Archive for the ‘Irish Economy’ Category

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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 »

New Years Resolution 2012

December 31, 2011
Louis Copeland

Get up earlier and roll the sleeves up!

At the early stages of the recession I heard the great and inspirational Louis Copeland (King Louis!) being interviewed on the radio offering the following advice to anyone in business – Get up earlier, roll up your sleeves and work harder.  I took this advice on board fully along with a determination to stay positive within ourselves and for our clients. It has thankfully served our business really well.

However this approach comes at a personal cost – I have got up earlier, I have worked my socks off, I have approached every situation with determination and positivity and I have seized opportunities as they came along.

Unfortunately this had to mean big sacrifices in terms of personal time. Both Deirdre and my kids in particular have suffered and I even missed a pile of Liverpool matches (some may say that is a good thing!). In reality there was nothing I could do about this – that’s what you have to do now to have any chance of surviving and thriving but I did feel towards the end of 2011 that I let my own personal resources run dangerously low.

My New Year’s resolution is to continue with this positive and hardworking approach but to make sure I make more time for everyone that is close and special to me.

That’s probably easier said than done but at least lets make it a real goal!

Happy New Year!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Irish Economy, Personal development, Positivity, PR, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Dog mess and the big lesson!

December 12, 2011
Bing watching telly

I love this show !

I must admit that I never wanted a dog – It was part of the deal that had Deirdre emigrating from Tralee many moons ago!

“I’ll move to Cork as long as we can get a dog” she declared most definitely.

I agreed to this request in the genuine hope that she would forget about it in time. This strategy worked for about 9 months but unfortunately she did not forget and the day of reckoning finally arrived .. she ganged up on me with Ellen, my daughter and I started to receive emails at work with pictures of  “rescue” dogs, each with very sad tales.

I gave in eventually and we made the trip to the West Cork Animal Rescue Centre and chose the poor quiet fella in the corner who already had the name “Bing”. He had short hair – we were told be wouldn’t grow much bigger and that he wouldn’t shed much and true to their word neither came true! He grew to quite a size and he has totally destroyed the house with his light dog hair.

Now, I have eventually grown to love him but he is definitely Deirdre’s dog. He is quite a funny fella and one particular quirk of his is that he loves watching TV – if there is an animal on a programme he gets particularly interested but he likes plenty of other stuff. As I write he is actually glued to the Mel Brooks war movie “To be or not to be”  (check out the photo – he has good taste Mel Brooks is hilarious!)

In the 10 years that we have had him I have become quite used to most of what comes with the whole package of having a dog except for … you guessed it, dog mess!

It’s bad enough that the garden is destroyed (grass cutting was always a pain but now it is a very perilous operation) but the worst moments are when we are out walking him and he decides to mortify you in public. To be fair to him he reserves this embarrassing practice for grassy areas but I absolutely cringe when he has his moment of glory (sometimes I think he does it deliberately to me) just as someone is passing by.

They never say anything as they pass but you know exactly what they are thinking as they pass: “Disgusting, and I hope they clean up the mess that their dog has made“. Of course they are right to think this and quite correctly there are laws to back this up.

According to the 1997 litter laws  – It is not an offence to allow a dog under your control to foul in a public place, however it is an offence to let your dog foul and fail to remove and dispose of the foul subsequently. 

The horrible reality behind this law is that when you walk your dog in public places you must be armed with your little plastic bag and when your precious four legged one decides to do his business then you have some awful business to do. This is one of the most horrible things to do and when it happens I insist that the ownership laws are applied strictly, “Deirdre – He is your dog!”

As horrible as this task is, it makes sense and as law abiding citizens we need to be fully responsible.

Quite simply..it’s your dog, so its your mess and you are expected to clean it up.

Imagine if every mess was sorted out in this way..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Gardening, Irish Economy, Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

Responsibility and Timing

November 28, 2011
Grafton Street

We are all responsible

I was chatting to a buddy of mine last week who was all torn up because he had to face the prospect of letting a staff member go due to a series of blunders that had cost the business a lot of money.

Being responsible he knew it was something he had to do, to protect the business but he did feel really badly for the individual and the fact that Christmas was around the corner made it feel even worse.

Responsibility and timing..

Aviva decided that it will move a huge chunk of its workforce from Ireland to the UK to save money and increase profits. Is Ireland a market worth supporting if you expect to do business here?

Responsibility and timing..

FAS senior staff get 5 weeks extra leave to acclimatise to their impending retirement. Has this issue been taken on?

Responsibility and timing..

Should 100% of speculative bank debt be covered by the taxpayer?

Responsibility and timing..

Should the tax office be aggressively chasing interest and penalties for late payments when it is clear there is very little liquidity in the marketplace.

Responsibility and timing..

The Government need to squeeze the annual monetary deficit due to agreements struck with the EU and because our country needs to regain its financial independence – there has never been a better opportunity for sorting out excess, inefficiency, unfair & outdated arrangements and crazy work practices. These obvious but thorny issues must be tackled as a priority and then we’ll be happy to take our fair share of pain.

Responsibility and timing.

Timing is critical and never has it been so critical – if we want to progress from where we are we must all act with responsibility.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Recession | 4 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 »

The Three Circles and the Path you Choose

August 28, 2011
Greg and Brendan Canty

Parental advice!

My son Brendan Canty has just qualified from CIT, having completed a multi media course. He wants to work in film in some way and he is also really passionate about music.

How unusual – a 22 year old being passionate about music!

Like every other parent you worry about what your children will do – you want them to find a job, earn a living and in this climate it has never been quite so tough.

“You need to find a god solid job” I hear myself saying..

Well – he has set up his own website operating under the name Feel Good Lost and he has been busy producing videos for bands from all over the world – with the web and modern technology this is all quite easy, apparently!

His last music video was for a “secret” American solo artist who goes under the name Slow Magic and the track he produced was for a song called Corvette Cassette. There is a video producers peer website called Vimeo (this is like a worldwide YouTube for video and film producers), which has just featured this song as a staff pic – at the time of writing the video has been viewed 63,000 times across the world.

While Brendan does some excellent corporate video work for Fuzion and his own clients he excels when he combines his love of music and his film profession. On Friday nights he DJ’s in The Pavilion in Cork combining music and visuals as part of his unique set operating under the Feel Good Lost name.

Slow Magic // Corvette Cassette from Feel Good Lost on Vimeo.

He is following his dream and his passion and it had me thinking about career choices and Three Circles..

In Jim Collins fabulous business book Good to Great (for me this book is a business bible) he talks about companies using a Three Circle criteria as a guide to the activities they should get involved in:

A company should only engage in activities that:

  1. It is passionate about
  2. It can excel at
  3. It can make money from

The basic principle is that if companies concentrate their efforts on activities that meet all three of these criteria then they will inevitably be very successful – this is one of the factors that Jim Collins attributes to the success of what he calls “Great” companies.

If you are looking for a new job or a new challenge how about using the Three Circle Criteria for deciding which path you choose?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Irish Economy, Parenting, Personal development, Positivity, PR, Recession, Self Help | 14 Comments »

Bad haircut ..

August 12, 2011
Greg Canty Fuzion

Haircut? – I’ve just had one !

For years and years I went to the same hairdresser to get my curly mop chopped. For anyone that has witnessed my curls they will know that it is not a regular head of hair – at least that is what I have convinced myself!

Yes, I am particular and once I find someone who I trust to look after my hair I will continue to go there every time, asking for the same person – you end up feeling comfortable with the surroundings and the staff there, which in particular for a guy is a big deal … A hair salon can be a daunting place for a male, surrounded by women nattering, getting blow drys and with their hair in all sorts of weird tin foil! (surely there must be a better method?)

The guys reading this will be wondering why I don’t just go to a barbers – trust me, anytime I have done this it has been a total disaster … even when I was a kid the regular barber just couldn’t handle my hair. So, unfortunately I am destined for a life of embarrassing moments at hair salons ..

My hair trips have been interesting down though the years – ending up in the window under red lamps in Peter Marks at Wilton Shopping Centre when you are 15 on a Wednesday afternoon half day from school is not funny when your buddies are in convulsions looking in – last time I agreed for my hair to be dried naturally!

Or wondering that no matter what instructions I gave the salon I always ended up being scalped – years later I learnt that when I left the house my mother would ring the salon and warn them that she was coming for a refund if they did not give me a decent hair cut – for years I went around thinking hairdressers were deaf!!

The worst was being handed a brush to clean down my clothes and instead I start brushing my hair with it – mortified and red faced I left the salon with the staff thoroughly enjoying the hilarious experience ..

Now, do you understand why I am sensitive about the hairdressers and how important it is that I am comfortable there? – you can also understand that it would take me an awful lot to change from my regular salon.

Sure enough it happened – a few times I rang and they were always too busy and couldn’t squeeze me in, would the following Wednesday week at 4:30 suit? Not really ..

This happened a number of times and eventually I took a huge leap of faith and changed salons and 5 years later I am still going to the one that I switched to – I now know the staff quite well and am comfortable going there.

Truth is most of us are very slow to change our habits unless something has gone wrong, until the day you get a bad haircut – I guess there is more than one hairdresser in the land that can cut my strange mop of hair after all ..

As comfortable as your customer is with you and your team watch out for bad haircuts..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

PR is all about managing your reputation – while at Fuzion we can enhance your reputation through the media the most important aspects come directly from you.

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Posted in Brand Loyalty, Customer Care, Irish Economy, Marketing, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

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