We were lucky to catch up with Thomas Heath recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Thomas thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

Everyone thinks a DJ is a DJ, is a DJ. That all a DJ does is play music, yell into a microphone, and collect some money. After meeting one of my mentor’s mentors, I realized that it was NOT the way we should conduct business. I trained with some of the best in the DJ and Master of Ceremonies business for years. After doing so I came up with a way to be fun and become a storyteller.. I sought out clients who wanted to share their journey with the guests at their events. It became a passion of mine to tell other people’s stories.
During that time, I found my voice. I also realized that telling a story doesn’t have to be limited to ACTUALLY telling a story. I now utilize staging, lighting, and music to share different parts of someone’s journey. I use introductions as a snapshot of someone’s relationship with another person. I use times during an event that other DJs see as “background music” as a way to highlight music that might not be dancefloor fillers.
Never missing an opportunity to further the story is imperative.

Thomas, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I own A+ Entertains and Thomas Heath events. I got into the industry quite by accident. While I was working at a factory, one of my co-workers would ask me what song was playing on the radio. I’d answer correctly almost every time. After several weeks of this, he asked me to join him at his DJ gig (a wedding) that weekend. Halfway through the reception, I was hooked.
I went home and told my wife that I was going to start DJing weddings. I bought some gear and it sat…for months.
after a while. I built a website for their company (they didn’t have one). They told me that everything that came in from the site would be mine.
until I was more booked than them.
They tried to change the deal, so I broke off and formed my own DJ company.
I focused on NOTHING but booking events for the first few years. I had a full-time job so it was extra money.
Then my wife, quite suddenly, passed away.
I immediately quit my job to spend time with my son, who was still in high school, and my daughter.
During that time, I saw the potential for the DJ business to be my sole source of income. I hired a few DJs and grew it.
It is now one of the premier luxury event companies in Michigan. We focus on the WHY behind our events.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

2020. Yup, it’s cliche and probably most small business owners’ go-to, but it was huge for us. We had a space that we were renting. It was an office and warehouse that we were paying entirely too much for. During our first year, we got a lot of work and growth done there. It was a feather in our cap to have an actual office to take potential clients to.
We loved it.
Then…everything stopped.
We were spending a ton of money on a space that we couldn’t use. We couldn’t have meetings there. We even had the local police stop us as we were leaving one night. Crazy times.
When we asked for some leniency from our landlord, they tried to screw us over by adding two years to the end of the lease, to give us two months of delayed rent payments.
We decided to bring everything home with us. We had a building put on our property and never looked back. It was a tough decision, but the ROI just wasn’t there for the huge rent payment.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think that the biggest thing about our business has been working well with venues in the area. Because most of our clients are having “destination” events, having the venue tell them we are great to work with has been huge.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aplusentertains.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/AplusEntertains
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/APlusEntertains