We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dominic Arcuri. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dominic below.

Dominic, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

The single most important element to taking an idea and making it “operational” is passion. You must have a passion for what you set out to do, or you are doomed from the onset.

I have always had a passion for helping others and ultimately, it is what drove me into police work, where I spent 10 years as a police officer and detective. Through my experience, I saw and engaged first-hand, the victims of crime and those that believed they had nowhere to turn for help. Working to assist crime victims and those with medical issues, was not just a way of giving back, but in my view, part of my responsibility as a person of faith and driven by compassion.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, I was driven to escalate my role as a contributor to solutions and serve my country at the same time. I was selected to participate with the United States International Police Contingent, seconded to the United Nations Police (UNPOL) in Kosovo. There I worked alongside police officers from around the world and was introduced to the world of international policing and capacity building. Eventually I went on to serve representing the United States in the Kingdom of Jordan, Southern Sudan, Nigeria, and a few other locaitons on capacity development initiatives.

Once back home in the USA, I continued to work in the security industry, but the passion to contribute to a wider cause still burned inside me. Putting that momentum to use, I created Arcuri Group LLC, an education management company that specializes in teaching situational awareness. Bringing my brilliant business partner aboard for developing the business, along with the incredibly talented trainer cadre to deliver our product, offered an opportunity to expand our footprint on a global scale. Our customers and clients span all industries and backgrounds. With representation in 67 countries around the world, Arcuri Group has set the Global Standard in situational awareness education.

While engaged in business development, and continuing to provide service with passion, Arcuri Group has been able to give back in the form of charity through several programs we created for direct assistance. Examples include feeding orphanages in Kenya and Ghana, supplying school supplies to remove villages in Philippines, as well as domestic program supporting US Veterans and disease foundations.

None of this would be possible without the key ingredient, passion. So, for me, it is the fundamental key to building a successful organization.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I spent many years in policing, and then more years in policing support services, training and mentoring in developing nations. This cemented in a problem-solving mindset that carried over into my business development and business performance.

Problem-solving requires flexibility. If an organization, or company, lacks flexibility, then their potential for growth is impeded in my view. Having a core problem-solving nature is important and coming from the policing world gave me an opportunity to place problem-solving on the front burner. This is evident in the way we craft our products, making them versitile depending upon the audience, while keeping the core curriculim as the foundation.

Perodically we experience an unexpected outage or service interruption. In cases like this, we are involved imediately to rectify the issue, and follow up with the customer by not only taking responsibility, but adding value to their purchase and/or contract. Sometimes just the way you communicate is the difference between chaos and a satisfactory event resolution.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to “unlearn” was to not act in haste. This has always been a fault of mine, and even today continues to haunt me at times. My desire to get things done and solved is a good one but going about it should be carefully planned in most cases.

Research is a critical part of business development. It is widely known that many new businesses fail. Two huge takeaways I learned in business school. One, your ability to communicate has a direct effect on success, and two, start every business project with a research paper. Product, market, competition, feasibility, conducting interviews, logistics study, and more.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media is an important part of building a business, but not all social media platforms produce the same effectiveness.

If the plan is to sell merchandise, such as clothing, jewelry, or a service that is linked to a target audience of a specific demographic, then platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and other similar ones can work well. If the business serves a local community only, then adding a platform like Alignable can help you connect locally.

I have found Facebook and Instagram mostly to be what I call a “like parade.” I say this because outside of the marketplace there is little value in engaging on a social level where the dialogue often consists of jokes, political slams, slander and generally valueless jabber. My business uses Instagram as a placeholder only. We are not on Facebook.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is hands down, the best place to grow your brand from a professional standpoint. Linking and networking with professionals, showing off your brand, engaging in group discussions centered on parallel business interests, are all examples of the types of interactions that can be found on LinkedIn. Anyone that is starting a business should invest a lot of time on the platform, but not just to sell their product, but instead, to get to know others that engage in similar business and use these relationships as leverage in true “trading” in the marketplace.

All that said, one should not rely on social media alone. Businesses demand results, profit reference, and of course, satisfaction. Therefore, prior to any sales engagement, a business will usually reach out and learn where you have been effective and gather proof of a testimonial nature to the effectiveness of your product(s). No one buys services based on your own praise. There must be a grass roots mechanism that disseminates confidence in your product line and your company ethic.

Contact Info:

• Website: ArcuriGroupLLC.us
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arcurigroupllc/