New Years Resolution – Change your Bio!

January 1, 2011

New Years Resolution

How about this year with your New Years Resolutions doing something a little bit different that might really makes change actually happen?

I’m not sure about you but I gave up making these “New Year” resolutions a long time ago because I know I just don’t stick to them, so I guess it is time to take a different approach.

New Years Resolutions? What are they about anyway?

If I am really going to commit to doing something different, I guess it should be something significant, something really positive in my life, some “change” that I want to happen – I suppose you could say I want a “new me” in some way, corny I know, but isn’t that what it boils down to?

To achieve any goal a lot of the motivational “gurus” will recommend some form of visualisation, finding some way of creating a clear picture of what that success looks like. This process is supposed to help clear the path of obstacles and open your mind to the route to ultimate success. Easy? Not really ..but you can see how it could work.

With this in mind how about taking this approach but simplifying it for our “life change” resolutions – forget about New Year, if it’s a positive change let’s really go for it!

How about doing the ultimate visualisation and actually making a change to your bio? It sounds a bit crazy but why not? It takes the visualisation a stage further and makes it a public promise in a way – This is who I am.

Ok, you’re not a liar so now you have to correct this small little “white lie” about yourself and make that positive change in your life so you can become the person you want to be!

Wow, that’s powerful stuff if it could work for you. For this you need to choose those changes very carefully – What is it you exactly want to change?

So .. Who are you ?

A non-smoker, an entrepreneur, a writer, a wine expert, a mountain climber, a cyclist, a marathon runner, a photographer, award winning PR consultant, an artist.. It’s up to you.

After carefully deciding that “life change” go to your bio on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, your blog, website or even your CV .. make that little White Lie and start correcting it as soon as possible.

I must start ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Personal development, Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

£35 a week!

December 31, 2010

Greg Afro Canty

September 1982 and this 17 year old hopped off the bus (this was unusual because every other time that  I went to work it was on my trusted bicycle – then again it was day one of the rest of my life!) on The Grand Parade in Cork and headed to work for the first time to Barber & O’Leary, Financial and Management Consultants, on the South Mall no less!

To celebrate this special occasion I had a new brown blazer with a choice of different trousers, each a different shade of brown or beige to complete this classic ensemble. The “piece de resistance” was my curly afro, while quite unique was probably a talking point for many!

Despite the grand title the firm was really a small to medium sized accountancy and audit firm, but the partners did have some investments in their own projects, which we all ended up working on at some point.

While I was confident I could make my mark on the business world, I was also quite nervous – I didn’t even do accountancy in secondary school!

Jumping right in at the deep end, that September I started 5 fabulous years working by day and studying for my accountancy exams by night. We dealt with clients of all sorts, big and small including my favourite, Mrs O’Sullivan who had a right skip in her step after her beloved husband passed away .. The glamour of her all of a sudden!

The amazing thing with accountancy (a profession often mocked quite unfairly) is that immediately because you are dealing with peoples finances and their “financial stories” (I always had a romantic viewpoint that the accountant is actually a financial storyteller), you are taken into a position of trust, even at the age of 17!  This is a privileged position to be in, considering that employees could be working in that business all their lives and never be in that position of trust and influence that the young accountant can often find themselves. Wow, I absolutely loved it.

Many people assumed that I must have loved working with numbers and that is why I did accountancy .. Nah , I loved the idea of being in business and I reckoned this was going to be the best business degree of all – day in day out we worked on all sorts of clients, doing bank reconciliations, sorting out total messes at times, preparing accounts (storytelling, I tell you) listening, learning and advising.

My god, I learned so much from one of the partners of the firm, the fabulous James Barber, who was an absolutely brilliant boss (I would love to catch up with him some time and find out what he really made of the curly haired 17 year old!) and I tried my best to avoid the other partner , the unpredictable Sean O’Leary, who mostly didn’t seem to care at all and the odd time took too much interest.

The crew inside there were great but I must admit I learned the most from the enigmatic Christopher “third degree” Burns who was an erratic but brilliant accountant, a chancer most of the time but the only one in my view who could handle our biggest bully of a client Mr B (unfair to name the man but he shares a surname with my mums side of the family – maybe we are related? Scary thought.. ). I still tell people stories about Third Degree to this day – a total and very colourful legend!

Robert Arnopp from Bandon, shared the same love of music as me and we swapped albums continuously throughout this time. I later met one of my best buddies Brian Sexton, who joined the year after me and later worked with me again in the drinks industry. Brian famously noticed the very attractive secretary, Bernadette Dilworth on his first day at work (“cop on Brian” she is out of our league were my clear thoughts) and ended up marrying her years later! For some reason Brian and I started to call each other “Bob”, which  we still do to this day. Why? I have no idea .. We managed to have some of the best of laughs out on different jobs that we worked on together – we were just kids, behaving as professionally as possible, but at times we just couldn’t control the giggles!

These were my formative years, I worked hard and studied hard, I learned incredible skills that have always stayed with me and I ended up leaving the practice five years later as a young qualified accountant. I was asked to stay on but I needed to discover more about the world of business!

I started at £35 a week, just like any other apprentice (I was making more than this on my newspaper round, which I continued out of necessity!) and genuinely loved every minute of it except for the 3 months we did the most boring study in the whole world for the Cork Harbour Commissioners, which was one of those times I wished Sean O’Leary would take less interest!

Regarding our huge pay packets, Robert had this great story of going to the bank and lodging his monthly pay check. He knew the bank teller who commented on how much he was being paid, very impressive indeed. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a months pay and not a weeks!

To Mr Barber, Third Degree Burns, Robert and Brian thanks for the fabulous business degree, which always stands to me and to be honest, the really great time!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Accounting, Training, Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

When Christmas Trees were Tall

December 27, 2010

Tall Christmas Tree

It scares me how quickly we forget things, how quickly memories just disappear .. The exception is the “big occasions” or the “big moments” such as wedding days, terrific concerts, children being born or even total disasters such as an accident, big or small.

When we do remember certain moments, that weren’t “big moments” as such – what happened that makes these stay with us specifically?

I grew up in a musical family .. Not in a way that you might imagine with us all playing instruments but there was always some music playing. Mum and Dad always had music on in the car or at home so we were raised on Johnny Mathis, Glen Campbell, Perry Como, Jose Feliciano, Johnny Cash and many more. I guess this rubbed off on me as I started collecting music seriously from the age of 13.

One Christmas, at least a few days after the main event I remember feeling a little nostalgic and I started going through my parents old albums hoping to find some gems that would still be relevant to me.

I remember putting on this album by a blind artist, Jose Feliciano, which my folks used to listen to with us and stated moving from track to track carefully lifting and placing the stylus or needle at the start of each track ..

This special song, which turns out was actually written by The Bee Gees (I am only just after discovering this by the way) came on and for some reason I started to cry, and cry quite uncontrollably and just couldn’t stop!

I guess I listened to the words, was taken in by how soulfully it was sung, remembered all those times I listened to it with my folks and recalled a time of lost innocence: “When I was small and Christmas trees were tall” .. Why does that moment stay with me to this day?

I was thirteen!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

Full lyrics: The First of May

When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
we used to love while others used to play.
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by,
someone else moved in from far away.

Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
and you don’t ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
but guess who’ll cry come first of May.

The apple tree that grew for you and me,
I watched the apples falling one by one.
And as I recall the moment of them all,
the day I kissed your cheek and you were gone.

Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
and you don’t ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
but guess who’ll cry come first of May.

When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
do do do do do do do do do …
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by,
someone else moved in from far away.

Music and lyrics: Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb (Bee Gees)

What an amazing song – check it out!

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Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments »

Wow, What a Year!

December 24, 2010
Fuzion Christmas Card

Merry Christmas

I’m not sure about you but the crew here are fairly wiped out after a super and very hectic year where we had all sorts of ups and a few personal downs. We worked harder than ever before (I promise we were never slouches), because that is what is required from all of us to “storm” our way through these tricky times.

We are looking forward to rolling our sleeves up again with you in 2011 and making it another good year – these challenging times aren’t going to beat us and we want to be in a position to grab those unique opportunities for Fuzion and our clients when they present themselves.

But … we do need a little break to recharge the batteries and come back in 2011 with all guns blazing. We’re going to be off from December 24th till Tuesday the 4th January – we will of course be available for anything important that needs doing in the meantime.

On that note the Fuzion team would like to sincerely wish our clients both past and present and all of those partners and friends who have shared our 10 Year Fuzion Journey, the most fabulous Christmas and of course a really Happy New Year.

See you in 2011 for even more fun!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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But you have no experience ..

December 20, 2010
Fuzion Christmas Card

Fuzion Christmas Card - Paul Wade

On the 1st October a really bright young aspiring Graphic Designer called into Fuzion to show us his portfolio. This followed a very courteous email about wanting some work experience at no charge.

The situation is really simple – Paul Wade a recent graduate of CIT, the Design & Communications course, like so many other graduates has no practical work experience. He is looking for a job and of course …. he has no experience!

Instead of this being an obstacle he simply removed the problem by asking us to take him on for free in exchange for “experience” – he has been working and learning under Graham our Senior Designer for the last two months. As he says himself, he has learnt more in these two months than he had in his few years at college.

The one thing we can’t teach him is something he had already in bucket loads – a great can-do positive attitude.

The other thing about Paul is that he also has a job in a local supermarket, which pays his bills.

As soon as the workload permits we would like to take him on here – why? He has a great attitude, he is a nice guy, he has integrated with our team and he has learned a lot.

By the way – the Fuzion Christmas card you can see on this blog – that’s Paul’s work!

Well done Paul for making it happen!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Marketing, PR, Recession, Recruitment, Training | Leave a Comment »

Why we all need to think like Steve Jobs

December 14, 2010
Steve Jobs - We need to think like him!

Steve Jobs - We need to think like him!

When we think about innovation we normally conjure up images of scientists in laboratories working on breakthrough experiments and we think of people like Steve Jobs at Apple launching great new iconic products like the iPad.

While this type of innovation is “in lights” we need to embrace some form of change and innovation in the way we have been doing things for all of us to survive.

In Fuzion we are lucky in that during the course of our work we meet “innovators” on a regular basis as part of our work, people trying to launch new products and services. For example recently we had a guy who owns a company operating in the construction sector who has just developed a new product, which he is looking to launch in the marketplace. He explained to us how excited he is at the moment and how he is now actually enjoying the new challenges that the current environment has thrown at him.

This attitude is great and shows the resolve of people who are not sitting back and innovating, mainly forced due to circumstances. This is all about doing something new but I feel innovation can come in many other ways.

I write this on the Sunday, 28th November, 2010 when the IMF bailout agreement has been put in place with Ireland (and to add insult to injury Liverpool surrendered a good performance and lead and ended up losing to Spurs!). Everyone is up in arms, protesting and venting their fury through angry conversations, online on twitter, with angry editorial in our media and yes..it is awful.

We are now paying for terrible excess, lousy governance and mismanagement in “our” country but we need to take responsibility and we desperately need to start doing things in new ways and different from the past.

What kind of innovation is needed from us?

We need to find new ways of running our country efficiently, at a much lower cost and more importantly provide new opportunities for those displaced. There is an opportunity to really sort out the excesses in the Public Sector, which must be embraced.

We need to take a new and responsible approach as to who we vote into power next time round.

We need a new system of government that promotes standards and expertise and not local favours.

We need a new tax system that incentivises risk, investment in expansion and new employment.

We need new approaches to deal with the excess in commercial and residential property in the country. There are solutions that will help here that have largely been ignored. New conditions need new solutions.

We need new approaches to red tape legislation and regulation and adopt a genuine agenda of making things happen instead of “you can’t do that because”. How about “If you do this it will be fine”?

We need a new, but fair welfare system that cares for those who genuinely are unable to work or those who cannot find work but does not reward those who choose to take an easy option.

We need new and honest attitudes towards cheating in this country.

We need new attitudes towards buying products and services from Irish suppliers.

We need new messages about Ireland and start talking up how great this country is to anyone abroad.

We need to be creative and take new approaches to finding work including “try before you buy” and this needs to be genuinely supported by our welfare systems. People who take a risk get rewarded.

We need to start having new conversations about positive things. I can’t take any more of this doom and gloom. It has us all in a very deep hole, which isn’t helping our country.

No one owes us a living, but we owe it to ourselves to reinvent ourselves as true innovators, start adopting new attitudes and new ways of doing things in Ireland.

Ok, it’s not exactly like Steve Jobs this is real innovation that we can all adopt and really need to at this stage.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Irish Politics, Marketing, PR, Recession | 5 Comments »

Another Crazy Christmas! – Some Tips for Retailers

December 10, 2010
Tips for Retail at Christmas

Tips for Retail for Christmas

Writing a piece about retailing at Christmas should be quite straight forward you would imagine, but writing a piece that it is really helpful for retailers that have been through so many of them at this stage is a little daunting I must admit!

With a backdrop of recession and cutbacks, getting customers parting with their hard earned cash will be more challenging than ever but presents must be bought so let’s roll up our sleeves.

As part of the preparation for this article I decided I should ask my good buddy Mr Google for a little help and see what extra nuggets I could find that would definitely impress the experienced retailers out there.

If you Google “Tips for retailing at Christmas” you will be quite surprised with what you will find! My search actually took me to a website called www.christmastipsforretailers.com – can you imagine a website designated to just that topic!

In a way it’s not at all surprising seeing as the Christmas period accounts for a huge % of peoples revenue as well as a huge % of footfall. Even more important the festive period will bring a large number of “new” visitors who could well be trying out your store for the first time – what an incredible opportunity if you really think about it.

I will look at the tips under four broad headings:

Attract the customers into your store

Customer loyalty is as a result of the good work you have done throughout the year and will determine where customers will do their shopping when it comes to Christmas. However you have to do your utmost to attract them in and compete for their attention.

Database Promotions – this is where you use your databases, your invite lists, and your Facebook page for special offers, special customer nights and even Christmas cards as gentle reminders that you are open for business.

Wow Window displays – Christmas windows are really special and if possible push the boat out and really build attractive displays that grab customer attention. (I always get blown away by the window displays in London at this time)

While having an attractive window display is critical, remember that people need complete “solutions” with either their outfits or their gifts – be sure to put your best foot forward at all times with your most attractive and available stock.

Fresh – Have new merchandise arrive throughout the whole festive period keeping your store fresh and if not refresh and rotate the key displays so that the store feels new and vibrant.

Offers – Make sure your promotions are well displayed but in a tasteful way and in keeping with the overall store look and feel.

Clean and tidy store – Allow extra staff time each evening for cleaning, tidying and rearranging so that the store is looking the best as much as possible.

 

Look after the customer really well when they get there

Research has shown that at Christmas 60% of purchasing decisions are made within the store – once they come in your door make sure that happens.

Christmas is a Floor Show – One of the sites I visited referred to retailing at Christmas as being a “Floor Show”. The game is won and lost on the sales floor and this is where the staff and managers should be spending their time looking after customers, making sure that the part time staff knows what they are doing, spotting trends and sorting out issues – plenty time for the office work in the New Year!

Happy Team – Keep your team motivated and upbeat. Christmas is a happy time and cheery staff are vital for the business. It is your responsibility to keep them happy, plan a Christmas party, bring them coffee and treats and make sure you rotate them so that they don’t get too jaded as this will result in lost business.

Happy Customers – Make sure there is a good atmosphere in the store with nice scents and festive but not “too” typical music. Offering a festive drink or some sweets or treats can put the shopper in a very good mood.

 

Give yourself every chance of selling to customers and as much as possible

Once you have done the hard job of attracting people into your store you want them to do a lot more than browse and say thank you!

Make it easy – Shoppers want to maximise their time and minimise their decision making so make it easy for them by bundling and coordinating products, labelling them clearly and having relevant accessories within easy access.

Have a Top 10 or Favourites rail – Display the popular lines prominently making it easy for the customer to purchase with confidence.

Show people what to buy – Create displays with the specific solutions in mind such as mother’s gifts, party wear etc

The right staff – You need the right quantity of good staff to maximise your income at this time. Bring part-time staff in during the lead up to Christmas in plenty of time so they are sufficiently up to speed for the rush.

Speedy Gonzales – Have your quickest people on the tills and on wrapping duty – remember Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) in the store in the movie Love Actually!

Exchange policy and vouchers – make it as easy as possible for customers to buy by removing obstacles such as “What if they don’t like it?” objections.

Gift wrap – for the guys this is an absolute must as long as it doesn’t take too long and interferes with sales. Pre-wrap fast selling items where possible.

 

Entice them to return in the New Year

This is the one area that for some reason wasn’t covered in any of the websites, which really surprised me.

Accepting that many new customers visit your store in the Christmas period and many of the other shoppers may just be customers for special occasions, give them a special reason for returning earlier than expected.

New Year Initiatives such as invitations to a special VIP Customer “sale day” or a unique voucher that can be redeemed with purchases in the New Year might achieve this. Brainstorm ideas with your staff to encourage early New Year visits for customers.

Running competitions can be another clever way of building a fresh customer database at this time as long as it doesn’t create delays at the till!

I hope the Christmas tips have been helpful and serve you well into 2011 when we have to do it all over again, Merry Christmas!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

 

 

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Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Retailing | 8 Comments »

Our kids? – Judging a book by the cover ..

December 8, 2010
Train Journey

Interesting Train Journey!

After a long day in Dublin and a really early start from Cork (6:15am train to Dublin!) I travelled to Killarney for the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial weekend and the very last leg of the journey was the Mallow to Killarney train .. I had a little work to finish and was looking forward to a quiet spot to finish up what I was doing.

I deliberately walked from carriage to carriage until I found a really empty one, took my seat and fired up my laptop ready to get stuck into a piece of work I needed to finish … blissful peace!

60 seconds later a teenage boy and girl decided to sit on the seats opposite me and the journey quickly changed..

Girl – “I’m not touching that Aran” (I guess about 15 or 16 years old but who knows these days!) She now has her maths homework out in front of her and she seems intent on doing what I am doing despite Aran’s best intentions.

Aran – “Dirty snot rag” (this guy is a typical teenager with headphones on, stereo on full blast and singing along to all the thump, thump, thump songs, really annoying ..)

An older guy comes in having been puffing on a cigarette on the platform, coughing, spluttering and nearly choking – he should have given up the fags at least 40 years ago, they’re killing him.

Girl – “Why do they expect us to do this silly maths stuff, we’ll never use it!”

Girl – “You’re so annoying Aran, I wish you didn’t have a mouth”

Aran – “Yeah, yeah, yeah, (continuing to sing along with whatever he is listening to ..)

Girl – “My friends are teaching me piano and I don’t think it will work out”

At this stage I just can’t concentrate and I’m trying to figure out if they are boyfriend and girlfriend – it looks like he is trying desperately to impress her. She seems to like him but won’t quite admit it.

Aran gets up and walks down the carriage (thank god, a little bit of peace for a few minutes)

The girl continues with her maths homework and I try to make a start on my work.

Aran – the return of the boy .. “Ah Jeezus what ya doin’ boss” (he starts talking deliberately like a traveller), he interrupts the girl continually until she abandons her homework and slaps him on face. He steals her pen and eventually gives it back to her after much histrionics.

Aran – singing “I want to be a bad boy, I want to be a bad boy“

Girl – “shut up will ya, do you ever listen to normal music?”

Aran – now bopping along to the music to add to his already annoying repertoire..

Girl – starts twisting her hair

Aran – takes a phone call, “Hello, where are you? We’re about 20 minutes away, we can go home for a cup of tea, alright.. go on. The sky is cloudy”, and then asks the girl “what are you farting for?”

Girl – “I’m never sitting next to you again, you are the reason they invented Panadol, I’ll have to take out my secret weapon” – starts kicking Aran under the table.

Aran – more singing & flicking god knows what at the girl. “Go on, pick a song ..” starts rapping to whatever he is listening to.

Girl – “Shut up Aran, people are trying to work” (wow, there’s a realisation!)

This goes on and on and on as the train pulls into each of the stops, Rathmore, Farranfore until it eventually pulls into Killarney – thank god!

We all stand up at the same time with our bags and I must admit the curiosity gets the better of me.

“Did you get all of your homework done?” I ask the girl

Girl – “Nah, how could I with that fella”

“Are ye in boarding school in Mallow?” I ask (this was my best guess at their story)

Aran – “No, we’re from Tipperary and we’re going to see our Dad for the weekend”

I start telling them all about Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and they seem genuinely interested.

Aran – “There’s dad” – they both get excited, give a huge wave to the smiling man on the platform and skip off the train when it finally comes to a stop.

Dad – “How was the journey guys?”

Aran & girl “It was fine dad” as they give him a big hug and start their weekend together.

So, they are brother and sister of separated parents..

When it comes to separation people always say to me that kids are flexible and they can adjust quite easily. As someone who has gone through separation and has seen at close hand how painful it was for my kids I can promise you they are not as flexible as you might think – they are just not that good at expressing how they feel and often get totally lost and forgotten in the crossfire.

Aran and his sister – I hope you had a great weekend with your dad!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Divorce, Parenting, Separation, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

New 30% of Profits Penalty tax to be introduced…

November 25, 2010

Red card

A new 30% of profits penalty being introduced would stop me in my tracks and whatever had to be done to avoid it would happen.

What is this new Penalty about?

I’m not sure about you but I have been up to my tonsils as usual at this time of the year with getting all my bits and pieces up to date for the tax deadline. The thought of financial penalties is a terrific way of focusing the mind!

When you have to, you can get really focused and the whole tax deadline scenario made me think about all the other deadlines that make us get a task completed. The bank requesting figures, VAT & PAYE returns, a tender document closing date, or even a client presentation deadline or event. We pull out the stops and invariably, always deliver on time and achieve whatever is required.

So, deadlines are effective?

Of course they are but do we have deadlines for the really important things? I find that often some of the really important tasks get pushed back because of the other deadline issues. We can easily leave other priorities get pushed to the back of the queue because they lack a pressing, external deadline that has obvious and tangible downsides.

Planning
How about setting a deadline for your annual Business Plan?

Is there really any deadline that should be more important than this? After all, this is the starting point for everything in your business and it makes all other things possible.

How about it being completed in November before everyone starts winding down for the Christmas break? Isn’t it absolutely vital that your team starts the new year with a clear focus on the objectives for the business, for their departments and for themselves as individuals?

Business Planning

Clarity
Does your business have a crystal clear goal or purpose or even a “Mission Statement” that everyone understands and is working to? This needs to be real, it needs to be practical and it needs to be supported by definite plans.

SWOT Analysis
Have you and your team completed a real SWOT analysis for your business?

Have you in detail discussed the Strengths and Weaknesses of your business? These are the things that make your business special and vulnerable all at the same time. What are the Opportunities for your business in the marketplace? Have a detailed look at these and it may even result in some required diversification. What Threats are posed to the business and how are you dealing with these?

Make sure you have done a competitor analysis as part of this. To be honest I wouldn’t get too obsessed about the competitors but you do need to understand where they are coming from and the tactics they are adopting and how they could affect you.

Play your own game, let them try to catch you!

The SWOT analysis should be done at Company level and then repeated at Department level. This will clearly highlight some key issues for all areas of the business and for the plan to be affective the business must have a clear plan around the tackling of these.

Plans are ineffective without detailed actions and someone needs to take clear responsibility for these.

Objectives & Budgets
The detailed plans and responsibilities need to be built into the department and individual’s objectives. These plans need to be supported by detailed budgets. What income targets are set for the business and what spend is required to achieve this?

As an individual I need to know about my part in the overall plan, what is expected of me and how my performance will be measured.

Performance Management
Performance Management is the ongoing evaluation of the performance of the business against the agreed plan. Of course the market is dynamic and things will change during the year, which the business will have to react to. Build this flexibility into your plans and amend them as this happens.

Positive Marketing
Make sure you have a really clear Marketing Plan written as part of your overall Business Plan. What are your Marketing Objectives and how will these be achieved?

Don’t go into retreat mode and lose the position you have fought hard to achieve in the marketplace. Be brave, it’s never been a better time to market your business. Take the terrific value that is still available in Advertising/PR/Marketing for your business and don’t ignore the free(ish) Social Media opportunities that are available to spread the word about your business.

Unique Opportunities
There are unique opportunities available in the current climate, which just won’t exist in a few years time. Be in a position to grab them with open arms and thrive.

Penalty Tax!

There is no 30% penalty tax on your profits for the not having your Business Plan ready for the start of the year. However, how much will it cost you if you go into next year unprepared?

30%, or maybe even more?

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion PR, Marketing and Graphic Design, with offices in Dublin and Cork

 

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Posted in Accounting, Business Planning, Irish Economy, Marketing, PR, Recession, Taxation | 1 Comment »

What Wagner and X-Factor can tell us about Marketing!

November 6, 2010
Wagner - X Factor

Wagner - X Factor, My Hero!

Every week (and not by choice I promise  you – I blame Dee!) I watch X Factor along with half the country and we all wonder how Wagner is still in the competition. I am writing this as I am watching the programme on Saturday, 6th November 2010..

I keep banging on to the crew in Fuzion that no matter how bad he is he will still not get voted out, at least not for a while yet. I threatened to write a blog about it, before he does actually get voted (Mary Quille warned me that I should get my blog written sooner than later!) out so here goes, while my theory is still valid!!

My simple theory is ..

If you are not capable of being the best, it is better to be totally different, offer something that no one else is offering than being one of the many.

The thing is there are one or two really good acts on the show who compete at the top of the tree for the votes but after that there are a whole bunch of “me-too’s’’ battling it out for the same votes.

Wagner appeals to a niche, admittedly I am struggling as to who they are but there are clearly more of them than those voting for the “me-too’s”.
So, until the “me-too’s “ are totally eliminated he has a great chance of still being there (please don’t let me down this week!)

Seth Godin talks about the importance of being different to succeed, The Purple Cow, this year in X Factor it is Wagner, last year it was Jedward.

Are you totally exceptional at what you do, are you a ”me- too” or are you a Wagner?

(P.S. – I’m just after seeing his performance and I could be eating my words!)

Watch the video –  A really funny response from the really cool team at http://www.hometrain.ie

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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