I just spotted this post on my son’s Facebook page – could you wish for any more?
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Archive for the ‘Personal development’ Category
Could you wish for any more for your kids?
November 7, 2012When you come undone
October 10, 2012
Who do you need?
I was listening to the incredible song by Duran Duran “Come Undone“, which is on their excellent (1993) Wedding Album – the album is actually untitled but there are wedding photos (these are actually pictures of the band members parent’s wedding photos) on the cover!
This gorgeous song has some very profound lyrics that stop me in my tracks every time I hear them:
“Who do you need, who do you love, when you come undone?”
I think that is a huge question that we all should think about ..
What’s your answer? …..look after them, give them a call today.
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Oh Life!!
September 30, 2012
I have a heavy cold and I’m feeling a little bit miserable, I’m sipping on a Lemsip before I pop down the road with Dee to mum and dad’s for dinner. We walked the dog earlier in between a few showers!
For the most part I’m in good form , Liverpool FC seem to be back to winning ways, we’re busy in work, there are a few interesting projects I’m working on, we have a few proposals we’re waiting to hear back on but there is also a court case coming up in a few weeks that I have to deal with.
Eventually the court case is being heard in October.
I can’t believe how much time has passed – that was over three years ago, just when the recession was really biting. I remember the sleepless nights. I remember doing everything we could trying to collect the money that was due to us and being totally ignored. Eventually I managed to track our client down and he laughed in my face!
He thought it was funny ..
I didn’t think it was very funny – it was a tough time for us, we desperately needed that money to keep the show on the road.. as I said I didn’t quite see the funny side of it.
Ah well..that case is up this month and like everything else, it will pass. It would probably have been easier and less hassle to walk away but sometimes you just have to stand up to people like this.
Today is Sunday 30th September..
Doesn’t that just about sum up where things are for all of us? We have good things going on but there is always some worry, some hurdle, some niggle that needs to be dealt with. Sometimes these are huge things and often they are just small things. Sometimes they are personal and sometimes they are in relation to our work life.
Oh Life!!
A few years ago a good buddy of mine, Peter Coppinger from Digital Crew mentioned this clever little online service called Oh Life that he was using.
He explained enthusiastically that you sign up for Oh Life (it’s a free service) and every day it sends you an email with a simple question:
How was your day?
I had never managed to keep a diary so I was quite sceptical as to whether I would do this and I wasn’t really sure how it would be of benefit.
Peter is a pretty switched on guy so I followed his advice and signed up.
With the service you simply reply to the daily email from Oh Life with your thoughts for the day and it stores your answer. Once you have been using Oh Life for a short while, the service includes one of your old diary entries in the emails it sends you.
Sometimes on your daily email it will copy you on your entry a week ago and sometimes it will copy you on an entry a month ago and so on.
This simple service provides me with a fascinating insight into my “life” and my big learning from using it is that the “worries” never seem to turn out as bad as I feared and I’m always astonished at how quickly things move on. Something that is a big deal to you can easily become irrelevant in just one week.
I wonder what my diary will be like a month from now!
Go on, why not try it by clicking here .. Oh Life
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Bobby or JR?
September 21, 2012
Who do you need to be like?
To succeed in business who do you need to be more like?
Isn’t that a huge question?
Can you succeed by being decent, honest, fair, considerate, principled and moral just like the Bobby Ewing character in Dallas?
OR – do you have to be ruthless, cunning, deceitful, back stabbing just like his brother JR ?
Have a think about it and give me your honest answer .. what do you genuinely believe?
I’ll tell you what I think later!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Looking after the triangle?
September 9, 2012
He was a really great sales rep working for Guinness out of their Cork office. He had been in the job for a number of years, was very efficient, very intelligent, very successful and was quite popular with his customers.
He was a great asset to the company with his knowledge of the local area, which was a big deal to Guinness as it was very competitive with both Murphy Brewery and Beamish and Crawford located in the city. In his role he would have had a lot of liaison with the various brand teams in Guinness.
This was probably the most competitive patch for Guinness in all of the country. The sales structure in Guinness consisted of sales reps, there were nine regional managers, three divisional managers with an overall Commercial sales director.
As he was highly rated a lot of pressure was being put on him to look for a promotion and move up the corporate ladder. Any promotion would have probably meant a change of location. To most of the team this promotion opportunity, with more seniority, more perks and a bigger pay packet would have been a godsend – our guy had no interest, he was happy in Cork and loved what he was doing.
When this rep’s name came up in conversation in management circles there was always a sense of a “black mark” and a little cloud of disappointment against him because he wasn’t seen as being ambitious enough.
My Triangle Theory!
At the widest point of the triangle there are lots of workers. Some of these are ambitious and push themselves up the triangle into more senior jobs with more responsibility.
Above them are even more senior managers and the business owners – at the very top of the triangle there are a select few who earn the big money, are adept at corporate politics and can handle the responsibility and pressure at this level.
Often these guys and gals will have sold themselves for the job, made the big personal sacrifices, possibly relocating themselves and their families and made work their ultimate priority.
For the triangle to work best we need satisfied, happy people at each level – for those who want to push upwards there are opportunities and for those who are happy with their lot they can stay doing what they hopefully enjoy doing.
Isn’t it better having lots of happy sales reps than a bunch of unhappy sales managers?
Sometimes you have to let the Triangle look after itself …
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin
Taking Sweets from Strangers!
September 9, 2012
5pm and I knew I had some more work to do but my brain was totally fried and I was exhausted so there was no point continuing unless I took a small break.
I decided I’d pop out quickly for a coffee and 2 minutes of fresh air so I ran around the corner to O’Connaill’s Coffee and Chocolate Cafe for a breather and a jolt of caffeine to keep me going for another while.
I ordered an Americano and while I was waiting a retired gentleman came behind me in the queue, with three large bars of chocolate in his hand.
“It’s a big weakness of mine” he piped up as we both waited in the queue. He said the chocolate in there was gorgeous and told me that last week he actually broke a tooth while satisfying his craving!
“Fair play, we all deserve a treat every now and then” I said to him. “Have you tried the dark chocolate from here yet?” he asked.
Before I knew it he had his giant bar of dark chocolate opened and two big pieces were broken off and put in my hand. What a gentleman!
It warmed me up to think that in a queue in a shop in Cork two strangers can have a polite conversation and end up sharing some chocolate.
Maybe sometimes it’s a good thing to take chocolate from strangers!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
The really cool image is courtesy of the Fresh Milk Clothing Company – you can buy t-shirts with this visual on them and many more of course!
Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with Offices in Dublin and Cork
13 Tips About Blogging & making some noise!
August 23, 2012
What’s it to be?
Blogging is a great way to demonstrate your expertise and get your message out there and I find more and more we are encouraging our clients to jump in and let the world hear what they have to say ….make some noise!
Once your blog post is written it makes great raw material to feed your social media activity or even to pitch to the media if it is in relation to some issue that is quite topical. Interested readers (hopefully some of these are potential customers) can subscribe to your blog and will then get automatic updates whenever you post something new.
This all sounds fabulous and it really is once you are up and running but the tough part is starting!
Often I find a client will put a week’s thought, deliberation and work into a single blog post and the monumental effort will ensure that it will be their first and last – writing isn’t easy, it is a skill that needs to be practised the same as anything else and I guess it comes easier to some than to others.
What I can promise is that once you are up and running it will get easier and easier, but you have to allow yourself a learning curve and you will soon discover a style that you are comfortable with.
Get it right and not only will you enjoy it, but it will help to bring you and your business visibility, which should help to bring you business.
Power blog!
I have put together a few tips about blogging that might help you along the way!
- Keep the blog post as short as possible (just enough to make your point)
- Try to write in the “first person” if possible
- Avoid using technical/industry jargon (unless it is for a very technical audience)
- Keep it topical (where possible try making your point using some issue that is current)
- If the blog post is taking more than half an hour to write then you are probably thinking about it too much!
- Always try to include a relevant visual – people love pictures!
- Blog as frequently as possible (at least once a week is a good target)
- Mix your topics and don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through
- Keep a note book (your smart phone might help) to jot down ideas for blog posts – they will come to you at the strangest of times, believe me!
- Optimise your keywords – if you want your blog post to be found try to work the important keywords (the ones that a typical user might use if they were searching on the topic) into the blog heading, the first paragraph and your keyword tags. Make sure you categorise and tag your blog post once it is done.
- Include hyperlinks (simply the web addresses of other relevant content) – links to your website, links to the writers LinkedIn Account, links to other resources on the web.
- Blogging is just the start – make sure you push it out through your social media channels to get value for all of your hard work
- Unlucky for some but not for you – Go on …..www.wordpress.com , what are you waiting for?
Looking forward to reading what you have to say
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training in Dublin and Cork
Clannish – Who is missing out?
August 15, 2012
Who’s the driver ?
I totally hate getting taxis, I hate having to leave our car in town and I hate having to get back into town the next day to collect the car …. I hate taxis! (and I do admit to being quite odd at times ..)
After a long day on the Cork Gourmet trail sampling food and wine in so many great establishments followed by a few visits to some popular watering holes, getting a taxi home was a necessity.
I wasn’t really in the mood for small talk but our driver was a really pleasant, cheery guy from Pakistan. He asked us about our day and on the journey to Balincollig he shared with us some of his life stories and his love of Cork.
It turns out our driver was a senior bank official in Pakistan but found that when he came to Ireland this experience counted for nothing so he ended up spending a few years packing shelves in Tesco. Acknowledging his lack of progression he decided to save hard and invest in a business course in Ireland, which he felt might change perceptions of him.
Despite doing really well on his course his job prospects never improved and he found he was lucky to even get to interview stage. At admits now he has pretty much given up on his career dreams and has settled for his job driving a taxi.
Always upbeat in his intelligent conversation with us, he did hope that his two kids, who according to himself are as Irish as we are, (complete with Cork accents!) would have better luck than he did in fulfilling their full potential.
It upsets him that the Irish are so “clannish” and while not being considered for jobs he is more than qualified for is quite upsetting, he really gets upset when some people get in his taxi and jump out again when they see he is coloured.
He reckons that he is experiencing now what the Irish experienced many moons ago in other countries.
In the back seat of his taxi I reflected on what he was saying to us and quite honestly I couldn’t disagree with him or offer any great words of wisdom. At the end of our ride home we shook his hand, gave him a decent tip and encouraged him to keep chatting, sharing his story and changing minds one by one.
To use his very politely chosen words, maybe we are “clannish” and I wonder are we sometimes missing out on the best people because of our prejudices?
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Watching the mistake
July 17, 2012
Very Fancy!
“Guess who is selling his bar and buying a 5 star restaurant” Tommy, my Sales Manager said to me. I was the General Manager of Deasy & Co at the time, a subsidiary of Guinness.
“Oh My God, you can’t be serious” I said to him “That will be a total disaster“. “I know, we all know ….it will never work”
One of our loyal customers who was running a good solid suburban bar had done a decent job with the place and he was made an offer to sell up. The offer was “too good to be true” and our customer was going to make a clear profit from the deal.
His plan was to buy and run this very successful five star, fine dining restaurant whose reputation had been built around a well known chef. He reckoned he could manage the purchase with the windfall from the pub sale and even be in a position to upgrade the restaurant premises with some support from the bank.
The problem as we all saw it was that our guy wasn’t exactly Mr.Sophistication and in truth he was the last person that we could imagine operating this 5 star restaurant. He always did well in the pub but that was with a very different, country type crowd.
My buddy Tommy was really close to him – should he have a strong word with him and advise him against his dream?
Our customer was determined, full of enthusiasm so maybe we were the ones that were wrong – who were we to say anything? If Tommy said something to him it could backfire and damage the professional friendship they had.
Shortly after the restaurant opened under the new owner we went there for a meal to support him. Our worst fears were realised as we had a poor meal and you could see that our customer, who was a really nice guy just wasn’t able for this level of fine dining. Maybe he was on a learning curve and it would get better?
Unfortunately within a year the place was shut, the “fine dining” reputation in tatters, he had lost huge money and the building was handed back to the bank and our customer had lost everything.
The crazy thing was that we all saw it coming ….
Would you have said something ?
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Do we all need to be a Circus Act?
July 13, 2012
Round of applause please!
On the last night of our holidays in Cuba we found ourselves watching a “circus” show as part of the entertainment that the resort puts on every night to satisfy all of the holiday makers including, young couples, newly weds, young families and older couples.
It must be a tough gig entertaining such a mixed crowd but this troop did really well. There were two really acrobatic guys who were skilled, flexible and strong as they worked a number of different routines.
There was a very attractive young woman (of course!) who was equally skilled with a mixture of acrobatics, operating a unicycle, juggling and joining in on some of the routines with the guys.
There was a older guy who was skilled with a whip, who could remove an item from your mouth with one lash and of course there was a Charlie Chaplin type character in an oversized suit with extra large shoes who joked, tripped, fell over, participating in the different tricks, adding humour in equal measure with getting the crowd involved in the show.
All of the performers as well as being really skilled at what they did were all very competent “showmen” (or women!).. for each trick, there was a moment of deliberate tension, a pose, a smile or some other crucial, perfectly timed gesture that gave that important cue to the crowd to applaud and fully appreciate the feats that they had just witnessed.
These crucial “show” elements transformed the demonstration of skills into a “wow” performance, which were the little pieces of magic that was needed to leave everyone knowing they had witnessed something extra special.
Ready for the Show?
The circus reminded me of the simple lesson that Peter Coughter gave in his book “The Art of the Pitch”
Often the best plans never see the light of day..
When you are presenting your proposal to a prospect that you have put huge work into, always remember that’s it’s not enough to show that you are competent, skilled and can deliver what’s required.
You must deliver a performance to win the business… in his excellent book he tells you how!
Remember …. It’s Showtime!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion are a PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork that specialise in campaigns integrating traditional media with social media
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 