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

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Posted in Personal development, Positivity | 15 Comments »

Bobby or JR?

September 21, 2012
Bobby and JR Ewing

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

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Posted in Business Planning, Business Start Ups, Personal development | 7 Comments »

Kate Middleton – Will I or won’t I?

September 18, 2012
Kate Middleton

Those guys should put a shirt on !

I’m sitting by the pool with my husband William, it’s roasting – I wouldn’t mind taking the opportunity to relax and top up my tan.

Maybe I will take off my top and get a proper tan so I can avoid those awful white lines. Is it proper, is it appropriate – where are the security guys? I don’t really fancy them gawping at me!!

What should I do? Will William mind? What if I get spotted, who’s going to spot me?

Will I or won’t I?  To hell with it – that top is coming off …. Bliss!

Paparazzi - Kate Middleton

Woohoo!!

I’ve been waiting here for hours…. For God’s sake will one of ye stand up and at least give me a decent picture so I can get out of here and get on with my day and pitch these pictures to someone and make a few bob.

That’s right Kate, stand up, please stand up – oh my god, I wasn’t expecting that! Click, click, click …. These pictures are like gold dust.

Am I the first person ever to get a picture of Kate Middleton topless? Woohoo!! These must be worth a fortune, how much will I charge for them? Where will I go on holidays!

Will I get in trouble, what about all that privacy stuff!

Will I or won’t I? Damn right I will …who do I call first?

Closer Magazine - Kate Middleton edition

Payday !

I’m getting ready for this weeks magazine, it’s not that juicy – wouldn’t it be great if I had something decent for the front cover and some content that would really make a difference instead of recycling all the usual celebs.

Victoria at a fashion show, has Katie Holmes been pictured chatting to some good looking guy at a coffee shop and poor Cheryl ….how much more time can we squeeze out of that one?

You really have pictures of Kate Middleton topless! Are you kidding me? How much do you want for them? And you will give those to us first … this is huge, I’ll have to check with my boss.

Oh my God, there will be uproar about this but what a coup! The poor girl on holidays, she had no idea that photographer had her in his sights, god bless technology! Imagine if it was me on holidays, how would I feel? Our readers would definitely love it and my circulation figures will be colossal – we can be the first to ever carry pictures of Kate topless!

Will I or won’t I? Hmmm … Go for it, call that photographer, try to bargain him down but get the deal done.

Irish Daily Star

But we’re Irish?

That rule doesn’t really apply to us, surely it can’t ? It’s ok for them over the pond to be sensitive about the Royal family but to us they’re just like another celebrity, isn’t Kate just like Sheryl or Rhianna after all?

I know there is a big storm and the Royal family are threatening to sue the French and Italian magazine group – surely that is just talk? It’ll probably go nowhere.

Privacy laws – in fairness, this is no worse than a lot of the stuff we do on an ongoing basis. It probably won’t come to much, other than a little slap on the back of the hand. They’ve printed them anyway so why not give our readers what they want ? It won’t do our circulation figures any harm either!

Will I or won’t I? Ok lads, extra copies to be printed for Saturday, it’s going to be a big one!!

Kate – look what you have done!

Thank you for changing the conversation and for sparing us a few days of property tax, budget talk, austerity and EU misery …

Will I or won’t I?.. glad you did!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Glossy magazines Closer in France and Chi Chi in Italy were the first to publish topless pictures of Kate Middleton snapped relaxing on holidays in a private villa. The Irish Daily Star published these pictures the following Saturday.

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

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Posted in Crisis PR, Entertainment, Marketing, Publishing | 10 Comments »

Can you do good business when you have a bad relationship?

September 15, 2012
Dispute

No quarter given ..

There is no point taking that phone call and even trying to sort anything out.

You may have read a previous blog post of mine titled “Are you doing bad business?“, which basically looked at business that is not good because something isn’t right between you and the supplier or the customer.

I gave a few examples where we ended up doing what I call “bad business” and at the heart of each of these there was a poor relationship between both parties.

One of the examples was a supplier of ours who I just hated dealing with because of their attitude towards us. I felt they never had any respect for us, their manner was always poor and there was no appreciation of the business that we brought them.

I always disliked dealing with them on the phone or by email as I found them to be unpleasant but on the flip side they were quite a reliable supplier who offered good products at competitive prices, so we continued dealing with them.

In truth I resented every order we sent them and every cheque we paid them but despite my best efforts I struggled to get my guys to find an alternative supplier. I found myself living with this poor business relationship and accepting that sometimes maybe it is not important to “like” or respect who you deal with as long as they deliver the goods – isn’t that the most important thing?

After all it’s probably unnatural and quite unrealistic to like everyone you deal with but given a choice (where you have one) it is clearly better when there is a good relationship. Right?

I guess this scenario is fine as long as the relationship is not put under pressure or tested in any way.

This week I had to deal with an issue that occurred with my “favourite” supplier. Something messed up on some work they did for us and cutting a long story short they were putting the blame on my guys and as a result wanted us to cough up 100% of the cost of this unusable job.

We do a lot of work with this crew (incredibly a relationship going back nearly 8 years) and even if we were to blame for the error I would have expected some level of compromise or willingness to come to some fair arrangement between both parties – I was shocked to hear my guys struggle on the phone with our supplier trying to resolve the issue.

They weren’t accepting any blame whatsoever and furthermore were most definitely entertaining no break or compromise with us – listening to conversation I knew this was not right.

I decided to jump in and investigate the “mistake” for myself and realised that the error was actually on their side. I’m not saying we never make mistakes because at times we do – mistakes can happen but it’s how you deal with them that is important.

If our relationship was good we would probably give each other a break, and arrive at some fair compromise. Both parties would want to address the issue and protect the good working arrangement for the future.

As it stands they say we are 100% to blame. For me they are 100% to blame.

In a normal scenario we could easily resolve this. In this scenario I know we won’t. Do I want to?…nah.

Bad business always bites you in the end!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Customer Care | 11 Comments »

Looking after the triangle?

September 9, 2012

Skyscraper workers

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!

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

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Posted in Business Planning, HR, Motivation, Personal development, Recruitment, Staff training, Training, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

Making your street my route

September 9, 2012
shop front

Love your shop !

I love my coffee!

On a typical work day at some point I will pop out of the office for my daily fix – there are one or two coffee shops that I normally go to, each a few streets or blocks (for the American readers!) away.

To get there I can take a number of different routes with a choice of side streets to pop down along the way. I normally work out of our Cork office which is located on the main business street, which backs onto a city centre retail area.

When I think about the route I normally take, the choice of streets that I walk down is totally dictated by those that are the nicest, the most colourful, the most interesting and the most inviting.

On my route I pass shops with colourful windows, pubs with attractive frontage, flower shops with colourful displays, book stores with interesting books in the window, clothes shops with fashionable displays, sweet shops with enticing treats, buildings that are bright, and streets that are clean and welcoming.

There are always alternative routes – make sure you and your street work together to merchandise those windows, paint up those buildings and make customers choose your street as their route to wherever they are going.

Eventually they’ll pop in and buy something!

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion

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

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Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Positivity, Retailing, Staff training | 4 Comments »

The Sacred Cow – Raise Corporation Tax?

September 9, 2012
Sacred Cow - Irish Corporation Tax

Dare we ask the question?

I know this is a really unpopular thing to say – is it time to challenge the Sacred Cow and talk about raising the Corporation Tax rate in Ireland?

I think it is possible to do this and structure it in such a way that will still encourage companies to drive on in Ireland.

Before you think poor old Greg has totally lost his marbles hear me out ..

Why we need to look at this?

Let’s face it, people are bleeding and except for this government being prepared to grasp the nettle and take on some of those areas of excess (“real” sacred cows) that they have still left alone, they just can’t hit the regular Irish taxpayer any more – there is nothing left, nothing.

We need people to have some money in their pockets to keep the indigenous Irish economy going – inflicting more pain and extracting more cash from consumers will just do more damage than good. Aren’t we seeing this already?

Increasing the tax rate on companies who are making profits (let’s face it if you are losing money higher taxes won’t effect you) isn’t the worst thing in the world to do. At least they will be able to cope with it.

The Numbers

3.5 billion was collected last year from Corporation Tax at a rate of 12.5%. This was 10.2% of the overall tax take of 34.2 billion.

This 3.5 billion was the lowest collection of Corporation Tax since 1999 when about the same was collected when the CT rate was 28%.

The Challenge

This government must balance the books, they must collect more taxes, reduce expenditure, start generating jobs and begin to spark economic revival.

How can we do this if we scare the pants off prospective foreign investors by increasing the corporation tax rate?

We are led to believe with absolute certainty by those in “the know” that raising the CT rate is a no go area because it will start a mass exodus of these foreign investors.

Are we sure of that? Is this the main reason that is keeping them in Ireland? I’m not sure, but what do I know.

Taxes in Ireland

Big huh?

My Proposal

1. Raise Corporation Tax by 2.5% (hopefully for just a few years)

2. Introduce 100% immediate allowances for capital spend (this was done successfully in Australia)

3. Introduce tax incentives for companies who increase employee numbers.

4. Use 50% of the increase in CT tax as an investment fund for IT education (we are too far behind international standards and will have a serious problem in attracting these companies if we don’t sort out this supply pool of educated staff ) and an investment fund for indigenous Irish companies who need support at this stage to stay alive (only the ones that have a future)

While the CT tax rate would increase, for those companies that invest in capital and increase job numbers they could actually pay even less tax than now.

In a sweep we would collect more tax from those that can afford it, incentivise jobs and investment, invest in IT education and support indigenous Irish businesses. We might also have a bargaining chip in EU negotiations.

And..we would also be able to lay off the general public who are already bleeding way too much.

What do you think?

Ok, what the hell do I know? Maybe my assumptions are wrong, maybe they are too simplistic and maybe my figures are all wrong – maybe all of this is happening already and these incentives are in place?

At least lets have a discussion and flesh out this Sacred Cow before we cripple Joe Public even more without looking at the alternatives.

Is it time?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion (he was an accountant at one point in time!)

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

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Posted in Accounting, Ireland, Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Positivity, Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Taking Sweets from Strangers!

September 9, 2012

Sweets from strangers - Fresh Milk Clothing Company5pm 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

 

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Posted in Ireland, Personal development, Positivity | 7 Comments »

Ray of Sunshine

September 7, 2012
Vision Express - Search for a Star Pupil

It’s all go !!

Our Dublin troop weren’t available so I found myself and Dee on a Saturday morning at 6 am with the car pointed in the direction of Belfast!

Our job was to oversee a clever Vision Express initiative at their store in Belfast – basically Vision Express were searching for a “Star Pupil“, a kid with a sense of style, bags of attitude and someone that was a star pupil in school.

We knew it was going to be a long, long day – after our “spin” to Belfast from Cork we had the initiative to oversee from 10am till 5pm.  The brief was to find 60 willing kids (with their parents permission of course) who would pose for pictures with a professional photographer and then answer a few questions. The kids had to be between the ages of 3 and 15.

With the help of a great promotional girl we had to grab up to 60 kids at the shopping centre, get their parents consent and then pass them to the photographer who had to do his best to encourage them to pose for photos wearing either their own glasses or some really cool ones that we had on display. Glasses have changed!

Once they were finished with the photos they had to choose their favourite (tough job!), which was then printed for them to take away. While helping them to choose their photos I had to ask them a few questions to discover their attitude about glasses and to find out some stand out moment from school.

Kids are great …. we had shy ones, bubbly ones and very honest ones!  “What was your proudest moment in school?” I would ask. Let’s put the question a different way “What day in school did you really feel good about yourself?” Some would look at you as they contemplated this question as if I had two heads !!

“The day we get our holidays” …. I must admit, good answer!

We did also hear about how proud they were on their first day at school, when they were made class prefect, when they helped a friend who fell in the school yard, when they were awarded the most improved child, when they did well at the sports day ….some great kids, all kids are great – it was fun, but it was tiring.

I was astounded at their attitudes about people who wear glasses – for many they are  now a “cool” fashion accessory and even those who don’t need glasses wanted to wear them.

Things have definitely moved on so far from when I was at school!

India - Ray of Sunshine After a few hours of standing in the shopping centre on a warm day my batteries were starting to flag and then I met the most special girl.

A concerned mother gently grabbed me by the arm and quietly whispered that her kid had a deformed (if I am using the wrong term I apologise) arm and hand that she was very self conscious of. She suggested that I might have a quiet word with the photographer.

I looked over at the girl being photographed and was surprised to see the most animated, confident and bubbly girl effortlessly moving from one great pose to another like an experienced model – surely this wasn’t the self conscious girl?

When I looked again I did notice one arm slightly shorter than the other and a hand that effectively had no fingers – no bother to this girl as she threw her arms in the air for some of her poses.

She bounced over to me, I’m guessing she was about 12.

“My name is …” – by a country mile she was the brightest and warmest kid I dealt with throughout the whole day. After she had chosen her pictures and answered the questions she helped her younger sisters through the same process. This kid was incredible, she had the most generous, fun spirit and there was the biggest ray of sunshine just beaming from her with every word and every smile.

Before I knew it I was home ..

Special girl.. thank you for the sunshine and making a long day so much shorter

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Motivation, Photography, Positivity, PR | Leave a Comment »

Revenue Commissioners on Target?

August 28, 2012
Target Express

Parked up for good ?

It is absolutely terrible to hear that Target Express in operation since 1988 who employ 390 people between Ireland and Northern Ireland have ceased trading due to an attachment order by the Revenue on it’s bank accounts. Target Express are clearly a big operation operating 12 depots and distributing for companies such as L’Oreal, Smyths Toys and AWear.

In 2011 they won the Haulier of the Year Award and they opened a new depot in Monaghan – well done guys, we loved that positive, drive forward mentality (have a peep at their Facebook page entry).

On Target for better days!

For those who are not sure what this means, basically the Revenue have taken over the bank accounts of the company. According to reports there were delays with payments to the Revenue (as is the case with so many businesses) and clearly they got fed up of waiting, used their ultimate power and crashed in.

390 people did not get paid last Friday as a result according to reports. I’m just picturing drivers going home to their families petrified about the future and trying to solve the dilemma of shopping for groceries at the weekend.

The pieces I have read on the papers suggest that negotiations were ongoing with the Revenue but ultimately someone there made a call to say “enough is enough” and they have effectively shut the business and helped to put nearly 400 people on the dole queues.

Maybe the company gave the Revenue the two fingers for two long and were not playing ball, maybe the revenue were unreasonable and abused their power, ignoring the tough and very real circumstances this company (fuel prices have gone through the roof as well) found themselves in – this recession ain’t pretty!

Without knowing any of the detail there is a good chance that Target Express (who are definitely finding cash flow really tight) could not look to the bank for extra funding and the only real wiggle room was to delay payments to suppliers and yes, squeeze some extra credit from the Revenue. Would you do this instead of paying your people on a Friday?

The Revenue will argue that they are not a bank and should not be funding a business with their Vat and PAYE/PRSI. Viewed in one light they are right – however in the grand scheme of things they are possibly very wrong. I would prefer to see those arrears being paid over a reasonable time and 390 people still working.

The Revenue must not have the power to take such action without recourse to some “Job Protection” authority (run by business people please) who can access the situation and put something reasonable in place that will protect valid jobs where possible and feasible.

Surely if we believe our Government’s stated objective, creation and protection of jobs is the biggest objective that there is right now in Ireland – everyone’s objective must be aligned to this, including the Revenue Commissioners.

When it comes to “Power” the Revenue just have too much and I don’t trust that it is being used properly – the “Target” must be jobs and Power needs to be with those who can generate and protect jobs, not take them away.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

 

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

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Posted in Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Positivity, Recession | 35 Comments »

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