Dmitry Krasnogor: I Lost Everything Twice & Built a Dubai Business Empire | Better Business | Ep. 55

Welcome to the better business podcast. I'm your host Austin Zelland Join me week after week as I interview high-level entrepreneurs on their journey to success both in business and personal development Each week presents new stories to learn from and new ideas on how to run a better business Stay updated with all the guests will have by subscribing to this podcast Welcome to another episode of better business with Austin Zelland I'm super excited to have our guest here Dimitri Krasnogor. He's gonna share a little bit about his business experience And the things that he's been working on for the last I think 17 years you said here in Dubai I'm very excited to hear about it It's not often that you get to meet somebody that's been so deeply involved in the trenches of business in the UAE So thank you so much for joining me here today I'm very excited to learn more about your story and some of the things that you've been working on Could we just start out with maybe like a quick story of your background and how you got to where you're at today Hi, Austin. Thank you so much for having me. I wish it could be a short story, but 17 years It's very hard to say as a short story Yeah To start with I moved here exactly as soon as I graduated from University My father he used to be a consul general of Russia in Dubai So that's how I got a little bit of my connections and network in UAE and I keep you know Working with this network all the time. I think it's the the biggest and the most important part of my life it was a lot of ups and downs to be honest because my my my as I understand my family comes from the political background diplomacy and my zero experience in Business obviously had a decent impact on my life So two times I yeah two times actually I was a bankrupt about three or four different ventures never Started I mean it started but never Succeeded so you're a real entrepreneur Yes, I made a lot of mistakes and would do bird but now now we have a group of companies Me my my wife and have another partner managing partner Alex So what we do with the business consultancy, but normal one not like just open a company and halas ma salama Do whatever you want. We will help people to actually Penetrate the market to do the business planning financial modeling marketing strategies all the stuff. Yeah apart from that We have a real estate company. That's very Russian to be honest now taking an account all the things what's happening We have a small event management thing. That's how actually we met with Andre and I'm also trying to assist him a little bit and We're now working on one very interesting venture called no wood It's actually factory for production of a small outdoor furniture from recycled materials So we're using a cycle plastic and sent only so it's like really cool and my wife She has her own venture that I mean we're partners there, but we're not allowed to touch it It's for personal branding so she creating an agency That's doing a personal branding using all this AI technologies innovative technologies all the things and I believe she's also Doing a marketplace right now for that kind of stuff And yeah to come to this story it really took me about 17 years no I would say no 17 years it was about I would say 12 years of different experiences. Yeah, and even had an amazing experience being in Africa where we lost a Decent amount of money, so now I try not to work with Africa anymore But I still have a lot of friends there who actually helped me in that situation But yeah, this is briefly what we're doing it what what actually Happening right now with us about the business stuff in Dubai mm-hmm and so out of these companies which one is your main business I? Would say our bread and butter is a consultancy at the end of the day, but now real estate is picking up I mean for us because the problem is we started the company my my wife She has a real estate company in Russia and because of you know all these things what was happening a lot of Russian start Clients Russian clients were moving to Dubai and we refer them to another agencies And then all of a sudden we just I just made a small quick list that listen We're getting I don't know 20 30 percent from these agencies where we can make hundred percent Yeah, so I was begging her to actually open a real estate company So we did that but the problem is it's a good also experience We took a guy as a managing partner with the real estate brokerage experience And the problem is I never thought in my life. That is so complicated to Grow a manager out of broker, so he was continuing brokering and brokering and brokering all his life And when he came to the company he hired I don't ten different people zero sales within six months Just going to different presentations of this new projects Nothing moved at all. So it said bye-bye a half year the company was not doing anything Then another guy joined he seems to be no hungry a little bit and he seems to be very enthusiastic about the project Yeah, but the lack of your experience I believe couldn't allow him to work properly and we me and personally my wife We didn't want to be involved in that business because I used to be a real estate agent in Dubai. I And I didn't want to go into that business anymore and she was fed up with the Russian client I think she was so happy about her baby this Innovated entity company. Yeah, so she didn't want to be involved as well. And now we have amazing couple of Polish guys There's so much cool. They are really picking up the company for us and a lot of new deals are coming So I'm happy. So I believe that in a very soon in the very nearest time the actual Real estate company will be generating much more profit But my favorite project that we are working on is no wood and the factor because I truly believe that all these things the most important is either the production when you do the production of something on manufacturing of something because then you can Control the whole process of sales starting from the production to actually working with the clients Expansions and all these things. So this is this is the project that I'm working on. Yeah interesting And so when you're bringing on these partners like you talked about in the real estate You have these Polish guys Like are you just giving them equity in the business or equity in the company or are you putting them on salary? All the time with any kind of a business even including the the SBN group the current one our partner managing partner Alex I Always agree with the people that we need to reach a certain level of revenue that I'm happy with So once we reach that level that I'm generating so we can gradually decrease my shares and give it to the To the partner what I'm trying to say, like for example, if I want to make hundred thousand dollars Then the company is currently making hundred thousand dollars. I don't want to bring the partner and targeting fifty thousand dollars So he needs to reach the level when it's gonna be hundred fifty then Okay, he takes fifty I take hundred if he reached the level of hundred then we can become a hundred percent Sorry fifty fifty Percent partners. So the same we did right now in real estate So we also discussed with them like we want you to be partners. We want you to make money We want you to be 50-50 with us. We want you to handle everything but before giving you any equity We want you to show the results and only after that I mean obviously in all over the world is better to have this kind of option agreement Yeah, I think in your it's not very much workable thing So here you really have either to trust the people from the very beginning that I don't usually Or you have to wait to certain results from their side and then you just transfer the shares Interesting and so they're not getting paid any salary or anything No, no, they're getting straight to a commission and the real estate business is not about salary right now I have a lot of I mean, I'm a vice president of fun Russian business club here the branch of it here in UAE and we have a lot of people there who are related to real estate and We spent the fortune on trying to find the lead generation thing for the real estate and it doesn't worth it at all Like it's it's huge investments and zero outcome. Yeah, so I just called them said listen, how do you generate the traffic? How do you how do you make the leads? How do you get the leads and All of them replied exactly the same thing So they are paying 90% commission to the brokers and 10% the company's taking and the brokers should be handling the the leads themselves They should bring the list of the company Yeah And the problem is right now not not the problem But right now a lot of companies who are trying to compete on the market in terms of grabbing the brokers They'll most of the there are companies that already funding when you're selling the off plan You're usually getting paid from the developer within one month. You know, not not more than that So most of the brokers they want their money now or yesterday so a Lot of companies they already agreed to put to fund the brokers before the commission comes from from the ball from the developer But it's a super extreme thing because it could be delayed I know the companies that are not paid for a few months already and they pay from their own pocket and hugely there's a huge gap In cash and their company right now. Yeah, but some of the companies right now they're almost funding the full commission to the broker in advance and It's really hard to compete like you have you need to have a bunch of cash Lying in your pocket to fund your your broker. So I don't know. So for us, it's better, you know to do it on a commission basis So they still generate their their commission was there is a certain level they become partners and they're getting commission from every single broker Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that makes sense. And so what inspired you to get into these industries? I mean, they're so different, you know, you have the know what company you have the real estate company You have the consultancy what inspired you to do that? It's cool story and very easy to say first of all the consultancy business. I was more or less in Involved from the day when I came to Dubai the reason for that is my father and I'm proud of that that he's super ethical person so Even though with his powers being a consul general, I'm not sure if you know, but the consul general It's he's equal to the position of minister. So when he's here, he has his name as his excellency and He has he can reach any any level of officials here in UAE So obviously being in that position he was getting a lot of requests from from different people from Russia or local to Give a certain level of favors or helping to do something and because he's super ethical to his profession He never accepted that. So what I did I said, okay, let me help you I don't know the market but I can try to help you to do that So I started helping you know more and to know more about the country. How does it work? Where to go where the right people to talk to so this is how consultancy started and again I've been in consultancy almost 15 years. I would say I mean more or less related because at some point back in 2000 1819 we shut down the company with another partner and I wasn't doing any consultancy for about two or three years And then I restarted it in August again because of the situation what was happening the real estate as I explained you it was very easy because My wife was having a real estate in Russia and we didn't want to lose the money So now I don't want to throw it away because I can see that there is a good potential there and we can make money There so let it work, but no wood story is amazing story We wanted to grow the business and to scale it up and I spoke to a friend of mine who used to be who used to be working in BCG for many years now he has amazing business. He is The largest official legal sorry not official. He is the largest illegal manufacturer in Europe of cannabis Yeah, so I said listen you have such an amazing experience in BCG and I want to scale up the business So why don't you become a partner in our company here? Like give some investments to do a nice scale up and you can also guide us in terms of your knowledge And when he was in Dubai, he told me a very interesting thing that I never thought about So Dimitri listen when you're a consultant you have consultancy business Even if you generate profit of 1 billion dollars and you have another guy who is doing manufacturing I don't know production of something that generating 1 billion dollars you are still gonna be considered as a servant because and I started thinking like okay a Friend of mine like we're equal with him and he became my client for him It's normal to call me 10 at night and like I want something, you know sorted out Please help me to sort it out and it's like business things not like personal things Yeah, and I started realizing that really people even again, whatever is your wealth People would still consider you when your service as a servant to him So you're not gonna be equal in terms of you know, kind of position So I said, okay, what do you recommend me to do? I said you have to do the kind of I don't know in industrial stuff Manufacturing whatever but think about it So I came back to my partner Alex and listen like let's do so and I it's really triggered me like in the pipe I'm doing money and really people are not you know Not treating me the right way and I want to be cool with them So I came to my partner said Alex Let's do something and he had already project before when he moved to Dubai two years ago for this kind of product But unfortunately, they couldn't deliver with his partner something went wrong in Russia. So and they had zero experience in UAE So once we do it, we did some kind of market checkup. We went to different Municipalities we went to different developers. We received a huge feedback from them like basically ready standing with the money like guys Why do you want us to pay? And they said we have built the facility. So what the production once we have it you can you can you know Get the yellow eyes from my from our side and you can work it out And then I realized that this could be an amazing product for Africa for Asia because the plastic is all over the world and people want to get rid of it So that's why I've decided to go ahead with this one and event management. It was as the easiest thing When we're working on lead generation Tactics and strategies. We thought that one of the best idea is actually to have your own event where you can Promote your brand. So what actually happened? We created the concept called business in bricks has been for business in bricks, but Unfortunately, unfortunately, we're asked by the Russian government to help them a little bit with their own event That was two weeks prior to ours event And then I realized that if we're going to be switching or not switching actually asking our current Speakers to speak at their event and then come to our event in two weeks time and topics might be similar I thought we could you know, we could lose a lot of Potential speakers in our event and because you know helping the government it's Much more important sometimes than the money so we postponed our event and then it was summertime not a lot of work and we had you know, Possibility to do our homework and we realize that actually the event management stuff is not so profitable We're getting a brand awareness through partnership with this event called the world of opportunities that's going to be actually mid of November and We also we made it together in in April this year now, we're doing it in November this year It doesn't cost us too much because we're only investing to bring our speakers to bring the guests and we do the prep party for the event So we're still getting that brand awareness, but we have zero risk. So we don't need to run after sponsors We don't need to run after the tickets. We just need to deliver to deliver a good result Yeah, definitely. No, I think it's a great point You know, I've I've gotten a lot of traction with events as well myself I've hosted them everywhere all over the US and done international events and it's a great way to get brand awareness like you said but you know there's also something special to being a partner in an event or Just a speaker or something like that because if you can help facilitate some of that you kind of get the same effect really When it comes to brand awareness and stuff like that, so very very interesting stuff And so as you were on this journey of developing your business and starting these different companies What are some of the biggest obstacles that you faced and how did you overcome them? It's very interesting question because to be honest, it's really hard to say which Obstacles are really coming, you know on a daily basis I think the worst the most complicated thing is actually stuff is the people that you're working with Because finding the right people who really want to work with you will really understand how to work There is a nice Russian guy, Pavel. He has his own coaching session for For the HR people like, you know, how to hire the people how to motivate them And I know him and I like only one I mean, I never went to his coaching classes to be honest, but what I like he differentiates people for three different categories It's 0.8%, 1% and 1.2%. So 1% is actually the guy who came to work He has his own task. He completed his own task. He said thank you so much. I went home So the guy 0.8% is like he's listening to you, but he's not proactive. Sometimes he's delaying the staff, etc, etc But 1.2% guy is the guy who is actually did his own task. He's proactive He's offering some kind of you know, extra services. He's trying to help. He's trying to be involved. He wants to go into in the company. So Finding that kind of people is super complicated, but these are the only people that can really help to grow your business. Yeah, so What we're doing now, we just I mean if for example One of the guys he came he wanted to become a personal assistant to us We interviewed him But I realized like he won't be able to do to be a personal assistant because he doesn't know the market yet like he he's been very new on the market in UAE, but his Speaking skills are so amazing that he might be a good consultant for the company So instead of you know, kicking him out We're talking like why don't we don't you try to be a consultant the salesperson said I never sold I never was selling anything in my life said you don't need to sell anything in your life You just need to be able to talk properly to the client and then everything is going to be sold by automatically I mean the most important thing that people think that you really need to have kind of sales skills. It's Possible from one point of view, but in general, it's not something extraordinary. You don't need to cheat like some of the developers They know they're pushing their their stuff, you know to talk to a client not in a very transparent way, you know Trying to convince them. Yeah, I believe that Sometimes if you don't say extra stuff, but it's it's true. I mean you don't say any lies to the guys It's fine, but when you are hiding something this is not something right so the main thing about sales is to be professional to know how you talk and The most important again for me. The most important is how the people talking to you because this is this is the thing So that's what I'm trying to say Like we are meeting a lot of people are trying to know to talk to people all the time to bring new and new blood And even even in our company where from time to time we're changing people because we don't understand like for example this this girl She was working with us for two years We cannot offer her anything extra, you know to grow higher maybe because of that. She's not so motivated anymore So I'll say okay. Thank you so much Like why don't you look for another opportunities and we'll bring someone new who's gonna be hungry who can you know? Get special results who can reach certain level I think this is I mean the biggest obstacles that we're coming across Definitely. And so how do you attract this talent that you're talking about? So you have obviously a successful team You have people that want to work for you and they want to continue growing your organization these 1.2 people How do you attract these people to your organization? As I told you we as soon as we get any kind of Interesting CVS like all the time, you know Someone posting on the groups like I have very interesting guy or have a young guy who want to join like or I have someone It's kind of through your network. It's mainly from the network some of the some recommendations or for example When we start looking for the people like we really need to find someone for the new position or we need to change someone We just collect all this CVS and keep talking to people all the time Just to get to know them because this is the only way you can you can understand and even sometimes, you know It's better just to give it a try So for example, we give people a try like to work one month to see how they're gonna be results If you like it, we then give them an offer like a proper one. Yeah, it's kind of like a trial offer first. Yeah Yeah, okay. Cool. Now, you know in today's environment We have so many different things that are changing and new technology and stuff like that How do you stay up-to-date on industry trends? Oh, this is the most complicated thing for me because I always ask people How they work with these kind of things like do they afraid that at certain level the Artificial intelligence will take over our places will take over our businesses or will take over the world as we know in Terminator The lot of people they say yes, it's possible or maybe not as possible. It's not possible I don't know to be honest for us We're using AI a lot because you know, it's very easy and the funny thing is I swear It was really funny I wonder I wanted to use chat GPT just to give a technical task to my staff I did not want because sometimes when you do a Voice message is not really clear So I want to give a voice message first chat GPT so he can create a nice Technical task for the team and I just send it. So what he did because I needed to I need to give Some understanding to the stuff about commercial offer that he needs to do. So I said, okay Please write down a commercial offer for la la la la la and give a details about what I got from the client So what chat GPT did he actually created a commercial offer? He wrote down a commercial offer. It was very close to the reality Yes, it wasn't exact but it was very close to reality So I realized that sometimes, you know, it may be you can just give it up to chat GPT and he can do everything for you So how we're using it. We're using it for communication. We're using it definitely for researchers We're using it definitely for social networks 100% because it saves a lot of time About other stuff, unfortunately, because we're living in the world when everything changes so fast we have to deal with a lot of free zones and government entities and sometimes That the official channel can not be updated at that point So we cannot use a lot of artificial intelligence in our In our life, but of course, we're using a lot of CRMs and I like how it's being done We're using a lot of Zooming stuff because it's you know, talking to the clients all of them are Located in other countries most of the time. So yeah, well, that's all I believe interesting and so With all these new technologies that you're using and like different things that you're developing How do you make sure that your products or services are always exceeding customers expectations? It's a very good question the first thing I believe is you have to understand what he's really expecting from you because sometimes and We were working a lot of with the Russians. Unfortunately, unfortunately, I don't know But to my point of view Russians are very specific in terms of what they're looking for. So Even right now for example, we have one UK client and When we explain to him that something happened in the immigration system And there is a possibility that something will go wrong in terms of the visa going to be delayed and he cannot fly I can see his normal reaction saying like, okay, well it happened. That's okay. No problem Let's give me a solution what I can do etc. When you're doing the same with the Russians They are okay in the agreement. You wrote down 10 days. I said yeah 10 days, but like this is a forced measure No, no, but it says 10 days like why you promised me 10 days I need my bank account tomorrow I said listen, first of all, I have Russian passport and the banks they still have more deep compliance on you and deep KYC's Moreover, there are some stuff that is not related to our work that we cannot manage So what we're doing first is really we're getting the expectations from the client then we're trying to increase The possible timings the possible things that like to make sure that the ways we do it faster he is happy So the most important I believe in our work, especially consultancy businesses to make it faster To make it at a higher level And to give a support to the client at all the time when when he's with you so this is the most important thing and When you really know what he wants from you and I think it's very important because a lot of consultants and businesses they don't really go into details what he is looking for and But I think it's it's not only customers I think it's everybody sometimes we think that we're talking the same the same language And we do understand that you already know what I know what what I want from you And we assume that you already understood my requirements and sometimes most of the time It's not right. Like it could be absolutely different So I always tell our Consultant I go deeply into detail try to get as much as possible what he is looking for Yeah, and only after that we can you know exceed his expectations Yeah, definitely I think that plays such an important role is like really hearing the client and where they're at and what they see it as because Like that communication right there. It's like you're telling them one thing and they say yes, but they don't even understand what you're talking about so it's important to know what they're expecting so that you can exceed their expectations and so Obviously as business owners were faced with so many different tasks and stuff like that throughout our day keeps us very very busy So, how do you manage your tasks and prioritize the right things at the beginning of the day? First of all, and I said exactly the same to my assistant about that There are three different tasks to be honest The first is I call it type A is the most important task is the task that can generate money and the task Because of which you can lose the money So these are the two tasks that I mean, this is the one task But this kind of task should be managed as a priority in any way the second type of task is actually something that can increase the Efficiency of your company or can do an additional network or something like that So we start a task as type of type B and type C is the least important one is actually some administrative job And I really try to engage My assistant more on that kind of task so he can do everything Backed up from that end and to be honest, I'm I'm not a structural person at all So that does the reason that we are very good We have a very good synergy with my partner Alex because he's super structural guy. He comes from the corporate business and he has such a deep knowledge in terms of corporate culture and all these structures inside and I'm the guy who is selling who is talking with networking and That's why I'm trying to delegate as much as maximum as possible and to keep on myself on the sales business development networking all these kind of things and So, how do you manage your work-life balance if you've got so many different things that you're for you're working on As I told you for me, it's very easy. First of all the UAE market I'm not sure to be honest. How does it work in us or in Europe? I think in Europe very similar And I think in Europe and see if it's even more of from the legal framework here Most of the people that don't really work after seven. I mean they can go for their kind of networking business events they can go for Dinners lunches, so it's gonna be kind of very very free Type of a meeting not something really pushing into work. So after seven, I really try to spend Time with my wife with my family with my friends probably in the morning. I always do my sport So usually evening is not for the sport. So before work, I'm a huge fan of paddle So two hours of paddle every morning for me the most important part. I come to office usually around 1111 13 depends on the day So before 6 almost most of the tasks are done and the good thing that as I told you we work a lot of with Russia So Russia's one hour behind us. So when I'm called come at office at 11, Russia's 10 So just starting to work day in Russia. So we have plenty of time to complete complete all the tasks and I think what people are saying you really have to like what you're doing Even though I don't believe that if you like what you're doing If you're not getting overheated you are getting overheated sometimes and you have to you know To go and relax and forget about now For example now I'm dreaming like one week to cut off my phone Just throw it in the bathroom in the swimming pool and don't hear it for one week But I don't think I can do it earlier than probably winter time or something like that. Yeah But in general if you like what you're doing, you're not getting too much, you know stressed out etc and also also very important thing for me that My wife she really wants to work as well. So She understands like if I'm doing something on the phone with extra hours Or if she's doing something on the phone, we understand each other and support each other So there is no scandals like I you're not spending time with me. Sometimes Yeah, we you know, we feel sorry that we're not spending enough time with each other so we can put the phones away and Don't even touch it But in general, I believe that some wives that are not doing anything at all apart from the family things It's complicated for them to understand that the husband came to a home and he still needs to finalize some some tasks that he couldn't complete During the daytime, it could be an issue. But in our case scenario, it's very easy to handle. Yeah, definitely Okay, cool. So as we wrap up here, I have one final question for you What is one investment? It might be time. It might be money or resources that has paid off significantly in your business. I Think the investment in my network as this is the most valuable thing that I have in UAE Especially in Dubai. I mean I can I can honorably say that I can say one of the way I can honorably say that I know a lot of members from the ruling family. I know a lot of ministers personally I know a lot of top CEOs of the local huge companies yeah, and it really helps a lot in terms of my work in terms of my network and I think another also important investment is reputation. So as I told you, yes, you have to be transparent you have to Exceed the expectations of your client you have to deliver and some for example We had one client that was not happy with the first initial stage of our services that we assisted him But then because it was managed by us. He didn't he wasn't happy. He didn't want to go through us So he came to us for the second service At the later stage and we completed it in such an ideal way So he wrote me a huge message saying like I thank you so much for helping and services and like I really read it and I was so much happy because I Mean my reputation was suffering because he didn't get his Level of service from the very beginning, but then we over delivered what he was expecting and He came on the mind he even wrote us Even on the Google he put us a good feedback Awesome awesome. Cool. Well as we wrap up here, are there any final thoughts you want to leave our listeners with? Depends what you know what your followers and listeners are looking for but I can just give a small advice if you're coming to you I you have to understand that your is a combination of Western and Eastern mentality hundred percent you cannot expect here a European approach in business But also you will not get a pure Arab approach in business. So it's going to be balancing between two cultures And if you don't understand that it's going to be very hard to work in this country Awesome awesome. Well, hey, thank you so much for joining me here today and sharing your wisdom and insights And business and all the things that you've got going on. Thank you guys all for tuning in This is another episode of better business with Austin Zellin, and we'll see you all next time