1780 Cork Silver and things much more valuable!

June 17, 2012
Cork Silver

1780 Cork Silver

We’ve never ever been to an auction but for some reason, wandering around Cork City on a miserable Saturday in June (yep …rain, rain, rain!) we spotted a sign outside Woodwards Auctioneers on Cook Street.

They were showing a preview of items that would be on auction the following  week so for some reason we decided that we would have a little snoop around to see what all of this “auction” stuff was about.

The items on display were apparently from a few estates and there was a huge mix of furniture, ornaments, paintings and other assorted bits and pieces. There was even a pair of children’s shoes that were made by a prisoner in 1916!

After a few minutes in the display hall I heard my name being called and I spotted Pascal McNamara who is the Antique Auction Manager. Up until now I had only ever bumped into Pascal on the street and we always have fascinating chats about all sorts. It always struck me how much he loves Cork and the incredible knowledge he has about our city.

Pascal McNamara

Pascal McNamara

Pascal was standing behind an impressive display of silver, which was part of the following weeks auction. A minute later we found ourselves totally mesmerised by Pascal, listening to stories about the history of Cork silver as he showed us some items from the display.

He showed us his favourite piece, a large Cork George III silver sauceboat by John Warner circa 1780. To be honest I had no real interest in silver or anything like this but this piece came to life for me after listening to Pascal telling us passionately about the history of Cork silver. He spoke of the pride we should have in the Cork craftspeople who carefully manufactured these beautiful pieces.

Pascal told us the incredible story of what he called the “Golden Age of Cork Silver” which can be found in his Antiques, Art & Interiors blog, where he talks passionately about his work.

We stole a little bit too much of his time but decided we would come back for the auction. We left the display hall to get on with our Saturday with a little spring in our step, a little extra pride in our city and its history and an interest in antiques!

I reflected on the precious 1780 Cork Silver that would be going on auction but also on the even more valuable Pascal McNamara who’s passion for what he does brought the silver to life and left both of us totally mesmerised.

In all of our businesses the most valuable thing we will ever have is people who are passionate about what they do.

Pascal …thank you for sharing your passion.

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Facebook – “Show Me the Money !”

June 11, 2012
Show me the money

Show me the money !!

I was doing a simple status update on the Fuzion Facebook business page and I noticed a “notification” window open up that I had not spotted before.

“Promote this post to get more views and comments” the notification window shouted at me. I already knew that I could create an advert for specific posts but it had never been waved at me so blatantly.

Between the changes to business pages that went through at the end of March, the stricter rules about running competitions and no longer being able to specify “landing” pages, Facebook are really hitting the brakes on your ability to generate activity and “likes” without writing a cheque…. the free ride is over.

promoted posts - facebookFor the business page owner/administrator you need to provide huge value, personality and clever content to make it attractive for users to “like” your page or you must simply write a cheque.

Facebook is now serious business and we have officially entered the era of “Show me the Money”

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Vacation & Waiting for the Big Idea!

June 3, 2012
Varadero Cuba

Big Idea …. where are you?

I know that whenever I get a break new ideas start coming to me.

The minute you step off that treadmill of “doing“, the minute you let your mind settle and unclutter those ideas come to you. It’s as if all the other “stuff” is a block that prevents that clear thinking that is needed to come up with those fresh ideas.

So what’s happening? … I’m here sitting on the beach in Varadero, Cuba, sipping on a Mojito listening to the waves roll in gently. I’m surrounded by holiday makers lying on the beach, some asleep, some reading, all of them relaxing. A few of the energetic ones are in the water and some are walking the fabulous beach in their bare feet.

I’ve been on holidays for nearly a week now , I’ve managed to unwind (at least I think so) pretty much fully so where are you?

Come on big idea , major insight, incredible revelation…. I’m waiting!!

Maybe the Big Idea is I need to take more breaks!!

If that big idea comes over the next few days, I’ll let you know!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Holidays, Personal development, Positivity, Tourism, Travel | 11 Comments »

Fidel & 5 Bars!

May 30, 2012
Cuba

Havana – Cuba

To my surprise when I fired up my mobile phone after landing in Havana airport in Cuba it registered 5 bars of reception!

Wow.. after hearing about how backward the country was and in particular, that things like communications systems were at a very basic level I was pleasantly surprised to see my mobile phone registering a network. A few texts that had been sent while on the 10 hour flight started coming through.

I tested the service by sending a text message and I received an instant response! – Maybe Cuba, isn’t the backward country that we had heard it was after all?

The truth is the country is very backward , dilapidated and the seemingly happy natives are denied choice as part of the Castro communist regime.

In the next few days we see the locals queuing for their ration allowance of basic food stuffs, we constantly get harassed by men and women trying to sell black market cigars and looking for you to buy basic products such baby milk.

We see the locals packed into big classic American cars from the fifties and old Ladas, motoring on main roads with huge pot holes and carefully navigating the city centre roads and lane ways which are predominantly pot holes!

We see gorgeous buildings in the capital in ruins with no inhabitants and even the old Presidents palace, which is now the Revolution museum is in a very poor state despite being a major tourist attraction.

Along the streets of Havana you will see well appointed hotels, bars and restaurants as well as very basic offerings. Shopping is a total non event with city centre stores showcasing their wares with the most basic of window displays , which is no surprise as they have the bare minimum to sell.

Along the busy narrow streets you will see lots of people just hanging around, people living inside narrow doorways, sitting on doorsteps. The most unusual sight was huge queues of locals waiting for their turn to get a few minutes in one of the internet cafes to briefly connect to the outside world.

Credit cards work practically nowhere except for the very best of hotels – as the shopping is a non event this doesn’t matter too much but the restaurants and bars just take cash. By the way your regular ATM card won’t work in the bank machines.

Music is a big part of life here with musicians at every corner and even when you sit down at an empty bar, out of nowhere musicians will appear (and quickly disappear once you have bought a CD or tipped them!).

In Havana there even is an Irish influence with O’Reilly Street and yes there is a popular O’Reilly bar selling Mojitos but no Guinness! Even early in the afternoon a band appeared and a caricaturist.

After a few days we headed out of the city to a resort near a town called Varadero , heading past a few small villages on the way. You could see the poor condition of the homes and the other buildings and the very simple life that exists in the country.

I kept looking at my mobile phone on the journey into the country and was amazed to see that reception never dropped to less than 4 bars. Unfortunately I learnt from my son by text that Liverpool FC had fired the legendary manager Kenny Dalglish.

I am writing this blog post from the hotel room and my phone is registering 4 bars reception. Not once since I have been in Cuba has reception dropped, has a call dropped or a message not got through.

As well as sharing a little tale about a fascinating country I am leading to a question about the lousy phone coverage in Ireland. I was chatting to a really nice couple from Dublin and the subject of phone coverage came up – the couple live in Templeogue, a typical busy suburb and Tony was telling me that at best he gets 2 bars of coverage at his house and calls frequently drop.

How is it that in our “sophisticated” economy the phone coverage is so lousy? On the motorway from Dublin to Cork and on the other main routes there are regular black spots where coverage totally drops … I have swapped from O2 to Vodafone out of total frustration expecting that coverage issues would resolve but in truth one is pretty much as bad as the other.

If Fidel can do it surely we can – 5 bars please!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Holidays, Ireland, Tourism, Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Searching for the Authentic

May 26, 2012

Havana in CubaWe landed in Havana in Cuba and wanted to explore the nightlife, the real Havana … Not the typical “tourist ” offering but something genuine and authentic that the locals would enjoy …. Isn’t that what we are all looking for?

We see the tour guides in their branded polo shirts with their clip boards and we reject them, knowing you are just getting the “tourist” serving, the typical places who are all probably taking you to the spots that are expensive opposed to the genuine , authentic places. What’s more in some places you know they will probably get a few quid for bringing a group there.

So … Off we walk, avoiding the taxis , heading down a road to the “old town”.

In no time at all a friendly couple start chatting to us, asking about where we are from and generously telling us about their lives …. They seem to know we want the “genuine” experience and guide us to a little bar where and old musician is behind a keyboard, who was from the original Beuna Vista Social Club!

Before we can scratch we’ve bought two rounds of drinks , which for some reason ended up being more expensive than the five star hotel, we’ve bought a CD by this old codger and we’ve bought cigars (don’t smoke, never will!) ….. Hmmmm, a genuine “authentic” Cuban experience.

The following morning (after being conned again in the street by a young woman who didn’t want money for herself but wanted some help for her baby … All of this happened in just 10 minutes while we were simply trying to buy a bottle of water…long story !) we opt for a tour from the hotel with a tour guide, which was really great.

He did give us good tips about being conned by people on the street!

The big problem with searching for the “authentic” is that it is often so hard to find. Delivering it and packaging it properly in a way that people will recognise is that little bit of illusive magic that will keep us from being conned and deliver the best possible experience.

I must head out now to find an authentic Cuban restaurant, it’s probably out there but we’ll never find it!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Hospitality, Marketing, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Celebrate those individuals making it happen for themselves

May 14, 2012
Beata

Making it Happen

On our usual Sunday walk with the four legged one (Bing for those who haven’t seen previous posts!) a little poster caught my eye on the pole of a housing estate we walk through on the way to the park.

It was placed on a pole where you might expect a picture of a missing dog but when I peeped a little closer it was an advert for someone advertising their house cleaning services.

The poster was typed up with a simple cartoon graphic of a cleaning lady and housed inside a sheet of plastic to protect it from the elements and it had the contact phone number repeated on little vertical strips for those who wanted to tear them off to make an enquiry later.

I’m sure this simple poster with a clear message “A completely clean home – my cleaning services are thorough, consistent and customised. If you want to change your cleaning routine, Call me” will bring Beata the customers she is looking for.

I started thinking about Beata on the rest of my walk whoever she is.. I pictured her deciding to start her cleaning business to earn money, drafting up her posters, printing them, cutting the phone number strips, housing them in plastic covers and then walking around finding poles in the housing estates she was targeting. She had her mini campaign for her house cleaning service well thought out and there was a real honesty to how it was delivered.

Often we celebrate the big companies with the big job numbers and the vital role they are playing in our economy but we should also celebrate those out there who are digging deep, making things happen for themselves instead of sitting back and waiting on someone else or the state to look after them.

Beata and all the other startups , I Salute you!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Business Start Ups, Direct Marketing, Graphic Design, Irish Economy, Marketing, Positivity, Recession, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

The bad back and the Referral Engine

May 6, 2012
referral engine

Is your engine working?

“I’m crippled with my back at the moment, would you know of a good chiropractor?” my client asks.

We automatically find ourselves wanting to solve their problem, be helpful and resourceful …. Who do we know? Thinking cap on … Yep, a name of one came up in conversation recently or maybe we spotted a blog post or a tweet, maybe we spotted an advert or a piece of editorial.

In any case we want to be helpful and even if we haven’t had a personal experience with a bad back and scientifically been in a position to carefully assess the attributes and success rate of all the chiropractors in the local area we offer up a suggestion ” Norman Wesson is supposed to be really good“.

..job done and hopefully Norman was able to solve the client’s back trouble.

Every day we are asked for recommendations and mostly we offer them without truthfully knowing scientifically that who we are recommending is the best option available.

80% is the statistic that is always quoted as the source of business that we get from referrals and word of mouth – we find ourselves that a lot of business comes this way but often it comes via surprising sources, frequently from people that we have never actually done business with.

John Jantsch in his clever book The Referral Engine makes the point that if we accept the 80% principle about the power of referrals then we need to make sure that we make it easy for people to recommend us, that our “engine” is in good working order.

So how about looking after your engine….

– Do Great Work!
– Send Regular Newsletters
– Attend Networking Events
– Advertise
– Optimise your Website
– Get Editorial about what you do
– Host an Event
– Write Blog Posts about your area of expertise
– Boost your Visibility on Social Media platforms
– Ask for happy clients to Recommend you (LinkedIn is a great place for this)

Whatever you do, make sure that the next time someone is looking for someone in your area of expertise that your name springs to mind!

That Fuzion crowd are supposed to be a brilliant PR firm by the way …!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

…

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Customer Care, Marketing, Web Marketing | 7 Comments »

The Social Media Salesman

April 29, 2012
Birth of a Social Media Salesman

Birth of a Social Media Salesman

“This social media is a total waste of time, we’ve been at it now for over a month and it’s brought us no business” …. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that!

The prospective client that was in with us had a wine wholesaling business and had decided to take it online and had set up an e-commerce website and had also joined the world of social media with Facebook and Twitter pages and even a wine blog.

He was really frustrated as the orders weren’t rolling in and he was about to totally abandon his online efforts.

OK, I started having a peep over their activities and how they had approached their whole online efforts.

They had completed one blog post, they had just made a handful of social media posts in the month and they hadn’t interacted with anyone else on line. They had very few followers on twitter and even less fans on their Facebook page.

The guy who was responsible for the posting was too busy with his day job and was squeezing in his social media activity whenever he had some spare time if he remembered.

“Fair enough ….. now tell me how your main business works?” I asked.

The company had three sales reps who reported into a sales manager. Each of the reps headed out each day in their company cars with their order book and called into their list of customers and also popped into some prospective customers. It took a good few years, a lot of hard work and determination to build up the business to the level it was now.

On each call the reps chat about their range of wines, the special offers, the new products and exciting things happening in the industry. They obviously chat about other things with their customers – everything from how their business is going to general chit chat. It’s really important to build a relationship with the customer and to understand them if you want to do business with them. “That’s what the good salesman will do” my prospect explained to me.

Why do we expect the same results from our efforts on social media without the same effort?

With all of our clients when we provide social media consultancy we look for a “Social Media Champion” from within the organisation who knows the business really well, who is willing to learn about each of the platforms, who understands how to communicate comfortably on them and who is prepared to put in the necessary time and effort to connect with users and to achieve results.

Mostly this is not a full time job but the “champion” must be given the time as part of their role to do this properly – think of this person as a Social Media Salesman.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Business Planning, Marketing, Social Media | 13 Comments »

Are examples of Good Customer Service harder to remember than Bad Ones?

April 21, 2012
Bad customer service

Can you think of a good example?

“What’s your example of good customer service?” ….. Silence

“I can’t think of any” our PR course participant replied …

“Ok, I’ll come back to you later, you’ll surely think of one example”

As part of our PR courses for small business we always emphasise that PR is about “managing your reputation“.

Your PR firm can play a valuable part in that process but any efforts here are totally worthless if a business can’t create the right reputation building blocks by providing good customer service. We make this point on our courses and conduct a small exercise by asking the participants if they can give us examples of good customer service.

This exercise always surprises me as we often see some repetition with names of businesses that are mentioned – for example at two recent courses Apple were mentioned for their “no quibble” approach to problems. Nash19  always get a mention in courses that we run in Cork. The examples given are always intriguing and often they relate to how a problem or an issue was dealt with.

At a recent class we conducted this “good customer service” exercise and the first person to respond launched into a bad experience she had with a mobile broadband provider. I stopped her in her tracks and emphasised that it was examples of “good” customer service that we were actually looking for. She nodded politely as if she had grasped my point …. She then continued to tell the group in detail, blow by blow how lousy the service was! The whole group broke into laughter as we witnessed first hand how enthusiastic we are about sharing “bad” experiences.

In our most recent course I continued asking the other participants for their examples of good service and I was surprised to come to another person who again could not give me an example of good customer service … Not one!

“You’ll think of one in a minute, I’ll come back to you” I said , giving them an extra few moments to think of an example.

Once again I continued asking the others for their examples.

My own example that I shared with the group happened quite recently in West Cork.

At the Celtic Ross Hotel recently I was running a Social Media course early in the morning. As I arrived a hotel staff member looked after me, took me to the well equipped and very comfortable conference room and then asked me if I wanted a coffee ….godsend!

On this gorgeous morning I found myself with a few minutes to spare so I vey briefly walked outside to take in the fabulous view. When I came back , Michal from the hotel brought me a cup of coffee but there was one already on my presentation table. Confused I pointed out that he had already brought me a cup ..”Oh yeah, I spotted that you had gone outside and I guessed your coffee would have been cold!”

Wow ….that’s great service – I shared my story with the group.

To finish the customer service session I went back to the two ladies who earlier could not think of an example.

“Sorry, I can’t think of anything” said the first. I turned to the other – “I’m really sorry” she said apologetically “I can’t think of an example either”

This just amazed me ..

Is customer service so bad that some of us never have a good experience or is it that we just remember the bad?

PR starts with good customer service.

Can you think of an example?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Hospitality, Marketing, PR | 7 Comments »

Why do we Subtract when we could be Adding?

April 13, 2012
add or subtract

Do I subtract or can I add?

On a gorgeous sunny day recently I sent out a tweet – “Make hay when the sun shines – it’s a great time to close those deals #Positivity”

Well, that’s what I meant to say …. With the predictive typing on my iPhone the intended message went out as “May hay when the sun shines ….” Oopps!

I didn’t realise my error until I received a message on LinkedIn by a connection letting me know in no uncertain terms “the expression is make hay….“.

I was really annoyed to see the comment – ok it was a mistake, but surely anyone who read it would have seen the positive intent behind the post instead of being pedantic and motivated to just point out my error.

As annoyed as I was feeling I reflected on this criticism and realised that at times I do exactly the same myself. Recently I was at an event where we spotted a few grave “errors“.

We read through the event brochure and spotted a poem as part of the literature – initially I thought this was a novel idea and when I read it I spotted a “typo“. Surely a crime worth at least 1,000 lashes!

They had used the word “there” when they should have used the word “their” …. Tut tut! Of course I enjoyed my discovery and shared the error with the person sitting next to me.

At the same event we spotted the careless use of logos on the large screens – low resolution, poor placement and white border that could easily have been removed ….. Tut tut! Once again it was worthy of a little conversation and maybe another 1,000 lashes?

Did these errors reduce our enjoyment of the evening .. Of course not!

Why do we take pleasure at spotting mistakes? In this scenario we were in effect criticising a voluntary committee who clearly had gone to a lot of work for the night and instead of acknowledging the positives we were busy taking a little pleasure in how sharp we were in spotting someone’s errors.

Just like my critic that felt obliged to comment on my error instead of complimenting me on the sentiment …

Why do we subtract when we could be adding ?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Personal development, Positivity | 12 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »