Meet Nick Leidl

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nick Leidl a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nick , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
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Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
DJ Entertainment Music has been very focused on re-branding the look and feel of the business to reflect the modern needs of the wedding and corporate clientele we primarily serve. It’s exciting to be doing an overhaul of our equipment and to be upgrading to the latest and greatest technology that is available. We will be launching new photo booths to be available as an add to all our DJ Entertainment packages. Additionally we will offer state-of-the-art deluxe lighting packages that will be available for the larger scale events we service. It’s an exciting time for us.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The biggest focus should be to connect to customers. I often get asked for business advice, and I feel it needs to be emphasized more that you are only truly in business if you have customers thus yielding income. Access to customers, funnels to new clients, etc. I think so many newer business fall in love with the idea of owning a business but forget that without customers you don’t have anything. That has to come first. Connect with your customers as much as possible. People prefer to do business with people they know and trust, so use creative ways to build that trust.

For the more established business, Planning for the future is definitely a big one. Having the discipline to know that best practices will change over time and to be prepared to react to those changes. Often it starts with budgeting for the future. Trade shows, online forums, etc are great ways to know what the industry is doing and where it’s heading so you never fall behind. I notice a lot smaller entrepreneurs often resisting that need to be prepared for the next step. Don’t make that mistake.

Finally, the last, and most important, is to just be fully committed to what you do and the product you offer. I do think the best small businesses that Ive seen often start with an entrepreneur who just loves what they do. If the only motivation is money, sometimes that can way heavily when things aren’t going well. But if you love what you do, then it is truly a blessing to be able to work thru all the ups and downs. Owning and Running a business is not for everyone. It’s a war sometimes and you need to be able to persevere.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
My parents always supported my journey as a DJ. I’m extremely very grateful to them for that. The story starts when I was in high school. I was very outgoing and a life of the party type. I was class president, always involved in everything, but I loved to dance and knew the words to every song you would ever hear. I just seemed to have a knack and love for music and entertaining. My friend’s mother asked me one day after a soccer game if I’d be the DJ of her daughter’s Sweet 16. I had no equipment, but I had a great music collection and I guess word was out that I’d be good for something like that. So I used a boombox but I just picked all the songs and screamed out announcements and the party was great.

Eventually my mom and dad both saw that I had some talent and a lot of interest so they helped me buy a very basic DJ set up and I was on my way. My mother was a talker, so she’d tell everyone that I was a DJ and it led to a lot of word of mouth business. She loved to promote me as DJ. It brought her a lot of joy and pride.

The cool part of the story is that within a year I was booked solid. They gave me a little help and I took it way past what any of us thought was possible. I’m forever grateful to them for that.

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Image Credits
Nick Leidl, 2023

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