Always nice to help an old colleague

More years ago that I care to remember I used to work at Prime Computer on the marketing team with Mark Mills.  Of course he got labelled "Marketing Mills" and he was also good at it.  We each moved on as Prime folded in on itself.

I bumped into him on LinkedIn recently, and he and his wife Anita have restored an old dilapidated farm in France and are running an amazing Gite.  Quite a change from IT Marketing, that.  I'm giving him some help on marketing ideas for old times' sake.

I'm passionate about Customer Service because I see it as a key element of Marketing, so imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw his blog with a post entitled Customer Satisfaction.  I like the fact that Mark's website for Les Hallais "doesn't do them justice" according to his guests.  It doesn't!

We've been talking about the amazing range of fresh local seasonal produce they have and the awesome standard of Anita's cooking.  None of that is covered on the site yet, and Mark's new to blogging so that will only appear in his blog as time passes.  They've not long finished turning a wrecked farmstead into an amazing luxury Gite.

He's told me about the weird French business rules, too.  He can't organise a tour of the area or the authorities classify him as a travel agent and want a stonking great bond in Euros that no sane person can afford.  So he has to be very careful when attracting business that he never gets seen as a travel agent.  But his area has the most amazing attractions and is only an hour by car form the Le Mans motor racing circuit, or a day's car tour from the incredible Mont St Michel.

There's a lot of ingenuity to be used organising things round those without getting taken for a stonking great travel agency bond.

I have some friends who are looking to organise choral masterclasses.  Les Hallais would be ideal for that, especially with a concert in the local hall at the end of the masterclass.  I'm putting them in touch!