Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Stanek.
Daniel, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I found my first summer job on Craigslist working for a party rental company at the age of 16. Little did I know that one day, my first employer would become one of my greatest competitors. Within a month at my first job, I was the lead salesman, averaging over $250,000 in sales a month. All the other sales people were paid salary, commission, and provided with insurance/healthcare benefits. I was working for minimum wage and felt that my performance warranted a raise. I asked my boss for a raise, but was denied on the basis that I should be happy to have a job at such a young age. I was definitely disappointed and felt undervalued, but nonetheless I was taught that when I start something, I will finish it and that’s exactly what I did.
September came and I went back to being a full time high school student. I came across the opportunity to apply for an entrepreneurial scholarship. Rather than write a paper, I was judged on the presentation of a business plan that I felt I could execute given funding. With my summer job fresh in my head, I based my business model on that, but of course made several key changes that I felt were lacking at my summer job. Few months later, I received word that I had won the $40,000 scholarship to start my business and/or offset college tuition. It would be paid in annual disbursements of $10,000. Rather than wait for college to capitalize on that money, I jumped right in, purchased equipment, built a website, and Castle Party Rental was born.
Unfortunately, before I could take full advantage of the scholarship award/funds, the founder ended up passing away and all assets were frozen, so I never ended up seeing another penny that I had been promised. As a growing business that needed funding, this was a major setback. Rather than give up, I kept on working on my advertising, customer service, and everything that would attract/retrain future customers. Several newspapers and other entrepreneurial organizations reached out to me when they heard about my story and although they could not provide funding, the articles that they published about me online provided major credibility which a young company needed. They also connected with me, mentors and other young entrepreneurs. No amount of money could have accounted for these associated benefits.
When my employer asked me to come back next summer and work for them, I kindly declined, but did not tell him that I started my own company. The next thing you know, my old employer is threatening me with a lawsuit for copyright infringement, intellectual property theft, and several other non-grounded accusations. Clearly, he saw me as a threat and at age 17, I made it a goal to grow my business and outperform the company that had actually gotten me started in the industry. No longer Castle Party Rental was just a hobby. I turned my anger into passion and made sure to become a force to be reckoned with.
Each year, we added more equipment and entertainment options. I always tried to be the first to carry the latest and greatest new attractions. I had to move out of my parent’s garage and buy a warehouse. Before I knew it, I outgrew that warehouse and had to move into a larger one. When one large warehouse was not enough, I added a second. I always made sure to focus on quality. That seemed to be the one thing my competitors couldn’t maintain properly. My customers noticed the difference and many have since become lifelong customers. I have customers in which we do their company picnic, holiday party, their church events, their children’s birthday, later their kids weddings, and so forth. Maintaining an extremely high customer retention percentage while acquiring hundreds of new customers each year has gotten us to the Castle Party Rental that everyone knows and loves today.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a business and growing a business has been anything but a smooth road, but at the same time, I am thankful that it hasn’t been a smooth road, because you really learn from those bumps you encounter on your roadway to success.
One of the biggest struggles was being a student entrepreneur. When I first started this business, I didn’t know that this venture had the potential to turn into a multi-million dollar company, at least not as quick as it did. Consequently, It was important for me to get good grades and get into a good college, which requires a lot of time. Averaging about 3-4 hours of sleep each night with a fair share of “all-nighters” was very strenuous on me physically, but I developed a unparalleled mental toughness and superb time management skills that would stay with me through college and post-graduation.
One of the greatest struggles continues to be finding good employees to keep up with the rate at which we are growing. We used to sort through hundreds of applications, invite dozens for interviews each year, and still end up finding only 1-2 candidates that we felt were worth investing in. With minimum wage on the rise towards $15.00/hr across the country, our labor pool started to become smaller and smaller. Consequently, we made several key changes. We began focusing on more diverse event types that allowed us to provide work 7 days a week vs. just Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Doing so made our company more attractive to potential employees and tremendously helped expand our labor pool. We also restructured our pricing from a “best price” to “best value” structure. This allowed us to focus on attracting higher end clients. The goal was to try to be the premium steakhouse of the special events industry, not the McDonald’s of the industry. By doing less events, but better events, we needed less staff to fulfill orders and thus could send the “dream team” out to fulfill all of our most important events. Better events meant better profit margins which allowed us to offer better salaries and hence improve our employee retention rate.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Castle Party Rental – what should we know?
Although, I am the CEO of Castle Party Rental, many times I refer to myself as COO because I handle everything operations. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty or bust a sweat. I know my staff has a lot of respect for this and thus they are always working hard.
My work schedule is usually from when I wake up to when I go to bed, 7 days a week. I usually start out my day answering short emails in bed. After a bit, I’ll move down to the kitchen to tackle the more meaty emails (and eat breakfast of course). I have a few gals who will field calls for me, but any larger, more important events will be directed to me. I love emails, it’s almost like a to do list for me. I spend about 90% of my day communicating via email and maybe only 10% on the phone.
Every day is a little bit different. Depending on the event, I might help load trucks, drive the truck, and/or help setup. For the larger, more important events, I might stay on site to assure a smooth event, build my portfolio, meet the client, etc.
Our specialty is being a one stop shop for special events. Rather than utilize 3-4 vendors, a client can order everything from us for their next event, such as, but not limited to staging, lighting, sound, tables, chairs, linen, games, entertainment, etc. We have the most diverse product inventory in the country. Not only does this result in decreased costs for our clients, it also leaves an open line of communication and guarantees a seamless event, that would otherwise be more challenging when utilizing multiple vendors.
The product lines that we are most well known for are arcade games and LED furniture. Due to our specialization on these products, we’ve began to travel the entire country to fulfill client needs, and have even done a half dozen events in Canada.
The one thing that really sets us apart from others is quality. We only purchase from the leading suppliers and pride ourselves in products that look brand new. We rotate inventory often to make sure that we always have the best products for our customers. Our competitors continually fail to quality control their inventory, so when a new customer is used to our competition’s equipment, we look like rock stars and thus secure a lifelong client going forward.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I attribute my success to my confident & passionate personality. I’m not afraid of a challenge and actually like challenging myself in order to help me grow as an individual and furthermore grow my company. I’m confident in my product/service which really helps me close deals as it translates into consumer confidence. My customers see that I’m passionate about special events and look to me for my expertise and suggestions. I focus more on the event goals rather than individual products, which creates a whole new ordering experience for my customers.
Contact Info:
- Address: 602 Sidwell Court,
Suite V
St. Charles, IL 60174 - Website: www.CastlePartyRental.com
- Phone: 630-400-6545
- Email: Dan@CastlePartyRental.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/CastlePartyRentals
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