If that doesn’t work …get out of there!

May 20, 2013

Escape

That was another incredibly busy week, meeting with clients, attending client events, dealing with stakeholders, meeting prospects, running training programmes and dealing with the every day things associated with running a business.

I meet people from so many different walks of life working in organisations and companies in private, public and non-profit sectors and with my social media activity I interact with many people on a regular basis.

This week in particular, whatever was in the air I seemed to meet a lot of incredibly “frustrated” people.

People who feel no one listens to them, people who feel its impossible to get anything done, people who despair of their organisation because it is choking with politics, people who were bullied out of jobs by colleagues, people blaming colleagues for things that went wrong when in fact they put them under so much pressure they couldn’t perform, people who are insecure so they play games to protect their own positions, people who are hostile to visitors and people who can play a huge part in making significant changes but ….once again feel this is impossible with people busy playing politics who will block all positive initiatives.

Not one of these people were giving out about money – all of them wanted to contribute and enjoy and long for the satisfaction of making something happen.

If that’s you then start making some noise, keep pushing, let your voice be heard, push for the right things to happen, speak up when they are not happening, challenge  the rubbish, encourage working together as a team, talk about making a difference, make the political “players” uncomfortable (they want to make a difference as well) and push them towards doing the right things and at least go home on a Friday with a feeling that you have had a good week.

If that doesn’t work …get out of there!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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

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Posted in Bullying, Ireland, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Teamwork | Leave a Comment »

He won’t answer the phone

May 19, 2013

forgive

I asked him how his son was getting on. We were both sitting in his workshop as he opened up to me. I think he needed to.

“I could tell you he is getting on great but I really have no idea. We’re heartbroken” he told me.

“We haven’t spoken to him in over a year. He won’t answer the phone but that doesn’t stop us calling”

The tears flowed from his eyes as he explained to me that it was all down to a simple misunderstanding and since then their son, a normally warm and generous young fella (I can vouch for that) just won’t talk to them.

I’m sure in time that phone will be answered ..

Is there a call you need to make or one you need to answer?

Life is way too short …go on, do t!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Family, Personal development, Positivity | 2 Comments »

Snap into it

May 17, 2013
Bueller

Anyone, anyone, anyone?

“Snap out of it” I had to tell myself.

I do a lot of social media training and consultancy both directly for  clients and as part of organised courses for the Enterprise Boards and the Digital Marketing Institute.

I use a suite of materials to deliver this training including some very detailed notes that cover the whole area including blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and some of the other emerging platforms and trends in social media.

In the last few weeks I have found myself delivering a huge volume of training and on this particular day I found myself delivering a module to a client group in the morning and a similar programme in the evening to a group of SME’s as part of training for one of the Enterprise Boards.

Facing into delivering the same material on literally the same day and feeling really tired my motivation level had dropped.

I started to question myself as I drove to the hotel:

Was I getting bored with my own material?  

Would I be able to deliver a good session?

I was wallowing ..

Hold on (big conversation with self!)…you have been crafting your training materials for a few years, you have continuously improved the programme, you not only understand the material intimately but you know how to deliver it in a way that keeps the group engaged and learning – Besides you know you are passionate about this whole area.

This group of SME’s have signed up for the programme, they have given up their evenings to learn about something that could make a big difference for their business and you know you can show them how, in a really practical way.

After giving myself a few virtual slaps in the face and a big kick up the bum I managed to change my gears and open that door – “who wants to tell world about how great their business is?”

We had a great session ..in fact it was the best reaction to a session that I had in the last few weeks and after it I was buzzing.

What you get from any group at a meeting or a presentation is often down to what you bring in the door with you ..your frame of mind, your attitude, your belief, your energy and your enthusiasm.

Snap into it ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy in Ireland

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Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Social Media, Training, Twitter | 5 Comments »

Twitter Radio

May 8, 2013

Twitter Radio“Twitter is rubbish, there is nothing but people telling me stupid things about what they are up to. What do I care?”

This is pretty much what I hear from typical Twitter sceptics ..

“It’s your own fault” I tell them – they hate that!

“You are the one who chose who to follow and if you don’t like what someone is saying just unfollow them ..”

Just like a radio if you don’t like what is playing then change the channel.

On twitter you can even arrange who you are following into distinct lists (channels) and depending on what you are doing, you may decide to just look at the twitter feed from a specific list. Using the powerful search function you may even create a special channel for people who are tweeting about a specific topic or using a keyword in their tweets.

Twitter..it’s just like a radio except you are the producer and you decide what gets played!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy services 

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | 9 Comments »

The Gardener

May 4, 2013
garden

By the way ..not my garden!

I just knew it ..

When he came in the door with his notebook and pen and carefully took down the details I knew we were in trouble.

The garden was in a state, the grass was up to your kneecaps and it had been totally neglected since the end of last summer. I reckoned our poor Flymo wasn’t up to the job, so the idea was that we would try to find someone who could come in, give the whole place a once over and leave it in a way that we could look after it ourselves for the rest of the year.

Bear in mind that we have a nice 4 bedroom detached house in a housing estate with very average sized gardens both front and back.

After he left us we saw him pacing the front garden – It looked like he was measuring the area. Not good I thought.

The following day his quote arrived by email – €1,560 !!

Oh my god – I thought it must have been a quote for the whole year but when I read it carefully I realised it was for just the initial tidy up!

If there was ever a moment to spur me into action, this was it ..the next half dry evening the Flymo came out and together we attacked the grass – it took two more evenings and a few hours on the bank holiday Saturday but we cracked it!

We bought weed killer, moss peat, some flowers, a yard brush and spent pretty much the rest of the Saturday at it.

I totally despise gardening and this for me was a real punishment day (and evenings) and there is still plenty more to do.

I don’t care enough about the garden to have it perfect and I’m sure our expensive friend would definitely have had it spick and span but to me this was not worth it.

I guess at times we are like the “gardener”.

We do take careful notes, we spend time gathering as much information as we can, we try to fully understand the prospective client’s needs and issues and the challenges they face in their sector.

Armed with this information we go away, we do our own research and we write a Marketing and PR plan for them that will hopefully achieve their objectives. We then prepare a budget to execute the plan as economically as possible.

At times this is fine and everything proceeds but there are times when it is just too much for the prospective client and they must pass – sometimes they decide to cut their own grass!

Their garden will more than likely end up being like mine but sometimes with budgets being so tight that will just have to do.

The important thing is that we all do our best to drive forward and while that can be difficult with limited resources at least ..keep driving forward.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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

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Posted in Gardening, Marketing, Positivity | 12 Comments »

Turning the screw

April 28, 2013

Cork in the sun !

This blog post has been written and re-written so many times. I have deliberated about publishing it as it is quite a negative one.

Every journey has number of bumps and mine is no different – this is one of my big bumps!

Let’s hit that button!!

Publish

The sun was splitting the stones as I walked through Cork city on a gorgeous Saturday ten years ago with Dee and my kids, Brendan and Ellen.

It was a perfect day but my head was about to burst … I was far from perfect.

The torturing turning of the screw was full on and one of the owners wanted this pushy, challenging, drive forward, energetic, self minded General Manager out of their company.

Because of an underlying dispute between the joint owners of the company a big attempt was made a few years before by one of the parties to force me out and I managed, probably out of pure stubbornness to stick in there, putting up with the horrible atmosphere, beating every target and meeting every challenge that they put before me.

Company performance had never been better, we were making good profits and earlier, devious attempts to turn my management team against me had failed with the opposite now happening.

In a tough, competitive environment we were thriving.

The final straw was me taking on someone new on a commission arrangement with the Chairman’s permission – one of the owners felt this was reckless behaviour and coupled with a few other concocted incidents it was deemed that I was not to be trusted any more.

Walk the PlankAfter a visit by the new managing director of this global business it was decided that this boy would have to provide a detailed list of his movements for each week in advance, mornings and afternoons.

If the relevant powers decided this schedule was not appropriate it could be altered. His words were that “I was manager in name only and had to run all of my actions through someone else“.

Excellent!

I had better things to do with my life than put up with this stupidity and being constantly caught in the owners crossfire and on that sunny Saturday I decided I was done. I went home and wrote my letter informing them that my position was untenable and that I would leave in the near future.

A few weeks later I left to work on my own projects.

People ask me was it difficult (my folks thought I had lost my marbles!) to move from a good, secure, extremely well paid  job into self employment – in truth when that decision came it was not a difficult one.

Despite my considerable financial commitments (just like everyone) I had arrived at a point in my life where it was the only decision left to be made. Easy!

This turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made but I didn’t appreciate the heavy hands on my back.

Many felt I should take a legal route with my ex-employers but I decided it was better and healthier to focus all of my energy in a positive direction so that I could achieve my new goals and put bread on the table. However, ten years later it still lingers in the back of my mind and I remember the horrible feeling at that time.

It’s really important to me that I enjoy what I do and that in Fuzion we provide a great work environment for all of our team.

I call it #WinHappy

If you find that a screw is being turned on you do your best to take control.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion (for ten years now!)

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Posted in Bullying, HR, Legal, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 14 Comments »

Worrier or Warrior?

April 28, 2013

Warrior or worrier

Being in business can be great fun, it can be really satisfying and that overall feeling of being a master of your own destiny just can’t be beaten.

However at times it can be a very lonely place with huge stresses and one where things can be constantly challenging.

One feeling that never leaves me is that feeling of worry ….there is always something to worry about, where will new business come from, how will we pay those bills, how will we sort that problem, how will we improve on the great year that we just had?

That worry niggle is always there to one degree or another. At times you hardly notice, it’s just a tiny little niggle at the back of your mind but at other times the worry monster is bigger and you find yourself waking up and your first thought of the day is..that worry!

That’s when I find the warrior appears, when you have to dig deep, you delve into your reserves, you have to find extra gears inside you and you have to work harder, be more creative and make bolder moves and do new things.

During a typical year I find myself moving from worrier to warrior at regular intervals, ironically with the very most being achieved when the warrior appears!

Are you a warrior or a worrier?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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

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Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 8 Comments »

Rewarding Loyalty

April 28, 2013

Table Service

We love going there, the team know us, the manager knows us, there is always a great atmosphere and it is a real treat that we always look forward to.

The little touches are so important, finding you a good place to sit, recommending a special wine, suggesting a new beer, letting you have a sample on the house, asking your opinion about things they are doing…all in all a great place to eat, drink and relax.

The manager was telling us that they were thinking of introducing a “loyalty card” system to reward the regular customers – For every X number of meals you would get one free as well as some other benefits.

The truth is they don’t need a loyalty card system because they always reward our loyalty with their great service.

Instead of giving me one free meal for every ten we order and processing this through a card system, I’m pretty sure that I prefer being looked after in an informal, discretionary way…not because I have “earned” or qualified for my bonus meal.

Give me a drink on the house, a free dessert, a great seat, a warm welcome …it’s better than any card!

Places that don’t know you, might need a system to encourage repeat business and reward loyalty in an official way ….the great places never need a system!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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

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Posted in Brand Loyalty, Customer Care, Marketing | 18 Comments »

Are you leaving breadcrumbs?

April 20, 2013

Leaving breadcrumbs

“You are doing a lot of work in Dublin these days” she said to me.

“We are, but how did you know that?” I asked

“Oh ..I figured that out from your Facebook posts” she said

That conversation was about five years ago and it was at an event for a client in Dublin – for me it was what I call my “penny drop” moment about social media. At that time I was using Facebook, just like everyone else posting the odd thing about what I was doing and where I was going. In fact, I think I wasn’t that sure what I should have been posting and even how relevant social media might be for business.

It dawned on me that with every post you make people are watching, digesting and forming impressions about you and what you are all about. Often they won’t comment, reply or even “like” your posts, but they are listening and soaking up what you are saying.

From that moment I realised the power of social media and the importance of having a clear idea about what picture of you and your business you want to portray.

Every status update, every tweet, every retweet, every like, every share, every favourite, every discussion, every hashtag and every blog post are all little breadcrumbs that you leave to bring the reader to a place you wanted to take them.

Are you leaving breadcrumbs?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy in Ireland.

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Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Web Marketing | 12 Comments »

Can nice guys win?

April 16, 2013

Albert Einstein - Man of Value, succession planning

I was chatting to a good friend of mine recently who runs a really successful business – we hadn’t seen each other for quite a while so it was great to catch up.

We spoke about life, work, music, kids, getting old, favourite movies ..in truth we could still be there chatting!

We were having the usual conversation about how hard you have to work these days to be successful and he told me a story about one of his competitors who received the worst possible news a while back ….he had cancer and he needed time off for treatment.

That type of news puts everything into perspective .. 

My buddies automatic reaction was to ring his competitor and offer him any help that he needed (in the background) to keep his show on the road.

While they were fierce competitors there was always mutual respect and unlike some of the other competitors (news leaked out about his poor health and customers were romanced) this was clearly not a circumstance to take advantage of.

Over a year later as this mans diagnosis was not good he decided it was best for the survival of the business and the protection of his team to sell on the business to a competitor.

There was only one bidder he seriously considered ….nice guys can win after all!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Friendship, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 16 Comments »

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