By the time you read this, I’ll have been in New York for a few days. Fun, of course, but also intense. I arrive on Tuesday afternoon, go to the New York Yankees in the evening (Frank Tanke will be jealous), and the next day my morning, afternoon and evening are packed with all kinds of meetings, presentations and conversations with the CallRevu and Calldrip team about the future, integrations and our role within this spectrum….

The day after that, in the morning I have a very important online meeting with an OEM on behalf of CARMEN Automotive BDC, then I have breakfast, more meetings follow, and I get into the taxi back to JFK to catch the plane. On Friday, together with Bart Kuijpers and Rolf Westgeest, I’ll be recording our Executive Podcast in Waalwijk with….? You’ll have to keep guessing at that one for now!

In other words: great fun, but time for sightseeing? No, there isn’t any. And the coming weeks are just as busy, or fun, depending on how you look at it! We get to give presentations at AutoBuzz in Barcelona (Stefanie van Dijk-Meenink is handling that one) and on the same day a presentation in Verona at the Dealer Days. That presentation I’m taking on myself.

Worthwhile?

Next week Thursday I’m flying to Budapest and back in a single day for the Hungarian dealers, and later perhaps to Brazil as well. The only question is: is it worthwhile?

I’ve always dreamed of a career in which you’re allowed and able to travel. Crossing the world and really seeing it too. And that’s tremendously enjoyable, and I do it with a great deal of love. But sometimes I think back to my holiday jobs as a paver. You knew exactly how many free hours you had before you were back in that dreadful van, on your way to a job… How things can change.

And then I come to the question my father-in-law recently put to me: what does it all bring in? All those presentations, wherever in the world? Sure, I can say that I’m well paid, but I do most presentations ‘for free’: only the travel and accommodation costs are reimbursed. Sometimes, as the icing on the cake, you get to send an invoice. But that’s not why I do it.

I simply enjoy giving presentations at schools like the IVA, Fontys and so on. Those I happily do for free, because it’s our duty, given our position, to get the younger generation enthusiastic about the automotive industry too. But a Hungarian dealer — surely I’m not going to ‘sell’ to them?

Business marathon

And then I arrive at the marathon I want to win. Not the real one, although I’ve had the chance to run the New York Marathon a number of times, but the business marathon. Because I’ve been able to give hundreds of presentations over the past ten years, on different continents, all across the Netherlands and Belgium, we at #DCDW have slowly grown into a company that’s active in seven countries, serves more than 700 dealers and facilitates tens of thousands of leads a month for the largest OEMs and dealers.

AND all that without spending much money on marketing. Our presentations, events (#DCDW Events), articles like this one and the podcasts show that we understand what we do and that it’s our core business to make online automotive better. Step by step.

So I often lose the sprint on the business front, but together with my incredible #DCDW team I try to win the marathon. I realize that now more than ever, here in New York, where it’s becoming important how we at #DCDW are going to take the next step with CallRevu and Calldrip. Keep on running!