We recently connected with Kristi / Amanda Dance-kinkead / Colin and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kristi / Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear a story from back when you were an intern or apprentice. What’s a memorable story you can share with us?

I am very fortunate that I had an amazing apprentice experience with Larry Brooks from the Sound Revue, Johnson City. We have known one another and been friends forever–literally since I was a toddler.

He is the most patient and kind soul I’ve ever known and he truly was a God-send for my start in the wedding business. He taught me not only how to DJ well and thoroughly, but he also has a heart for giving and is a living example of how you can be good to people and still be true to yourself and your business.

One day while I was still in training with him, he called me and asked me if I would like to join him a wedding at local venue because a friend of a bride had contacted him and said that the couples’ DJ had ghosted them for their wedding.

Not only did he agree to pack up less than 2 hours prior to the wedding and go take care of them, but he also took into account that they had already paid someone else to do the same job, with no hope of recovering that money most likely, and only charged them about half his normal fee. This type example of putting people before financials at times and being kind, which was not a surprise because he’s a great guy, reminded me that our business is actually people and not just about DJ services.

We went and provided the best wedding day for them that we possibly could, and I was able to interact and work even more than I had up to that point. That particular wedding was definitely a turning point for how I saw my niche in the wedding industry and with entrepreneurial endeavors in general.

This people-first approach is the current model that Amanda, my business partner, and I use to this day and we still feel that it is the only way to do business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Our approach to business that we feel makes our brand stand out from others is that we truly practice what we preach of Collaboration over Competition. Anyone that you ask in the wedding business who has even remotely heard of us will tell you that we refer clients out to other wedding professionals who provide the same services in the same coverage areas and have no problem sharing the ‘wealth’ of potential clients if we think someone else would be a better fit for those clients or if we are already booked for the inquiry date and services.

We love networking with & boosting the business other wedding pros–the only thing we look for is for folks who are good humans, provide great service, take care of our clients and who are reasonably priced.

We pride ourselves on communication between ourselves and our clientele, as well as other vendors. We attempt to answer any inquiries or questions as quickly as possible, even if we them send a short message letting them know we are unavailable at that moment but will get back with them as soon as possible.

We also love to pay our blessings forward through volunteering our time and services, such as for our local Isaiah House 117 of Cocke and Jefferson Counties and many others that need our help.

We also work closely with Wish Upon a Wedding, an organization out of Texas that gifts weddings and renewals all over the country to couples, in which one of two of them is terminally ill. We have two of their weddings under our belt, working as their planners and local venue and vendor coordinators to make these weddings a reality for these special couples.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Amanda and I met as we were both highly involved in fitness and both were personal trainers and nutritionists. She and her son decided to attend a Boot Camp class I was teaching locally with another local fit pro. I had been following Amanda on Facebook for quite some time because she is brilliant at building fitness programs for women’s strength training, and she had been following me online as well, as I taught functional training and group fitness classes. But we had never officially met in person.

I was thrilled when she showed up to class and then it happened…

I was having everyone do various exercises in stations, when I looked over and saw her lunging. I ran over and yelled, “STOPPPPP! Stop lunging now! You are going to hurt yourself!”

She responded with “Well, show me how to do it right,”(which I did). She then left at the end of class, went home and practiced and then returned in two weeks with a near-perfect and truly one of the best (and safest) lunges I have ever seen! At that moment, I knew this lady could, and would, do anything she set her mind to do.

She likes to say our friendship and business partnerships (we own three businesses together) started when I told her her lunge “sucked” and she went back home determined to fix it and show me a couple of weeks later LOL.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

For us, managing a team is about treating people the way you want to be treated, a type of “Goose and Gander” management practice. We always make sure to let our team know that we care about them on a human level, not just as team members, and we truly believe that we are a team, not just an employer/employee relationship. We love our people and try to take every opportunity possible to make sure they know this. Positive reinforcement is huge for us and we work to make sure our folks also know they are a highly valued part of our team.

Basically, just be good to people and have reasonable expectations. Don’t ask something of them that you are not willing to do yourself. Be constructive, not complaining. It makes a difference. And always ask for feedback as a manager/leader, and then take what they say seriously and implement what you can, when you can, as you need to.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kinkeadperformanceandevents.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KinkeadPerformanceandEvents/

Image Credits

Allie Krauser Digitals

Janice Brotherton

Kayla Hoover – Celestial Photography

Emily Higdon

Kristi Dance-Kinkead