Wondering how to break into the Jewish wedding world? Geoff Kretchmer, owner and managing partner of Star Trax shares his best tips.
Geoff also dishes on how he trains his staff in the art of that famous Jewish dance, the hora.
Join Pat Blackwell here every week, where you, the BEST vendors, expand your wedding business into this lucrative Jewish market. By understanding the traditions & vocabulary, you will build TRUST and GROW your business. Cha Ching
Links mentioned in this episode:
Don’t miss future episodes!
SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A REVIEW: Apple Podcasts - Google Play - Spotify and MORE!
For more platforms visit: BUZZSPROUT
Just like in the party world, reviews are like GOLD. If you liked what you heard, please leave me a review and share what you liked the most about the episode.
CONNECT: Email
LIKE & FOLLOW: Facebook Instagram
LEARN MORE: Website
Wondering how to break into the Jewish wedding world? Geoff Kretchmer, owner and managing partner of Star Trax shares his best tips.
Geoff also dishes on how he trains his staff in the art of that famous Jewish dance, the hora.
Join Pat Blackwell here every week, where you, the BEST vendors, expand your wedding business into this lucrative Jewish market. By understanding the traditions & vocabulary, you will build TRUST and GROW your business. Cha Ching
Links mentioned in this episode:
Don’t miss future episodes!
SUBSCRIBE & LEAVE A REVIEW: Apple Podcasts - Google Play - Spotify and MORE!
For more platforms visit: BUZZSPROUT
Just like in the party world, reviews are like GOLD. If you liked what you heard, please leave me a review and share what you liked the most about the episode.
CONNECT: Email
LIKE & FOLLOW: Facebook Instagram
LEARN MORE: Website
Hello there, welcome to episode number four of the book more Jewish weddings podcast. I'm your host, Pat Blackwell. Today, I have the pleasure of talking with Jeff kretchmer, the owner and managing partner of Star Trek, the greatest Interactive Entertainment Group in the United States. When I asked Jeff, how new vendors can get started in the Jewish wedding market, he said these three really profound words, plant positive seeds. Plant positive seeds, think about that one. Everywhere you go, everything you do, give more than they expect, do more than they expect. Step up and get involved. Let people get to know you that will help you grow your business. For those of you who don't know, Star Trek's, you're missing out. They offer DJ services, MC services, full party planning, wedding planning valet, and all kinds of interactive activities. As a red coat lady, I get lucky enough to work with Star Trek nearly every week. And it's easy for me to say they are the best. I love working with the best. So let's get right into this week's episode talking with Jeff. Hi, Pat. Hello there. How are you? I'm fantastic. Thanks. How are you? I'm terrific. As always. So are you totally zoomed out? No, no, I like it. Yeah, I think you and I are in the business of being around people. And I like that a lot better. But, yeah, the idea of showing up to a meeting at 229 for 230 meeting. And I think a whole bunch of people are going to discover that productivity has increased tremendously. And they don't need to have all these in person meetings. But I do miss people. I do miss that human. Oh, absolutely. But I'm discovering that meetings with brides are much easier to schedule now because the brides are all over the country. And it's easy to get together on a Thursday night. Instead of waiting until they're in town when they have 12 wedding weddings ready. They're worn out from meeting with the florist and the photographer and and and and I'm excited for one party startup again. My phone's been ringing, which is awesome. I love that my phone's ringing. But it's ringing for August. It's ringing for September. It's ringing for 2022. Exactly. You know, our April's and Mays seem to right now just be postponing them and not canceling like the spring, summer winter of this year. Or last year was. So we've been we've gotten a lot of I don't want my deposit back yet. Or you know, I'm canceling. But let's see what dates are available. Thank you for agreeing to be my very first guest. My pleasure path. You kidding me? Hey, I'm excited to be doing this. And it's a whole new world. And it's a digital world that I'm not very, very comfortable with. But I'm learning. And what I'm finding out is that this whole dog can learn some new tricks. And it's always good to learn new tricks. But it's kind of scary, too. And I'm grateful to have my son helped me. So my podcast is called the Jewish party Maven. And the goal is to get a bunch of vendors, even better at their job, or people who have never worked a Jewish party to get to realize that Jewish parties are just like any other parties, with a couple of twists. And so I would love to talk about some of the things that make a Jewish party special, like the horror. I know you guys are amazing at the horror. And part of the reason for teaching this class is because that's pretty darn rare. And a whole bunch of your competitors are not amazing at the horror and I don't want to give all your secrets. But can you explain to us what the horror is? Sure, absolutely. So it is a it's a traditional Jewish dance, a celebratory dance that takes place where there are circles of people going in opposite directions, with the family on the inside of that circle celebrating and the outside of the circles or the warmth, leading them into that dance. And it is it's a fabulous dance, and not easy. Because the dance starts out with no circles. Nobody's around, except maybe the four or five, six members of the immediate family. And so there's a couple tricks to the trade. I think one thing that's beautiful is that at a bar mitzvah or wedding, when you have a decent percentage of Jewish people attending, they have experienced the horror once or twice, so they don't need to know exactly where to be. So it's a lot of facilitation. But the circles need to go in opposite directions. People need to link hands, the music needs, the energy needs to be high, the music needs to be perfect. And so it's up to our MCs to make sure that we are linking the people in the right way. So number one, it's got to have energy and when a hora doesn't have energy Then it dies down very, very quickly. We want this to be a dance like a top that's spinning that gets faster and faster and faster and faster, hits its peak, and then slows down and in to its end. And so there's the we usually have Natalie and MC. But we have interactive dancers, and they know that they're kind of responsible for each layer of that hora. So the MC may be responsible for the inner layer to get the family going locked in hands going in the right way with the energy. And then a first tier dancer may be responsible for the second tier where there's a larger circle, maybe 15, or 20 people around them, and then maybe 40 people around and continuing to invite people and not only just invite them up, invite them up, hold hands, let them blacker hands with somebody else, so that you have put them in the perfect position to continue along with the circle. It's it is the warmest, most fun high energy dance to get a party going. And what ends up happening often is that although the circles are going, there are other dance routines going on in the middle of it, maybe a father and a son will kick off in this together a mother and a son, mother and a daughter. And there's a whole different set of traditions. And I don't know the names of all of them, but that they go one on one and dance everybody starts to watch. But as soon as they're done, everybody's watching, you got to get back in the circle and go, once the hands start unlinking or you walk somebody up to the hora don't link them with another family member and other guests to the event, they're often just going to walk away, they felt compelled to take your hand because you're the dancer, but link them linked them to our hands, let them hold hands. And then they're a part of the activity, chairs, and it's very easy to be on the outside. And then what ends up happening is that people are lifted in a chair. And this is a whole routine that we set up beforehand. Our dancers, as soon as they get to a venue are responsible for a lot of things, getting the water set up making sure we're touching base with you, making sure we're touching base with the family. But also making sure that there's a chair, preferably with arms, that is set aside that isn't too heavy, that is set aside in a corner. So when we're doing the horse, it's easy for them to grab. So a couple things. Number one, we actually have horrid chairs now, because there were so many venues that didn't have the appropriate chair. So we want to provide a word chair. And you don't want to provide something with no stability. You know, so oftentimes in a picnic, for instance, you see a plastic chair, which is fine to sit on maybe for a you know for a meal, but trying to lift people up in that plus year, it gets dangerous, you've got to be able to grip the chair and the person in the chair, which is often at a bar mitzvah, it's the bar Bat Mitzvah child, then it's their siblings, it's the parents and in at a wedding, it's it's it's the bride and the groom, and often the parents go up as well. And you need that to be secure and steady because if it's not on, you know, people with gotten certainly have gotten hurt, people have certainly fallen off, but you are going around and you've got people lifting the chair. So if you're one of the lifters, make sure that your back is okay. Your rotator cuffs are okay, you're ready to lift in grab, and that you have plenty of support. And that's another job of our MCs and our dancers. You can't just have two people five for 126 pounds trying to lift the father of the bar mitzvah Boy, you need to find some Sharky guys some strong guys to help at all sides of the chair. So it's it's stable, and that the father or the mother, they also feel stable. One of the key elements when you are a female when you're up there is to make sure that your dress is down and kind of tucked underneath your thighs too. Because dresses fly all over the place. And we want to have fun and make sure that everybody looks safe. But it is a lot. It is a fun addition. Oh amazing. And your crew is fantastic at it and you've trained them well. And it's the envy of the whole city of how well your crew does at this. I worked with a band once who was a decent band, but had never played the horror before. And they started by going no, oh it was the scary thing is one of my favorite parts when I first started at Star tracks is not only seeing the horror, but seeing that my MCs knew all the words to the horror. So when you hear it you know you're doing 80 to 100 MCs are doing at 200 parties here we're doing 325 parties here. So when you're at parties over and over and over again, you just start to learn it and they knew the words to this to this is legendary, legendary stories about that. No. But you have built up an incredible business and I know this has been a challenging year for you. But tell us about really, you went from being a small little DJ company to being This thriving business. Well, thank you very much. Number one, we've had great people that have run this business over the years. The founders, Mark Schecter and Rene Erlich are a plus people. They're the ones that built this business. They built this brand. Randy Wertheimer came in and really introduce the bigger Bar Mitzvah was a very had a very creative mind was a great partner, Craig early because Rene's husband, who really ran a different side of the business for a while, but his vision was incredible. And now Brian Siegel, who's my partner, it's we've got we've got great people, Pat, we really so for starting out the MC, if you started out with the MC DJ, part of the business, it's the most critical part of a party, I believe it's food and beverages super important. You want to have great food and beverage, and a lot of places in our in our area, do it, do it so well. decor is super important. So whoever you choose from decor, to extrapolate, the theme of the party is really, really important. venue choices really, really important. valet parking is really important. My belief, though, is that if you go to a party, and everything is perfect in those elements, but nobody dances because entertainers don't get people going, then you don't leave the party feeling as satisfied as you should. When some of those elements are not as good as a lot of our vendors are the dance floor is jamming the entire time. And you have to drive people off the dance floor and you're going until 1230 and one o'clock and they want to keep on going. That is a super successful party in my eyes, and I value so many other things. I value the planners, I value the decorators, I value the caterers, I think we all work really, really well together. But but they they want a dance party, this is not a sports party. This is not an afternoon luncheon without dancing, they have hired us for a dance party. And so we believe that we have the greatest interactive entertainers there are. So you look at our lineup of our MCs, historically, we've had great entertainers to you know, since I started in 2000, since we started interactive entertainment business in 1993. Our lead MCs have always been people with a ton of talent, with a ton of energy, they know how to connect with people, they know the music, they're really, really good at understanding what music to play, what music not to play, when a song isn't working to switch the song up, you know, communicate with the DJs and switch the song up. And so that is the biggest element that kicked off our relationship. And what that did was that allowed us to enter into hundreds of bar Bat Mitzvahs a year and other social events a year. And with that, then I believe it's the relationships from, you know, from my side, from Brian side, from the people that work with me now and Jan and Shannon, and Harris and Danielle. And we have solidified relationships in this community that allow them to trust us with other things. So whether it be valet parking, or now full service party planning, or our photo booths, or some of our arcade games, or other things that we happen to offer, the staging, the lighting, the couches, they we have built trust in our clientele, that there's a couple things. Number one, we're going to provide a great service, we're going to buy only the best things we're not, we're not trying to buy things that aren't working and try to pass it along 50 times, you know, furniture that is used, that doesn't look good. When we have furniture that doesn't look good, we throw it away, and we buy new furniture. If arcade games aren't looking good, we buy new arcade games and make them look good. So I mean by nuance. And we also Pat are really good at saying I'm sorry. So when we're involved in whatever 400 500 parties a year, All told, we screw up all the time. There's there's power issues that go that go out. There are lights that are forgotten, a light bulb goes out, a dancer doesn't show up, whatever the case may be valet parking, we lose keys, we crash cars. And one of the things that I think that we're always been really good at is just I'm saying I'm sorry, we're not trying to blame anybody else. We don't throw any other fun vendors under the bus. It's us, it's on us. And I think that has added a lot of value to our relationships. We give money back or we roll money over to the next party. But we have that conversation. And don't ever try to avoid when we did not meet the expectations of a client. And I think that's build trust over the years and allowed us to grow as a business. Because the value of the relationship we have between us in our clientele means the world to us, pathological and by the way, we're pathological pleasers. It kills us. It kills us when we don't do the right thing. When we when we you know, make a mistake. We're late to parties, we crash a car, we are beating ourselves up. And so you know when you see john and Danielle and Harris and Shannon, and that's just the people working on events, you know, Todd, and Matt and Zack are the valet guys. They're unbelievable. And Jimmy and Ken and out, you know, I've got so many different divisions, and we all talk about the need to please, we are obsessed with delivering that customer experience. And it's one of the things that we constantly talk about our mission statement is that everyone needs to fall in love with us, because if they don't, we're not doing our job. So that's always talked about. And you do it very, very well, in good faith. We love our partners in this community to like you, and works out well together. That's huge, too. So let's talk about that a little bit. How do you develop vendor relationships? Right. So the beauty of it is that, you know, number one, when you do so many parties, you and you, there are certain things that you don't supply, you are on site with them, and you're on site with them days before sometimes or just the morning of, and you have to work with them, because you're in a room. And everybody's got a responsibility in that room. And sometimes you need the same space as the caterer or you need the same space as a photographer. And so if you're not planning nicely in the sandbox, then your people aren't going to refer you and you're not going to refer them. So on site, it's critical that there's respect going on. And we all know vendors who don't respect that, who think that they're the only vendor there, they're the most important, the party wouldn't be anything without them. And those are the people that don't last long in our community at all. We joined forces with Joe Cornell. And so now every everything is Star Trek, in what back out works with us. And for 15 years prior to us, they created Jojo Cornell event show. And so when, when Rebecca came over to work with Star tracks, she brought along planet magazine, which has vendors that that advertise in the magazine, and the event show which every year has 50 to 60 vendors that advertise at the show, and we have clients that go go through. She has been magical in developing those relationships. We she doesn't work on a day to day basis now with clients for their bar, Bat Mitzvahs. So we are we are sharpening the relationship between in those really in those areas. And she is sharpening the relationships in getting them to be a part of our show. And so again, the same thing, we want people who want to partner with us as the show, we want people who want to treat their clients like gold at this show, and all grow together. And I can thank Rebecca and my event staff for really developing those relationships, where there's trust. And by the way, there are times where there are issues between companies. But it's a very, very rare occasion, where we can't have a conversation on the phone. We may think very differently about the situation that happened. And then we move on. You know, this is in this worse. We're a small, we fill a need in a small niche community. And although Star Trek's has grown, these relationships are so critical to who we are that unless something really really Bad's happened, Pat, it's not worth holding grudges, you just got to move on. And it's okay that we feel differently about maybe a circumstance that occurred we thought it was their fault. They thought it was our fault. Let's talk it out. But then let's do over done with God and move on with our relationship. We hold grudges and then bad things start happening. How did you get into this market? So I am i sorry, dancer. Yeah, yeah. Good. Good. Hi, I finally said, there are two things I would like to be able to do. One is be a scratch golfer. And two is to be a really good dancer. I have a very, very close friend Mike, my closest friend in the world, who is a fabulous dancer, who could have been the best emcee to shout out to Adam Cohen, who could have been the best emcee that Star Trek has ever seen. I'm telling you, if he knew this, and this was happening in the 1980s, he would have been killing the game. But he's now 53 years old and would not kill the game anymore. My I mentioned well as an attorney, Hey, does. He? So I mentioned Craig and Rene Ehrlich early on in the discussion. Rene and Mark Schechter, really the founder of Star Trek's I was a psychologist for many years, I worked for a place called the orchard Children's Services, which is the was at that time the largest child welfare agency in the state of Michigan with over 500 kids in foster care. And at that point, they were doing 200 adoptions a year. And they were like an eight, eight or $9 million agency, Michael Williams, who's now the CEO said a great job to grow it. And it was I thought my future was to be the CEO of the orchards. I loved it there. I spent 10 years there. I had a mentor named Jerry Levin, who was the CEO there, and I figured my pathway in five or six years when he would retire would be to be the CEO of that business. When I was 31. He unfortunately had a heart attack and Petra Jordan and died sudden And I was in no shape ready to be the CEO that I didn't have the skill set at all to be able to run an organization. I needed a lot to learn. Anyways, the lady that did take it over, I knew that she was going to be in that position for 20 years. She's probably 42 years old. She was going to be in that position for 20 years. And I was getting at that point in time, I was still in graduate school, I had two small kids, I was working full time, and I was getting a little exhausted. And my kids were swimming with the Ehrlich's kids, and we're best friends are Rene's parents and my parents. We've been best friends since our embryonic stages. And I talked about how, you know, I was thinking about leaving the orchards. And Renee said, Great, you're gonna come work for us, and gave me the upper card, Greg, Renee gave me the opportunity. And I worked on the corporate side of the business for a couple of years, and then became a partner on the social side, which is star tracks. the corporate side became Paul's 220, which later sold to George P. Johnson. And the social side is still tired Star Trek's and still growing. So since 2000, since October of 2000, I've been there. And it's been a great run, change the entire course of my life. And you with two young kids chose this nice relaxing field of events. Right? You know, it's funny, so exactly, from literally from 2002 through 2017. Essentially, every Saturday night, every weekend, every Saturday and Sunday, I would go to the parties, I remember when I first bought it when I was trying to learn the business, I would go to every party three or four times. So it start off my day at 530 hit the parties make sure the setup is okay. If I could see people there, I'd say hello to them, and then come back at 830 or nine o'clock and just in walk in my house at wanting to leave the house in the afternoon because I'd help set up at that time I needed to learn the business and walk in my house at 130 or two every single weekend for 14 years. And I loved it. I'm a worker. But it certainly is not great on the weekend social life. And that's why my partner Brian, I decided to open bars so that we can still be out despite the fact that I don't go to bar mitzvahs anymore, we could still be out every Friday and Saturday night working. So it's just part of my life. Again, I'm a worker, I've been lucky to have visionaries in my world, like Brian, who, who create a lot of the growth, and I'm happy to work it. So if you have some advice for someone who is wanting to grow their business, perhaps they're a photographer, or a DJ or a venue that wants to be in this amazing market. What's your advice for them? Yeah, so I have a saying early on that I used in which we want to plant positive seeds everywhere, some are going to grow and some aren't going to grow. And so when I first took over the business, I had a hyper focus to try to meet as many people as I could. We did a lot of a lot of charitable and we still do a lot of charitable events because I wanted to be everywhere. I want everyone to see who Star Trek's was. And I felt like we planted so many positive seeds in those years. That that allowed us to grow. When you start when you when you have an edge or an attitude, or you always need to be right. I think in a small community business like this a small niche business like this, you get booted very, very quickly, because there's too many other options. And so if you're a photographer there, there aren't a lot of you know that you and I happen to have businesses where there aren't a ton of competition. There aren't a million Pat Blackwell is out there. You do a beautiful job, you work your tail off, you have amazing women, and I believe one man that works for you, maybe more than that now, but but everybody works really, really hard. When in we feel the same way about Star tracks. And when somebody doesn't, or someone holds grudges, or someone has negative attitudes, they could kick the night by their own, they get kicked out of this business very quickly, because nobody wants to work with them. Nobody refers them business. But when you plant positive seeds everywhere, then things are going to grow. And I believe that that is the reason for the success in this business. That's a great thing. I love that thing. No surprise at all that you would have a saying like that. I just haven't heard it. Alright, well, hooray. Thank you very much for being part of this wonderful discussion. Of course, anything else you'd like to talk about? No, no. I mean, I think this is a perfect example. Our partnership is a perfect example of why businesses can be successful in this arena. Pat, you and I have had many discussions over the years, there have been plenty of times where you don't agree with what I'm doing, or I don't agree with what we're doing. But we have an open honest discussion. We're not fighting, we're not yelling you and I've never raised our voices at one another. But we have treat each other like adults respectfully disagreed and moved on our way or got to the point where I may say you know what, that I didn't understand it from that angle. Thanks for thanks for explaining to me that angle. And I would never hesitate to call you and I don't think you'd ever hesitate to call me. And that's the beauty of this relationship. So you know, we appreciate what you do. It's From the party assurance side, and I talked to Jen and Harrison Shannon about this all the time, you know, you do so many things that some people don't want to do or can't do. It's a real skill job, you have to be massively organized. I'm a boy. So I'm not massively organized. And I think that in tandem, we really produce a great product. And I've been incredibly lucky to have these amazing ladies and like you said, One guy now who works with me and we look out for each other. If your crew is doing something I don't think would be the best way, then I want to speak up and let you know. And I appreciate that you do the same with me. And we're looking out for the best for our customers, for our clients. And I think that's huge. Yep, I totally agree. Okay, great. All right. Well enjoy the sunshine to Florida. I will I look forward to being back. We all miss events, we miss the bar, miss the hopping bar, we miss a lot of big events. And we'll be there when it comes back. And we look forward to spending every Friday and Saturday and Sunday night with whoever it is making sure that the horror is working right and that everybody's helping to cheer safely. Hello. Alright, thank you very much, Jeff. Happy Well, well, I hope you enjoyed this episode. This podcast is all about how we can help each other better serve our Jewish clients. Are there some specific words or customs that you don't understand in this Jewish party world? Send me an email or join the Jewish party Maven, vendor rockstars private Facebook group. I want to hear from you. Remember your freebie, download this powerful cheat sheet the 12 Jewish words the best vendors know, click on the link in the show notes or go to the Jewish party Maven.com. If you'd like to learn more, follow me on Facebook, or Insta, at the Jewish party Maven, I really appreciate your thoughts and your feedback about this show. I'm learning lots about how this podcasting world works. But I've already learned reviews are like gold. So all you rock stars, leave me a review. And then go out there and take Jeff customers advice. Plant positive seeds. Join me next week when we learn all about the Tallit. And you'll be one word closer to booking your next Jewish party to Ching thanks for listening