Thread: Spinoff...economy &pricing

How many of you are lowering your rates due to the economy? Or are you assuming that if someone can afford the luxury of a dancer they must be doing ok?

dancers are not a luxury here.the special events of middle eastern families goes on! but bookings are just a tad down.
what is booming is the school.seems we are a better stress buster than a gym!
we did decide to offer a discount on a clients second class a week, some take 2 , some a class w/ a private a week
..

Once you lower prices your whole community will have to fight for YEARS to get them back up. Hold steady.

This whole topic makes me nervous. There's already been a bit of undercutting in my neck of the woods during a GOOD economy. Though I've been out of the performance scene for awhile, I wouldn't be surprised if things have gotten worse out there.

This is a topic we struggle with in radio sales (my day job), believe it or not. Instead, replace "Suzy Nippletassels" with "the station down the street." We're in fierce competition with clueless reps that peddle "packages" and $50 spots.

At my job, we're told to focus more on the difference between cheap and value-added. While our station/cluster doesn't drop its rates to beat the competition, we offer services that our competitors can't touch - like in-house brainstorm sessions, highly trained sales reps, customized programs, event marketing, sponsorship and online capabilities....etc. As they say in the CSS online selling course I'm enrolled in now, this should set you up nicely for the 3 R's: Results, Renewals, and Referrals.

Please note that a major media conglomerate who has been locally notorious for bargain basement rates is currently laying off 9,000 people....if cheapness were a benefit during a recession, these guys wouldn't have to be in this tough position to cut corners.

So why did I go on a rant about radio in a BD thread? I think we could all apply some of the above logic to our own personal positioning as dancers. How do we add value to our venues and to our guests? Do we give the GOH a balloon and a card (like Lauren)? Do we aggressively blast our venue's events on our Facebooks and help them hang up fliers to promote their event? Do we listen and offer suggestions when our venue owners are looking for hot ideas to drive more traffic to their place?

Think outside of "free stuff" or low rates. Make yourself a solution that makes life easier for a restaurant owner or even your average Joe who is throwing a party. Prove that you're giving your clients "bang" for their buck and that you've got their back. I think this is the only way we can go ahead in a crappy economy without lowering our prices.

I completely agree with Samira. Once you drop your rates, you'll all have to go through hell to command fair wages when the economy gets better.

This economy is about people completely losing their jobs. People I know are either doing fine or they're wondering where their groceries will come from next week. Lowering prices isn't going to make hiring a dancer more attractive to either group.

I don't think lowering prices is going to help, and I agree that it might take years to bring rates back up.

As far as businesses that might be hurting a bit -- restaurants and clubs who hire dancers regularly -- it makes more sense to cut back. From two dancers to one on slower nights, or from 6 nights a week to 3. That's how it works with everything else (their ingredients, alcohol, flowers, napkins, utilities). They don't expect their other suppliers to drop rates, they just figure out if they can make do with a little less OF the stuff.

I waffle between thinking undercutting will surge, and thinking that the GP will instead start looking for quality dancers and be willing to pay $$$ for dancers who hold firm, if they feel it's well spent on a good dancer (which equals a fun time, good memories & pictures) vs. Suzy Nippletassels (I like that term, btw ..l;,) who can't necessarily dance and will ultimately disappoint.

Good. I am happy to read these responses, and haven't planned to lower my rates either, but have heard other dancers use that excuse to justify undercutting.

My restaurant manager told me a few weeks ago that he was paying an out of town dancer less to perform than us. Even when she is driving 130 miles to dance. She is young and new to the business, and so I knew she didn't know any better. When I pointed out to him that it was not fair to her he said "but it is good for me...don't tell her".I said of douse I was going to tell her. I told him that having her willing to dance for less was the equivalent to my business of him having another hookah lounge move in next door and sell hookahs for half the price... So I told her what our accepted pricing structure is. Is she sticking to it? I doubt it. The last time I asked if she had raised her prices she said only "manager x has always been fair with me".

Now I'm told he has hired a new, young & inexperienced dancer for Thursdays , a day when he hasn't had dancers before . He told me he is not paying her as much as the other dancers. Again, I sent her our rates so that she could ask for fair rates. Did she up her rates? No. My guess is he told her he couldn't pay that much and she said ok and danced anyway because it's still a novelty.

*sigh* I worked so hard for consistent rates for all if us but these girls just don't care, it's just something "cool" to say they are doing, I guess. Oh well. My rates won't budge. If that means more night home on the couch because I am too expensive, then so be it.

I'm definitely not lowering my rates for performances or classes, but I am holding them steady when it might otherwise have been time for a price increase.

The price of everything else has gone up. I see no reason to decrease the price of a dancer. People who can't afford a dancer aren't going to get one just because you lower your rates a little.

Originally Posted by mrsnj20

The price of everything else has gone up. I see no reason to decrease the price of a dancer. People who can't afford a dancer aren't going to get one just because you lower your rates a little.

I agree with this. Everything is going up. Milk costs more than gasoline. Gas prices are on the rise. Food in general on the rise. I wonder, since everthing is becoming inflationary why shouldn't our prices? This would seem to me to be a time to raise prices. If the cost of living goes up so should our rates...

Originally Posted by mrsnj20

The price of everything else has gone up. I see no reason to decrease the price of a dancer. People who can't afford a dancer aren't going to get one just because you lower your rates a little.

agree with this statement..if someone can't already afford a dancer for a party or event it's unlikely they can afford you if you drop your rates..it's not worth the long term damage to the community

instead, maybe find NEW types of venues where dancers don't necessarily have an across the board or geographical 'going rate', one that you can establish but again don't short change your time

i used to have quite a bit of luck approaching non-med restaurants in the bay area with my contact, name, etc and ask if i could bring parties that booked me as a dancer in to their venue. They loved the idea ..the party would pay me for the event. And i brought in parties to the restaurant (when someone from, say, partypop would call me I'd ask if they had a venue in mind and would suggest the ones I had already approached and said i was already 'cleared' with management to dance there)

In a few cases it led to future bookings by that same restaurant who would call and tell me they had a party coming that had asked about entertainment that was available..so they gave them my name. All arrangements were made between myself and the party..the restaurant/venues just ok'd it.

Im telling ya , managers love to hear how YOU are going to put butts in seats. This also works well for nightclubs if you can stand all the beer gogglers..l;, (but i loved nightclubs oh to have danced in SF all the time..stupid akai silks ...just kidding)

on a side note when the economy started tanking i did NOT lower prices on silk veils..i simply offered more 'student' veils which are not like the really fancy ones. used to be you could only find silk veils for $60 and now ebay is flooded with ten dollar silks. Unless you have a good rep the value has dropped (but same goes for other items too, isis wings used to be a lot more than they are now, too)

hold your guns, going low hurts you and others

Up here in Maine people just don't hire belly dancers frequently... or at all. Our audience would have nothing to compare our rates to if we decided to drop them. It has been hard enough to protect our rates. Why work as hard or harder for less money? It sounds like a volentary demotion to me.
Keep up the good work ladies! Get paid what you are worth. The economy will turn around ..g.: