Archive for the ‘Ireland’ Category

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“It’s a Long way to Tipperary”

July 14, 2012
Its a Long way to Tipperary festival

Everyone is Happy !

“Everyone is happy” we heard the old gentleman say to the person he was with as we walked past him on the street.

“Everyone is happy” he repeated, this time a little louder to make sure what he was saying registered with his buddy.

This was the main street in Tipperary town, and the “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” Festival that our client , Tipperary Co-op were sponsoring was in full swing.

We had just left the Tipperary Co-op Hardware store, or Top Creamery as the locals know it and there was a great buzz with threshing, old kids games, people enjoying the BBQ and of course plenty of banter. I spoke to a friendly gentleman from Rossmore called Liam O’Dwyer who was giving a blacksmith demonstration – he had an incredible display of old signs and as part of this was an old “Death Penny” from World War 1 (I’ll tell you about that in a separate blog!).

In our stroll down the town the locals were in full spirits, stopping to chat and enquiring where we were from. A old woman stopped me and I had to sign a book that apparently promised her a dance later! We popped into a small shop that had a full display of war memorabilia including war posters and a full history of the iconic song. Once again we were overwhelmed by the friendliness and warmth of the people there. The immortal song was made famous during World War 1 by the soldiers all over Europe.

Making the whole festival (which was celebrating 100 years of the iconic song) really special and great fun was that many people in the town were dressed in costume from that era.

It's a Long Way to Tipperary

Altogether now ….

(Imagine the anniversary of this famous song passing without marking it in any way – in Fuzion we refer to this as “Never Wasting a Good Story” – there is a huge PR tip for you!)

When we arrived in the town we had parked at the other side and walked all the way through. There were vintage cars, old tractors and motorbikes, people dressed up, everyone posing for photos, posters and banners and a fabulous, genuine “feel good atmosphere“.

Before we left the town we popped into the Tipperary Co-op owned SuperValu, which had its own exhibitions, competitions and the team there joined in the spirit of the festival wearing clothes from that era as well – all except for Pierce, the manager of course!

When we were there we were chatting to the guys from Tipperary Co-op, Richard, Pierce and Tom. They were thrilled with how their sponsorship of the festival had worked out but more than that they explained how the festival seemed to “unlock” a sense of spirit and fun in the town that seemed to have disappeared over the last few years through a mixture or recession, bad weather and general worries.

Maybe, everyone took a step back and grabbed onto some old values from a time when life was a little simpler.

As the old gentleman had said ..”Everyone is happy“.

It was worth repeating.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Entertainment, Hospitality, Ireland, Marketing, Positivity, PR, Tourism | 8 Comments »

Dove è il bar? (Where’s the bar!)

June 28, 2012
Greg Canty blog - Where's the bar?

Are you tempted ?

8 am, driving to work in Cork and it is grey and miserable. The city has taken a right battering as we witnessed the thunder and lightning during the night as well as the torrential rain pounding against the windows of the house.

I turn on the news to hear that Blackpool, Douglas and Clonakilty have been badly flooded with the rivers unable to cope after a month of record rainfall and excess rain during the night. Newstalk radio have residents from Blackpool and my old buddy Peter Collins from Barry’s pub in Douglas on telling their flood stories.

Next up there is some depressing “crap” about EU bailouts .. too much!

I drop Deirdre off at the office and head to the Airport Hotel to give a social media business session to a new client.

Time to switch over to the iPod and lets see what Mr Shuffle brings ..

First it brings me the gorgeous “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver – I pass a couple kissing goodbye as he drops her off to work. That’s nice.

Next it brings me the incredible voice of Tina Dico singing “Warm Sand“, what a great song …we couldn’t be further away from warm sand I’m thinking!

Just as I pull into the hotel an Italian lesson I had uploaded on the iPod before a holiday many moons ago comes on, repeat after me the voice says “Dove  è il bar?” … where is the bar?

Not a bad idea !!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Holidays, Ireland, Irish Economy, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

A Silicon Valley “State of Mind”

June 20, 2012
John Hartnett - ITLG

A Silicon Valley “State of Mind”

I am just back from a really uplifting Cork Chamber breakfast where the attendees had the pleasure of listening to John Hartnett, a Limerick man who is now working and living in Silicon Valley.

He was speaking about an initiative he is involved in called ITLG (Irish Technology Leadership Group), which is all about facilitating the Irish to succeed in Silicon Valley.

While the topic was absolutely fascinating what was even more interesting was his observations about Ireland and the Irish, which he can now do quite well “as an outsider, looking in” as he put it and the differences with Silicon Valley.

He spoke about Silicon Valley not being a place but being a “State of  Mind” and after listening to him speak for half an hour you get to understand exactly what he meant even by the language he chose in his presentation and in the Q&A afterwards.

The people in Silicon Valley work with a focused intensity, everything is possible, failure is often considered as a natural step on the ladder to success, mega opportunity is better than “niche”, we need to change the game and it’s all about “out of the park” ideas ….I was enthralled!

OK, we can see the big American influence but the language, both tone and content was totally infectious.

John spoke of the Irish having natural advantages such as being smart and sociable with great story telling ability but not being so great when it came to pitching and selling – “our kids should be presenting regularly at school so standing up in front of an audience and pitching your idea should be the most natural thing in the world when it matters”  he commented.

Silicon ValleyHe spoke about the very tangible “Negativity Bubble” in Ireland that we need to lose as quick as possible .. we need to get aggressive and go after it, we need to shake things up and make positive things happen. He spoke about getting more of the successful ex-pat Irish community in the US involved in the right organisations in Ireland such as the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the Science Council.

Not only did John make perfect sense but he gave everyone in the room a huge injection of positivity – Thank you John.

Cancel all flights …don’t let him leave the country!

What’s your State of Mind?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Note:

Colm Healy from Skelligs Chocolate gave me a great link to a “Ted” talk by Cameron Herold about “raising kids to be entrepreneurs“.

 

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Posted in Business Start Ups, Ireland, Irish Economy, Marketing, Personal development, Positivity, Recession | 11 Comments »

Fidel & 5 Bars!

May 30, 2012
Cuba

Havana – Cuba

To my surprise when I fired up my mobile phone after landing in Havana airport in Cuba it registered 5 bars of reception!

Wow.. after hearing about how backward the country was and in particular, that things like communications systems were at a very basic level I was pleasantly surprised to see my mobile phone registering a network. A few texts that had been sent while on the 10 hour flight started coming through.

I tested the service by sending a text message and I received an instant response! – Maybe Cuba, isn’t the backward country that we had heard it was after all?

The truth is the country is very backward , dilapidated and the seemingly happy natives are denied choice as part of the Castro communist regime.

In the next few days we see the locals queuing for their ration allowance of basic food stuffs, we constantly get harassed by men and women trying to sell black market cigars and looking for you to buy basic products such baby milk.

We see the locals packed into big classic American cars from the fifties and old Ladas, motoring on main roads with huge pot holes and carefully navigating the city centre roads and lane ways which are predominantly pot holes!

We see gorgeous buildings in the capital in ruins with no inhabitants and even the old Presidents palace, which is now the Revolution museum is in a very poor state despite being a major tourist attraction.

Along the streets of Havana you will see well appointed hotels, bars and restaurants as well as very basic offerings. Shopping is a total non event with city centre stores showcasing their wares with the most basic of window displays , which is no surprise as they have the bare minimum to sell.

Along the busy narrow streets you will see lots of people just hanging around, people living inside narrow doorways, sitting on doorsteps. The most unusual sight was huge queues of locals waiting for their turn to get a few minutes in one of the internet cafes to briefly connect to the outside world.

Credit cards work practically nowhere except for the very best of hotels – as the shopping is a non event this doesn’t matter too much but the restaurants and bars just take cash. By the way your regular ATM card won’t work in the bank machines.

Music is a big part of life here with musicians at every corner and even when you sit down at an empty bar, out of nowhere musicians will appear (and quickly disappear once you have bought a CD or tipped them!).

In Havana there even is an Irish influence with O’Reilly Street and yes there is a popular O’Reilly bar selling Mojitos but no Guinness! Even early in the afternoon a band appeared and a caricaturist.

After a few days we headed out of the city to a resort near a town called Varadero , heading past a few small villages on the way. You could see the poor condition of the homes and the other buildings and the very simple life that exists in the country.

I kept looking at my mobile phone on the journey into the country and was amazed to see that reception never dropped to less than 4 bars. Unfortunately I learnt from my son by text that Liverpool FC had fired the legendary manager Kenny Dalglish.

I am writing this blog post from the hotel room and my phone is registering 4 bars reception. Not once since I have been in Cuba has reception dropped, has a call dropped or a message not got through.

As well as sharing a little tale about a fascinating country I am leading to a question about the lousy phone coverage in Ireland. I was chatting to a really nice couple from Dublin and the subject of phone coverage came up – the couple live in Templeogue, a typical busy suburb and Tony was telling me that at best he gets 2 bars of coverage at his house and calls frequently drop.

How is it that in our “sophisticated” economy the phone coverage is so lousy? On the motorway from Dublin to Cork and on the other main routes there are regular black spots where coverage totally drops … I have swapped from O2 to Vodafone out of total frustration expecting that coverage issues would resolve but in truth one is pretty much as bad as the other.

If Fidel can do it surely we can – 5 bars please!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Holidays, Ireland, Tourism, Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

What is the biggest risk of all?

January 15, 2012
Hang Gliding

Freedom to Fly !

When we talk about risk we nearly always think in terms of financial risk – financially what am I putting on the line if this project or job doesn’t work out?

It brings back a simple conversation that I had with one of my bosses many moons ago when I worked in Guinness. This guy was very senior, successful and I guessed very wealthy.

He had all trappings of success, a prestigious home in Dublin, a marque company car and quite a senior and highly respected position in the company.

We were chatting about career, success and life in general and I was asking him about his goals – he had a very colourful career which included some very senior international posts with Guinness and now he was settling back to a senior post with Guinness in Ireland.

In my view the new role he had, while quite prestigious seemed to be a little dull compared to his previous ones – he spoke to me quite eloquently and it was the first time I heard about the concept of a “fur lined mouse trap“.

Basically he was telling me that he wasn’t enjoying what he was doing but the rewards were so good that he could not ever consider leaving the job. What a huge price to pay?

Over the last few years we have had the pleasure of dealing with many new clients who through a mixture of redundancy or choice have jumped off their corporate treadmill and explored new possibilities in their own new businesses. All of them will admit to working harder than before but will also admit to a huge sense of satisfaction and achievement. Quite a common sentiment is “Why didn’t I do this earlier?”

I wonder is financial risk the biggest risk of all?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Personal development, Positivity | 13 Comments »

When Great Products can mask over Poor Service

October 15, 2011
Butlers Chocolates

Great Coffee - Not so great service

I found myself in the queue of Butlers Chocolate Coffee Shop for about the fifth time in the week for my ritual morning treat and I just decided that I had to leave and search the streets of Cork for another alternative outlet that might serve coffee as good because of what I witnessed the previous day(Cork Coffee Roasters on Bridge Street is a little too far away).

Unfortunately I didn’t find a better cup of coffee anywhere so I just have to try to solve my dilemma by blogging about my experience in the hope that Butlers might notice.

Butlers Chocolate Coffee Shops do great coffee but at times the customer service is just appalling (my social media contacts will have seen a zillion posts about this from me). Some of the staff are very friendly and some are really quite the opposite. I find this incredible – I go in there at least three or four times a week, I buy a few coffees each time and some of the regular staff would neither smile, make small talk or even make eye contact.

There is also a very definite policy of preparing the coffee for the customer and leaving it on the counter and then “shouting” out the order until the customer hears and collects. You could be in there on a quiet day, sitting having a chat while waiting for your coffee , just feet from the counter and the staff will still “shout” your order instead of popping it over to you – I must admit this drives me nuts!

This must be how the staff are trained and I feel it also probably lends itself to a culture whereby a “no smile” scenario is quite acceptable as well. I can see the logic around staff overhead but this policy needs to be applied with some intelligence and “cop on”.

Hilariously they recently introduced a new electronic loyalty card system called a “Happiness” card and for the few weeks around it’s introduction all the staff had t-shirts with “Happiness” written boldly across them. With the card you earn your usual one in ten coffees free but you also earn loyalty points – all designed to have you coming back. Now there’s a good promotional idea!

This week I witnessed the very worst customer service incident, which motivated me to eventually write – A woman with a young kid and a new born baby around her neck in a little sling ordered a low fat latte. She seemed under pressure as she sat down while waiting for her coffee – the “shout” duly followed by the staff member: “low fat latte” to be followed by an even louder and more impatient “low fat latte“.

The poor lady who was sitting down and a little under pressure with her toddler and baby responded “I’ll get it when I am ready“. At this stage practically every customer in the coffee shop had heard the awful interaction and were trying to figure out why none of the three staff on duty could make an exception and walk the few feet over to the woman with her coffee.

I was chatting with a buddy of mine and I was about to collect the coffee from the counter and bring it over to the woman only to be beaten to the punch by another customer.

Incredible!

The product is great so we keep going back but at some point a new coffee shop will open that will know the value of smiling and the even greater the value of bringing coffee down to a customer in extreme or not so extreme situations .. I look forward to it.

If you have a great product be careful not to create an opportunity for poor service to creep in.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Brand Loyalty, Customer Care, Ireland, Marketing, PR, Retailing, Staff training, Uncategorized | 30 Comments »

What team are you playing like?

October 3, 2011
Brazil

What team are you playing like?

For some reason this year always felt like it was going to be one hell of a challenge. I must admit I was really worried about the effect of the budget changes and the reduced disposable income that we all have as a result. While the budget has had the predicted negative affect on the domestic economy a lot of things have changed, which have managed to balance this out.

The most important of these is a genuine attitude shift from people in business who are digging deep and really trying their best to make things happen for themselves. A true fighting spirit and resolve is coming through and people are trying “positive” things in the marketplace. We are at the coal face and are witnessing the uplift first hand – We are really busy with some really exciting new projects and it is all down to people being proactive and trying their best to make it happen. After all who else will do it for you?

So here we are entering the last quarter of the year and we are still standing – I must admit that I had been approaching the year very cautiously and found myself marking each month down as another one survived!

Enough, Enough… We have done well but we need to stop all of this “survival” thinking,  and if we were to use a football analogy we have probably been playing a defensive, cautious match like a classic Italian soccer team!

It’s time for the manager to call the captain to the side of the pitch and whisper “You’re a talented team, take off the shackles, enjoy yourself and start playing like Brazil”

What team are you playing like?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Marketing, Positivity, PR | Leave a Comment »

Handling the pressure of not being able to pay your debts

September 18, 2011
Handling the pressure of debt

Under Pressure

I guess a lot of people are finding themselves in a situation today where they just don’t have the funds to pay what they owe.

What do you do when you find yourself in this situation? – how do you deal with it, how do you cope, how do you handle those phone calls, how do you handle the pressure?

Unless you have been in the situation before do you know what to do or how you would react?

Will you avoid all calls and email requests, will you make promises you just can’t keep, will you tell lies about cheques that have been sent or will you take every call and be up front and honest with every single caller as to what the situation is and how you intend sorting it out?

Will you promise your creditor an update within a fixed time period and actually deliver this update?

When you are in this spot more than likely on one hand you are fighting for survival, for solutions while at the same time trying to deal with this mixture of creditors – angry, understanding, patient, worried all demanding their payments.

A number of years back I found myself in this spot – I was selling the business I was a joint partner of, I had my figures done, money in and money owed. The theory was perfect – I would have enough from the proceeds to comfortably settle all monies due and even have a good balance left over!! A fine reward for 12 years of hard work..

A few things went badly wrong (a landlord deliberately delaying the lease assignment for over a year was the main problem, which caused huge problems as we were operating month to month) and I found myself with a significant shortfall – the day I did my tally that awful, sick sinking feeling just took over my body and I broke into a cold sweat realising that I was in a financial hole.

When that awful sick feeling and sheer panic eventually subsided (this stayed with me for at least a week – a dark place to be) I had to start dealing with the situation.

The supplier phone calls ? I could tell you that I took every one as they came in but honestly I couldn’t handle them, I had enough on my plate trying to get my head right and deal with the situation and I just wasn’t able to cope with these calls at the same time. I had never actually dealt with the suppliers directly, which definitely made it easier.

When I started to calm down I made my plan. I asked my good friend and accountant Tom Sheehan of TA Sheehan & Co in Cork to help.

We figured out how much we could pay everyone and Tom took over the job of negotiating with each supplier. I corresponded with all suppliers by fax (I just wasn’t able for the phone calls) and passed on Tom’s details – he took it from there and successfully settled with all of them. The business had dealings with most of these suppliers for over 12 years so I reckoned that they had made plenty from me over the years – either way I could not pay them what I did not have.

This was a horrible time in my life and I’m sure it was quite unpleasant for those my business owed money to – most of these were big multinationals but some were small businesses and I am sure these were quite worried at the time.

Was I honourable? I guess I was in the end but I do know how difficult it was to deal with those calls – for a while I did hide and I did need help to deal with the situation.

My advice for anyone in this tight spot – do what you can but don’t hide, if you need help then ask for it. Stay honourable ..

PS: Thank you Tom – the help you gave me at this time I’ll never forget and it kept me sane!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Legal | 3 Comments »

Have you Stormed the Recession?

September 13, 2011
Perfect Storm

Navigating the Storm

At the beginning of 2009 I wrote this article for a few publications – this was written when “panic” was at a peak and we were all scrambling and desperately trying to find solid ground as the earth was crumbling under our feet:

Storming the Recession (Feb 2009)

Right now the country is gripped not only by Recession, but by Depression. The fear is absolutely tangible with everyone, as we face the storm that is raging all around us.

The money men are telling us to chase our debtors aggressively, delay our creditors as much as possible and cut back on spending.  That’s fine if we all existed in isolation of each other but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this approach will have everything grinding to a halt in a very short space of time.

Instead of this negative approach how about, rather that defence, think attack and work towards ‘Storming the Recession’?

Let’s work hard – carefully but positively; let’s deliver great service to our customers instead of just good service and let’s keep our eyes wide open to spot the unique opportunities that will present themselves in this unique climate – can we allow ourselves to keep an open mind to the many opportunities that are out there?

Your approach to Marketing Activity will be a key factor.

If you cut back on your Marketing activity where will this leave your business? What impact will it have on volume?  Will you fall behind your competitors, lose your footing in the marketplace and could it damage your business in the long term?

Also, if your competitors pull back from their activities does this present you with an opportunity?

Without a doubt business will not come as easy as it has in the recent past.  You will need to be more pro-active than before, as your competitors could well be chasing your customers more aggressively than ever before.  Can your business really afford to hide at the moment?

Accepting that the financial health of business may have changed you should re-evaluate your activities and seek better value from your Budget:

  • Advertising – Evaluate effectiveness & negotiate (never has there been a better time to bargain!)
  • Bring PR into the mix – Achieve valuable editorial
  • Social Media Activity – Telling the great story of you and your business
  • Promotions – Get your message out there through prize giveaways, often this can be achieved with no media cost
  • Direct Marketing – Communicate directly to your target audience
  • Customer Database – Ensure your database methods are in order so you can communicate economically and build customer loyalty through communicating information and offers
  • Cross Selling – Increase business with customers by attracting them to other services
  • Review – Make sure you are recording the results of your campaigns
  • Team Review – All your team should fully understand your objectives
  • Web Optimisation – Ensure that your website is in order and that your prospective customers can find it easily.
  • Business Network – Increase your network of contacts proactively by joining and participating in business networks such as the Chamber

‘Storming the Recession’ is a positive strategy to deal with the current climate.

By delivering great service, operating as efficiently as possible, and by not hiding in the marketplace, you will be in a position to take advantage of the unique opportunities that will present themselves during this period and ride out this storm.

Have you stormed the recession?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

 

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Posted in Crisis PR, Ireland, Irish Economy, Recession | Leave a Comment »

Factor 15, the Flywheel and that crew in Killarney

September 6, 2011
Irish Summer

See you in 2012?

I’m getting ready for another day, up early and wondering what to wear ..

The rain pounding against the bedroom window and a night of strong winds rattling fence doors and outdoor tables and chairs guides me towards something sensible and yes we will be wearing a coat today. This was after a cold September night (I find that hard to say as don’t really want to admit that August, the summer of 2011 is done and dusted) when we had to fire up the heating for a while. Strangely enough that wasn’t the first time – in August we turned it on twice!

Grabbing a towel from the cupboard in the dark and something drops onto the floor – Light on..My God, I haven’t seen that in a while and I won’t be needing it again for a really long time unless we escape to somewhere sunny for a week (now there’s an idea!). It was a bottle of Factor 15 sun protection – I didn’t get to use much of this in 2011 – whichever way you cut it the summer was shocking and it has left a lot of us really disappointed. We could definitely have done with some (any ..) sunshine.

I illogically held onto the strange idea that we would have a great summer because we had a lousy winter and even more illogically that we would have a great summer because the usual “leaving cert” summer heat wave never happened. Indian summer – nah, doubt it..

What can we do?

At least we don’t depend on the weather too much for our business but it does to some extent as it would affect some of our clients working in the tourism sector and we do a lot of work in this area.

Tidy Town success for Killarney

Tidy Town success for Killarney

Yesterday was a huge day for one of our clients, The Killarney Chamber of Tourism & Commerce. They have just won the Tidy Towns competition for 2011 and unfortunately had to celebrate in terrible weather yesterday (5th Sept, 2011). In Killarney they are hugely dependant on the Tourism sector and as you imagine the lousy weather can’t have helped them a whole pile.

Ironically they had a great year despite the elements – you could put this down to many factors but as a close observer I put it down to simply doing the right thing consistently.

In my last blog I spoke about the fabulous book by Jim Collins, called Good to Great where he scientifically unearthed the factors that led to the sustained success of what he called “Great” companies.

The reasons for Killarney’s terrific Tidy Towns win and the terrific season is rooted in one of the success factors that Jim Collins talks about. He speaks about the Flywheel..

Initially it takes a lot of effort, toil and sweat to achieve a small movement to the flywheel – it takes a lot of people pushing and pushing in the same direction before you achieve any movement – eventually some momentum is achieved and with more and more pushing even more momentum is achieved. Before you know it the flywheel is moving quickly and just needs another nudge now and then in the right direction to maintain the momentum.

To the outside world it looks like it is easy, that success just came knocking on the door and it just had to be opened. To the people involved they are shocked at anyone that thinks it was easy – they remember the times when huge effort was required to achieve even the tiniest momentum.

Killarney – we have been working with them for about 6 years. Yes, they are blessed with the most incredible natural attributes but they have this team spirit, this rising tide mentality, this can do attitude, this belief that nothing happens by itself and that they need to be proactive at all times to achieve success.

Jaunting Cars - Killarney

Winning is Easy?

The town is beautiful, it is spotless, the tourist product is superb, the hotels, guesthouses and B&B’s know their business and are experts at delivering a genuine welcome. They have Summerfest, they have the Rally, they have Christmas in Killarney, they have the Irish Open, they have the right attitude. You may have noticed the teams of volunteers in Killarney, adults and children early in the mornings and late in the evenings painting, tidying, gardening and picking up rubbish all around the town – at one point this year there was a row because some of these guys refused to be featured in some PR shots for a TV programme.

“That’s not why they are doing it” we were told. That goes against the grain with our Never Waste a Good Story mentality – very frustrating. It does tell you a big story about them – this is about collective pride in their town. Well done Killarney!

They can’t do anything about the rain but they can can decide how they go about their business – control what you can, go about your business in the best possible way and if the sun shines it’s a bonus!

Flywheel..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Customer Care, Holidays, Hospitality, Ireland, Irish Economy, Positivity, Tourism, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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