Archive for the ‘Irish Economy’ Category

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We need a NEW Green “Irish” Agenda

November 2, 2010
Irish Flag

Irish Flag

To be honest I’m not too concerned about the Green agenda as we know it.

Of course I care about the environment but at the moment I care a lot more about our country, the economy, our people, our children and our attitude towards ourselves’ and where we live.

I feel we are in danger of losing sight of the good things about Ireland or at least forgetting what we have and how it is such a special country.
At the moment it feels like we are all working in a company that is going into liquidation, we have to get on with our work but we know the place could fold any day. As regards being forward looking, what’s the point as who knows if the place will even be open next week?

We urgently need a NEW Green Agenda for Ireland.

As is the case in business with any objective for this to work everyone must be clear about the goal, we must understand it and we must play our part in achieving it.

All of this sounds wonderful but I believe it can be achieved if we do following four things:

Adopt a Make it Happen Approach

We have to get more Irish people working and Ireland making money again and this will happen if everyone in whatever role they have adopts a genuine “Make It Happen” approach.

If regulators, fire officers, planning officials, politicians, bankers, health & safety officials, ESB, phone and broadband installers, approach their jobs with a “Make it Happen” approach then more businesses would open and more events and activities would be possible. I am not saying allow bad practices but approach the problem with a solution mindset instead of a “Can’t do that” one and watch the difference.

Liquidators, bankers, NAMA, regulators – there is an insatiable appetite now to shut people and businesses down (and this does include builders). Work to the Green Agenda – keep business open, keep people who want to continue, open, instead of shutting them down. If this was a genuine objective, then better solutions would be found than those we are seeing currently.

We are haemorrhaging money in the public service and we just can’t afford this anymore. Let’s provide for our people who are sick, let’s give our children the best possible education and let’s provide financial support for those misfortunate enough not to have work. However, don’t rip Ireland (us) off with unnecessary bureaucracy, claiming welfare and other benefits illegally and not working at full capacity. Be honest, have a Green agenda, it’s our country, let’s protect it.

Initiate Real Positive Initiatives

The budget, the budget ..Ok, this will take money out of the system, which is going to affect everyone.

A few things here – If we adopt a Make it Happen approach the fall will not be as hard, if we take the opportunity to squeeze out excess and inefficiency in the public service it will be a great days work, which should have been done a long time ago, if we use the taxation mechanisms to encourage the better utilisation of assets and encourage people who are sitting on Celtic Tiger wealth to start investing then it won’t be so bad.
I’m ok with taking some bad tasting medicine as long as there is an equal package of Real Positive Initiatives. I’m talking initiatives to encourage new business, to encourage investment in capital, incentives to do something with our vast property portfolio, training and investment initiatives as encouragement for new business and real taxation incentives for people who are willing to Make It Happen. (Since the recession has kicked in I have seen virtually no Real Positive Initiatives)

Encourage a Spend Ireland Campaign

We have to encourage people to spend money on Irish products and Irish services, proactively keeping money circulating in the country.
I’m talking a lot more that consumers looking out for Irish products when they are doing their shopping. I am talking about purchasing managers deliberately choosing Irish products and services and retailers making this a priority and giving the Irish products pride of place on the shelves. This isn’t a cop out for Irish suppliers, who have to manage their businesses to the extent that they can compete with foreign alternatives. Besides products we need to choose Irish service providers – have a genuine buy Irish agenda. This money will come back to you somewhere along the way.

As part of this initiative I would encourage all companies to keep as many people working as possible. Not a time for making a few quid extra by outsourcing to India.

Work hard on “Ireland PR”

Finally and most importantly we need to get back to celebrating our fabulous country and start talking it up. It is a great place to live and we need to stop knocking it. In everything we do we need to be conscious of our Irishness and do everything to project the right image. This includes all of us including even Brian Cowen! We should continue and encourage events and activities that showcase Ireland abroad. Quite simply we need to start “Talking Ireland Up”.

Maybe all of this is a little Utopian but I do feel that collectively we need to lift our heads, pull together in the same direction and grasp a NEW Green Agenda, an Irish agenda.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Irish Politics, PR, Recession | 1 Comment »

Bill Clinton – Understanding bread to avoid making toast!

October 5, 2010

Bill Clinton and the Irish Toast

Bill Clinton and the Irish Toast

Bill Clinton made a huge impression in Ireland last week during his visit and scored huge credibility points with his straight talk and in particular his comment that “Ireland needed to get a handle on the Economy and its Finances or else it would be toast”

This speech came at the same time as we announced even bigger banking deficits and serious noises about four year austerity budgets. Doom and Gloom in mega portions. Would you like some despair with that?

Bill was quickly compared by the media to our own leaders and we all fell into a hole of depression as we know we are seriously lacking in credible and inspirational leadership that we can genuinely believe in. Bill did say we could take the tough medicine IF we believed in the results that would follow.

He is right – we need to get a handle on our economy before we are all toast.

The big issue is that no one seems to have a clue about bread and how to avoid our bread (or lack of it!) turning into toast – it just isn’t understood. I am getting no sense from anyone that there is anything close to a solution, a definite and a clear believable plan.

I had a meeting this morning with an accountant friend of mine and the subject of Irish toast came up.

Quite simply my friend made a statement “As accountants, both of us we know that you just can’t take any more money out of this economy. People are on their knees so this is an impossible situation.” The elephant in the room was let out! Of course you can’t get blood from a stone, that is so obvious.

There is a tricky dynamic between confidence, spending, investment, disposable income, indirect taxes and direct taxes, which has us barely hanging in there. Without confidence we have not been spending, which has impacted on tax take and look what’s happened.

The feeling and atmosphere I witnessed since last week reminds me of the terror and fear that gripped everyone and resulted in choking the life out of the economy at the start of 2009.

Without a huge package of Real Positive Initiatives (RPI and not RIP!) that help to generate spending and job creation in the economy, some of which we heard about from Grant Thornton last week on Newstalk (for example in Australia 100% Capital allowances were introduced to encourage spending and investment) to go with some necessary cutbacks, where there is still serious excess we will in serious bother.

Do we need to understand about making bread if we want to avoid being toast?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Recession, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

A Modern Fairytale – The Beautiful Village and the Hole

September 12, 2010
A Modern Fairytale

A Modern Fairytale

There was a beautiful scenic village in the middle of the country that was the pride of everyone that lived there. In fact the village was so beautiful that everyone wanted to live there.

One of the lords who owned land outside the town decided that it was a good idea to make the village even bigger so he asked his friends to buy some of his land and build new cottages outside the town. He asked other friends to give the first friends money so they could buy his land and start building. The builder friend became friendly with the banker friend and asked him if he could lend money to the villagers so they buy these houses and pay for them over 30 years. Even villagers who already had a cottage could buy another cottage if they wanted to and they could pay for them over 30 years.

The lord, the builder and the banker told the villagers that it was a fabulous idea for them to buy these cottages and pay for them over 30 years. They were not to worry as they would always have good jobs that paid good money so they could pay for these cottages and look after their families as well.

The banker friend told the builder friend that he could charge the villagers a lot for the cottages as they had 30 years to pay for them and he was happy to lend them that sort of money. After all the more money he could lend them the more money he would make and that would make both of them very happy and even better friends. The lord and the builder and the banker ordered the finest food and the finest wine and celebrated their new friendship every night in their new castles and planned on building even more cottages in more villages.

All the friends were happy and they started building lots and lots of new cottages outside the village. The heavy machines drove through the town every day as they brought materials to build the new cottages. Every time they drove through the beautiful village a hole opened up in the middle of the village that just got bigger and bigger.

Everyone was confused because everyone was supposed to be happy – the lord, the builder friend, the banker friend and the people who could buy their houses over 30 years. So, why was a big dangerous hole opening up in the middle of the village, that no one was doing anything about?

The other problem was that the beautiful village wasn’t so beautiful any more because of the big hole, which was very ugly. Some of the villagers who wanted to buy the new cottages changed their minds and many of those who had bought them were sorry that they had.

The villagers were worried about the hole so they asked a few labourers to have a look at it to see what they could do with it.

Not able to see clearly to the bottom they decided they better call some experts to see exactly how big the hole was so they know knew exactly what quantity of materials they had better order to fill in the hole.

The materials were quite expensive so the villagers asked the lord, the builder and the banker for money so they could buy them to fix the hole. After all the villagers felt it was ok to ask them as they felt the hole was because of all the building.

Unfortunately and for some reason neither the lord or the builder or the banker had any money. At least that is what they told the villagers.

The villagers were very confused, angry and upset but because the hole was so dangerous, they went to the King of all the land and explained to them how worried they were as the hole was very dangerous and that it needed to be filled in.

The King told them that even though the hole was not their fault he was going to bring in a new “Hole Tax” so that he could collect money from them to fix the hole.

The Lord, the Builders and the Bank friends told the King that they couldn’t pay the new “Hole Tax” because they had no money. He said fine very quickly. They then had some food and wine in his castle.

The villagers who had bought the new houses and were paying for them over 30 years were worried as they had very little money and they felt they couldn’t afford to pay the “Hole Tax”.

One of the villagers went home and was very upset because he was so worried that he would not have any money for paying the “Hole Tax” and feed his family as well.

His little girl saw him crying and asked why he was upset?

He told her the story about the hole and he did his best to explain to her what happened.

“Where is all the money gone?” she said after listening to his story “Someone must have it, after all”

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Recession | Leave a Comment »

The Problem with the hole

September 1, 2010
Brian Cowen

Brian Cowen - Can someone fill that hole please?

I am so angry this morning.

Yesterday I drove through Bandon in West Cork on the way to a client meeting and watched a long queue of men (one woman) outside a Post Office waiting to collect their dole money. Depressing sight.

I watched Alan Dukes of Anglo Irish Bank this morning on Ireland AM in mono tone explaining how the hole gets bigger because the “property” assets keep reducing in value: “we have to protect the depositors!” – who are they, please tell me?

I heard 47yr old Declan Murphy, 4th generation menswear store from Newcastlewest in Co.Limerick passionately talk on Newstalk this morning about how he is taking his wife and 3 kids to Australia because he can’t provide for them here. He is a proud Limerick man but can’t see himself coming back to Ireland.

He made a very simple point, which I believe in strongly ..

Unless we do positive things to generate employment and get things going in this country instead of pumping money into a bottomless pit we will never recover. A “win-win” he called it.

The hole will get bigger unless we treat the symptoms.

We need positive activity (People are more positive but outside of that I see absolutely none, not with banks or government) – that does not mean decisions to pump more money into NAMA and Anglo. It means generating employment, more income for people which will in time generate demand for some of those ghost properties – maybe the hole will get smaller?

Maybe it’s being very simplistic but it does seem very obvious – I wonder what our old friend Willie Sutton would say about it?

Best of luck in Australia Declan, come back and visit your folks sometime.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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

Chow Mein Special! – Going further to find New Business

August 29, 2010
Chinese Takeaway

Chinese Takeaway

Eventually we arrived at my sister’s holiday home in Duncannon in Wexford having spent a few hours in the car and a short ferry ride from Passage East.

A little later when we were all a little peckish and no one at all fancied cooking, someone suggested a Chinese takeaway. The menus were produced and we all picked out a dish of our choice and rang in our order. I jumped in the car with Coley, my brother in law as we were dispatched to collect the grub to satisfy the hungry bunch.

After a few minutes I was quite confused as the car was headed in the direction of the ferry. Maybe I was wrong, but I couldn’t remember passing anything that resembled a Chinese takeaway along the route we had taken earlier. Eventually we arrived at the spot where the ferry operates from and Coley suggested that we get a quick pint at the conveniently located pub.

Totally bewildered at this stage I just said nothing and proceeded to order a pint but I must admit that my stomach was starting to moan and groan as I had started to look forward to my Chow Mein Special!

In the middle of our chat about whoever Liverpool might be signing this year, Coley pipes up with “Here comes our dinner”. The penny took a while to drop but eventually I understood as the ferry approached the pier and we were greeted with the unusual sight of our Chinese friend running up the pier on foot with half a dozen bags! In he ran to the pub without saying a word, handed over the bags of food to the barman and just as quickly as he arrived he had disappeared again, just in time for the return journey!

Without blinking an eye the barman asked was the food for us and if we wanted the food kept warm for a while?  We weren’t the only customers waiting for a Chinese as there were a few other hungry souls nursing a pint until our man ran up the pier. Each bag was carefully marked with the contents and the cost – we finished our pints, claimed our bags and settled our tab with the barman and returned to the hungry mob!

At a time when we all have to dig a little deeper and get up a little earlier just to keep the show on the road it was a terrific and simple lesson in finding new customers by being a little bit creative, working with partners who might also benefit from your offering and literally looking beyond your nearest port for customers.

The Chow Mein special was really special!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications, Marketing & PR

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Posted in Customer Care, Irish Economy, Marketing, Recession, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Do you always do what you are told?

July 27, 2010
Disobedient Child!

Not always doing what you are told!

Start a new business in 2010 in the middle of a recession? Are you totally out of your head, nuts, crazy?
The minute you open your mouth you will probably crumble under the weight of naysayers, who without a doubt are being genuine in their advice to you.

The fact that you are opening your mouth at all means that you have an itch that needs scratching, there is some enterprising spirit inside you that is just waiting to break out, some independent streak that makes you want to be master of your own destiny. It could be as simple as you are out of work and you just want to make things happen for yourself.

Well done, so what do you do?

As an Accountant who came away from the “darkside” and joined the world of Marketing & PR after a long period in General Management I can offer  you my tuppence worth of advice and a few do’s and don’ts .. (should I put in a disclaimer here??)

It’s a great time to start a new business because..

1.    Who else can you depend on today to put bread on your table?
2.    The smaller you are the less overheads you have – customers can get a great personal service
3.    The cost of entry is smaller than it has ever been
4.    The local agencies such as the Enterprise Boards offer Mentoring, Training and other Supports, which really help people  get on their feet
5.    With the whole new world of the Web and Social Media including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on, the small guy can actually compete with the big guy
6.    The Press love positive stories and will more than likely be happy to give you some coverage, free!
7.    You would be surprised how many people out there will give a new business a chance, everyone loves a Trier!
8.    You will love the sense of achievement from the feeling of doing it for yourself, it’s liberating
9.    Being your own boss is great
10.    It’s a whole new world, once you cross over to the other side – network with others like you!
11.    It can be great fun

On the cautionary side, which is very real ..

1.    Only do it once you are truly ready – while the cost of entry is lower than before make sure you are in a position to make a great first impression, looking the part from the very start
2.    Run your business idea by someone knowledgeable with a positive nature that you know will give you honest advice – not all ideas are great ones!
3.    Make sure your business passes the recession test – the luxury type products and services are suffering at the moment. It might be a case of wait a while for these types of businesses.
4.    Be practical – do your pessimistic financial plans and make sure you have enough cash to pull by, in particular in the early stages. That financial pressure is horrible, I’ve been there more than once ..
5.    Once you make that move you will never be able to work for someone else again!

So, did you always do what you are told?

Didn’t think so.. enjoy the ride, our economy needs you and more like you

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications , Marketing & PR.
http://www.fuzion.ie

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Posted in Business Start Ups, Irish Economy, Marketing, PR, Recession, Social Media | 10 Comments »

Accountants and Marketeers Working Together?

May 11, 2010

Can these professions actually work together pro-actively and deliver excellent results for a client or for a business?

Tug Of War

Accountants and Marketeers pulling together?

At the beginning of 2009 when fear had totally gripped the whole business community I was staggered by the amount of clients ringing to cancel their Marketing activities – Advertising, PR and even some suggestions to get rid of their websites!

As someone who is a reformed accountant it made me cast my mind back to those days in practice and I had to question myself – when I was wearing those shoes is that the advice that I would have been giving my clients?

The logic is simple – Remove “unnecessary” expense to protect the bottom line.

With my marketing hat on I always question where current and future sales come from and I ask why did the business conduct these activities in the past?

Is attracting customers less or more important in a downturn?

Ok, we have to extract the best value for money, be extremely careful as to where every single euro is being spent and make sure that every euro must work hard in delivering value. However we just can’t cut out the activity totally.

Is this how accountants generally view Marketing?  Many of them don’t but I wonder do many think this way?

How about a scenario whereby the Accountant and the Marketeer work together for clients in devising proactive but yet prudent solutions that protect the business in the short term and the long term?

We have only ever once met a client with their accountant – Should this be the case?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Accounting, Irish Economy, Marketing, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Grace Under Pressure

May 5, 2010

Grace Under Pressure

Thank God for the Good Guys!

Many of you will have read the “Credit Control Warrior” piece I wrote having being inspired by the behaviour of a particular businessman, Famous.

Basically, if you read the piece you will have learnt that not only did he not pay his bill but he felt this was quite funny, the joke was on us. He laughed in my face saying “We would never get paid!”

The joke is on all of us who do our best at all times to behave honourably, pay our bills and behave honestly. If you think about it we are all subsidising these guys.

The circumstances of a changed economic climate have worked against many of us but this does not stop the honourable guys still behaving properly even when they just cannot pay. Once a gentleman, always a gentleman.

As long as someone who is under pressure communicates with you, realises that you are out of pocket as a result and will try their best to sort you out I have no issue. Unfortunately we have a few clients who have been caught in the storm and thankfully they have not stopped being good decent people.

I Salute You

I Salute You

This morning I received an email from one such client who has been doing his utmost to sort us out on an unpaid bill. At all times he has been upfront and honest, he always returns calls, he always appreciates that we are out of pocket as a result of his misfortune and he has done his best to give us a few quid whenever it is available.

The email:

“Hope you enjoyed the long weekend.

Just wanted to let you know that I’m transferring €xxxx off the account in the morning – some modest funds came in from the sale of the leasehold but we couldn’t have money come in and not deal with your account.  You’ve been beyond fair and I sincerely want to clear the account faster than we have been up to this point.  This will leave us with a balance of just over €xxxx and I’ll increase the monthly payments on that.

Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding”

This is what I would call Grace Under Pressure.

I salute you.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Marketing, Recession, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Get it off your chest Online!

April 20, 2010

Have you found yourself in the frustrating position of getting absolutely nowhere with a complaint?

Now this could be on a small scale in a corner shop, at a restaurant where you have had a lousy meal or it could be against one of the big guys. The old saying goes that a bad experience travels quickly with word of mouth as we do tend to share our frustrations with friends, loved ones and anyone that will listen! If anyone is really annoyed about something they tend to share it with a lot of people.

TripAdvisor Logo

TripAdvisor

Spreading the frustration has now got much faster and easier and with a much bigger reach with the onset of the web and the powerful free tools available including Trip Advisor, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.

These tools can work for you in that they can help get rid of that frustration and genuinely hurt the culprits but they can also help to actually resolve your issue to a satisfactory conclusion.

If your issue is with the “big guys” your activity online can really work in your favour and help to get that proper attention that you have been looking for.

The “big guys” and a lot of the smaller companies are very conscious of their reputations and are often carefully tracking what is being said about them online using tools such as Google Alerts and Twitter searches.

To demonstrate this point I will share with you a small real life example of how this worked for me.  I recently had a problem with one of our national phone service suppliers and was very quickly getting nowhere fast. After nearly 12 months of total frustration and the realisation that this problem was not being sorted out by the normal means I decided to write about my issue in my personal blog, carefully naming the offending company in a way that, if they were paying attention they would definitely notice!

Having completed my blog post I then shared the blog with my Social Media Community, my Facebook contacts, my Twitter followers and my connections and groups on Linked In.

All I had to do then was wait and see if my nothing to lose experiment would actually work ..

Within a few hours not only did I have a bucket load of responses from other people with similar complaints but I also received a call from the offending company in response to my blog issue!

Not in response to my complaint but to my blog!  To be fair to the guy calling he wanted to sort out my problem and I was able to take him through it in detail and within days the whole issue was sorted and I managed to negotiate a fair rebate, which I was told was impossible up until then.

Was this a company eager to satisfy unhappy customers or one that didn’t want to be “red-faced” online? – to be honest I didn’t really care, I finally managed to solve a problem that had been dragging on forever.

The lesson in all of this is that if you require it, you have a very powerful and effective voice available to you online if you choose to use the  tools available , to make your point.

However this can be a double edged sword!

Exactly the same can apply to your own business and you should pay attention to what is being said about you online.  Use the simple to use tools such as Google Alerts and Twitter Search and hear first hand about the good, the bad and the ugly!

If it’s good then highlight the unprompted testimonials on your website and in your newsletters and presentations. If it’s bad or it gets ugly then deal with the problem and don’t be afraid to share how you solved the issue online. Use the issue as an opportunity to show you genuinely care about your customers.

There is no hiding place online!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Customer Care, Irish Economy, Marketing, Social Media, Web Marketing | Leave a Comment »

High Five When You See a ’10

April 19, 2010

Isn’t it fabulous to see the amount of ’10 Registration Cars on the roads since the start of the year.

Last year people, even those with the necessary funds were wary about buying a new car due to the “what would people think” syndrome – we need the positive activity to set the wheels in motion for our economy!

So, the car sales are up 31% in the first quarter – if you think about it this is probably with about 2/3 of the garages that were there last year and the good chance is that the existing garages are well down in staff numbers – time to start recruiting I wonder? Maybe a little bit premature? Whichever way you look at it – it leads to a higher tax take for the government and an industry starting to move again and some funds are back in circulation. All of those garages and car salesmen have money to spend elsewhere.

From what I can gather those sales are probably less than they should be – a few car salesmen I have spoken to have been telling me that accessing cars is a difficulty due to pessimistic predictions when they were placing advance orders – you will be lucky to get a new 5 Series BMW before next September!

And what else does all that mean? – well, that is a lot of positively motivated individuals driving around in their new cars – a new car is a great feeling – well done! It does put the rest of us in the mind for a new car – it’s a positive target to have for all of us. I want to buy a new car in 2010 – that’s a goal for you.. try to make it happen.

The “confidence wheel” is simple and this is what will get our country moving again, not any superb government policy – in my view their attempts to positively mobilise Ireland have just not happened. On the jobs creation front there has been zero strategy – the government have even slashed budgets in “job creation” departments, I’m deadly serious – if anyone has the time to check budget allocations, check out if budgets in government departments with the agenda of helping new business have been increased? – I promise you they have been cut in the same way as everything else, strategy – I don’t think so!

Ok, so there is positivity creeping through and that is coming from “us”, from pure positive attitude.

Performance will follow “positive attitude” – despite the odds, so keep it going.

While we are on the “positive” agenda and this is so critical for recovery I can finally report that the house across from us has been sold!

The sale seemed to be almost completed and then fall through a few times in the last 9 months. The same banks that would have handed out a mortgage at double the price have eventually approved a loan to our new neighbour (and they have picked up a fabulous bargain at the bottom of the market) at half the price. Something wrong somewhere!

Sherry Fitzgerald - Sold!

The Big "Sold"

The amusing thing is the sign put up by, Sherry Fitzgerald the auctioneers – in the same way that I am saying to celebrate the ’10, the auctioneers are celebrating the ‘sale’ with giant ‘SOLD’ text across their signs.

Well done to whoever is completing purchases out – high 5 when you see a  ’10 and celebrate those ‘Sold‘ and lease agreed signs – things are looking up, celebrate the positivity that is all of us ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications, Marketing & PR

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Posted in Irish Economy, PR, Recession, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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