Undoing the good …. the over sell.

October 31, 2012
Pushy salesman

How about it?

Another phone call ..

Last week I attended a really good seminar that was hosted by a company from Dublin that we had never had dealings with before – I’m not really sure how I ended up on their invitation list but somehow I did.

They were obviously touting for business in the Cork area and looking for new leads.

The seminar was “free” for all attendees and I must admit that it was very useful and it was run in a very professional manner. It was well attended and judging by the level of interaction during the session the topic was of huge interest.

The two speakers on the day represented the company well and went a long way to convincing the attendees that they had considerable expertise on the subject matter – it turned out to be a really strong “showcase” for their talents and sitting there I reckoned they would definitely pick up business as a result.

I left the enjoyable session with some promotional literature and a really strong impression of the company who presented.

When people registered for the event we were asked for various contact details, which I guess is fair enough if they want to send out further literature or even add me to a newsletter. I was interested in the topic after all.

Since the event I have received a few emails and a few phone calls from the company. The calls have come directly to my mobile and also through to the office phone. After one of the calls I received an email and I politely responded thanking them for the useful session and explaining clearly that if we needed their services I would definitely consider them.

A few days later I am still getting calls and emails ….enough!

Do the seminar, showcase your talents, leave me with an information pack and maybe a polite follow up call/email a week later.

Instead you’ve turned me off and now all I want to do is avoid you!!

We all need to be careful not to undo the good by pushing too hard for the sale ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Direct Marketing, Marketing, Sales | 28 Comments »

The Influence of Social Media in Politics

October 26, 2012
Romney and Obama - Presidential Debate

I must remember to tweet that !

A big thank you to Lillian King for sharing this really interesting and valuable infographic about the influence of Social Media in Politics, which is very timely before the US Presidential Elections.

After all they reckon that Barack Obama was the first Social Media President ever! (Facebook is credited as playing such a major part in his campaign four years ago)

Have a peep through the very interesting stats and tables shown at the bottom of this post.

The one number that grabs me from the stats is that “In Senate races the candidate with the most fans gets elected 81% of the time”.

Does this mean they were the most popular anyway, or does it mean they connected with more people by using social media effectively helping them to get  elected – not sure?

Ireland

For me in the Irish scenario it really bugged me that so many politicians wanted to be “my friend” before the election and now they are nowhere to be scene.

Social Media isn’t a trick – it isn’t a one off opportunity to achieve a specific goal  (however this may occur as a once off).

Social Media, for politicians (or businesses for that matter) is an opportunity to build a following, an opportunity to communicate genuine messages, values and beliefs – in this crazy world of ours an opportunity to cut through the BS, show where you are on key issues and let people see what you really stand for.

When the election (Christmas!) is over ….grab that opportunity

Social Media Election

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Training and Social Media Consultancy from our offices in Cork and Dublin.

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Posted in Irish Politics, Marketing, Politics, PR, Social Media | 7 Comments »

Jimmy Saville – the price of staying silent

October 24, 2012
Jimmy Saville

Untouchable ?

Oh my god, it’s all over the TV and radio – that image of the man with the mad hair, the big glasses and the ever present giant cigar.

Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile, OBE, KCSG was an English disc jockey, television presenter and media personality who passed away at the age of 84- this is how he is described on Wikipedia.

No doubt the description and the extra information that is generated about him on that site will expand and change quite substantially as the next few months unravel.

The investigations into the case will continue and no doubt the level of revelations will increase exponentially. This is a truly shocking case and it seems unbelievable that so many victims and witnesses stayed silent allowing this behaviour to continue over and over, drawing more and more innocent victims into his net.

Now that “Jim Will Fix It” is dead many victims and witnesses are prepared to divulge the most sordid of information about him.

Why could people not have opened their mouths earlier is an obvious question to ask? How many victims would have been saved from the most horrible, sordid, predatory experiences if this was the case?

The truth is people are and were frightened – would they be believed, would they be supported, would they be crushed for “speaking out” without sufficient proof, would they find themselves in trouble, would it be better to just stay silent? Even better .. I don’t want to get involved!

Some of the “silent many” were innocent and vulnerable victims. Others were senior media figures, his friends and his peers who lived through this period and in many cases according to reports actually witnessed some of the incidents.

Many innocent people paid a huge price for this silence in the case of Jimmy Saville. We are seeing so many other instances of people paying a huge price for silence in some many other areas. We help them to get away with their behaviour, we help them to be untouchable. The vulnerable must feel safe enough to talk and everyone else who knows better must be compelled to.

We need to look carefully at our legal systems, our values, our structures and figure out who we are really protecting ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Entertainment, Self Help | 6 Comments »

Facebook – Targeting your posts

October 21, 2012
Bra fitting service

It won’t fit everyone!

Maybe you don’t want every post from your Facebook business page reach every single viewer.

A great feature has just come on stream with Facebook which gives you the ability to control exactly this scenario.

Why might you do this?

With a particular post you might want to limit it to fans of your page who live locally or who are in a particular age group. Sometimes you may want to just target your post at members of a particular sex or with a particular personal status.

A department store who are running a special promotion on bra fitting may not want to interrupt their male audience with such a message, running the risk of them deciding to unlike the page.

A restaurant may not want to annoy viewers who are single when they are promoting specials on Valentines day – it might just annoy them!

How does it work?

Target post on Facebook

Who do you want to see this post?

When you are writing your post before you publish it you can choose to target the audience for this post be clicking on the “target” button, which can be seen on the bottom left corner of the post window alongside the timing button. (you must first enable this feature in your page settings – see below)

From here you can make your audience selection, which gives you a wide range of choices enabling you to limit the reach of your post.  Once you decide to publish, the post will only appear in the newsfeed of those fans that match your selected criteria.

The criteria includes gender, location, age, relationship status, education and interests.

If your fans choose to share that post it will only appear in the newsfeed of their friends that match that criteria.

The post will appear on your wall as normal visible to everyone who visits your page.

Enabling the Post Targeting feature

If your want to use this feature you must first enable the post privacy gating feature for your Facebook page – what a terrible name for the feature!

To do this you must go to the edit page menu that appears at the top of your admin panel. From here click into the manage permissions menu and you will see the “post privacy gating” option towards the end of the page, which you enable by just clicking the box.

Once you have done this the “target” feature\icon will appear as an option in the post comment window as already described.

Well done Facebook !! – its a great new feature.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training from our offices in Cork and Dublin.

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Posted in Direct Marketing, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media | 5 Comments »

When you come undone

October 10, 2012
Duran Duran - The Wedding Album

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

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Posted in Personal development, Self Help | Leave a Comment »

Missing the low hanging fruit!

October 7, 2012
Low Lying Fruit!

Will the penny drop ?

“If I do a search for what we do online we’re nowhere to be found” barked my client down the phone. This was obviously a big deal to him as well it should be!

After all this was the low hanging fruit – the potential customers out there who have already decided that they want what you are offering and are searching online to find it.

“We didn’t do your website for you, it hasn’t been optimised properly which is part of the problem and if you make a few simple changes it will make a big difference” I explained.

“Ok, ok, I must get onto the website crew” he eventually calmed down, “Is there anything we can do for now?” he asked.

I suggested a Google Adwords campaign to ensure he had a web presence (in adverts) where key search terms were used – at least until his website would start performing organically.

“Perfect, it’s vital that our website always comes up first” he explained, “Can you do it ASAP?”

He was right – for his sector a strong web presence was an absolute priority.

We quickly put the Adwords campaign in place and this corrected his lack of web presence immediately. For a reasonable daily budget we ensured that all relevant web traffic found his website and this was done on a pay per click basis – you only pay when a user clicks on your advert and comes onto your website.

A few weeks later we had a review meeting with our client – we covered the PR coverage and we also discussed the effectiveness of his advertising spend, which he was looking after himself.

As I had set up the Google Adwords campaign for him I gave him a detailed report showing how many times his adverts were shown, how many times the adverts were clicked upon and the traffic that came onto his website as a result.

We could see in detail the keywords and search terms that had generated the most traffic and the cost of each of these.

Budgets were a little tight he explained because he had committed to a long term advertising plan (obviously to a good salesman – or woman as it turned out to be) with a particular publication (no problem there) and a local radio station (totally wrong demographic ….but he got a cracking deal!).

“I want to stop my Google Advertising” he declared.

Hmmm, “No problem, but you do know when we stop that advertising when anyone searches for you online, they just won’t be able to find your website? ” I explained.

“I want to stop it” he repeated.

His sudden stance staggered me – despite the previous declaration of intent by this fairly clued in operator he still opted for an advert that he could see in the paper and hear on the radio rather than pay for this online Adwords “stuff” that absolutely guaranteed a web presence for hot leads, the low lying fruit!

I had nothing to gain from the argument, I had explained the “risk” as clearly as possible and he had just made up his mind.

Ah well … that penny will drop all by itself when the low lying fruit drops somewhere else! (I’m waiting for the call ..)

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

(I did help him with the optimisation of his website, which will take a while to fully kick in – he is now appearing on page two for relevant Google searches instead of page 8!)

Fuzion offer Web Marketing services including Google Adwords campaigns for clients

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Posted in Google Adwords, Marketing, Online Advertising, Web Marketing | 1 Comment »

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 »

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