit, got through that little “forced vacation” and then continued growing after everything opened back up!

Working mainly in the wedding industry, the “problems” that we solve for clients are often ones that they don’t know anything about. I tell our couples during the consultation phase that, when it comes to your DJ at your wedding, you often “don’t know what you don’t know” when it comes to all the things we have a hand in. Whether it’s ensuring that your ceremony sounds as good as possible, or your sound for your reception is set up correctly, or that we’re prepared for all of your formalities, we have a hand in a lot of things. What I tell our potential couples is “as much as we want to crush your dance floor, we want to crush all the little details leading up to your dance floor as well.”

I think that’s the main thing I want potential clients and couples to know about the brand “Bass & Bliss.” It’s that we are professional and detailed-oriented. It’s not just about partying with you, but providing a solid, professional, all-around service to help your wedding or corporate event run smoothly and be a complete success!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I really built my name, which in turn became my company’s name and reputation, in the wedding market. Weddings were a HUGE percentage of the gigs I did as I was growing on my own and they are.where I built the reputation of what would eventually become “Bass & Bliss.”

There was talent involved in the building of my reputation – I’m certainly not the best DJ, but I’m pretty good and definitely above average for what you see in the wedding industry. But I like to think that what really set me apart was my communication and professionalism. I was told once by a planner, when I was still fairly new in the industry, that “the couple wasn’t my client. The venue and planner were.” I didn’t fully buy into it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with it. Working in a destination market, the couples come into town, have their wedding or event, and then leave. But the venue owners and event planners are the one’s who stay. So I worked hard to impress them – to always communicate effectively, show high-level professionalism, and be easy to work with. When you combined these things with the great product that I was providing, the growth came naturally.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

This is such a great question and definitely something that I am still working on. But it is something I think about a lot, so I am excited to answer it!

I think one of the best things you can do when putting together a team is setting expectations before they even accept the job. Whomever you hire needs to understand what is expected of them so that they aren’t surprised with a bunch of responsibilities and tasks after starting. If you know that the person you hire is fully bought into your vision and everything that is expected of them, then a large part of your battle is already won!

However, to effectively do that, you have to personally understand what your expectations are. It’s easy to hire someone on a whim because you think they’ll do a great job, but then once they start, you realize that they were not the best choice for the job. As the boss, hiring manager, etc, you have to take the time to understand exactly what the job entails and exactly what is expected of people in the position you are hiring for, so that you can pass that info along to all the candidates and ensure you are hiring someone who will be a good fit.

Maintaining high morale once you have your team is something that people who are much smarter than me have written entire books about. But my two cents is that you need to always have your team’s back and you need to show them that you value them. It’s easy to look at people as “employees” or, even worse, “replaceable parts.” But if your team members know you have their back, and they know you value them, I think that goes a long way in ensuring that they are happy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bassandbliss.com
• Instagram: @bass_and_bliss

Image Credits

Kyle Christensen
Ashley LaPrade
Brandon Kidd
Brittanee T Photo
Cassidy Skye