I'm pretty new to dancing but I do okay at my home club. My stage show is basically me wiggling and smiling and flirting with the guys at the tip rail. I'd never even touched the pole before tonight.
I was visiting my folks and I thought, "Ah maybe I can make some cash for the drive home." Last night my goal was, "get in, get out, make about $100."
My first mistake was not doing a little scouting first. Instead of driving from club to club (they were all in the same 2mi radius) to see what the crowds looked like, I randomly picked one, and then randomly picked another, and got hired at the second. Hey! Don't do what I did! Take the extra twenty minutes.
I went down to the next place on my list. It was a dark little club with a sort of oval shaped stage. I got the manager to hire me for the night (basically by just asking - it was a lot less nervewracking than I thought it would be) and I set to work as quickly as possible.
My second mistake was not sitting back for about ten minutes to see what the other dancers were doing, or not asking one of the other dancers what the usual flow of the club was like. I didn't want to pester the other dancers with questions but given my very specific and short-term goal for the evening I would have been better off.
My third mistake was probably sticking it out for four and a half hours when right as I got there I heard one girl say, "It was busy in here all day, but no one was buying dances." Or after seeing that there were only two customers there. I've read on here that it's a good idea to work in a club when it's really slow if you plan to be there for the whole week. That way you get a chance to see how things work. However, I only had one night. I should have ditched then and gone somewhere else.
Basically, I think what I did wrong was that I didn't check out the club first and find out what kinds of expectations the customers had. The other dancers were really amazing stage performers, and most of the guys sat at the bar instead of at the tip rail - they did tip, and well, but from afar. This is waaay different from what I am used to. I'm guessing that the dancers probably make lots of money just from being on stage because they are so good at it. Ah, but that is not me! Right away I should have figured out that my skills (which are giggling and wiggling) were not enough to make money at that club on that night.
I didn't sell a single dance in four hours.
Normally I don't have a problem selling dances. I make some witty banter, some double entendres when they object, and then we're on! But I talked to a lot of guys who said they didn't want to buy a dance because they were "too sentimental," etc, and when I gave my usual reply it seemed to just roll off. One guy said, "How about I just pay you twenty dollars and we sit here and talk" but he never did. When he said that, I should have pulled out the top of my garter and said, "Okay honey, let's chat away!" Another guy told me that he didn't buy dances because his wife had been a dancer and when she died he promised he wouldn't. I don't know if it was a true story or not but I decided it would be crass to try and hustle that. A couple guys wanted "sexo." I toyed with the idea of agreeing and then feigning ignorance when I didn't deliver, but it seemed risky.
There was one guy who I think I left too soon, who would have bought a dance, because he all but told me he wanted to dance, and I saw him buying dances later. But by then I was "too discouraged." Always ask! Ask everyone! Shoulda woulda coulda.
Around 11pm I gave up. I was going to try and go someplace else, but I was so discouraged that I just went home. Well.... that's what I learned on my Thanksgiving break. I hope it helps anyone else who's thinking of venturing out while on vacation.




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