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Our own Branson in the making?When one talks with Mike Eilertson, one cannot help but be enthused by his zealous approach to entrepreneurship and, indeed, life. One wonders if this is perhaps the key to his success – an ability to find inspiration constantly within the dynamism of life itself.
Eilertson is the founder and director of Live Out Loud magazine, which is in itself a networking vehicle for his unique brand of marketing that outworks itself in Boiling Point Marketing and Live Out Loud Events.
While his present success is noteworthy, it is perhaps the journey he has undergone up until now which really makes Mike Eilertson a fascinating figure within the fluid field of South African entrepreneurs.
Eilertson cannot help but recall the name of Richard Branson in his description of his professional story. Like Branson, he found himself at odds with much of the typical business wisdom of his youth; and like the Virgin pioneer, Eilertson has found success without ever actually working for anyone other than himself.
This is a pattern that harks back to his early youth, and which still propels him onward today: “I want to be a major sculptor of a proudly South African future,” he says.
Such a future perhaps is located firmly in the outline of Eilertson’s past.
He began his business career in primary school with a venture capital project that included funding the top marbles players of his grade. Eilertson would use his cut of the winnings to produce marble starter packs that could be sold to mothers as they fetched their kids after school.
Needless to say, his mother was shocked when he asked to be taken to the shops to spend the grand he had made at school.
More was to follow.
Later, Eilertson would undercut his high school tuck shop when, through a contract with Beacon, he sold reject merchandise at half the price of his competition from his stand in the school change room. Eventually, his business was shut down when the tuck shop mothers complained.
Eilertson would move on to study entrepreneurship at the Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg).
As he began his studies, he realised that his only free time to run an actual business would be from four to nine in the morning, and thus began “The Breakfast Boy” – a business selling corporate breakfasts to the commuters of Sandton’s traffic. Included in the pack would be a pamphlet detailing the progress of the business and a chronicle of how Eilertson was meeting the challenges of expansion.
Meanwhile, Eilertson was attempting also to meet the challenge of a serious disagreement with his professors at university. “We were told, ‘Listen, guys, go and get a job, bide your time, build your own personal assets and resources and then become an entrepreneur’.
“For me, this ran counter to my core and fundamental beliefs about being an entrepreneur”, he recalls.
Eilertson readily contends that he differs from much of business orthodoxy.
“I’m sorry to say that I have never read any of those business books that I’m meant to have read. My head’s always been in the clouds and my reading matter has always been fantasy. I love the tales of knights and chivalry. I am a complete daydreamer.”
And so, Eilertson continued to live out his dreams; and his regular customers soon became fascinated with this young student making his way at the outskirts of Joburg’s business scene, and soon his business turned into a promotional network of students for his clients’ businesses.
It was within such a role that Eilertson would find his niche. But his launch pad was undoubtedly his breakfast business.
Many customers began to request a coffee to go with their breakfast, and when Eilertson discovered that Nestlé had many of the now well-known backpack beverage dispensers sitting in their stockroom unused, he quickly bought them for a meagre fee and levered his new assets to maximum advantage. When Nestlé wanted to buy them back, they discovered that Eilertson had bought the rights for the backpacks for the entire African continent.
Eventually, Nestlé would hire him to be their below-the-line marketing manager and soon Eilertson’s companies (under the banner of the Major Tom group) were responsible for much of the promotions of Nestlé, Coca-Cola and SAB stadium products.
With the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup on the horizon, he soon believed that the time was right to sell his stake in the industry and search for something new. And thus, Boiling Point Marketing was born.
Once again, Eilertson found a key concept for his business on the streets of Joburg, mingling with elite businesspeople as they drove to work.
Boiling Point had been awarded a contract with National Brands Limited and opened up coffee shops for Ciro on the side of the road all around Gauteng. But Eilertson soon realised that the connections made on the side of the road were far more valuable than the actual sales presence.
And so he began to offer free cappuccinos in exchange for business cards. By scanning those business cards, Eilertson was able to create live, real-time databases that allowed his clients access to Joburg’s professional set, immediately after engaging with them outside luxury estates and on their way to the office.
The results of such a channel were phenomenal, with Eilertson able to move vast amounts of his clients’ product via means of relatively cheap marketing campaigns, involving an offered cappuccino, a seized opportunity, and a smart piece of software.
And it was out of a desire to foster valuable connections made between elite businesses and elite businesspeople, that Eilertson launched his elite magazine and events company. He pitches his service as a new kind of marketing wherein clients are brought together in theatrical fantasy-like settings involving jets, luxury cars and high fashion.
His current business, therefore, still is predicated upon the principle of handing out pamphlets and breakfasts to the wealthy, albeit on a grander scale.
Although Eilertson, with the hint of an apologetic tone, does contend that his focus is not merely on wealth but on that aspect of our society which is maverick, and that aims to reinvent entire industries and change the rules of economic frigidities.
And so he lists as his defining moment in his career the one that seemingly acts as an encapsulation of a sense of adventure and daring on which he has built his success.
“When we sold the backpack rights, on the dawn of Boiling Point, one of the gentleman who worked with me was due to begin work for the new owners the following week.
“When I told him of my new venture, I began to see the look of excitement in his eyes. Here was a man with a settled job, who had only worked for me for two weeks, but who knew instinctively that something larger than life was opening up before him. He knew that come Monday, if he jumped ship, his salary would be halved, we wouldn’t even have premises for office, but still he believed he could do something special. And so he took the plunge.
“That, for me, is what business is all about,” he says.
Eilertson desperately wants to re-imagine business as something more than mere economic activity – as something that is bold and romantic.
Indeed, he credits much of his success to the people with whom he works. And running like a golden thread throughout all his discourse, is the notion of business as a shared adventure, as an epic quest akin to that of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
“If there’s one thing that defines our company, it is our unstoppable personnel. The atmosphere in our offices makes the Google story look second rate.
“We don’t have the typical agency wildness, but we have a wildness to explore new things with dynamic energy.
“People visit us for 15 minutes and often immediately exclaim that this is where they want to work. We have clients regularly send us their CVs,” he adds.
Eilertson directly relates this communal spirit with his core principles of leadership. “Leadership is about inspiring, and about never being negative. The world is always breaking people down, but I firmly believe that true leadership should be the reverse of that.
“The business experience is about people. From the moment you arrive at the office, from the cleaners to the security guards to the directors, everybody must be important and know that they are making a difference,” he says.
In Eilertson’s business philosophy, people, including clients, always should be seen and involved as partners. In this way, business may become the adventure for which we all long.
As for his future dreams, while being open-ended, their scope is found within this same vision – one that is able to remain local. “I have always been proudly South African and always will be. Even as we go international, we want to remain rooted in this country.
“My aim is to ‘live out loud’, and to help redefine the business landscape of this country. I want to be an ambassador who redefines the rules,” he says.
This redefinition centres on the spirit of entrepreneurship. For Eilertson, business is clearly about something more than the bottom line.
“You can’t start a business just because you want to make a profit. Making a profit has to be the byproduct of conquering the challenge you set yourself, a measure of your success in conquering that challenge. If not, you won’t add any value to anybody.”
After ignoring the advice of his professors, Eilertson bids others to do the same. “Someone will always warn you of every pitfall before you start a business. I have come to realise that everybody has a business idea in them, but it’s only the last 1% who are willing to take the plunge.
“What is needed in this country is massive encouragement to all those dreamers to not hold back. Everybody will always be warning you about the need to have a good website and all the secondary stuff, but if you have a good concept, you can succeed.
“And entrepreneurship will only stimulate even more businesses to start.
“There will always be competition which has bigger budgets than you, but why not try to redefine the rules?” he says.
And in a nation that requires a little redefinition (as well as not a few more business owners), Mike Eilertson’s impassioned plea rings true.
Chris Waldburger
