Paul: 0:29

Hello and welcome back for this week's episode of MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers. This week I'm joined by our first European audience member, our first European guest. Thank you very much for joining us. Maciej, thank you for coming along.

Maciej: 0:44

Thank you so much, Paul, for inviting and thank you for hosting the great podcast, which I already have listened to a few times. Great job. Thank you.

Paul: 0:53

and you still came along to record. So that's a good, that's a good sign. I like it. Maciej here is the co founder and CEO at Workplace where he leverages his 15 years experience as both the CFO and the CEO in the industrial tools sector. So very different. vertical to what our audience traditionally is, which is great to have on. Mats has got a strong background in everything around logistics, e commerce and finance, but he's also an AI educator helping businesses integrate their AI with human expertise in order to drive growth. And currently focusing on enhancing the presence of Polish industry in the UK, while addressing the challenges that Polish companies can face in effective digital marketing strategies. Just first of all, to call out, I think that's a fantastic business angle. A lot of the businesses that we're talking to here in the UK that our audience traditionally is, and we've got some US audience as well. I think there's a lot to learn from the approach for globalization and how we can take what we know about our whole market and transfer that across. So I'm excited to dive into that. But before we do that, I'd just love to hear a little bit more about your background there in the manufacturing and industrial tools sector, Matty, cause you were explaining some of it to me before the show started. I think there's an incredible amount of expertise and it's nice to see somebody who has gone on that journey from that start point to where you are now, as to why you ended up doing what it is that you're doing now. So if you just want to walk the audience through some of that, I think would be interesting to hear. Thank you. It

Maciej: 2:35

10, 000 customers. this has been the roles of CFO and then Managing Director and Board Member and, doing various things all over Europe and the world. There's a very interesting job and I spent there like 12 years, maybe 13, and At a certain point, I just felt that I lacked the excitement and that something needs to change. And that whole came up together with the whole AI revolution. So then I said, okay, now who has a company which has three or four employees? AI agents who work and perform actual job. Let's say, I don't know a person who has it. So I just thought maybe I'd be the person. Together with my partner, we've founded a company and the company is we're doing lots of things, but the first thing is the marketing to the UK action. So we try to get you the Polish companies to UK. Second thing is we provide AI trainings. I will also be working as a tutor in the Warsaw University with that AI and finance. And the, another thing is that we try to help Asian companies come to Europe. That's. Point number three, and I think point number four, again, I'm in e commerce, so right now I'm sitting in Warsaw in a company that is the second largest Polish company that is producing dog food, and I'm consulting their project, so it's an incredible journey because within the last two, three months, I think more things happened than ever before in my professional life. And I'm so really interested in the fact that I change topics every day. It's, like a rollercoaster. And today with you, Paul, that's great. Another great thing. And also we have common friends and and it's just so exciting to, to do that. I feel that at a certain point I even have to stop because you cannot live on such a hype all the time. You have to stop and, go fishing with your son and whatever. But yeah it's great right now. I'm in the moment where when I have. Lots of things. Some of them are difficult for me. Some of them are difficult. For example, the university thing. Yeah, it's difficult. I've always thought that, I'm not the guy that teach anybody about anything. I'm like, okay, maybe some, sometimes I do something, some things good, properly, but I don't know if I can teach anybody anything. But it turned out that it's not the case. You just have to believe in yourself and believe if You have to have a sort of you have to have an idea of how to communicate your knowledge or experience. And and it makes people not maybe not learn, but somehow learn from your experience. And that's also important. Yeah. Right now I'm doing many things out of which. All of them concentrate on marketing, finance, and also the AI, which is an excellent tool for, I'm sorry, for play right now, cause, yeah, we have the AI agents for various things. Which were, have been prepared by my partner, but I think it's such an evolving technology that yeah, we're using the tools that we use today and within a year we won't use them for sure. So in order just to be in the loop yeah, we have guys. We even had their pictures in the wall. Yeah, that's it.

Paul: 6:13

And that's a, it's a fascinating story and it's clear that you're following your passions, which you know, I applaud because a lot of people are stuck in a box, in a self labeled box, in a job that they believe that is the only job that they can do. And to be able to step outside of that I've spoken to a few guests on the show who've done similar. They recognize what they want to do as a sub part of not limited by a job title. I enjoy helping people. And it's clear that, from what you're describing, you're on a journey to support people in lots of different ways. To come back to. the marketing angle from, for helping Polish businesses enter the UK. Can you elaborate a little bit on that in the first place? Like, why is that a challenge for Polish companies? Yeah.

Maciej: 7:00

out of my personal experience cause I started generating sort of sales generally to, to the EU because the company before that was limited to Polish market. And I started with Denmark. So we tried to do direct sales to Denmark because Denmark, it's a three, four days of delivery. So it's not that bad. And the product is the same that you sell almost everywhere. That should work. We had a guy who had, excellent excellent it was American accent, cause he was born in the New York, so we hired the guy, we hired another person who was also an excellent English speaker, not like me, but it was like, really fluent native speaker, and they started to talk, talking with those Danish somewhere, everywhere, all around Denmark, so yeah, we gathered like 150 customers, we were testing our product at maybe 50 after tests, maybe 30 customers started some kind of cooperation, and after one year I failed, cause, actually, when any trouble came around with that product, they just wanted to describe the problem in their language. So I had this experience and I said, okay, direct B2B doesn't work. You have to get it, some intermediary in between, right? And from my perspective it was strange cause in Denmark it didn't work. In Iceland, for example. It worked, but it worked with Polish people who went to work in Iceland, because I think there are around the same number of Polish people as Icelanders right now. With the UK market, which I I, which I also good to know a bit'cause I was in a very direct cooperation with one of the companies based in Scotland. The difference that I could tell was that British companies are, I would say, benefit driven in their choices, in their business choices. And Polish companies, German companies, or Italian companies and engineers and staffs they are all feature driven, which means that if you meet with somebody from Germany and so on, you talk about diameters, meters, kilograms efficiency whatever capacity and with British people it's always about, okay, now tell me how many pounds can I save per minute by buying this Maciejne and so on. What? Exact benefit. Do I receive? Do I can I write to my company? That when I use your offer? So it's so much more mercantile and it's so much more, maybe Dutch people are similar, but anyway, it, I think it has something to do with your whole sea history with, this being the empire of the seas and so on. And same with Dutch because they also have this I'd say, I think that's the word, mercantile view on on purchasing. And that also forces Companies which, that want to enter the UK to change their perspective, to change their marketing attitude, and also to prepare for something else. Because you cannot use the same techniques, you cannot use the same patterns as you would use for example, here. You're selling industrial products it's usual to invite your customer to your HQ to show them the specifics of the Maciejne, to show how it works. But it's not that good if it is, it accompanied by a direct offer and direct benefit package that would be expected by British customers. So you have to change that. So you have to change that. You have to adopt that. Most probably which I'm also very much supporting, Polish companies who really want to get to UK should talk to you, Paul. They should talk to Phil. that's the way you should do it. Otherwise, UK is much more open than the rest of Europe. It's always been open for the whole Commonwealth countries, Australia, States, and so on. Europe is much more closed. For example, France, it's totally closed. And they don't even speak other languages I

Paul: 11:35

That's a really interesting observation because, I see similar sort of problems ideally I'd like to have, my main business, I'd like to have more American clients. It's more tax efficient and I actually think Americans, so I do a lot of video, Americans are much more open to video content in general, right? They're ready to do it they're happy to represent themselves and merchandise themselves and tell their story and There's no shyness or hum there's less humility and I don't mean that in a negative way. They're just more open to selling what they've got and I think that's a great mindset to have. However, you hit the nail on the head if I go and try and sell to them in the same way I sell to British people, they get bored because they don't want to hear the story. They don't want to know where I've come from, why I do what I do. It's, hey pal, how much is this going to cost me? When can you get started? And what do I get for my money? So it's a very direct, different, commercially led approach in America.

Maciej: 12:29

I would say that it's it's not a general rule, because, I know many markets I've been into the industrial tools definitely feature driven only really, guys don't care about the price. In the beginning, and in the end, also they do not, at a certain point, at a certain level, of course, to some extent, they don't care. They just want to buy a Japanese Maciejne and that's it. But for example right here, when I'm here at Piesoto, which is A producer and distributor of dog food yeah there is something with people changing dog food five times a year. So you change from that to that. So in the end, they've got an average time of loyalty like four months or so or six. And and I cannot find out why would you change something that's so good. And I think, yeah, that's most likely maybe the customer market here starts to be more like price and and benefit driven. Obviously, we've had the large inflation stuff, we're, yeah, we're filling down everything so much more expensive. But coming back to the UK market, it is fascinating that Polish companies are so weak in the UK. Cause if you look at the Polish economy I think that within the last 35 years, Polish economy was up like four or five times comparing to the US being only 50 percent up, right? So Poland is the most within that time, Poland is the most quickly developing country in the world. I think China is behind us. It's been enormous what has happened. And yet we know how to play. Co operate with many continental countries here, but with UK, yeah, we lack something. I just thought that maybe that's a niche and maybe that's a thing worth talking about. And and bringing good Polish companies to the UK to, enrich your supply chains.

Paul: 14:34

I think that's absolutely fair. And I think you make a really valid point. in that there is some significant value for British companies working with Polish companies and vice versa. I just do think also that there's a certain level, I'm going to call it arrogance. I don't think it's meant in a, in the negative way that we take arrogance, right? I think there's an arrogance in English speaking people in general, that we talk in a certain way and we expect all of the cultures to be able to accept that and move with that. And so I think there's probably a similar barrier going the other way from the UK to Poland in, or any other European countries, particularly. You mentioned France being closed doors. Like I know my audience because of what I do. I'm predominantly English language focused because that's what the translation software understands best. That's where it's most accurate. And it's a big enough market. I'm a one man band, essentially, but why would I want to do anything else? But for businesses that are growing, we discount a lot of Europe because, oh they speak a different language to us, so I'm not going to bother. And it's interesting that, that mindset that you've got there. I think there's some real scope for the people, but you're right, there's got to be an intermediary. There's got to be somebody in the middle that can understand one side, translate it, and may understand the culture of their target country and help them reach those people.

Maciej: 15:56

It's, funny cause I, Already knew that if you want to start a business in China, you have to have a representative in China, a Chinese person. So when you have your meetings speak, they speak. And after the meeting that that person in the middle tells, Who meant what? And what are the results? Yeah, and I've been doing that and it works really. And I cannot think of doing that without an agency in China. Actually same with India because this is also a direction where I'm interested in. And from my perspective, yeah. It's are some companies, some very good companies. Sometimes they're family companies medium, Medium Large, sometimes even small, where they don't have the perspective, that it is possible to start working with somebody, let's say from the UK or Spain. They don't have this perspective and they are looking for ways, because our You know, same like in Britain. Some companies are devoted to their local market and they get enormous revenue, great profits, fine. What's wrong? They don't have to know any language and they are just Excellent workplaces. I'm in to help those people to get to you, get to Phil, get to other guys, who really are locally based in the UK and really can help them. The thing is I'm not the only one. There are also various organizations in Poland who are meant to internationalize companies and I've been on such trips and it was, great time because you meet a lot of people. So last year I've been in Spain in Vigo. I there were guys, one guy was, he was like from a yacht shipyard. And he has, he owns actually a yacht shipyard and he produces yachts for mainly people from Middle East, but he was totally never, ever on a biz trip in Europe. So it was his first time, I, and that was an experience for him, okay, he saw, he knew he just had a look at other people, had a look at how it works, some exhibition, and and I think, you learn a lot by experience, so even if you're not well prepared, even if, whatever, just start doing something. Like I started with that Denmark, that was a failure. That was a failure, and I should have known it before, but but thanks to Denmark, which was a fail and total catastrophe yeah, I got Netherlands. Romania, Hungary, Austria, Finland. Yeah, cause I learned from that, and it was lesson learned and and that's fine. And, a real success, is built on piles of failures, actually piles. You have to fail ten times to have the success. And these fails are the fundamental for success. And I strongly believe in that, so never give up and and pursue what you think

Paul: 18:57

But I think that's what a lot of people can benefit from working with marketing consultants at the right time, right? Is they can benefit from standing on their shoulders to an extent and not needing to repeat a lot of the main failures that marketing consultant will have already had. Like I can fast forward you past all of these things. You're still going to make mistakes, but hopefully we'll avoid all the catastrophe. We'll get you to a point where we'll, experiment with things that are much less risky and help you get then to the point that works. So when you know what something's doing and it's growing and it's working nicely. If I can rewind back a little bit back to the beginning, we talked about AI specifically around marketing and supporting people with marketing, and you mentioned AI agents. So for business owners who are watching at home and they're a little bit flustered by AI and I know I need to do something with it at some point. What is an AI agent? Is it a robot that comes to their house and helps them with their marketing? I know it's not, I know it's not, but

Maciej: 20:17

Let me start with just three sentences before, because many people are feel by the whole AI agenda and I have, in the trainings that we give I've we've made even a sort of a model where we show how simple the idea behind that is. Because AI is just simple maths. It's just simple calculus, probability, and what you have to really understand is that AI is basing on the data that it has basically, it tries to guess what will be next. Basing upon that, what was before. The whole mathematics is shockingly simple. But obviously billions of parameters. That that is very very important. Guys, an AI agent is, to put it simple, an AI app that has been pre invented. Pre learned about what you want her to do. For example I write a lot of texts for some applications, for some projects. For funding, pitches to the investors and so on. When I do it in a special style. So the simplest thing to do was to put all my text from the past into the GPTS. That's what we call it. And make the Maciejne learn how do I write. Right now when I have something to write, Some sort of a pitch or project or whatever. I just put the general idea about that. I just put the documents that the rules of the project, the procedure and so on. And I got something that is 85 percent ready, which means I save a lot of time and can use the time for something else. And that's great. If you, for example, because we're together with my partner, we have created a few things like that, even though it was in a company where there were around 40 salesmen and they lacked technical expertise. There was actually one or two people who knew everything and the rest was like, okay, I'm selling, selling, selling. And so we just created an agent who got all the materials, all the trainings that were possible and they could chat with this agent. It's so easy, it's not 100 percent sure, it will never be but it's such a great thing, not to waste your time on some mundane tasks like, writing the same sentences all over time all over again it's it's something actually that you can create On your own. And I'm tell telling everybody who listens to us right now is able to do that. I have done a simple thing for my son. He's nine years old. He was taking part in a maths competition. And there were some questions from previous years. I just loaded those questions. I just loaded the regulations of the contest and I said, okay, ask him questions, produce new questions. And teach him, and it started to do and it really worked, and he got a nice result. And that was a really great thing, because that was something, that, it's actually so simple that you can even learn, teach your kid how to do it, and and it's just, within everyone's reach.

Paul: 23:40

I think, for me, a lot of people misunderstand the level of complexity of the top of AI that doesn't need to be there in an effort to avoid having to do anything with it. Or, I'm not a technical person, so I'm not going to touch AI. And I'd need to employ a really complicated, expensive person to be able to do that for me, surely. So I, we're going to, we're going to work without it. But what you said there is really important. And that's how I learned to use AI much more effectively. Is to start using it for all the daily tasks that, even outside of work. I helped my son create a story with AI, and I, and it asked him, what characters he wanted involved in the story, what did he want to happen, who's the bad guy, who's the good guy. And we started that way, and it gives you ideas and it makes you curious. And now I use it for this episode will be transcribed, I'll put the transcript in there and it'll give me a set of, set outputs that I need in order to get it on the website and on the, on YouTube and things. And then to your point, and this is crucial, is it doesn't get it 100%. So it still needs a human over the top of it, but for the vast majority of things, it's almost there. But you need to have that, that, don't ever use it just to be lazy, it needs to have that human over the top, right?

Maciej: 24:54

Yeah don't be lazy. Try being three times faster and try to find out new ways to use your time to be more and more creative. But this is, yeah, it is very easy and it is for people, in the personal life, that's, yeah, that's great. I was even digging some hole in my garden and I made AI calculate the number of buckets that I need to fill. But from the business perspective, it may not be easy, and I believe that quite soon it will be expensive, cause in terms of when I was like in a company I found out that there was somebody who has used personal data of employees, to rework them somehow by GPT or BART, Gemini, I don't remember. And that is, that's a breach of many regulations. And that's a problem. And you may be liable for that if you're a board member or so. But, In order to use AI safely, Britain, okay, Britain is safe, but the EU AI Act is gonna change a lot. It's gonna block, I don't know if GPT will still be there. Still, you have to, you have to be Always up to date. For example. Right now here guys in Poland from Speak Leach speak. Yeah. They're called Speak leash org. They created LLM model, which can be based even on your phone. It can be based it's only 1 billion of parameters, so it's small, but. It can be based on your computer totally locally, which means that you have, you can apply a business function to that and have it, with no internet cable attached to that. And this still will be AI. it's incredible how many things can you solve with that. And I came up with a very simple solution. Strange and totally simplistic way to describe AI. Yeah, I presented the first time in March on the conference. It was like, where will I go for holidays this year? So generally there are some criteria. So obviously one destination should win and the criteria does not, do not change that much. So actually I should go every year to the same location. That's not true. Second time you won't, or third time you won't. And this will be called the presence penalty parameter of the AI. So the same answer won't be repeated forever. And that's why it simulates intelligence. So it's just a probability, it's 90 percent Tuscany, but 8 percent is Crete.

Paul: 27:38

I love it. I love it. That's some fantastic principles so that people can help understand what AI is. Cause we, we hear a lot on this show about stop using AI and AI is evil and none of those people come to that from a malicious point of view. Like I've seen AI misused. I'm sure everybody has misused, but it's great to hear from an advocate for AI as to what it is capable of doing, how it can help you in a realistic term. I see any number of people telling me how to use an AI to tell me what meals I should be cooking this week. That's great, but it doesn't save me a lot of money for my business. There are countless ways it can save you money, time and efficiency for your business. If you're watching at home you watch along to the show, I hope you're still here. And if you are, then I would encourage you to reach out to Matt Shee because he's a, it's a fantastic personality. I've been following his posts on LinkedIn for a little while now. And there's lots and lots of value to be added. And Maciej, if somebody wants to reach out and find out a little bit more about what you do or how you might be able to help them, what's the best way for them to contact you?

Maciej: 28:36

Call me. Call me. Get just call me or write and link, LinkedIn, write me an email or whatever. Or just call Paul and I think he already has my number.

Paul: 28:46

you. I'll connect you. Fantastic. Yeah. That's the, honestly, I will put the, your contact details in the show notes, but thank you very much for coming along and being a great guest, Maciej. I really enjoyed the chat.

Maciej: 28:55

Thank you so much.

Paul: 28:56

And thank you for coming along and watching the show because if it wasn't for you turning up every week we wouldn't be making the show. So thank you for watching the episode or listening to it if you're on a podcast directory. Please don't forget to give us a subscribe and new ask for everyone. I've always asked you to subscribe If you would give a review for us that would mean the world to me because so many of you email and message each week to say that you've enjoyed the show. Please if you could put that in a review on the episode or on the channel that would be amazing. Thank you very much and I will see you next week.