Davy's findings on the corona crisis.
Our marketing manager Rani launched the question: "Davy, can you please write a blog with the theme "The impact of one year of corona crisis". My answer was, of course, "Yes", and here I am, staring at my screen, while my fingers are recording unstructured brain flashes on the keyboard: "oops" - "will be fine" - "you're kidding" - "that's not possible" - "now what?".
Before there was Corona.
Until the age of 17, my living environment was my village and the immediate surroundings. At 18, I became a citizen of the world. I took part in an exchange programme and lived with a host family in Bolivia for a year. Since then, there have been no country borders for me. The world was my working area, with an average of 140 days spent abroad. In the morning, I flew to Mallorca, and in the evening I had dinner in Hamburg. The next morning, I picked up my car at the airport in Zaventem to drive to an event in Amsterdam, and during the weekend I was already on a long-haul flight to Cuba. A busy lifestyle, my work was my life, but I loved it. I am, as they say in German, 'ein Touristiker'.
On 13 March 2020, together with a bus full of cruise buffs, I visited Meyer Werft, the world's largest shipyard. It was then that the word 'pandemic' was first made public. We were still joking 'Oh dear, are we going to get home? Maybe the borders will close. And also, 'People, this may be the last time we see each other'.
Unfortunately, these jokes soon became reality.
At the end of June, I was on Mallorca with RTBF and VTM to report on what travelling is like at the destination. In July, I rewarded my eldest son with a dad-moment and we reported together from Tenerife. But not much later, one link after another within the tourism industry was put into a deep sleep, with a few rebukes here and there, but protests were futile. The start of a long hibernation, which still continues today.
The impact of the corona crisis meant that collaborations with most travel partners were immediately put on hold, revenues dropped by 90%. At the same time, we as Pitch Perfect did provide family income for a lot of families. Personally, in March 2020, my working area was immediately reduced from a world without borders to 1,400 m2, where I live and where our head office is located.
And now what?
To put it down in a few sentences. The impact of the corona crisis also made me become the 'enterprising' stay-at-home dad. My children really got to know their father, my wife fell back in love with her husband and our garden was never so pampered. The busyness of life was exchanged for quality and reflection. My business partner in crime Matthias will forever remember my words: "Calm down, just wait, everything will be fine".
How did we make it a positive story?
A few years back, we wished to achieve two things: be active in other sectors and market our own product. The momentum and time were available, so to work. We built a new website, started extensive lead generation, started prospecting in sectors unknown to us at the time and ... scored. Today, we help companies in Media, Residential Care, Lighting, Outsourcing, Artificial Intelligence and much more. We carry out audits of their sales-related processes, strategic analyses resulting in a fully-fledged Sales & Marketing plan. We often implement that plan ourselves by placing our Sales Instigators in their corporate culture on an outsourcing basis. A formula that works. Because of the continuity and follow-up we offer, adjustments can be made quickly and efficiently where necessary.
Regarding our product, since July 2020 we have been building our own SaaS-Platform (Software as a Service) called Bideo. It is an extremely user-friendly video sales platform to personalise, optimise, professionalise and digitise your sales process. It creates a WOW factor with the recipient, your customer or prospect. The platform is calibrated to optimize sales processes and customer journey, but can equally be used in other departments. Bideo is the platform every company needs.
Undertake
Today, more than ever, we are entrepreneurs, with other challenges crossing our path, such as integrating systems and processes in order to work as efficiently as possible. This always with the same two main goals as a priority: making sure our partners and the people who work with us and for us are satisfied.
Internally, we also had to make the necessary adjustments regarding structure. Matthias is, together with Annick, responsible for our commercial activities, the building up and maintenance of our partner portfolio as well as the entire sales team that is linked to it. I am responsible for the general management with focus on finance, HR, strategy & development and I am the face for Iberostar and Hapag-lloyd Cruises. The impact of the corona crisis also ensured that we attracted many top profiles from the tourism sector in recent months. So today we have a Dream Team and we are ready to start when tourism picks up again.
Matthias and I often offer a listening ear to entrepreneurs, to spar with them, but also to establish partnerships. We advise every entrepreneur to analyse his company. Are all sales processes running as they should? Are you future-proof? We would be happy to help you do this exercise. Call or mail us for an appointment.
- To finish, I share three of my life mottos: