We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Philip Wood. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Philip below.
Philip, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.
I think family businesses are great, because you get to spend time with who matters the most. When my wife & I started our business we would joke about not only were we married and lived together, we also worked together. As our business started growing we saw where we were spending less time with our son, because all our events were on weekends. We started taking him some and let him “help” where he could. As a few years passed our business really grew and we had to ask my uncle, cousin and my sister-in-law to help us out just so we could meet the demand of the events. Now our son is older and he is involved now in the events we DJ, and not only are we working and making money we get to spend time with family. These are times, even though we are working, we get to slow down and actually spend time together without TV and video games distracting us. So to me family businesses are very important, especially if you are a very family oriented person.
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
My name is Philip Wood and I was born and raised here in Knoxville TN. I have always had a very big love for music. I grew up listening to “oldies” and older Country and Gospel music with my grandparents. I became very versed in music at a young age and it continued as I got older. When my mom married my stepdad, my step brother introduced me to a different type of music 80’s rock. This was music I didn’t get to listen to living with my grandparents, so it was all so wonderfully new. Right off I fell in love listening to Poison, Def Leppard, Motley Crue and even Huey Lewis and the news. My favorite though has always been Poison. I even loved playing music, I took piano lessons as a child til I was about 13, learned bass guitar when I was 16 and played trombone in band at school. With all this love for music it was destined for me to have a job doing what I love. Now granted this didn’t happen until 2013 when my wife and I were asked to do music for our friends daughter’s sweet 16. That’s when the idea for our business Philip Mobile DJ came to be.
We DJ weddings, birthday parties, Christmas parties, corporate events, fundraisers or anything else that needs music. In the last year and a half we purchased a photobooth and added that to our packages as well.
When we started we had the business model that we wouldn’t take advantage of our clients. We knew from our wedding that it costs a lot of money for your big day. We didn’t want our services to break the bank for our clients like others so they wouldn’t be stressed out even more.
We take pride in all our events, and it shows in all our reviews. It doesn’t matter if it is a party or a wedding we put 150% in every event.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Well we all know how the outbreak of COVID was and how it hurt all businesses. It seemed to really hit the wedding industry hard, we had weddings cancel and few to postpone. That year and a half really hurt, we still had bills to pay and nothing coming in. Luckily we run our business out of our home, so we didn’t have a rent payment. As restrictions were lifted the industry didn’t just gradually rise, it shot up quick. People were so ready to get back out and live, as well as we were ready to get back doing the job we love. During that time we learned to just be resilient and trust in God. We say if it wasn’t for God our business wouldn’t be what it is today. He blessed us with the knowledge and continues to bless us daily by keeping us healthy enough to do our job.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
When we started our business we didn’t have any reputation we just relied on word of mouth. We then started a page on Facebook and eventually a website, but still mostly word of mouth. We have clients referred to us from past clients. This means a lot to us because it means what we went the extra mile or gave that extra 1%. Another big asset to us is getting g to know a few other DJs in the business and being able to refer jobs to each other when we are unavailable.
Contact Info:
- Website: Philipmobiledj.com
- Instagram: Philipmobiledj
- Facebook: Facebook.com/philipmobiledj
Image Credits
I took all photos