Founder and Coach Shares on How to Master Relationship-Building in Business

Transcription:

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Dominik Stanecki Teaser 00:00

If I'm hiring, I'm not hiring people, I'm hiring a personality type. So I'm looking, what is the position? What is the best suited type for this position? One or two or maximum three types, usually it's two. And then what I'm doing is I'm writing an advertisement that speaks the language of those, that speaks to those types.

Intro 00:19

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:48

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today, Dominik Stanecki. Dominik, excited to have you on the show.

Dominik Stanecki 00:56

Wonderful. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

Yes. I'm super excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing.

And of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Dominik so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Dominik is in the C-suite at 300DEVS, one of Poland's leading software houses and digital tool developers, a company that is responsible for mapping and developing some of Poland's most important platforms and applications.

As a president of Sales and Marketing, he has taken the company to company international, building a portfolio of clients and partners in the US, UK, and Australia. He is an entrepreneur who runs three businesses and is a timeionaire, a person who has time for everything. This light project aims to give people back the balance in their lives and to redefine the definition of success. Dominik is an avid traveler who has visited over 40 countries and is very interested in technology, AI, robotics, as well as MBTI, typology, energy, and esoteric subjects.

He has been in sales and marketing for over 25 years and has coached and mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs, business owners over the last 15. He's a natural leader who has built businesses and wealth to them that have destroyed by mistakes, greed, and ego, and to then rebuild his life from zero and become the timeionaire that he is today. And I had a great conversation when I first connected with Dominik. He's done so many awesome things. I love his acronym that I was reading about and we talked about a little bit, where he discovered about IDHT, I Don't Have Time Syndrome and that's a social disease that is responsible for much of the happiness and burnout in today's world.

But more than anything else, I know I touched on it a little bit,and we talked a little bit before we jumped in, his life mission, he said his all-in project is actually all around timing here. So I'm sure we're going to delve down deeper into there. So, Dominik, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

Dominik Stanecki 02:46

Sure. Yeah, let's do it.

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Gresham Harkless 02:47

Let's get it started then. So to kick everything off, I know I rewinded the clock a little bit, but let's do that and hear a little bit more on how you got started. Want to call your CEO story?

Dominik Stanecki 02:57

I just, life just takes you in different places and sometimes you plan it or your parents plan it for you.

Yes. You're going to be a lawyer. You're going to be a doctor like we were. And sometimes you just go with entropy and you just go with the flow and it just all comes together. Kind of slumdog millionaire. That's a kind of metaphor. I feel like my life is in a way like that. I was born in Europe, but I grew up in North America, grew up in Vancouver, BC.

And after high school, I didn't go to university or college, I went straight into business. I went straight into sales. I started off as a telemarketer. I was hitting the phones at a call center in Vancouver. This was like a real estate development company. That is the foundation on really what I built all my businesses on is that just grinding the dialer, just not being afraid to speak to anyone about anything, anytime. I think that is one of the foundations.

When I work with people, after that I got into selling tech. So that's really where another piece of the puzzle came in. And I learned about technology. This was a really interesting story I used to, I was, I used to train martial arts when I was young. And that's really part of how I am today as well, is the discipline and the fundamentals that I learned through martial arts. We can add that another piece of the puzzle as well. And my martial arts instructor was a very unique person. He was a visionary. He was an amazing person. He still is. And he, further than his martial arts school, he got into technology and he built a CRM to manage the school and he built a whole business out of that.

And I started working for him and that's awesome because we were in the martial arts industry. And this was like in the 90s when UFC first started booming. And we were focusing on the martial arts industry every single day. And I remember one time I had a friend and she was doing, she was setting up like a fair, it was like a fair, a convention, and she wanted to invite me. I'll come, but I don't want to come as an English teacher. I want to reinvent myself a little bit. She was like, what do you want to do? I'm like, for the last couple of years, I've been pretty much coaching and mentoring people without like directly, I'm like, I want to jump into that. I feel like I've had the practice and I want to move into that as well.

So I'm like, when's this event? She's like in 10 days. I'm like, okay. So I had 10 days to reinvent myself. I'm like, okay, make the business cards, get the roll up going on. Mentally prepare yourself. You're no longer an English teacher. You're now a coach and a mentor. You've been doing this anyways. Now just name it and go with it. And during that event, I met two key people, two people that opened up doors for me, but then allowed me to move into motivational speaking. They helped me get some key clients and this was my second business that I started. It was, so I had the first one was Education, Language School, then we got into Personal Development.

So I got burnt out from teaching English actively. So I made it more of a passive business and I continued to do the mentoring and the coaching and the business strategy. And then I met a client of mine and he came for a completely different topic and we became friends and he told me that he's got a he's just recently bought a software house and he's thinking of the house, the software house was in the red and he's trying to pull it into the black and he wanted to take the business international too and he needed somebody that number one, could speak English perfectly and could sell and boom, I found my guy.

And I'm like, hold on a second, I'm like, Sales, English and Technology, I'm like the three things that I love the most, I'm like, this is destiny. And him and I got together and I started to, I decided to join 300DDEVS. And 300DDEVS is a software house which I'm a C-suite at and I have a position of President of Sales and Marketing. So my job is to take the brand international. Like I said, we started in the red, now we're in the black, we're doing really well, but the way to get there was long and tedious and in the meantime we managed to land some amazing clients and projects.

I'll tell you about maybe four that are really key for us. The first one was we built out the entire logistics system for the Polish Post. So the Polish Post, the back end, was built by our developers and our company and we also built an Administrative System for the Roman Catholic Church. So the Catholic Church in Europe, Europe's a little bit older than North America, right? It's hundreds, thousands of years. So imagine the church keeping the records for so long about the marriage, birth, death certificates. And they got out of hand and they needed a way to digitize this.

So they contacted us and we made them a platform to be able to digitize all those records and have everything automated and digitized. So over 1.5 million users, that was pretty cool. But my favorite project came during COVID when, when we were all locked down, including the kids, the government contacted all the major software houses and ran a tender. And we were fortunate enough to win this tender. And we had to show very quickly how as a team we could come together and build a web-based application where the children could continue their education online.

So that was one of my favorite projects. And I've been taking the company and the brand international. So I'm always traveling around the world and I'm working with building partnerships and focusing on key clients and partners and that's our strategy. Primary markets, UK, US, Australia. And yeah, in a nutshell, a quick, I don't know, what was that? Maybe five minutes. That's the life story. We can start with that. That's a good start, I think.

Gresham Harkless 07:56

Yeah, absolutely. No, I truly appreciate that. So I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you guys are serving clients. I know you talked about some of the projects, but we'd love to hear a little bit more on how that process works and a little bit more of what I like to call your secret sauce, which can be for you, the business or a combination of both. And what sets your apart and makes you unique?

Dominik Stanecki 08:14

I start with a low hanging fruit, which you can, and obviously working off referrals and things. But internationally, we had to start from scratch, like no client, no reputation, nothing. So it's what can I do? And I always like to think outside the box. I'm a mobile growth hacker. I am, once again, if we talk about personality type, I'm, I've been using this MBTI system for 10 years now, I think, and I use it every single day of my life. I might not remember your name, but I remember your personality type, right? And that's so important for me because most of the mistakes that people make come from miscommunication.

We're just speaking a language that not everybody understands. And if we can learn to speak other people's languages, and I'm not talking actual languages, I'm talking the way that they process information, then it just completely changes the game. So why am I speaking about this? Because what I decided to do is, I said, okay, I could grind a dialer, but that's not the right way to do it. I could hire a bunch of cold callers, we could do mail and campaigns and do stuff like that. And okay, we can try that. But I'm like, let's just join, let's piggyback here. Let's make our life easier. I'm all about easy, right? I'm all about keeping it simple.

So we joined the BNI network, the Business Network International. Why? Because it's already established. You join it, it's yes, you could say it's a club, some say it's a cult. It is what it is. It's a place where you have hundreds of thousands of people around the world that pay a due to connect with each other, to do business with each other. And if you can leverage that properly, you will have jumped from dealing with cold leads automatically everybody's warm. And that's how I started. And that was the foundation on which we really, really built our business. And BNI was a great headstart. Thanks to it, I managed to meet a lot of key people, partners. I still use it to today. I'm very active.

We're part of an online group here in Poland. I travel a lot, so it's convenient for me because we meet primarily online. And so many capabilities, groups all over the world. And I've yet to have somebody tell me to F off. When I call or contact them, everybody's happy to speak with you. They're warm. They're friendly. And this is all over the world, especially if I'm contacting them from Poland, or from Poland, what are you doing here? Or I join a group live, like somewhere halfway across the world, and right away, they're like interested in you, and they wanna hear you. So I think that's one of the key kind of things that I did, once again, just keeping it simple, and starting with something that's already established.

Gresham Harkless 10:49

Yeah, that makes so much sense.

Dominik Stanecki 10:50

Instead of saying this person's wacko or weird, it's learning to understand what that means because it's another processor. If we're talking technology, it's another operating system. It's like saying iOS is weird. It's not windows. It's not windows, right? You got even the buttons are on the different sides. So when you learn to understand personalities, it's what we get to. So for me, I'm very deep on energy.

Gresham Harkless 11:13

And it sounds like even the CEO hacks which is like an Apple book or even a habit that makes you more effective and efficient.

Dominik Stanecki 11:18

It's like that horse with the blinders on, right? You're stuck in a rut and you're just going one direction. And most, but here's the thing, and I'm always a brutally honest person. I got to tell a lot of people this. Some of you out there, that's your mission is just to be that bot. Some people must accept the fact that they're not everybody's achiever. Some people out there, their role is to be the auxiliary helper, right? And there's a certain temperament of person who is designed to be the backbone of society. And they can, there are always unique circumstances and breakout individuals, but most of them are here to be supporting actors. They're to play a supporting role. You must learn your role.

Gresham Harkless 11:57

Yeah, which is why I love that you're bringing that to light. Would you consider to be, that to be like what I would call a CEO nugget? A little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you were hopping to the time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Dominik Stanecki 12:11

Yeah, I'm going to say MBTI is the number one thing that I suggest. If I'm hiring, I'm not hiring people, I'm hiring a personality type. So I'm looking, what is the position. What is the best suited type for this position. One or two or maximum three types, usually it's two. And then what I'm doing is I'm writing an advertisement that speaks the language of those, that speaks to those types. And then we're getting applications coming in, CVs, resumes that you guys know that we call them in the U.S.

And then we're filtering through, inviting people for interviews that fit the personality type and go through a filtering process of their resume, meeting with those people that are fit our criteria, and then I want to get to know who you are. Let's talk about you and tell me what you experience and tell me what your screw ups and tell me all about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't want to waste my time in getting to know you in this regard if you don't fit a certain criteria.

Most companies will be like, come on in based on the resume and then it's hit or miss, right? I've had that insanity, repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So how many times can you hire somebody and realize they're not right and realize you're doing it the wrong way. So the question is, what's a better way? And this is just a better way. Is it the right way? Maybe yes. For me, it's a good way. And that's what I do. So I always tell people that I'm coaching or mentoring. I'm like, number one, learn typology.

Gresham Harkless 13:35

So absolutely appreciate that. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Dominik, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dominik Stanecki 13:46

Taking responsibility for the things that go wrong and being a leader, being an actual leader, not just the boss, but being a leader, having a vision and making difficult choices, having those conversations that you might not necessarily want to have, at times that might not be right, with people who are important, about topics that are challenging. And that's the combination of that is what I call a CEO. It's somebody who can solve problems. It's somebody who can sell. It's somebody who can motivate. It's someone who can criticize. It’s someone who is knowledgeable in vast areas of business, or if not, be able to build a team that complements their weaknesses. And knowing also who you are too and how you fit in the puzzle. And being a good CEO also means making sure that your ego is in check. Because if not, because you're responsible for the lives of many people.

It's like you're the driver and you're going down the freeway and you're ripping man, you're going fast, you're speeding and if something goes wrong, people's lives are in jeopardy and it's a lot of responsibility and a lot of people think, Oh, yeah, I'm going to be a CEO. I'm CEO on my LinkedIn. I'm a CEO now, right? It's we'll see when the first major crisis comes, if you really are a CEO, right? How are you going to handle it? Who are you going to blame? Who are you going to pay? Where are you going to throw money? Where are you going to put money to help solve this problem? Are you going to be cheap and try to save it? What are you going to realize? Also realizing when you've lost a battle, not to double down and put money into something that is sinking. Know when to assess risk, be able to predict certain things. So, either be strategic or tactical or both. So, it's multifaceted. It's a million things, right? It's everything.

Gresham Harkless 15:46

Yeah, it makes so much sense. Dominic, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you.

Dominik Stanecki 16:03

Awesome.  So, you can find me on LinkedIn. I don't use other social media. So, yeah, so look out also on YouTube. You can find us at 300DEVS as well.

Gresham Harkless 16:11

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, of course, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up, subscribe and find out about where you are in the world and all the awesome things that you're doing. So I hope you have a phenomenal day, my friend. 

Dominik Stanecki 16:23

Yeah, my pleasure.

Outro 16:24

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business as CEOhacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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