This group of business owners meet pretty much every second Friday morning, bright and early from 7:30 am till 9am. The sessions always involve some informal networking over a coffee and normally there is a guest speaker about some topic of interest.
(I would highly recommend it to business owners in Dublin – great for networking, learning, contacts and new business)
At our recent session, which I was privileged to chair we did some formal networking by breaking the room into circles of six people allowing each person a proper chance to share with the others what they do. At the session we also looked for people to share their number one business tip, which was quite interesting and varied.
At the end of the session each group were asked to share their learnings, which again generated some really interesting topics;
Nothing beats meeting people face to face
Listen to your customer and be open to changing your offer according to what they need
By listening to others you always learn something new
Cold calling can be quite enjoyable!
Don’t be afraid to ask for the business
My big learning from the session was that you should never under estimate the wisdom that experience brings – in every conversation with someone you nearly always learn something new.
I was chatting to one of the attendees, Sean who was passionate about customer service. The gist of the conversation was that customer service has disimproved generally and that there is huge customer frustration in particular with the call centre culture whereby you rarely get the feeling that someone is really ‘on top‘ of your problem.
You know the drill ..you call, you are often in a queue to be heard, you go through a sequence of pressing numbers, then you give your account details and eventually you get a chance to describe what is wrong. From here you can end up being passed from pillar to post, each time repeating your details and the nature of the problem.
In fact when you have an issue you need to put a good half hour aside as the whole process can end up taking that long.
He used a great expression to demonstrate what a great process would look like. You just want the person you speak to first to say: “Don’t worry, I own your problem now” and leave you with an assurance that they will see it through until it is sorted.
As part of our normal Dublin routine we arrived early at the Mespil Hotel, our home in Dublin for the last few years. I parked up and quickly popped into the loo … Much needed after the spin from Cork!
As I walked past the reception desk a guy who was chatting with the receptionist caught my attention. He had an unusual shaped bag hanging off his shoulder. On closer examination it was a carrier bag for lots of, what looked liked tennis rackets.
Was he the manager of a team or playing in some tournament I wondered?
As always we had a busy day in the office, Dee was off at some networking event and I made my way back to the hotel and went about checking in. I was exhausted and was looking forward to chilling out for the evening.
We know the team at the Mespil Hotel well at this stage and I was greeted with the usual big smile as they looked for our room reservation. They seemed to have trouble finding the booking and slipped into the office to double check the paperwork.
As I waited a couple came to the desk on spec hoping to book a room. Unfortunately for them there was no room at the inn!
The guy I was dealing with still had not appeared so I was starting to worry about our bed for the night. Eventually he appeared and apologised that they had no record of our booking.
Dee normally books the hotel in block a few weeks in advance and does this with faultless efficiency but this time the booking fell through the cracks.
There wasn’t a room to be had in the hotel so the really helpful team at the Mespil started ringing other places for us in earnest. It quickly became clear that due to some big conference that day, hotel after hotel were full and Dublin was totally choc- a-bloc.
I started my own search and discovered that even all the bed and breakfasts were full.
An hour later and still nothing … I popped outside for some fresh air and contemplated a drive to some hotel outside Dublin somewhere.
The receptionist came out to me beaming. “I have great news” she said “We have had a last minute cancellation. A guest of the hotel was in a squash competition but lost his match so he is heading home early!”
“Just a quick note to say thank you. The video you created is really special; I’ve made videos for 15 years at a major label and hated nearly every single one of them…too many compromises, too many cooks….this is the treatment played out in front of us and its f**king brilliant… many many thanks”
This is a fantastic email my son Brendan Canty (he has his own production company Feel Good Lost) received after completing a recent music video project.
He tells me it was one of the smoothest projects he has worked on and one with a fantastic outcome.
They loved his original idea and he delivered it without any interference.
He tells me this is often not the case. In many projects too many people get involved, there are too many opinions, too many opposing views, too many egos and too many comprises – he is not a compromiser but sometimes he tells me you end up doing what you need to do to get a job completed.
It tells us a very simple message about engaging with any creative talent including artists/designers/professionals.
Pick the right maverick, get out of the way and then let them do what they do best ..
Brendan has just finished a fantastic music video for a talented and ‘soon to be huge‘ Irish artist Gavin James.
The track is a beautiful song called “For You“.
You already know about this video by another Irish artist called Hozier, which he also happened to direct. At the time of writing this has been watched 247,000,000 times!
It was my first time listening to Cork born Michael Cawley, the Chairman of Failte Ireland and former Ryanair deputy CEO and Commercial Director. He was speaking at a business anniversary breakfast for Paul O’Donovan and Associates,Accountants.
Everyone is a product of what they do and Michael a former accountant and a senior member of the Ryanair team for 17 years is certainly a product of his career.
At first he spoke a lot of sense and he believes that everything starts with great management. He spoke about Dubai “a hole in the ground” and how great management has turned the place into a major travel destination.
He then spoke about the Irish tourism and hospitality sector, which employs 205,000 people. He reckons this could easily rise by another 50,000 but says we must ‘elevate’ how we view the industry and start respecting the work that people do in it.
Cork Airport – hopelessly uncompetitive
He then went on to talk about the €17 landing charges at Cork Airport that he says makes the airport “hopelessly uncompetitive“.
He expanded on this by talking about the Ryanair perspective “The passengers belong to the airline, not to the airports. The airlines will seek to make money, whether that is in Bari or in Cork“.
While this message was delivered with all of the arrogance you would expect from a Ryanair executive it gives you a clear insight into the thinking of airlines that are removing routes from Cork Airport.
However he makes a good argument and suggested that if the airport wants to compete for traffic it must drop the rates, suggesting that the region could even subsidise it because passengers will spend significant money when they visit. We must look at the big picture.
All of this makes perfect sense and those running Cork Airport need to start listening and start to view Cork as an economic gateway to our region instead of a stand alone cost centre. If this requires some write off of the debt then it will be no different to so much other debt that has been written off in Ireland over the last five years.
Michael went on to give some general business advice to those gathered in the room “You must define your competitive advantage to be successful”
He explained that in Ryanair’s case “price” was it and this was achieved by relentlessly driving down costs .. airport landing charges is clearly a big part of this and in Cork’s case it is easy to see how we are losing Ryanair routes to Shannon and other locations.
He also spoke about the importance of “innovation” and in his view driving costs down is the ultimate innovation – I don’t agree with this as I detest what Ryanair represent and I hate how they have wrecked the flight experience, which was a ‘treat’ many moons ago, even if it was a lot more expensive.
Michael joined the panel at the end of this breakfast briefing whereby guests were able to ask questions – I asked the question “What did the panel feel was the unique selling point of Cork?”
Michael took this one on and gave the room his very worrying opinion of Cork – We should get over ourselves and realise that we are not as special as we think. All talk of us being a “competitor” in a European context is silly as Ireland is really about Dublin.
..I couldn’t believe I was hearing this
Even worse he reckoned that it was pointless for money to be invested promoting Cork as it was not a proposition worth promoting.
When a Cork born Chairman of Failte Ireland holds this view it is very concerning – who is going to subsidise Cork Airport’s costs/landing charges (as he suggested) if no one believes it is a region worth investing in?
Michael …
I 100% disagree with you and as much as I respect your role and your ‘cost squeezing’ experience I think you and your colleagues in Dublin are misguided.
Cork is a very special place for both tourism and business as we witnessed in our research on the Cork Brand Marketing project and a few others have noticed too ..
Please take a fresh look at the place that you were originally from and ask the question..why are we so overlooked?
All of us in Cork, our business and tourism groups, our stakeholders and politicians need to start making a lot of noise if we want something in change.
They were experienced operators with a successful business already up and running.
They decided to take the brave step to open another premises in a different location that they believed was currently under-served with a new concept. After all this is what you do to drive on and make progress?
The budgets were carefully worked out including renovating the premises, purchasing and installing the equipment, furnishing and decorating, branding and signage, professional fees and then some allowance was made for working capital and other opening costs.
Their budget also included a marketing fund – there is no point opening a new business unless you tell your target audience about it!
When all the budgets are done you look at your funding and cash flow requirements, some leasing, loans and an overdraft to make all of this possible and then you try to carefully manage the ‘opening project’ so that you come in on target.
For as long as I have been in business including my time as an accountant and in management there is a ‘rule of thumb’ that nearly always applies: “Everything takes longer than you expect, everything costs more and there is always the ‘unexpected’ that you also have to cope with“.
As sure as night follows day there was a problem with the fire officer that resulted in extra work that was necessary for the building – this delayed the opening and resulted in extra unexpected costs. As a result there was a serious unexpected ‘hit’ on cashflow for this essential expenditure, which could not be avoided.
As a result the marketing budget was wiped out and this new business suddenly had to rely on ‘word of mouth‘ and social media to get the word out there.
Unfortunately the momentum was not enough and the volume of business coming through the door from the date of the opening was insufficient to cover basic running costs and within months the new venture had to be shut as it was not sustainable.
The reality of the situation was that the marketing fund was even more essential than the demands that the fire officer made on the project. One was essential to get the doors open and the other was essential to keep the doors open. As a result all investment, dreams, sweat and tears were lost and the existing business will take some time to mop up the resulting debts and the recovery.
The guys were put in a total predicament and were forced to do what they had to do and this ultimately was the act that effectively closed the business and put their existing business at serious risk.
Did they have any options?
They took a view and a huge risk that they could sacrifice the most essential overhead of all and this was their ultimate downfall (while totally understandable).
Maybe they could have done a few things different ..
They could have:
Allowed for a contingency fund for delays/unexpected cost in the original budgets (you always need a buffer) – don’t go ahead until you have that
Explored other ways of cutting back and leaving their marketing fund somewhat intact
Looked for extra funds before proceeding any further with the project (would a bank manager have appreciated and understood their late request for extra funds? ultimately it might protect his own investment) – a strong open and honest relationship is a must for this to happen
Negotiated credit with suppliers – again a strong, open and honest relationship is a must (would suppliers understand?)
We have seen this cruel scenario being repeated time and time again with clients with the same awful result. Some manage to survive the setback and many unfortunately do not.
Once open you must have a fund to promote your business because without awareness and customers everything else is at risk.
Keep dreaming, keep advancing, keep expanding but most importantly keep succeeding!
My daughter Ellen has had a run of bad luck, which eventually seemed to be turning.
As she comes to the end of her beauty therapy course she was determined to find a job.
“I’ve been offered a job dad” she told me excitedly down the phone. I was thrilled for her, she deserved a break and I could hear the difference that confidence boost had made to her.
The following day it got even better “you won’t believe it dad, I’ve been offered another job” she beamed.
Two days later she called again “Dad, guess what? I’ve been offered a job in a salon and the lady is lovely and it’s exactly what I want, This is the job I’m going to take”.
Three job offers in as many days and my fantastic daughter was transformed – she was now a confident woman with a real spring in her step. She accepted the full time job offer and was due to start the following Monday.
She was then called for an interview to a beauty salon that came highly recommended by her course director on the Saturday.
On the spot she was offered a job by the salon owner despite Ellen’s lack of experience. Ellen explained to her that this would be a big decision as she had already been offered a full time job.
She rang me “you won’t believe it dad – I’ve been offered another job, I can’t believe it! What will I do?”
On the recommendation of her course director she accepted this offer and turned down the previous offer. To her credit she wrote a very professional email to the other salon, explaining the reason why she would not be taking their job offer after all.
Unfortunately the next call was Ellen sobbing on the phone. The salon owner that she had accepted the job from had a change of heart and suddenly her lack of experience was an issue and the full time job offer was rescinded. This news was delivered with barely an apology. While the salon owner thinks there is no consequence to her careless actions she has done huge damage to her reputation.
In the blink of an eye my precious girl was crushed and totally devastated and on top of this blow she now had to contemplate crawling back to the people she had already turned down in the hope that those opportunities were still alive.
Ellen is a strong, determined, talented young woman with a great personality who will recover from this cruel setback but it is one that she should not have to deal with.
I’ve shared this story with a number of people and to my horror nearly everyone I spoke to were able to give me similar stories.
When you offer anyone a job this carries with it a big responsibility – besides the obvious financial consequences you also bring the person, their dreams, hopes and wishes with you.
It was a strange thing – I heard news of the Dunnes Stores strike first thing this morning on Newstalk and immediately without hearing any of the detail I was on the side of the workers.
I wondered why did I think that automatically?
The truth is I never hear any good things about the company.
I don’t hear about charities they support, I don’t hear about a focus on Irish products, I don’t hear about how they work closely with suppliers, I don’t see them being helpful on social media, I don’t hear about how much they contribute to the Irish economy and I don’t hear about new jobs that have created.
Instead I remember the strikes of old and the trouble and controversy that the company has had down through the years.
This doesn’t mean for a second that they do none of these things – it just means I don’t know about the good things they do and as a result when I hear a negative about them I tend to believe it.
When we use the words ‘building your reputation‘ it is a powerful analogy because your reputation is something that is built over time.
It is a culmination of all of the things you do; how you look after suppliers, your team and most importantly your customers. It also includes how you interact with the general community – while we are all in business to make a profit it is vital that we respect our environment and those around us and genuinely try to be a good, responsible corporate citizen.
Besides doing good it is vital that this is communicated clearly and effectively so that people understand that this is a business that genuinely cares about something more than just making money.
When an ill wind blows it is vital that your reputation has been built carefully and robustly so that it can withstand it easily and that you will have the support of your customers, investors, the media and the general public in these circumstances.
“There is a strike at Dunnes”
If a good job was done here our first thought when we hear this should be “They are a great company who are really responsible and fair – there must be two sides to that story”
You get what you pay for ..maybe when you pay you get less?
At nearly every talk I attend about social media these days a business Facebook user asks the question about the crashing reach of their posts – a few years ago when you posted something this post would reach a large number of your users (fans) who had signed up and followed your page.
Over the last few years the ‘reach’ of your posts has been crashing and we are now at a stage when some posts will get just a handful of views.
After all if you pay to say you are great it’s not worth as much as someone else saying you are great!
The very same argument can be applied to your posts on social media.
As we have mentioned above Facebook have well and truly entered the ‘show me the money‘ era as fans of your page are no longer seeing your posts that they have signed up to see. Sooner or later this moment was going to come as all the social media platforms must make money just like any other business.
If 10% of your fans are seeing your posts then you are doing extremely well. From my experience those doing better than this are generally either giving away bucket loads of free stuff or have fallen into the trap of posting irrelevant funny videos.
The only way to really ensure that your fans are seeing your posts is to ‘boost‘ them. This is done simply by paying a few quid (the amount will vary depending on how many fans you have) to ensure that your post is pushed out by Facebook to your existing fans and beyond that if you wish.
The big problem with this approach is that suddenly these posts appear in your fans timeline with the word ‘sponsored‘ above them. Your post that was never intended to be an advert has now become an advert and just like the PR versus advertising argument its value has reduced to a third.
In my view the only way around this is to find other ways of talking to your “tribe” – we need to post frequently on Facebook (carefully choose the times that your audience are online) so that we are not fully reliant on the adverts, we must start using the other social media platforms such as Twitter or Instagram (which are still relatively “pure”) or try to get your fans to sign up for your e-newsletter, which isn’t quite as conversational.
The important thing, however you go about it is that your tribe believe and trust what you are saying to them
You feel something has gone wrong, you have been treated unfairly, you have seen someone else being treated badly and they are losing out..
If you open your mouth and complain then you become the ‘pain in the backside‘, the one who always ends up raising the issue, always being troublesome, the one to be avoided in the future.
In some ways maybe you are better off just saying nothing … Let someone else be the one to complain or raise the issue.
We rationalise that maybe that is actually the best approach, bite the lip, say nothing, stay in line and stay in favour, surely someone else will ask the question?
All of us do this all of the time because it makes sense, we think about the bigger picture and we decide to be strategic. Surely this is the best way to win?
Every time we do this someone gets away with something that maybe they shouldn’t and bad practices become a habit – with power and influence on their side bad practice becomes an even bigger habit and it goes on and on.
Before we know it we are reading awful stories about sweet deals, favours, corruption, embezzlement, back handers and abuse … we read about Jimmy Savile and wonder how could such terrible, shocking things happen. Who is to blame?
When we make a decision to say nothing it becomes all of our fault.
Dr. Martin Luther King famously said “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”
The call came through directly to us that we were invited to tender for supplying social media training services across the country for this state body (I won’t mention who it was for the moment).
Alarm bell number one..
Why wasn’t this put out to tender on the normal etender website I wondered?
I get quite suspicious when this happens – isn’t there a normal procedure for this?
Alarm bell number two..
We received the specification for this training and I was really surprised by how specific it was and by some of the language used. The objective was outlined clearly and it was up to the service providers to provide a solution. The thing is the ‘solution‘ was nearly fully mapped out in the specification.
One of the challenges for us was that the prescribed ‘solution’ would not achieve the required objectives.
We were well qualified to deliver a comprehensive solution for this organisation and we have huge relevant experience in the area so we went about writing a plan. This work took me the best part of a day to complete.
Alarm bell number three..
There was a very unusual item in the specification advising that the provider should budget “in a range of between €21,000 and €24,000“.
Why would a state organisation provide anyone tendering with a price guide? This was particularly surprising when the published ‘marking criteria‘ included cost.
Is it not up to each provider to assess the need and then provide a budget to fulfil this need?
Our proposal ..
We completed our proposal and included a more comprehensive training schedule than what was prescribed in their specification, clearly explaining why less training would not achieve their objectives.
I priced this using our normal rates and I was surprised that despite the heavier workload our budget came in a few thousand under the €21,000 – €24,000 price range as indicated.
We submitted our proposal and crossed our fingers – this was a really well thought out substantial and comprehensive evaluation and training plan.
Just like every proposal you work on, you end up investing your time and a little part of yourself in them and you become hopeful – on this proposal we were definitely hopeful.
Alarm bell number four – time to evacuate the building!!
We received our ‘Dear John‘ letter within days of submitting the proposal and we also received our score compared to the winning proposal based on the evaluation criteria.
On ‘methodology and fit for purpose‘ we scored 1,800 out of 3,000.
Surprise,surprise …the winning provider scored a full 3,000!!
Our methodology took their specification and went deeper and more comprehensive – I could feel the rage starting to build inside me.
A score of 1,800 means we barely know what we are doing ..
On ‘quality and balance of resources proposed‘ we scored 2,800 out of 3,500.
Surprise, surprise (once again!!)…the winning provider scored a full 3,500!!
Wow …they must be brilliant. Like those kids in school who get 100% out of 100% for everything.
The rage was starting to brim over … the cat, the dog, the laptop, the office door – nothing was safe (don’t worry I just cursed a lot!)
On ‘cost‘ we scored 3,500 out of 3,500..Jackpot!
Surprise, surprise …we beat the winning provider because our costs were below what was prescribed in the tender document. My accounting training was starting to pay off!
Rules and regulations..
I feel sorry for the government agencies as they are obliged to put things out to tender even when they might have a preferred provider. This ‘technically‘ means there is always 100% transparency, fairness and honesty and equal opportunity for everyone.
90% of the providers I have met have given up on this tender process because they believe it is a farce and a colossal waste of time and anything but fair.
In the commercial world we can work with whoever we want and when we want even if providers are more expensive – this makes business easy as we can just get on with things and not be forced into a painful ‘tender’ process every single time we want to get our business done.
However, these rules are in place and when these agencies are obliged to put things out to tender this commits anyone (fools like us) who is interested in the work to spend a lot of time working on proposals.
If the process is genuine we will play the game and put our best foot forward and let the best crew win.
When it is not and we are being used unfairly just so that the agency can ‘tick the box‘ on their technical obligations it is a much different manner.
What can we do??
This time I have had enough and I am complaining, freedom of information, the whole nine yards and I don’t care about the consequences.
The dilemma we all have is that ‘we don’t want to be seen as the troublemakers‘ and if we complain then we run the risk of not getting some crumbs from the table down the road.
We pay our taxes, which pays for these state agencies and if these rules are in place I won’t put up with anyone wasting our precious time just so they can tick a box and give the business to their favoured supplier.
I’ll let you know how this one goes…
Update !!
A lot of people have contacted me since I published this post.
Many are irate and have given up on the tender system as they feel it is anything but. Some have criticised me and told me that we are naive to expect any of this to be a chance of winning business – ‘play the game‘ and get in there before things go to tender, which is how you win things I am told.
I desperately want to believe that this system can work fairly and that it is a valid way of winning business.
With that rationale I did officially complain and as expected I didn’t get very far..
There were explanations
Performance – the winning company apparently committed to seven times more activity than what was outlined in the brief. I can’t see how this would be necessary and I struggle to see how the teams would be free to attend that much training. We will keep a careful eye on that one.
Budget – they told me that it is their “normal practice” to give a budget guideline to be fair to everyone tendering. I don’t think I have seen this in a tender, at least not the ones we have entered.
The unexplained
It turns out another company who tendered for the work scored exactly the same as we did on the criteria except for the cost element. An incredible coincidence …what do you think?
They contacted me when they saw this post and have decided not to complain as they want to make sure that they do get those ‘crumbs from the table‘ the next time they might be going.
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 