The definition of success by Richard Branson

I was impressed by this little video . An interesting confrontation between Richard Branson and Desmond Tutu, who asks the entrepreneur what the definition of success is. Branson’s answer seems pronounced casually,  almost by accident, but actually those are very wise words (ok, we all knew it already, but we need to be remembered sometimes) :

 ”Money is not the definition of success. Get involved in what’s interesting in life and do it the best way you can. It may be that money is a by-product of that and you’ll be able to use that mon,ey for good use.”

“Don’t throw the good money after the bad”

From now on, Lemarco communicates through more than words alone. Our first video blog on youtube about a military strategy…

Hey… I SEU online!

The longer i’m into marketing, the more passionate i’m about online marketing.  There are two main reasons for that. The first reason could be that online marketing is more effective. But that’s not the reason. I am not at all convinced that an online marketing action is by definition more effective. But the real (first) reason I believe in online marketing is that at least you can measure and analyze the results. And that’s unique in marketing. Measure the traffic on your web site. Measure how many people open your electronic neweletter. Measure the clicks from Google Adwords.  And measuring allows you to take actions for improvement.  And see next time what the result is. And analyze again. Etc.

The second reason is that (at least up till now) the price of online marketing is only a fraction on traditional marketing. A banner in a B to B newsletter will cost you 150 to 250 € (an A4 print advetisement 1500 to 3000 €). A Google Adwords campaign can already be effective at 150 to 250 € a month. An email newsletter costs less than 30 cents per email.

And still, when when share my enthousiasm about online marketing with my customers (which I can’t hide), many remain very sceptical. They are disappointed if only 40 persons visit their web site each day. While my reaction is: ‘hey, that’s 40 people interested in your company. Why do they come? Which pages do they visit? Who are they? What kind of call to action do we offer them?’

So I will continue to fight, even if everyone is against me, because I know I’m right about the opportunity (and in marketing, there’s not a lot of things I know for 100% I’m right about)

I love McDonalds on paper

We’re right in the core of the summer holidays here. At least 50% of our customers are absent or working at half speed. Time for me – like each year- to reflect on strategy for Lemarco. If this period is calm in terms of number of hours that I work, at the same time it’s one of the most productive of the year.

Today I ordered some books at Amazon : one about the story of McDonalds, the other about Sam Walton, founder of the world’s biggest retailer Wal-Mart. I can’t wait to start reading again – it’s those (auto-)biographies that tend to give me lots of new ideas.

(I’ll never forget the books by GE’s Jack Welch and IBM’s Lou Gerstner).

We love you Philip Vandervoort, yes-we-can!

Some days are more ’special than others. Thursday April 29th was one of those dates people in the Microsoft Dynamics community won’t forget:

1. 

The Data News Award ’Application of the Year’ goes to Microsoft Dynamics for the first time. Does it mean Microsoft Dynamics is better than SAP?  No… yes…. well, does it matter, as long as there is something to be proud about?

 

2.

That same night, the Belgian Dynamics Community organizes the largest independant Microsoft Dynamics event ever  in Belgium, with more than 300 attendees showing up. But more important than that: Philip Vandervoort, CEO of Microsoft, decides to make a suprise appearance at the BDC event rather than sitting at a 300 € dinner table at the Data News Awards. Now, that is cool. That is is maybe un-Microsoft.

It has not always been easy to love Microsoft and it’s people, but now we can say with tears of emotion:  “We love you, Philip Vandervoort, yes-we-can!”