Recently I was interviewed on The Entrepreneurs Way podcast by the host Neil Ball.
Transcript below
(This was a machine automated transcript so may contain some errors!).
Tony Winyard 0:00
You get a totally different type of customer once your people who are coming to you because they appreciate and they see the value that you give to them. And when you’re given a lot of value to people, then it’s also much easier to charge a far higher price and especially when you’ve got great testimonials, where people you know, you just got so many testimonials of people saying, Oh, you know, the value for money was amazing. He did all these different things me which I wasn’t expecting. He went way beyond what we were, you know what we were expecting to receive, and then you get a much better… you get not such a better type of customer but you get the type of customer that you want to work with and that you enjoy working with.
Neil Ball 0:42
This is the entrepreneur way with Neil Ball unlocking the secrets of successful entrepreneurs, seven days a week, subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Twitter at Neil D Ball. The power of the mastermind, is the driving force to discover how you can unlock the potential in your business using the power of a mastermind, go to www.mastermindunlimited.com And now, here is your host, Neil Ball.
Neil Ball 1:14
Hello, it’s Neil Ball here. Thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is the power of the entrepreneurs journey, the vision, the mindset, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures, and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Tony Winyard. But before we introduce you to Tony, I have a quote for you by Jonathan Sacks, who is a British author and politician. No great achiever, even those who made it seem easy, ever succeeded, without hard work. The entrepreneur way asks the questions. So we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. So Tony, welcome to the show. Are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?
Tony Winyard 2:22
I certainly am Neil,
Neil Ball 2:23
I’m glad that you are Tony. And thank you very much for coming on the show today.
Tony Winyard 2:28
I’m glad to be here. And thank you for inviting me.
Neil Ball 2:30
You’re welcome. Today’s guest is Tony Winyard, who has worked around the world as a club DJ for 12 years before returning to the UK as a wedding DJ. The next 15 years, he raised his fee to 15 times what it had been. Tony is going to give tips on how you can do the same for your clients. So Tony, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life. So allow us to get to know more about who you are and what you do.
Tony Winyard 3:14
So what I really do is I try to help people charge more I try to help people put their prices up. It all came about… I have a very different background, to most people, and probably from many of the guests you’ve had on the show in that I was a professional DJ, a club DJ and I worked all around the world for a number of years. And I was in the Middle East, the Far East, Europe. And I did that for about 12 years. And I came back to England and I’d got bored of being a club DJ, but I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I ended up working as a mobile DJ, which is very different from a club DJ, but I was out of touch with England, I’d been away for so long. I didn’t really know many people anymore. And I ended up doing weddings and I was getting really really poor pay. And I was just really accepting what the going rate was what everyone else was being paid. One day I was doing an event and the venue manager came up to me and he asked me how much I charged and I said to him £150 and he looked at me like I was from Mars. He said £150!? I have DJs charging double that. Why are you charging so little? And then the next day I started thinking about why was I charging so little. And it made me actually think about my pricing for the first time. And I doubled my price the very next day. And over the next few years, I kept increasing my price. It seemed that everyone was booking me which I now realise was a sure sign I was way underpricing myself, but I didn’t realise that back then. But over the years I’ve done lots of courses in different things to broaden my skill base. And my prices kept going up to the point where back then where I was charging £150 of which was the going rates. And now I charge probably 15 times what most DJs charge, although I don’t really DJ so much now. But that is my background.
Neil Ball 5:03
Okay, so when you say you help people to charge more, who are the people that you help.
Tony Winyard 5:09
So it’s typically small businesses. I’m often speaking at various sort of events, and networking meetings, and so on. Most people have a real fear about putting their prices up, especially small businesses, and they want to, but they fear, they’re going to lose customers. That people are going to go to the competition and so on. And even though they know that they should be charging more, and it’s all these, self-limiting beliefs that we have, so I just help them through that whole process.
Neil Ball 5:36
So how would somebody know if you could help them right now in their business?
Tony Winyard 5:42
If they’re working way too much, if they’re just working every hour… because they’re having to work so much, they’re not really given the quality of service to each of their customers that they’d really like to simply because there’s not enough time. And the reason they’re having to work so much because they’re charging so little. So, therefore, they also accept almost every offer that comes their way, even if they don’t like that client, but they need the money. So they’re typically the people who are really in need of the sort of thing I do.
Neil Ball 6:14
And because they might have self-limiting beliefs, they might also be thinking to themselves that they can’t raise their prices, because they’ll lose customers,
Tony Winyard 6:21
Precisely. And they think of themselves as a commodity. They think, Oh, I’m just doing the same as everybody else. So I can’t charge more than the other people that are doing the same thing as me. And it just reinforces their self-limiting beliefs.
Neil Ball 6:36
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
Tony Winyard 6:40
I think what it is, I mean, so on the face of it, I said that what I do is, is help people put their prices up. But it’s actually much more than that. Because what I really try to help people achieve is to have a better quality of life. Because by charging a higher price, you’re then working less, you’ve got more free time to spend with your friends, with your family, taking holidays, and so on. That all results in a better quality of life, just enjoying life more. The customers that you’re working with, they’re the ones that you selected. So you enjoy your work, and you enjoy when you’re not working. So it just leads to an all-around better quality of life.
Neil Ball 7:15
What drives you to do what you do?
Tony Winyard 7:18
I think because I’ve always enjoyed helping people. How this started off, how I started speaking about this was when my prices just kept increasing and going up and up. A lot of DJs were asking me, how are you able to charge these prices and get people to pay for it. And then I started to get invited to speak at DJ events. And that widened to the larger wedding industry. So then I was speaking to photographers and florists and so on. And then one day I was speaking at such an event and a professional speaker saw me and said, you know what you’re speaking about is relevant to everyone, not just DJs. And he mentored me and helped me create a much stronger talk.
Neil Ball 8:00
So how was it that you could charge more as a DJ, when you mentioned earlier, charge up to 15 times more, so how was it people will pay you up to that amount more?
Tony Winyard 8:10
I think that the biggest thing that I learned, and I think what most DJ haven’t realised, is most DJ when they try to sell themselves, they talk about their equipment, and they’ve got this fancy light and that amazing speaker and, the customers don’t give a damn about any of that. What the customer cares about is; because it’s an intangible service, like most services, you can’t touch it. So people are having to rely on confidence in you. And so it’s really important that you need to give people total peace of mind that you’re going to deliver exactly what it is they want. That you’ve really listened to what music it is they’re into, what style, what atmosphere, they’re looking for. The type of guests that… once people are really confident and certain that you understand what they want and what they don’t want. And once they’re absolutely certain that you’re the person that’s going to deliver it, and you’ve got great testimonials, and they’ve probably been referred to you as well, then it’s much easier to charge higher prices.
Neil Ball 9:12
How do you relax when you’re not working in your business?
Tony Winyard 9:16
I do so many strange things! So I do gymnastics, which kind of surprises a lot of people. I like walking, sometimes I go for a walk. I’m into philosophy. I quite I like debating, I often go to speaking events where people are debating different issues. I do lots of different things. I think the one thing that I probably don’t do that most people do is I don’t even have a TV. I just find it so boring most of the stuff on TV, if there is a programme that I particularly want to watch, well I can just watch it on iPlayer on my computer, but I don’t actually have a TV.
Neil Ball 9:54
I can understand that. I actually don’t watch TV. The only thing I watch is the old movie here and there. And that’s it. So you do gymnastics, what do you do in gymnastics?
Tony Winyard 10:04
So I say gymnastics, it’s actually something called Stretch Therapy. It’s a cross between gymnastics and yoga. So it’s not the same as the gymnastics you would see in the Olympics. So I’m not swinging around the room on bars or anything. But it’s not the same as yoga either. So as I say, it’s a fusion between the two. I just I find it. It keeps me supple, it keeps me mobile, flexible. But where it really differs to yoga is that there’s very much a strength element in Stretch Therapy, which you don’t have so much in yoga.
Neil Ball 10:39
Do you have any entrepreneurial role models?
Tony Winyard 10:44
I’ve never really been the person who has a role model as such. There’s a lot of people I take different things from rather than one person. So there’s probably I could name, 10 different people who I like different aspects of what they do but there’s no one person that I like everything they do. So yeah, if that answers the question?
Neil Ball 11:07
Yeah, I can understand that, actually. Because there’s no one person who’s perfect at everything. Is there Really? Yeah, I see it as being I think this is you draw inspiration from different things that people do. And somehow that contributes to where you mash all that together. And it influences you in the way that you think, I think. That’s the way I look at it,
Tony Winyard 11:29
Exactly what you just said. Exactly.
Neil Ball 11:33
So I mean, you’ve told us a little bit about your business and your personal life. We’re now going to jump back in time and talk about the time before you were an entrepreneur. What difficulties did you have to overcome when you started your business?
Tony Winyard 11:47
I think it was, as I mentioned before, that when I first came back. I’ve been self-employed my whole life really because even when I was a club DJ, I was still mostly self-employed. In the early days, when I was travelling around the world; from the outside, it seemed very glamorous, but the reality was the pay wasn’t great. But I was having a great time seeing the world. So I wasn’t really bothered about the pay. But then when I came back to England, and then the pay still wasn’t good, but there wasn’t the glamour that I was getting from travelling around the world and living in amazing places. So then life wasn’t quite so much fun. And it was really that experience that I mentioned before when that guy in the venue said that, you should be charging more. And it really made me start thinking about lots of different things. I’ve never been good at admin. I know most people probably aren’t, but I just I detest doing admin. And I just seemed to be working all hours of the day trying to get more bookings, trying to get different venues to have me maybe as their resident DJ, or whatever it was.
Neil Ball 12:59
You see, even as a club DJ, you could probably charge more money couldn’t, you know? I used to work in the nightclub business. And I know that a DJ that can fill the place can get paid quite well, whereas one that doesn’t get fired.
Tony Winyard 13:15
And the thing was, I was when I look back at now, without trying to blow my own horn, I know, I was very good because I was always filled the floor. And this may sound ridiculous. But the reason I stopped it was because, there was no challenge because I was filling the floor every night, which you know, is exactly what a club DJ is supposed to do. But it wasn’t really much of a challenge. Because most people go to a club, they know roughly what the music is going to be. Most people are of a similar age group. The lighting, the sound, everything is set up to make it easy for the DJ to shine. I just got bored with it after a while. And I think the thing that differed about a wedding DJ, and there’s so little respect given to a wedding DJ compared to a club DJ; is the one aspect that I really enjoyed, it was a real challenge. Because you’ve got all different age groups, different music tastes, the sound is often an issue because you’re in a different venue every time. The lighting is an issue, often people have got no interest in dancing, because they haven’t seen Uncle Phil for the last 10 years, and they just want to chat all night. And so it became a real challenge to get people to dance. And so I think that was the biggest difference between the two.
Neil Ball 14:32
Did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?
Tony Winyard 14:36
No. I think one thing I’m lucky in is that I’ve never been a type of person that worries about things. Even when I was a kid. I’ve never seen the point in worrying because it doesn’t solve anything. So, therefore, my reasoning has always been, so what’s the point in worrying? So once I decided and once I realised that I was much happier deciding things for myself, rather than working for someone. I just decided to go for it.
Neil Ball 15:07
What mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?
Tony Winyard 15:11
Um, the pricing definitely was a major one because I was charging way too little. Probably trying to do too much. It took me a while to realise that I was calling myself a professional DJ and yet I was trying to do a lot of services that I should have been hiring professionals to do. I was trying to do those myself such as website building and, designing adverts, and leaflets and so on and copywriting and many other things, which I now I always get freelancers to do all those different things. But it took me too long to realise that I shouldn’t have been wasting my time on things like that, which I wasn’t great at and that I didn’t enjoy.
Neil Ball 15:53
So why do you think he was that in those days, you used to think you could do all of those things?
Tony Winyard 15:59
Well, partly it was because of the money because I was charging so little I just felt I couldn’t afford to be paying for a copywriter, or for a professional web designer, or for a designer to be creating an amazing ad or amazing post or whatever it may have been. And so it was a catch 22 situation really.
Neil Ball 16:20
What are some of the things that you did before you started your business that will be helpful tips to some of the listeners who haven’t yet taken the first step on the entrepreneur way?
Tony Winyard 16:31
I think it’s helpful if you can get an understanding of what you are good at. There’s a fantastic book when you first want to get into business. And now the title escapes me, it’s going to come back to me in a minute. But it’s really going to bug me. But it’s about understanding what you’re really good at, and what you’re not good at. So if you’re not good at design, you’re not good at admin, you’re not good at accounts. So those things really bug you and you just don’t want to do them. Even though you may be struggling financially, if you can give those jobs to someone else who can do them, it will free you up and free your creative mind much more to work on the things that you like doing, and you’ll excel much faster and you’ll start making money quicker as well.
Neil Ball 17:25
So, we’re now going to jump forward in time and talk about the time from when you became an entrepreneur. Do you think culture is important from the beginning getting the business?
Tony Winyard 17:35
Yeah, it absolutely is. And I’ve just remembered the name of the book, it was the E-myth. Yeah, culture is absolutely important. It’s the way you do things, how you go about doing things, the kind of people you’re working for and you’re working with. All of that makes such a difference to the results that you’re getting, and the customers that you’re getting, and so on.
Neil Ball 18:00
How do you make sure that you work with the right people so that they fit with the culture in your business?
Tony Winyard 18:07
One of the things I talk about in the keynotes I deliver and in the workshops that I deliver is I say to people, it’s really important that once you get to the point where you’re finding customers who are with you because of the value you’re providing, rather than just because you’re charging the lowest price; you get a totally different type of customer, once people are coming to you because they appreciate and they see the value that you give to them. And when you’re given a lot of value to people, then it’s also much easier to charge a far higher price. And especially when you’ve got great testimonials, where you’ve just got so many testimonials of people saying oh, the value for money was amazing. He did all these different things for me which I wasn’t expecting, he went way beyond what we were expecting to receive. And then you get a much better, not so much better type of customer but you get the type of customer that you want to work with and that you enjoy working with.
Neil Ball 19:08
Knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you’d known it when you started out, that would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?
Tony Winyard 19:16
Yeah, now I’m an avid reader, I have an amazing thirst for knowledge. And I’m always reading different books, listening to different podcasts, just acquiring different knowledge on various things that will help me in various aspects of my business. And I wish I’d have started that much earlier. Because once I started on that journey, things really started to change quite quickly. And if I’d have been more into reading some of the… there are so many amazing books around that can really help you. I think that would have made a big difference.
Neil Ball 19:51
How much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?
Tony Winyard 19:56
Hugely Yeah, if I don’t feel something is right, if there’s something inside me that says, this customer is not right, or, someone I’m going to be working with, maybe like a freelancer or whatever it may be, if I have a feeling that there’s something not right about that person, then I won’t work with them.
Neil Ball 20:21
What makes you uncomfortable as an entrepreneur?
Tony Winyard 20:27
I don’t think there is much now because I’m now in a much better situation. And generally working with people who I like working with. Both customers and suppliers. And also as I said before, I don’t really worry about things. And I’m not working anywhere near the type of hours that most people work. I mean, I actually work probably fewer hours than almost anyone I know. I’ve got quite an enjoyable life. So I don’t really have anything that I feel uncomfortable about.
Neil Ball 21:00
What do you think are some of the secrets to success?
Tony Winyard 21:06
I think it’s definitely enjoying what you’re doing. It’s working with the people that you enjoy working with. And being comfortable, really comfortable in your expertise and in the skills that you have, the knowledge that you have, and realising and being confident that people do value what it is that you have, and that you can help people achieve whatever it is that they want, whether that be, status or happiness or whatever service it is you’re delivering for them.
Neil Ball 21:42
Life is made of constant change whether we like it or not. And many people say that the only constant in life is change. Tony, how do you try to keep up with change?
Tony Winyard 21:56
Well, I think it’s easier than ever to keep up with change because of things like what you’re doing, podcasts. There are so many podcasts around. You can name any subject under the sun and there will be a podcast about it. There is probably a podcast about nail clipping! it’s just there’s a podcast about anything. And sometimes when I realise there’s a skill or there’s a topic that I want to get more knowledge on. My first port of call is usually either to listen to a podcast on that subject, or often I listen to a few different podcasts, or to go to YouTube and watch some different videos on that. Or maybe if I want to go really deep, then I’ll get some books on it as well.
Neil Ball 22:39
The second person who said that to me recently about this podcast on virtually anything, they suggested that there’s probably even a podcast on tires.
Tony Winyard 22:47
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Neil Ball 22:50
Nail clipping that’s a very specific one, isn’t it that?
Tony Winyard 22:55
It’s apparently really good!
Neil Ball 23:01
I’d have thought you need a visual medium for that. But maybe. What is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism business, personal development, leadership or motivation? And can you tell us why you have chosen it?
Tony Winyard 23:19
That’s again, that’s like the role model question. As I said before, I’ve read so many different books. And I’m always reading. Since January 1st I’ve read 25 books so far this year. But as for my favourite books, rather than choose one, I’m going to say probably three. So one is the E-myth Revisited, which I talked about before because that really helped me with some of the basics of business. And it also helped me to understand that, you really need to pass on the things that you’re not good at and that you don’t enjoy doing to other people, who are good at those things and do enjoy doing them. So that’s one book. Another one was the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. I think it’s called something like that, by Stephen Covey. That really helped my mindset. And a similar book although it’s much older was the Carnegie book The…
Neil Ball 24:17
to win friends, and
Tony Winyard 24:18
Yeah, How to Win Friends and Influence People that again, those two books really helped me have a change of mindset about the way I approached people. And the way I approached things that I did. So probably a combination of those three books. And actually one other book; There’s a book called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor in, back in the times of the Roman Empire. And at the time was the most powerful man on earth. Meditations is actually a diary he kept, where he lambasted himself every evening, about how he wasn’t kind to someone, or he didn’t treat someone with respect or he lost his temper at someone. And yet he was the most powerful man on earth, He could have done anything he wanted. But he was constantly trying to be a better person to treat people better. And I think that book has had a major influence on me as well.
Neil Ball 25:16
Folks, when you have a busy life, listening to audiobooks is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time when you may be doing other things such as driving or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you have a free audiobook of your choosing. To choose your free audiobook, go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com as long as you’re not already signed up, then you will qualify. Tony, are you ready to speculate about the future?
Tony Winyard 25:49
I certainly am.
Neil Ball 25:50
Oh, good. What is one thing would you do with your business, if you knew that you could not fail?
Tony Winyard 25:59
I think I would take it internationally a bit quicker than I have been. Because I’ve done the whole kind of International Circuit as far as DJing is concerned, and I really enjoyed working in many, many different countries. And now in my speaking and in my workshops that I deliver, and soon I’ll have an online course, I think I want to go back to going around different countries again,
Neil Ball 26:26
What skill if you were excellent at it would help you the most to double your business.
Tony Winyard 26:32
I think copywriting. I think I’m a pretty good writer, I’m writing a book at the moment, I’ve written tonnes of articles for various magazines over the years. But I think the power of a good, well-written article can be so powerful. It can help you in so many different ways. So that is something I would love to be better at.
Neil Ball 26:56
So how can you get better at that?
Tony Winyard 26:58
So probably I should, I mean, I’ve been looking at different places that do courses on copywriting. And I’ve kind of dabbled with, although I haven’t actually done anything about it. But it’s something I probably will look at at some point in the near future.
Neil Ball 27:14
In five years from now, if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?
Tony Winyard 27:26
I’d like it that my books, my workshops, my courses have really helped people have a better quality of life, really, because that’s really what I like to help people with. That it’s just helped them to adjust their mindset on the whole area of pricing themselves and their limiting beliefs and I’ve helped them break through that and it’s resulted in them enjoying their life more and spending more time with their friends and families and having holidays. I’d love that to be the case.
Neil Ball 27:55
It’s now time for three golden nuggets. Tony one, what is your favourite quote? And how have you applied it?
Tony Winyard 28:05
I think my favourite quote, I’ve got a few favourite quotes. But probably one is, it’s hard to say who actually this is attributed to because different people say it was attributed to different people. But it says, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom”. And what it really boils down to is most people, when something happens, they have a default reaction. And whether that be anger, or mocking, or whatever it might be. But when something happens by stopping and pausing to think what really happened there and deciding how am I going to react to that rather than having a default reaction? I think that has had an impact on me that quote,
Unknown Speaker 28:58
Do you have any favourite online resources you can share with us that will be useful for other entrepreneurs?
Tony Winyard 29:05
Yeah, there’s a Facebook group called the Connection Hub. It’s for speakers, authors and coaches, essentially, although there are other people who find it useful as well. But if you are in any of those areas that; speaker, author or coach, it’s an excellent resource. There’s some great information. So yeah, check out the Connection Hub,
Neil Ball 29:25
What is your best advice to other entrepreneurs
Tony Winyard 29:31
To never stop learning… but also not just about learning, but you need to apply the learning. Because too often we go to seminars, workshops, and so on, and we take in this great information and then we don’t do anything with it. There’s a quote by a guy called Epictetus who said, “Learning that does not lead to action is useless”. So it’s really about when you hear a great speaker, you attend a great workshop; you’ve got to apply that knowledge.
Neil Ball 30:05
Folks, if you didn’t manage to get to know Tony’s favourite resource or his favourite book, you can find the links on Tony’s show notes page, just go to the EntrepreneurWay.com and search for Tony, or Tony Winyard. In the search box, Tony, is there anything else you would like to add about your business?
Tony Winyard 30:28
Um, I think it’s just that I’m in a lucky position Neil that I enjoy what I do, I enjoy helping people. And working for yourself is, it’s the best thing that you can do. Because you don’t have someone standing over you telling you what to do, and telling you how much you can earn. You’re in charge of what you can earn. There’s no greater feeling.
Neil Ball 30:50
Thank you for that. Tony, Tony, it really has been an honour having you on the show today. Thank you for coming on and telling us about your journey as an entrepreneur, and your transition from DJ to somebody who helps people charge more money. I’m sure that must light up a lot of people’s eyes when they think about that. But you’ve also shared some of your reflections on what you’ve learned as an entrepreneur, you’ve given some great advice and you’ve shared just your mindset of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur today. So thank you very much for coming on the show.
Tony Winyard 31:26
I really appreciate you inviting me Neil.
Neil Ball 31:28
You’re welcome, Tony and thank you. Folks, You have been listening to Neil Ball chatting with Tony Winyard on the Entrepreneur Way. If you have enjoyed the show, please share it on social media, and subscribe to our email on the entrepreneur way website. Also, please add your comments on Tony show notes page on the entrepreneur way website@ www.theentrepreneurway.com and search for Tony Winyard in the search box. Thank you for listening. And Until the next episode tomorrow. Goodbye.
Neil Ball 32:06
Thank you for listening to the entrepreneur way, subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Twitter at Neil D Ball.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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