Archive for the ‘Motivation’ 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 »

Avoiding Temptation

March 6, 2014

I spotted her out of the corner of my eye.

She looked back at me inviting me to come over. She was elegant, dressed in black with an air of sophistication.

Come over to me and I will tell you intimate secrets about yourself …. Get closer, put your feet and the whole weight of your body on top of me.

This could be embarrassing and overwhelming …. should I?

I battled desperately with it, she kept staring, tempting me to make my way over to her.

I dug deep and decided it would be best that I resisted…after all, I was away with Dee on her birthday weekend in a very fancy hotel with fabulous food and wine at every turn.

I weighed it up and decided not to weigh in – tempting as she was, she could ruin my whole weekend.

I never quite understood why a hotel would put weighing scales in their bathrooms …..!!

In your business be careful not to put up any barriers to your customers buying what you are selling.

Weighing Scales

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 Hospitality, Motivation, Personal development, Travel | 6 Comments »

Superquinn and the Sausage that lost it’s Sizzle

February 15, 2014
Superquinn - The Last Day

Feargal Quinn pictured with family as the Superquinn name is taken down

In marketing we often say “Don’t talk about the sausage, talk about the sizzle!”

Instead of talking about the “thing” we talk about how it makes you feel, the benefits, the mood, the emotion, that sense of occasion.

A sausage according to wikipedia is: a food usually made from ground meat with a skin around it. Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may be removed after.

Yummy.. Imagine marketing that product!

Ironically this week where we witnessed the last nail in the coffin of the once fabulous Superquinn brand we heard the MD of SuperValu, Martin Kelliher reassuring customers that the sausages would be retained!

Is that the very last thing to survive of the brand or does the sausage in some way represent everything that was once special about Superquinn for shoppers?

When I worked in Dublin for Guinness during the mid nineties I was living near the Clondalkin area. Even though I had my own music store in the Mill Centre in Clondalkin where there was a Dunnes Stores, my weekly grocery shopping was done in Superquinn in Lucan, a good 20 minutes away by car.

Somehow shopping in Superquinn just didn’t feel too painful (I hate shopping) because of the atmosphere, the store layout, the smells, the unusual selection of food, the food samples, the fabulous wine selection and the genuine friendly service. Of course the sausages were different and these were bought from time to time!

Feargal Quinn and his team were delivering a product and service at a level way above all other Irish grocery competitors, which helped to build the successful brand, Superquinn.

The Superquinn brand was built using a unique mix of ingredients just like their famous sausages, which they had clearly perfected.

Incredibly there is a support group for their famous sausages!

On this support group they say:

Superquinn sausages“In 1976 Superquinn perfected the pork sausage, nothing else even comes close. If I was a pig I would feel privileged to donate my body to a noble cause like this. Following a trip to Germany in early 1976, Feargal Quinn decided that Superquinn would create the perfect sausage for Irish tastes. Superquinn butcher, Pat Kelly was the lucky man faced with the ultimate challenge“

Feargal Quinn seemed to take this approach with everything he did in his stores – they were different and they were better.

Over time the other grocery chains improved, the differences weren’t as different as they once were and the special ethos that once defined Superquinn started to dissolve.

When Feargal Quinn sold the stores to an investor group who had no experience in the very challenging sector the once special sizzle started to disappear and the business went backwards.

Are you minding the sizzle in your business?

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 Brand Loyalty, Marketing, Motivation | 11 Comments »

Nature, Nurture and all things Equal

February 9, 2014

Men's 100m final Usain Bolt

All of the finalists in every men’s Olympic 100 meters from 1984 onwards have been black. Not only that but all have had their family origins  in sub-Saharan West Africa, whose inhabitants are genetically programmed to run fast.

Speed over short distances comes from fast-twitch muscle fibres, which contract twice as fast as slow-twitch. Calf muscles of elite sprinters have 75% fast-twitch. Half milers have 50-50 fast, while long distance runners mostly slow. Although slower they can endure longer, which might explain why Jamaica produces elite sprinters such as Usain Bolt but no long distance stars.

The fastest Jamaican 10,000 meter runner would not have qualified for the London Olympics.

The Sports Gene David EpsteinI was fascinated by the subject matter in the review of a book by David Epstein called “The Sports Gene” in a magazine called Oldies, on our way to Munich. (Oldies !! I know what you are thinking – what was Greg doing reading that? It just looked like the most interesting magazine on the shelf at the airport newsagent. Some fabulous articles in it.)

One of the central themes in the book was: Are we purely a product of our genes or can we shape our destiny by dedication and hard work?

This is a difficult topic as it forces you into areas such as race, genetics, gender in our politically correct world.

There are definite conclusions in the well researched book such as  “sporting prowess is in fact, usually down to your genes plus plenty of practice“.

Michael Shermer in his review of the book in the Wall Street Journal commented  “it was bound to put the cat among the pigeons with the blank-slate crowd who think we can all be equal as long as we equalise environmental inputs such as practice“.

There are things that some people due to race, gender or genetics are just better at and instead of fighting this we should understand it, appreciate it and even embrace it.

Whether it is sport, work or life instead of arguing and getting all riled up about the imbalanced percentages we should try better to understand why this is the case and explore if it is nature causing the differences and nothing else.

The most important thing for me is that if I want to run the 100 metres, become a ballet dance, operate a crane, play the drums, become a nurse, become a politician, or start a new business I can.

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 Equality, Motivation, Personal development, Racism, Sport | Leave a Comment »

When mistakes are good

February 4, 2014

Kolo Toure mistake

I watched in horror as the most experienced defender on the pitch gifted the ball to the West Brom striker (formerly from Everton, of course) on the edge of the Liverpool FC box.

Sure enough he buried the ball in the corner past Simon Mignolet to level the match – damn!

Typical ….after thumping Everton a few days previous in a really “tough” match 4-nil, we (when it’s your team you have to say “we”)  threw away a lead in a game we were in total control of.

In truth the game was too easy – it’s as if the players slipped into second gear waiting on the in-form Liverpool strikers Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge to score a few more goals against this very ordinary West Brom team.

The poor defender Kolo Toure hung his head in shame as he knew he made a huge mistake, which contributed to throwing away two valuable points.

The manager Brendan Rodgers was asked after the game about this huge mistake.

Instead of blaming the player he applauded the courage and bravery of the Liverpool defenders to play football instead of booting the ball aimlessly down the pitch. His philosophy is to encourage them to use the ball, pass it and play it forward intelligently.

He made the point that when you take this brave approach you do run the risk of making mistakes and that this one was the first all season, which actually cost the team.

While the mistake hurts deeply when it comes along he reckons it is a price worth paying for playing great football – in truth there is no comparison between the football Liverpool are playing now and some of the awful stuff from a few years ago.

I just left a meeting where everyone is petrified of doing anything because they will know they will get hammered if they make a mistake – the result …no one is doing anything!

To get the best results from your team do you have to allow some mistakes?

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 Management, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Staff training, Teamwork | 2 Comments »

Taking it too personally

February 1, 2014

Ireland dejected after New Zealand loss

“You just take things too personally”

This was said in some way to imply a criticism, that taking things too personally was a negative thing and that in some way it might even be a little unprofessional.

Maybe this is an issue and I wonder what the opposite might look like?

  • Not caring if you are on the subs bench
  • Not bothering when you don’t win a proposal that you worked your socks off on
  • Not being bothered when the manager takes you off in a match
  • Not caring if your clients project is a success or failure
  • Not caring when a team mate is taking abuse by an opposing player
  • Happily leaving a client take a route you feel won’t work
  • Not celebrating when you score a goal
  • Not caring whether your work colleagues get on or not
  • Knowing a team mate will go to whatever team pays the biggest money
  • Taking no notice when colleagues leave on the button when there are others under pressure
  • Not caring when a teammate is treated unfairly by the manager
  • Turning up and just doing what you are paid to do
  • Not being gutted when you deserved to win a match
  • Having no pride in the business
  • Feeling no responsibility for the club
  • Not being passionate about what you do

This list could go on and on …

Who do you want on your team?

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 Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 1 Comment »

Big, Bold, Brave ….Belief

January 28, 2014

Teamwork.com

The .com domain name for Greg Canty gregcanty.com can be registered with Register365 for the total price of €8.95 per annum.

The .com domain is the big one, the universal one, which is easy to register and without any fuss. For example with the Irish domain .ie you need to jump a few hoops and at least make some attempt at proving that you or your business has a valid reason for being able to claim that name.

The frenzy at the beginning of the internet boom was the practice of some very clever people anticipating which domain names would be popular in the future. They purchased these in the hope that at some point in time they might earn a windfall when they could sell them off for big money.

A lot of domain names are still registered to people who will never use them and are still waiting for their big pay day!

According to Wikipedia the top ten most expensive domain names are:

  1. VacationRentals.com $35 million in 2007 
  2. Insure.com $16 million in 2009 
  3. Sex.com for $14 million in October 2010
  4. Fund.com 2008 £9.99 million
  5. Porn.com 2007 $9.5 million
  6. Fb.com by Facebook for $8.5 million in November 2010
  7. Business.com for $7.5 million in December 1999
  8. Diamond.com 2006 $7.5 million
  9. Beer.com 2004 $7 million
  10. Israel.com 2008 $5.88 million

It looks like the last big money transaction was in 2010.

What would make you pay this kind of huge money for a domain name?

  • It must be a core part of your brand and who you are – so much so that you can’t have anyone else using it and must get your hands on it
  • It must have huge earning potential in order to justify such a huge price tag – unless of course you have so much money that earnings are not a critical part of the equation

Even if these two elements are in place do you have the resources to pay out big money for a domain name and this must be weighed up against what you could do with this amount of money – could you make your existing domain name or a new name just as powerful if that fund was put being a marketing campaign?

Big, Bold, Brave

Teamwork LogoLast week I was at the Guinness Store House (a strange experience for me – I could see my old office from the top floor) for the launch of a domain name by a Fuzion client and great friends of mine, Digital Crew.

The guys have an incredible cloud based project management application called TeamworkPM, which only after a few years is creating a storm online and is quickly becoming the standard within the sector for managing projects.

These guys from Cork had paid over half a million euros for the domain name www.teamwork.com and were celebrating with friends and clients – at 9pm the new domain name was set live.

When I first heard this news I thought someone was pulling a fast one on me and when I realised it was true I wondered if they had totally lost their marbles!

This was certainly a BIG move, they are paying and playing big, they are thinking big (huge!) but then again they have a global product so it is a big market. What’s more they have big plans to develop a whole suite of products under the Teamwork name. 

It was definitely a BOLD move …they aren’t a Google, a Facebook, a Microsoft, a Twitter but this was a big bold move, which shows that they see themselves in that Premier league table.

BRAVE ….I’m not sure if I could have written that cheque!

To be fair to these guys this is isn’t the first time that they have been Big, Bold and Brave.

When Digital Crew were working on their core web development business and on some complex web projects they realised they needed a project management application to help co-ordinate their teams and the multiple tasks that were required. After playing with a few different applications online they decided ….these aren’t good enough, we can do better!

While ideas are great and we all have them, the guys got together at weekends and late in the evenings when the regular client work was done and starting building a new application.

After an incredibly hard slog the application TeamworkPM was ready, which they politely rolled out.

There was no immediate success but they interacted with customers, answered countless queries, joined discussions, tracked competitors, improved their product over and over and eventually they had momentum with some serious businesses coming on board and using the application – Walt Disney, Microsoft, EA Sports, Forbes and eBay to name a few.

Word of mouth, continuous improvements and dogged determination brought TeamworkPM to a point where the income from the application had surpassed their core business income.

They made an incredibly Big, Bold and Brave move to divest of their core business and put everything into their TeamworkPM application. Every month there is a big new feature added, which is a challenge they set for themselves.

Within a year they have added significantly to the team and even sent one of the founders to take office in New Zealand (poor Sam – we all know he hates the glorious weather and the beach!)so another time zone could be looked after.

While they have been making Big, Bold and Brave moves for a long time the decision to pay over half a million euros for the teamwork.com domain name is about something much more.

They have incredible BELIEF in what they are doing, in their own capability and in their vision. They know exactly where they are taking their business.

To Dan, Peter, Sam, Billy and all the Teamwork team …..thanks for showing us what Big, Bold and Brave looks like. My belief is your domain will be worth it!

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 Brand Loyalty, Business Planning, Marketing, Motivation, Positivity, Teamwork, Web Marketing | 4 Comments »

The Hug Test

January 5, 2014

Hugs at work

It’s New Year’s Day and that end of the long break/going back to work cloud descends on me as it always does.

I love the Christmas break, possibly even more than the summer break and when it comes to an end it does bother me even though I love what I do – those days of doing nothing, hanging around the house and relaxing are so enjoyable but at some point you have to get back to reality.

When I started to think more about the first day back I started to look forward to seeing our crew again. While the break was great it would be good to see them all again and catch up.

During the course of a year we spend a lot of time together and it’s natural that you get to know everyone quite well and you do form special relationships, even if it is predominantly in a work context.

The more I thought about seeing the crew again I thought about greeting them after not having seen them for the best part of two weeks.

For me the natural greeting for each of them would be a hug – a genuine warm hug, which reflects how I feel about all of them.

I would hate to be heading back to work and to be meeting anyone in our team who I didn’t like, who I didn’t feel any connection with, who I preferred not to spend time with. That would be awful and in the course of my career I have been in that place more than once.

My cloud cleared and I was now actually looking forward to getting back to work.

Will your first day back at work pass the Hug test?

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 Christmas, Holidays, Motivation, Teamwork | Leave a Comment »

I had a great 2014 because …

January 1, 2014

visualisation

For the last few years I have been doing this simple little exercise at the start of the year to help get focused around things that are important both personally and professionally.

I have found it to be really useful and one that has made a big difference.

I don’t know about you but making plans and actually achieving them is always challenging and at the start of the year I find myself at the start of that loop all over again making promises that often will never materialise!

A few years ago I was inspired to go about my goal setting in a different way thanks to a book I read called “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander (a really interesting motivational book by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife who is an executive coach).

Benjamin Zander, the conductor has the task every year of bringing out the very best from a large group of very talented musicians for his orchestra.

His approach is rooted in the power of visualisation – the simple idea behind this is that if you visualise what you want to achieve then there is a much better chance of it actually happening (unbelievers ….stop reading now !!)

Here goes ..

Take a pen and paper and simply write your diary entry in advance for the last working day of the year to come..

Imagine just before you switch off the lights in the office, before you head out the door to do some last minute shopping and enjoy a well-earned rest, you quietly write your diary entry.

Tuesday, 23rd December, 2014

I had a great year because ….

Be as specific as you can including both personal and professional goals and when you are done Sign it!

Place your note in an envelope and seal it – on the last day of every month (use your calendar system to schedule this) open your envelope and have a peep to see how you are progressing.

…what are you waiting for?

By the way ….Happy New Year!

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, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 3 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 »

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