Today we start week two of the Belgian Top 21 and we start with a unique and especially atypical entrepreneurial story. Meet Annelies Delmoitié.
People ask me to describe myself in one sentence. I find that very limiting.
Atypical entrepreneurship
There are so many entrepreneurs whose course can be described in a number of simple phrases; Annelies Delmoitié is not one of them. Her entrepreneurial journey can best be described as atypical.
A lot of business leaders (or people in general) are expected to draw a clear line and create a clear vision of what they want to work on in the coming years. And for a lot of people, that also works as a motivator. People like Annelies, on the other hand, are unhappy with that. Their energy comes from looking for new opportunities, following passion and surfing different waves at the same time.
Annelies has been self-employed since 2014, after she had to put her job aside for many reasons, but mostly because she needed to get away from the harder-better-faster mentality present. An additional divorce, several car accidents and some other setbacks later, she is still happy she did it.
Today, she focuses mainly on 4 diverse industries, all of them giving her equal amounts of energy. She works as an independent admin for companies, is a Teamleader partner and business coach for budding entrepreneurs and since a few years also the Benelux agent for Amazonas hammocks.
Business support
For years now, Annelies has been assisting companies to manage their admin. From her own need to work better and smarter, she also became a Teamleader partner. She recommends the tools when she clearly feels than a company or entrepreneur really benefits from them. Again, her atypical way of selling is typical. No focus on quick high numbers, but rather on long-term relationships and collaborations.
“My mission is to help companies increase their efficiency.”
Very often Annelies got – through her experience (and also through her open way of communicating) by trial and error – the request of other entrepreneurs to sit together for a chat. It happened so often that she now no longer shares her entrepreneurial secrets for free, but has transformed them into coaching sessions and career guidance programs.
Something was still missing
Despite the many activities, Annelies missed her former sales and marketing background. Through an admin client she got the chance to take over the Benelux agency of Amazonas hammocks. Characteristic for this business is the sustainable entrepreneurship and the social commitment, something she wants to support enormously. The hammocks are made of sustainable materials from Brazil and Colombia, and the ecological wooden posts come from Poland.
Today she is turning in huge figures and can count B2B customers such as Willy Naessens and AS Adventure among her portfolio. Covid has had an impact on her business and has even led her to start a B2C webshop where she offers a number of hammocks for sale.