We were lucky to catch up with Jason KOLSTAD recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Our mission is to make your vision for your event come to life. We specialize in DJ and photo booth services but we don’t ever want to limit ourselves to those categories; when you hire us for your event, whether it’s a wedding, birthday party, live concert, social gathering or anniversary, we want to know what your vision is. If we have to incorporate a new skill or piece of equipment, we go that extra mile to produce that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I come from an independent artist background; I have ran my own record label which then lead to managing artists and booking tours. While managing artists, I noticed they would pay a DJ for their live set every time we would play a show. This would cost us about $150 each show; being that we were new/underground artists, it didn’t make much financial sense to do this. I came up with a solution that I would buy a cheap DJ controller to learn on so I can help back my artist and help keep money in our pockets. Once I began to learn how to DJ, I started to really enjoy it and offered my services to everyone that would play shows with us for free. I became good at DJing and people started to notice, I ended up getting picked up by other artists that would take me on tour with them to DJ their sets in front of thousands of people. At this point I was really complimenting the artists while they performed which very exciting for a guy that just started DJing out of necessity. Now that I was starting to become part of the show, I wasn’t really into talking on the microphone or being backing vocals or the artist; I came back home from tour during the winter and saw an ad for a DJ for a wedding company, that gave me an idea, if i become a wedding DJ, I could learn how to talk on the mic. Getting the job as a wedding DJ really changed my life, it helped me discover talents I never thought I had; I became a better DJ technically, I am able to talk on the microphone in front of thousands of people and I can organize and carry out events/weddings.

I am most proud of the way I use my music creativity and my music journey to organize, plan and carry out events for my customers. Being a creative gives me all the tools to give my customers the experience they ask for with a little extra flavor on top. As a business, we strive for excellence and strive to get that WOW factor whether we plan your event or just contribute to it by ways of DJing, photo booths, lighting production or audio/video production. Whatever part we play in your experience, our goal is to impact everyone thats attends.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My business partner is my wife, Saleisia; she noticed how hard I work and the effort I put into my craft. When we met, I was a DJ doing events with not a whole lot of structure or goals. At that point, all I knew how to do was go hustle for gigs that would make money and gain experience. She brought the structure and the knowledge of making my hustle into a business. I am the type of person that shows up to work and gives you everything i got and then some. You need someone that can guide you and show you why having structure and goals are important. Working hard is great but if that’s all you do, you will just end up working hard the rest of your life. Creating a business plan and structure around your work, opens up so many other possibilities of growth and opportunity. Once I learned that, we now have opportunities of employing people, contracting other companies and most importantly for us, contributing to others’ success.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I believe the most effective strategy is executing your events perfectly and blowing away or clients with your performance. Nothing spreads faster than someone’s words. I reluctantly took an event last summer, it was a 50th birthday party celebration/backyard party for a group of ladies that all turned 50 that year, I accepted to job much lower than I wanted but I had hopes that it would bring future clients. You really have to just trust your gut and not your rates when it comes to events; they are not all the same, so you can’t treat them the same. Once I showed up to my client’s house, I met her, and we just hit it off, the vibe of the her and the party atmosphere was where I wanted to be. I knew right then that I made a great choice, so gave them a party that they still talk about today, and the bonus side of that was, I gained two events and a hand full of friends from taking that booking.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kolstadaudioservices.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kolstadaudioservices
• Facebook: facebook.com/kolstadaudio
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/kolstad-audio-services
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KolstadAudio
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kolstad-audio-services-washington

Image Credits
jason kolstad , Jason Montoya, Saleisia Lampkin