Archive for the ‘Irish Economy’ Category

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Confidence, Logic and New Cars

March 10, 2014

Mad Men Cadillac

According to wikipedia Confidence is described as a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective.

It also goes on to say that Confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy as those without it may fail or not try because they lack it and those with it may succeed because they have it rather than because of an innate ability.

This Confidence thing seems to be a pretty important ingredient to success – where can I get it?

Everyone we deal with is now starting to “accept” that the economy is finally improving and consumer/business Confidence is one of the reasons quoted as being responsible for the change.

For example, nationally, car sales are up 28 per cent. The light commercial vehicle market, which is a good sign of activity in the SME sector, saw an increase in sales of 41 per cent in February with sales of Heavy Goods Vehicles, a barometer of activity in the wider Economy, seeing a 68 per cent increase.

Alan Nolan, SIMI Director General: “The Motor Industry is often the first to be affected when there’s a downturn and one of the first to come back when the economy improves. Dealers are undoubtedly seeing a lot more Confidence among consumers, many of whom have been putting off making large purchases over the last few years.”

Incredibly February 2014 saw the formation of 37 new companies in the Motor Industry.

Where did this magical Confidence come from all of a sudden?

  • Is it all due to logical factors that the economists can explain in detail?
  • Is it down to clever governmental policy that has strategically steered us into a much better place?
  • Is it because there have been lots of tax breaks, which have lead to increases in disposable income?
  • Are our fabulous banks now getting back to lending again?

Hmmm..

Is it because collectively we changed our attitudes because we all got totally burnt out and fed up with the suffocating negativity everywhere and realised we had to start looking up instead of down and make things happen for ourselves?

Once we changed out attitudes, performance followed and before we knew it many of us witnessed positive results and started believing that things were changing for the better. We were Confident once again.

Confidence

While there were lots of real elements that led to the crash of our economy our collapse of Confidence meant the hole became much deeper than it ever should have been.

For exactly the same reason we will now see a huge improvement – not for any logical reasons but because we are now Confident.

The next time we hit a bump in the road we need to remember that protecting Confidence is the number one priority.

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Business Planning, Irish Economy, Motivation, Positivity | 4 Comments »

Start believing, stop whispering

December 2, 2013

Waiting for Santa

I was reading an interesting blog post by the hard working and very smart Deirdre O’Shaughnessy, (Editor of the Cork Independent, writer for the Sunday Business Post and regular media panellist) yesterday about signs of positivity and the earliest (Santa Claus wish list) rumblings of tax cuts.

As Deirdre pointed out this thinking might stop when poor Santa gets stuck in the chimney …in truth few of us have regular chimneys these days so like everyone else life is even complicated for him these days!

Deirdre O'ShaughnessyDeirdre talks about the 58,000 extra people working in Ireland in Q3 compared to Q2 and unemployment has dropped below 13%, she talks about the bottoming out and rising of house prices in Dublin (for me scarcity of supply is the best story of all – building is inevitable which means jobs) and the icing on the cake is the bailout exit.

These are all great and very concrete signs of real improvement and even the news that the State is likely to make a profit on the Bank of Ireland share issue is encouraging.

Deirdre goes on “Things seem to be improving. That’s undeniable. Over the past couple of months, business people I have spoken to have whispered that they are seeing a lift. Whispered, because it’s fragile”

When I hear Deirdre saying things like this I take huge encouragement from it – in her role at the Cork Independent she would interact closely and regularly with a cross section of businesses from all sectors and this would be a good barometer as to how things are performing “for real“.

Last week I shared in my blog post “Are things on the up at last?” our own experiences in Fuzion both in Cork and Dublin. We are witnessing a definite sea change.

Even last week we had many meetings with clients and prospects who are planning ahead for 2014 – we haven’t seen such early planning for quite some time. People are definitely feeling and most importantly behaving confidently.

Confidence and belief is half the battle – performance will follow. We need to start believing.

2014 will be a great year …instead of whispering it we need start roaring it!

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

The biggest bit of ‘good news’ we’ve been hearing of late is, of course, the bailout exit. This is a bit like being one of the aforementioned young people who can’t find work. You’ve moved out of home so your parents technically can’t tell you what to do any more. But living, jobless, in their garage, has its own restrictions.

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Posted in Business Planning, Irish Economy, Motivation, Positivity | 18 Comments »

Are things on the up at last?

November 25, 2013

economic crystal ball

I was really annoyed to hear the coverage that the media gave the latest Ernest & Young downgrading of their Irish Economic Forecast in their Economic Eye Winter 2013 report.

“The latest All Island EY Economic Eye Winter 2013 report has revised its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecast for 2013 downwards in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) from 0.8% to -0.2%“.

The comprehensive report covered more than just this but it was the “downgrading” that seemed to grab the headlines.

I gritted my teeth and shouted “shut the hell up” at the radio when I heard their economic experts being interviewed on air explaining their analysis.

Jesus …we near to hear positive news, we need to hear about those businesses that are seeing growth, we near to hear about the successes and we need to start believing that things are really improving.

ConfidenceIt’s only with confidence that things will start to improve and I firmly believe that this is happening – at least from what we are witnessing in the marketplace.

Giving airtime to such negativity is only going to hold us back as it has done for the last few years. Is market performance all down to facts or is it down to sentiment?

A nice bounce will happen if we start believing ..

While I have every respect for the experts in Ernest & Young I do believe that we have every reason for optimism based on what I am seeing and hearing:

  • We are seeing positivity and real intent by our clients
  • We are seeing competitiveness for staff
  • We are seeing sectors that were dormant such as retail and fashion back engaging for the first time in years
  • Hotels are busier than before – often it’s hard to get a booking
  • The summer for the tourist sector was well up on recent years
  • Restaurants are busier and the corporate market is back in force wining and dining: “Lately Tuesday’s are like Saturday’s” one restaurateur shared with me
  • Christmas party bookings are up on last year
  • The tradesman seem to be busy again
  • New businesses are opening
  • Hotels in NAMA control are being purchased by new operators
  • Solicitors and estate agents are telling me house transactions are happening – not by investors but by genuine buyers
  • Those houses will need furniture, carpets, lighting, painting and decorating
  • Banks are finally making progress with difficult situations and progress is being made
  • Supermarkets are opening new units and fighting a war using a “Support Irish products” agenda
  • The shops seem to be busier than they have been

Of course these are just my observations and the conversations that I am hearing every day.

I genuinely feel things are on the up and I sincerely hope that this is the case – to broaden this conversation can I ask ..

What are you experiencing?

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Motivation, Positivity, Recession | 6 Comments »

Bob Savage, EMC joins the Smarter Egg club

November 13, 2013

Bob Savage - EMC

You have to hand it to him – Aodan Enright from Smarter Egg did a great job!

Not only did he do a great job with his really interesting and enjoyable event this week, at the White Horse in Cork but he has done so well with his Smarter Egg concept of learning, which has evolved gradually since he began a number of years back.

I was one of the early converts – I was immediately intrigued by what Aodan described to me when I met him at a networking event years ago and he didn’t disappoint with a very unique (I hate that word now) business and personal learning experience.

Aodan even had me speaking at one of his first events, which I was thrilled to do.

(I recommend you have a peep at his website and consider trying one of his programmes – it won’t disappoint)

This week at his event he had a number of guest speakers and the high point of the evening was his one to one, up close and personal interview with Bob Savage, CEO of the highly successful EMC in Cork.

I’m not sure if it was the intimate atmosphere of the venue, the fact that Aodan worked for Bob before or if it was just his interrogation skills but it led to a really superb interview and one that gave us a rare insight into a modern, successful business leader.

At times  when asked a question Bob was a little unsure about answering and even stopped to mention that the event was being recorded. Good job Aodan!

However he did open up and gave us some gems:

  • He is big on teamwork and creating a great place to work
  • He loves genuine, enthusiastic people and hates the opposite
  • Passion for what you do is essential
  • He views what he does as a vocation and does acknowledge that he has made personal sacrifices with other parts of his life to reach and maintain the position he holds
  • One of his strengths is that he is accessible and he achieves that by ‘walking around’ interacting with the team and learning from them
  • He takes time out to introduce the EMC recruits because be believes they are the future of the company
  • His secret sauce of success is quite simply ‘people‘
  • Walking the walk is essential
  • He acknowledges the mentoring and support he received along his journey and admits that at times maybe he didn’t deserve it
  • He has his bad days the same as the rest of us and admits that things have not always been without problems but it is how you react and deal with them that’s vital
  • He loves the excitement of indigenous industry and sees huge potential in Ireland
  • He values his role on the board of Enterprise Ireland
  • In the future he could see himself consulting, assisting businesses and even life coaching “while my stock is still high”
  • Company politics is knowing when to open your mouth and when to shut it!
  • He would have advised his younger self to be more patient, more respectful and mannerly

The particular gem that I loved and took from the session was when he spoke about working hours.

“At times you need to do 75 hours in a week but you clearly can’t do that all of the time. The trick is to know when to do it!”

That’s one I definitely need to take notice of …way too many 75’s!

Aodan…keep up the great work and Bob…thanks for the refreshing openness and the gems, and welcome to the Smarter Egg club

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Business Planning, Irish Economy, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Teamwork | 5 Comments »

Embarrassed into action – lousy PR?

September 9, 2013

Stephanie Meehan - Priory Hall

Stephanie Meehan’s partner, Fiachra took his own life in July of this year.

The Meehan family were amongst the many innocent victims of the whole Priory Hall fiasco and it looks like Fiachra finally succumbed to all of the pressure including being out of their home for two years and insane pressure from their bank.

Stephanie resorted to letters to our political leaders and then to the media, who thankfully were listening and highlighted her plight.

She courageously told her story last Friday night on TV to a huge national licence (RTE – Late Late show).

I was enraged that she was told not to name the offending bank – this brave woman had lost her husband, she was still out of her home, she was still being hounded by the bank and nothing was being done to sort it and we wanted her to be silent!

I have no doubt that in our politically correct and litigious world naming the offending bank on national TV was too big a risk – why are we protecting such heartless, careless and cruel corporations in favour of the plight of Stephanie and so many others?

Who is more important?

I vented my frustration on twitter along with throngs of other tweeters.

Thankfully within minutes social media took over and did the job of naming the offending bank on Stephanie’s behalf. It appeared from the various people posting on Twitter that the bank was KBC bank.

KBC BankClick here to see what is stated on the KBC bank website about “Managing your debt” including a helpful video delivered by a very pleasant young woman.

Their website states:

“At KBC Bank Ireland plc, we understand that the current economic environment presents challenges for many of our customers. We would like to assure you that we are fully committed to working with customers who are experiencing financial difficulty in a positive manner. If your financial situation has changed recently or you are concerned about your finances, we would encourage you to contact us as soon as possible”

You could see that there was a nervousness with the people tweeting – were they sure it was KBC bank?  A few tweeters privately started confirming this information and in no time it seemed certain and people were now tweeting with confidence.

Once the Late Late show was over, the audience prizes given out and we all went about our weekend routines I wondered what would happen with Stephanie, Priory Hall and the offending bank.

The Irish Times confirmed this morning that KBC have said “it would not pursue Ms Meehan for any balance on her mortgage“, despite sending her a letter on August 28th (two weeks ago) highlighting arrears plus interest due!

It said it was doing so: “given the specific circumstances of this tragic case”

Were the “specific circumstances” the awful human tragedy or was it the media heat and extreme embarrassment that they were uncomfortably experiencing?

At least KBC bank could throw resources at the problem the minute they started to feel a little uncomfortable – poor Stephanie and Fiachra had no such release valve.

This was the very least they could do but it leaves their reputation in tatters.

If they are genuinely sorry about what happened and want to live up to the promises on their website they should hold their hands up, apologise sincerely and promise that they will review all of their debt collection procedures and provide training and strict criteria to all personnel involved in this process so that this type of tragedy would never happen again.

Stephanie – Well done

Builders and Inspectors – Disgraceful

KBC (and all the other banks behaving the same) – Shame on you

All of us – Start making some noise

Fiachra – RIP

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion 

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Posted in Bullying, Customer Care, Irish Economy | 2 Comments »

Jobbridge and some very reckless loose tongues

May 30, 2013

I couldn’t believe what I was reading on twitter..

Jobbridge rant

Here was Pat Phelan, a self professed “good guy” (from his own twitter bio: @patphelan: CEO @TRUSTEV, from a long line of Citog’s, friend of Bill and Bob, hates bad coffee #happy #goodguy) having a wild and totally unfounded pop at me/Fuzion trying to create a job opportunity utilising the JobBridge scheme and take another careful step forward with our business.

I was amazed that someone so prolific online could be that careless and loose with his opinions and make such a reckless and damaging accusation – I don’t believe Pat knows the first thing about Fuzion. He certainly has never been through our door and has never had dealings with any of our team.

I took issue with him about what he was tweeting – he clearly has issues and an opinion about Jobbridge but has no right to throw muck at Fuzion.

Fuzion and Jobbridge – for the record:

Jean was the first person that we brought in as a PR intern. She was an extra person on our team and once the period was up we were delighted to give her a full time job. We then added Aisling to our Dublin team and after some initial training and some relevant experience under her belt she was poached by Edelman PR. We replaced her with Niamh who will also be made full time – again she was a raw graduate who has now clocked up valuable experience.

The advert that you saw us tweeting about in the above post is with the intention of trying to extend the team even further, which is risky business in the current climate. Through incredibly hard work and with the help of the Jobbridge scheme we have been able to add new members to our team all the way throughout the recession – we have never reduced anyone’s wages either, which if I say so myself is quite an achievement.

That is 3 new jobs in Fuzion – the Jobbridge scheme has allowed us to accelerate our expansion and create jobs and provide valuable experience for people.

We have also added other members to our team outside of Jobbridge.

Scambridge

I then came across the Scambridge website – their rationale for creating this dedicated website (fair play lads with your effort at #positivity) is stated as follow ” The Scambridge website and campaign was initiated after we received an overwhelming response to the article below by Socialist Party / United Left Alliance MEP Paul Murphy which was published on the Politico.ie website”

I will admit that from my experience someone, somewhere will always take advantage of any initiative, which can wreck it for others – some employers will exploit and take advantage but surely don’t tar everyone with the same brush – this scheme in my view is a win/win.

Even more Twitter abuse

I then found myself taking even more abuse on twitter about our recruitment drive:

I find some guy called Squid (lovely name) @squidlimerick taking a pop at the same advert “@GregCantyFuzion using a scheme that discriminates against people with certain disabilities. #jobbridge“

This gets better …I am not actually trying to create a job but I am apparently discriminating against people with disabilities. Mr Squid, when you get a chance please take a peek at some of the successful work we have done for charities in Ireland.

And then I find another really prolific social media guy on the 28th May telling people to start clicking on the Google Adverts of companies who are taking people on through Jobbridge – thanks Damien..was that a pop at Fuzion?

Damien Mulley rant

Damien Mulley: “I’d never advocate doing this: Googling Cork companies that use JobBridge to avoid paying staff. Then clicking on their ads. Clickity”

Why would you put out such a tweet? 

So Fuzion are exploiting, discriminating and we deserve to be financially punished for our attempts to stay positive, expand our business and use a legitimate scheme in the spirit it was designed.

My head is spinning at such begrudgery, cynical, defamatory and financially damaging attacks – this is some of the stuff I really hate about certain people.

Thankfully not everyone is like this and I for one will hang onto my outlook on life, drive on and try to keep having wins and Yes, create new jobs and give people valuable training and a start they may not have had otherwise.

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Design firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Business Planning, Google Adwords, Irish Economy, Positivity, Recruitment, Training | 48 Comments »

Learning to Crash Land

March 27, 2013

Plane on the Hudson

We were passing some time in New York (we were there for the christening of my brother’s daughter) on a bitterly cold January 15th, 2009 so we found ourselves in the cinema.

We came down the escalators after the movie finished to hear loud sirens and watched as police cars, ambulances and fire brigades sped by in quick succession.

We grabbed a cab to Penn Station and the female taxi driver agreed to take us once we weren’t going in the direction of the Hudson – a plane had just crashed in the river. Her mum called on her mobile and warned her to quickly get out of Manhattan.

By the end of the short cab ride the incident was clarified on the radio – it wasn’t a terrorist attack. It was a freak accident caused by a flock of Canadian Geese and the Captain, Chesley Sullerberger, a former Air Force pilot managed to land the plane safely on the water with all 155 passengers very shook but all in one piece.

Thank god ..

Two days later we touched down at Shannon Airport and grabbed a newspaper to catch up on news since we had been away. Right on the front page we read about one of our clients, a hotel in Kerry that had gone into liquidation – not only did they owe us quite an amount of money but it was obviously the loss of a client.

What were we facing this year?

Over a period of the next few weeks we lost a few really good clients as the wheels came off the economy and budgets were being slashed by everyone – we had just moved into offices only a few months previous and it felt like our plane was plummeting!

Of course we panicked, of course we were worried but we dug in just like we always do. We had a great team and we needed to have faith in ourselves and in our ability.

I remembered clearly one of the lessons of Napoleon Hill in his book published in 1937 “Think and Grow Rich” – Have faith and believe that you will succeed ..he spoke about something that he called “The Secret“.

We have always adopted a positive philosophy, which has served us well – Two months later we won our biggest account, we picked up a few other accounts and later that year we started running training courses – it was an incredibly tough year including some other large bad debts but somehow we managed to bring our plane in without losing any of our passengers!

Since then business has continued to be challenging with plenty of turbulence but thankfully we continue to have faith and we always seem to survive, grow and thrive.

One of these days it will get easier ..won’t it?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm with offices in Dublin and Cork.

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Posted in Irish Economy, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Recession | 5 Comments »

Game Changing Interviews

February 3, 2013

job vacanciesJust before the New Year we decided to publicise a vacancy for a Senior PR post in our Dublin office.

We deliberately wanted to leave the job description open so that it would invite interest from  a wide range of people leaving us with the opportunity of shaping the role around the successful “right” candidate instead of letting everything be dictated by a very specific role ..it has been an interesting journey with some really good learnings!

  1. The job vacancy posted on our website and the use of social media alone was enough to generate a huge number of responses and enough quality candidates
  2. From the minute we tweeted and posted the link for the vacancy we could see huge traffic hitting our website
  3. People are really happy to retweet and share news about job vacancies
  4. So many people apply for jobs without reading what the job is about!! – I would say about 40% of the enquiries were totally irrelevant
  5. The role attracted a lot of attention because of the way we described it – avoid cliches (dynamic person…)!
  6. People in really good roles are now prepared to move to new jobs – is that recession fear easing off?
  7. Some people are caught in “fur lined” mouse traps – they are getting no satisfaction from their jobs but are stuck because their packages are too good to leave. We met a few of these!
  8. Many people have taken roles in the recession because they needed the money – most are really unfulfilled now, which is bad for them and their employers.
  9. There are a lot of really talented, hard working people out there – the quality of the people we met was amazing
  10. Employment agencies – I can’t see us ever having to use one..

After just one week of searching we found more than one ideal candidate for the role but we also met a number of quite diverse people all with something unique to offer who we know we will stay in touch with and work together in some way on various projects..

The game of recruiting is changing, the game of looking for a job is changing and hopefully this simple interview process could turn out to be a valuable “game changer” for us.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Irish Economy, LinkedIn, Marketing, Online Advertising, Personal development, Recruitment, Social Media, Web Marketing | 3 Comments »

Crisps!

January 28, 2013

Tayto crispsI love crisps, I think I always have ..

I remember when a bag of  Tayto crisps was 3 pence and you could buy Perri for 2 pence …that was a lot of money back then and to me they were a total luxury and only bought on very special occasions.

Back in Primary school I remember watching our schoolmate Barry Coffey eat a bag of crisps so quickly during lunch – how could he?

He was the luckiest kid ever – he was the only one in the class who came to school with a bag of crisps and he had the audacity to eat them quickly with no reverence whatsoever!

Eating Crisps

I remember the Sunday afternoon spins with mum and dad and my sister Laura.

Like most brothers and sisters (there were two and a half years between us) we had our share of fights. My lasting memory of those days was my sisters ability to make that packet of crisps last forever…I would have eaten my packet of crisps as slowly as possible and with total respect and my sister would still have 90% of her packet left.

She would crush her packet up and for the rest of that journey she would tease me silly.. one crumb at a time.

I know we are in tough economic times and that things are really tight but then I think of crisps and I wonder ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Family, Ireland, Irish Economy, Recession | 13 Comments »

Nothing like that here

January 18, 2013

London CallingI was 14, it was the summer of 1979 and my dad took me to London for the day to shop for records!

We took the ferry from Cork to Wales and a coach to London. We were supposed to arrive late at night, book into a hotel and then get up early for a days’ shopping – the poor coach driver took a wrong turn as a result of road works so we ended up pulling into London at 5 am

…there was no point booking into a hotel so we just grabbed a breakfast and wandered the streets until the shops opened.

We went to London quite simply because the music stores there were incredible – there was “nothing like that here“, just a few limited shops (Eason’s, Lee Records and Woolworths) with a tiny selection of records.

I’ll never forget that scorching summer’s day with my poor dad standing  patiently at the door of HMV and Virgin as I spent hour after hour browsing these mega-stores, shelf by shelf.   I can still remember the excitement in those stores – packed with possibility, undiscovered gems, fabulous artwork ..it was theatre.

HMVI eventually purchased over 20 records, rare items, bargains and basically music that I just couldn’t buy in Ireland.

Another memory of that day was the huge amount of women walking around London wearing no bras!! It must have been fashionable but I had never seen the likes of it before and I can promise you it made a big impression on this impressionable 14 year old … between the lack of sleep, the intense heat and the “scenery”, I remember feeling quite dizzy!

As we know Ireland gradually caught up with London and even in Cork we ended up with Golden Discs, HMV and Virgin. My own love for music resulted in me opening my own stores …the dream of a 14 year old!

Despite all of our progress and advances in technology we are very close to a situation where there will be “nothing like that here” and even worse “nothing like that there” – HMV are nearly gone and the others are not far behind (I sold my stores a number of years back and the crew that bought them have since gone out of business).

Browsing for recordsWe can thank unsustainable rents, record companies who handed their Top sellers at big discounts to supermarkets, record companies who switched to digital technology that it couldn’t manage and music stores who lost their passion for music, for where we have ended up today.

That incredible feeling of browsing for magic in the shelves of music stores was one of the special things in my life that has brought me so much pleasure..

Progress?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Customer Care, Holidays, Irish Economy, Marketing, Retailing, Sales | 14 Comments »

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