Setting up Yesoma for a DJ or entertainment business

If you run a DJ or entertainment business, Yesoma's DJ / entertainment playbook gives you a working workspace in minutes — services, reply templates, follow-up cadence, and policies written for the realities of an event-driven performance business. This article walks through how the playbook maps to your workflow and how to get the most out of it from day one.

1. Applying the playbook during onboarding

When you create a new Yesoma workspace and select DJ / entertainment from the industry picker, the playbook seeds your workspace with:

• Eight services covering wedding packages, corporate events, private parties, club bookings, photo booth and uplighting add-ons, the additional-hour rate, and a custom bucket for festivals and multi-stage productions.
• Seven policies covering deposits, cancellations, date transfers, travel, equipment requirements, music collaboration, and outdoor weather.
• Eight FAQs your customers ask before they book — equipment ownership, music lists, MC services, backup DJ, travel area, and more.
• Eight reply templates covering the full inquiry-to-post-event arc.
• A three-step follow-up cadence: first reply on day zero, retainer reminder three days after the quote, and a review request the morning after the event.

None of this is locked. Every service name, price, policy line, and template body is editable from the moment onboarding finishes. The playbook is a starting point — you tune it to match how you actually operate.

After onboarding, go to Settings → Business Brain and fill in your actual details: your travel radius in miles, your mileage rate, the power requirements for your rig, and any venue-specific notes. Several policy fields use bracket placeholders ([X miles], [$/mile], [X amps]) that are intentionally left blank for you to fill in — they show up in the policy editor highlighted so you cannot miss them.

2. The event-date retainer workflow that locks the date

Entertainment bookings are date-locked from the moment a client pays. You cannot double-book a wedding, and losing a premium Saturday to a no-show inquiry is a real cost. Yesoma is built around that reality.

When an inquiry comes in, Yesoma logs it as an open case with the event date captured from the first reply. Once you send a quote, the Quote sent follow-up starts the clock. If the client does not sign within three days, the retainer reminder fires automatically — you do not have to remember to chase it.

When the client pays the retainer and signs, mark the case Booking confirmed in the inbox. From that point Yesoma stops the quote follow-up cadence and the case sits in your active bookings until the event date approaches.

The policy language in the playbook is written to be honest about what happens at cancellation: retainer forfeited at any point, partial refund between 45 and 90 days out, full forfeiture inside 45 days. You can adjust those windows to match your own terms — edit the Cancellation policy in Settings → Policies. Whatever you write there is what the AI Business Brain surfaces when a customer asks.

3. Package and add-on pricing in Yesoma quotes

The playbook's five anchor tiers in the pricing structure are:

| Package | Anchor (USD) | |---|---| | Wedding DJ package | from $1,800 (5-hr base) | | Corporate event DJ | from $900 (3-hr base) | | Private party DJ | from $700 (3-hr base) | | Photo booth add-on | from $650 (with attendant) | | Uplighting add-on | from $400 per room |

Club / venue bookings start at $400 per 2-hr set. The additional-hour rate is fixed at $200/hr and lives in the contract from the start so there is no awkward conversation when a wedding runs long.

When you build a quote in Yesoma, you select a base package and layer on add-ons. The quote view shows the line-item breakdown — base package, photo booth, uplighting, travel, additional hours — so clients see exactly what they are paying for. That transparency reduces friction at signing.

Prices in the playbook are US-dollar anchors. If you operate outside the US, the market overlay converts them to a locally credible amount in your currency when the playbook is applied. You can override any individual service price from the Services section in Settings.

4. The pre-event planning meeting template as a retention play

The Pre-event planning meeting reminder template is the highest-leverage message in the playbook. Sent about two weeks before the event, it does several things at once:

• Confirms your must-play and do-not-play lists so you show up prepared, not guessing.
• Scripts announcements — introductions, first dance cues, toast order, cake cut — so nothing is improvised on a mic in front of a hundred people.
• Locks the event timeline so you know exactly when to transition between segments.
• Creates a touchpoint that makes the client feel looked after, not forgotten between booking and the event.

Clients who have a planning call almost always leave a better review. They feel organized going into the event, and when the night goes smoothly they attribute it to your professionalism. The review request the morning after converts at a higher rate because the client is already impressed.

To send this template, open the case in your inbox about 14 days before the event date, select Pre-event planning meeting reminder from the template picker, fill in the time options, and send. If you want this to fire automatically, set up a follow-up rule in Settings → Follow-ups triggered 14 days before the event date.

5. Music and script collaboration patterns

The playbook handles music collaboration in two places:

In the policy (Music and announcement collaboration): sets the expectation that the planning call happens 2 weeks out, that the lists are final 72 hours before the event, and that you take reasonable guest requests on the night within the vibe the client set. This language protects you if a client sends a 200-song must-play list the night before.

In the FAQ (Can we send a must-play and do-not-play list, and Do you MC the event): these pre-answer the two questions almost every new inquiry asks. When the AI Business Brain replies to a new inquiry, it pulls from these FAQs to give an accurate, reassuring answer without you needing to type it each time.

When you take a booking, create a note on the case in Yesoma's customer timeline with the client's music direction — genre, era, any explicit do-not-plays. That note travels with the case so if a colleague covers the planning call, they have full context.

For weddings specifically, it is worth asking clients to fill in a short planning form covering announcement scripts (how to pronounce the wedding party names, toast order, any dedications). You can share a simple document link in the planning meeting reminder template. The transcript of that call, or the completed form, gets uploaded to the customer record as an attachment.

6. What your reply templates look like in action

The eight templates in the playbook cover every step from first contact to the morning-after review ask.

First reply fires on day zero of an inquiry. It asks for event date, venue, event type, hours of coverage, and guest count — the five things you need to price accurately. Nothing is quoted until you have those. The AI Business Brain uses this template as its default when a new inquiry arrives through any channel.

Pricing reply gives the client a range before the formal proposal, so they are not surprised by a number they cannot afford. It lists starting prices for each package type and names the variables that push price up (hours, add-ons, travel). Sending this early filters out mismatched budgets before you spend time on a full proposal.

Quote sent is the formal proposal message. It summarizes package, add-ons, travel, total, retainer amount, and the balance-due date. Keep the body short — the detail lives in the attached proposal document, not in the message itself.

Retainer reminder fires three days after the quote if the case has not moved to booking confirmed. It is warm but clear: the date cannot be held indefinitely. That mild urgency is accurate — you cannot hold a Saturday in peak season for two weeks while someone deliberates.

Day-of arrival confirmation is sent the morning of the event. It confirms arrival time, the load-in plan, and your day-of phone number. Clients are anxious on event day; this message arrives before they need to ask.

Day-after thank-you and review request goes out the morning after. The emotional high from a great event fades fast — within 48 hours most clients have moved on to the next thing. Catching them while the energy is still there is the difference between a review and a missed opportunity.

All template bodies use {{customer_first_name}} for the personalized greeting and [bracket] placeholders for event-specific details like [date], [price], [event_type], and [package]. Yesoma highlights unfilled placeholders in the compose window so you cannot accidentally send a message with a raw bracket to a client.