...best in me? (a bit long, bare with me here)

I'm new to The Game and although I'd like to think of myself as not an AFC anymore, I'm aware that I'm not a PUA yet. But what I see is that most of the groups I hang out with and go out to clubs, bars, target rich environments they don't bring out the best in me, they're actually AFCs and the girls that go out with us are lower than 6s maybe one or two 6s on a good day. When we arrive to the venue they just stick in the group joke, laugh around and do nothing. I try and push myself and I've opened a few sets here and there but not much success.

I just want to know, what's the way to befriend the guys/girls that hang out in the VIP area and the ones you can tell are PUAs? how do you befriend hired guns, bartenders, barmaids, bouncers, club owners, etc. when really you only get a few minutes sometimes even less than that of interaction with them and all they care about is taking your order, checking your ID, or making sure you pay the cover charge? The reason I ask is because I know that this are the type of ppl that DHV and is what I want to be doing instead of DLV'ing. I'm pretty sure you'll say something like start DHV'ing, but how do I do that when my crowd are AFCs and not-so attractive females? I'm resolved to getting good at The Game this year but I need to have a group that's going to push me and bring the best out of me and vice versa.