Posts Tagged ‘Fuzion’

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Thank God for Luis Suarez

June 28, 2014

Luis Suarez, Liverpool FC

Walking through town during the week I spotted a buddy of mine heading my way.

This was a little bit awkward..

Just two weeks ago his wife had passed away after losing a horrible three year battle with cancer. The last time I saw him was at the funeral home where I joined the huge queue of mourners, shook his hand. gave him a hug and did the same with his children. “So sorry” …it’s about as much as I was able to muster up at the time. His wife had always been so great to me…I’ll miss her.

Face to face for the first time since the funeral home we stopped and chatted.

“How are you doing?” while this was an obvious question I felt awful asking it ..what was I expecting? “I’m ok” he said.

“What did you make of the Luis Suarez incident?” I asked, quickly changing the subject

We stood there for 15 minutes debating the issue. He felt Suarez was a disgrace and deserved a huge ban and Liverpool FC should be glad to just get rid of him. As a huge Liverpool and Suarez fan I disagreed.

The ban was about FIFA reacting to huge pressure – Suarez seems to be a nice guy, he is respected by his team mates and in England he was recently voted by the other players as the Players Player of the Year. This is the highest honour in England voted by his teammates and opponents – if he was an aggressive, dirty, dangerous player that no one respected he would not have got this huge award.

Added to this he is a truly incredible footballer who is a gift to the sport and for me the objective with the punishment should have been to rehabilitate a player with some unusual psychological problem rather than this incorrect and brutal show of power.

The punishment was to Uruguay, Liverpool FC, football fans everywhere and of course to Luis ….none of it in my view dealing responsibly with the unusual problem that he has.

We debated, we chatted and for a while all that existed was Luis Suarez and the World Cup.

We both went on our way.

Thank god for Luis Suarez, the World Cup and all those things that keep life moving along even in our darkest days

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Bereavement, Friendship | 5 Comments »

Do you need to change your uniform?

June 16, 2014

Clothes Rack

I decided I better wear a suit for the day as we had a meeting with quite a senior group who most definitely would be wearing suits – I’ll always try to make sure it is a sharp suit with something just a little bit different going on. I won’t wear a tie as this is a step too far for me and at this stage I would feel uncomfortable wearing one.

This accountant turned marketer starting wearing suits at 17 in the accountancy practice and wore them for 21 years in my financial and general management roles within the high-tech and drinks industry. When I finally stopped working for others I stopped wearing this ‘uniform’ as I had enough.

I guess this was the appropriate ‘uniform’ for this meeting and if I wasn’t somewhat ‘uniform’ I might run the risk of giving the impression that I wasn’t taking my role seriously and I would have felt a little awkward within myself.

Later in the day I had to give a training course and later again we had to conduct a workshop for a project we were working on.

For the training course I was fine but I did feel just a little out of sorts because I wasn’t dressed in my usual way – I removed my jacket, which made me feel less formal and more appropriate.

The workshop was a totally different story – I was presenting with two other guys, each of us in our suits, quite ‘uniform’ but when the session started you just knew the group participating in the session were looking at us as we were different. Somehow we were ‘the establishment’, different to them and I felt it might have created a barrier and it could have changed the dynamic of the session.

I stood there quietly cursing my suit and wished I was in my more usual uniform, which is a smart trendy jacket/blazer with neat jeans and shoes – this is the real me (or at least it has become me and its the ‘me’ I am most comfortable and confident projecting).

After the session we went for a drink and a debrief and again I wished I wasn’t in my suit.

Was I being silly, was this all in my head or taking it to its limit should I have brought a second outfit to work with me that day to make sure that my ‘uniform’ always told the right story to my audience and most importantly made me feel more comfortable with them?

I remember a friend of mine who was working in the purchasing department of a large multinational telling me that they hated it when their suppliers would arrive dressed casually for meetings – she knew this was a little unfair because their own dress code was casual but it did work against the supplier.

When I was in Guinness in Dublin they introduced a causal Friday – while this created a more relaxed atmosphere I must admit that attitude towards work did become more relaxed as well.

Casual Friday

Could a slight change of uniform change one from being a ‘typical’ accountant, solicitor, graphic designer or whatever to someone who stands out a little?

In Fuzion we were interviewing for graphic designers recently and one poor guy arrived for interview in a suit and tie, looking more like an accountant than a designer. Maybe his mother killed him when he was heading out the door that morning in his cool t-shirt , jeans and Converse runners and insisted that he dress properly for his interview.

Somehow it was really hard to get past that he was wearing the wrong ‘uniform’ and you had to work hard to jump over those first and important impressions to discover his personality and capability.

With our clients we advise that their branding, websites, social media pages, marketing materials, vehicle livery and all other visual demonstrations of their organisation must tell the best story about them – we often buy with our eyes and those first impressions are vital. Are we any different?

What story are you telling about yourself today?

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

 

 

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Posted in Branding, Graphic Design, Marketing, Personal Marketing | 12 Comments »

Finding your Sparkle

June 5, 2014

Rubyhorse

Another great night of entertainment at The White Horse pub and restaurant in Ballincollig in Cork ..this time it was a really mixed and varied occasion as we came together as part of a fundraising initiative for Risteard O’Domhmaill’s ‘Atlantic‘ movie project.

This movie producer with a social and environmental conscience, who has already produced the award winning  “The Pipe” movie about the Shell pipe laying project at Rossport is raising funds so he can produce a movie called ‘Atlantic‘ to raise awareness about damage to our environment by exploration, big business interests and other issues.

Besides some thought provoking movie footage we were treated to some craft beer, delicious canapés and the very best of music from the White Horse Guitar Club (12 of them!), the quirky, inimitable and brilliant John Spillane and a very special acoustic reunion gig by Rubyhorse.

While the whole night was really special the stand out moment was the Rubyhorse reunion. This crew, one of Cork’s most successful ever music exports came together for the first time in 10 years. It wasn’t a full appearance by the band but we saw Joe Philpott (guitar), Decky Lucey (guitar and backing vocals) and lead singer Dave Farrell perform a number of favourite songs including the US hit ‘Sparkle‘.

I am a huge music fan but for some reason I had never seen Rubyhorse live so I was really curious as to what was the magic that had them at number 17 in the US billboard charts in 2002, that had them performing on the Letterman and Conan O’Brien shows and had the top brass in the music industry including U2’s Paul McGuinness interested in them.

Within 30 seconds I had my answer ..

Dave Farrell, RubyhorseOf course they are talented musicians and without doubt they have some really great songs including ‘Sparkle’, which brought them huge success, but for me the magic of Rubyhorse is the confident, enigmatic, charismatic lead singer Dave Farrell who is up there with the very best frontmen I have seen.

From the second they started their set Dave owned the crowd in a way that none of the other superb performers on the night could come anywhere near – I’ve seen a lot of bands down through the years and Dave not only has a great voice but also has a rock star swagger and a special charisma that you witness rarely.

I was lucky enough to have a chat with Dave after the gig and discovered a really soft unassuming guy who was telling me about an exciting restaurant project, which he is hoping to open later this year in Cork.

I was really puzzled as to why this gifted singer, who clearly comes alive on stage is not the lead singer in some incredibly huge band at the moment. When I put this to him he explained that he has simply moved onto other passions and interests..

If you find where you truly Sparkle how can you leave this behind?

 

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

 

 

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Posted in Entertainment, Events, Personal development | Leave a Comment »

Power up your Profile

May 27, 2014

Stand out in a crowdWho are you?

What are you all about, what are you interested in, what are you passionate about, what is your expertise?

What parts of you do you want to reveal and what are the parts of you that are really special that would propel you to success if only they weren’t such a secret?

Are you holding back on your personal power by staying under the radar and not letting people see the special talent and person that you are?

People Power

Pick up a newspaper or a magazine and do you find yourself reading about people? People are interesting and we want to know about them – we’re often more interested in the owner of the business and their story than the business itself. How did they do it?

Online is exactly the same with everyone from celebrities, sports stars, politicians, business people and Joe public all revealing their stories or at least parts of their stories through their conversations, photos and other revelations. We can access this information easily by following sites that reveal all sorts of news and gossip and by actually following those individuals we are interested in.

One of the great quotes I heard about twitter reveals the new opportunity that is available to all of us right now: “It makes famous people ordinary and ordinary people famous!“.

Coffee shop gal

This is a really simple statement but it gives us a insight to a colossal opportunity that is only possible ij this generation. Online you can often find that the ‘star‘ you are following is boring, just posting about products they are endorsing and you discover that the woman who runs the coffee shop around the corner is hilarious and totally engaging. She is the real star!

You can also be a ‘real’ star if you take that step and reveal the special you and harness the Personal Power that you have within yourself that will only come alive once you start flexing your muscles and make your own noise online.

With a clear vision and consistent effort it is now possible for any of us to carefully build our own powerful personal profile by using the opportunities that the online platforms present us.

There are a few simple steps to make this happen:

Clear Objectives – Decide what you want to achieve through your online activity. Write it down!
Who are You – Consider which “you” do you want to reveal online? Map out clearly all the parts about you, that you wish to portray; your information, life and career experience, interests, passions and beliefs
Choose How – Decide how you want to push this “you'” out there including the online platforms that you choose
Tribe – Decide the audience you want to cultivate a relationship with and start following and interacting with them so you get their attention

You may not want to be a star but you might just be interested in the right people discovering ‘you’ and achieving those bigger objectives of yours.

Go on, Power Up and …..make some noise!

Contact me if you are interested in the Power You online programme which I will be starting soon in Dublin and Cork: greg@fuzion.ie

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Branding, Marketing, Personal Marketing | Leave a Comment »

How’s it going?

May 14, 2014

“How’s it going?” a bright face looked up at me.

I had a busy day yesterday…

Up early for a meeting to help mediate a problem between two parties that I know well that were about to go through a silly court process, gave a social media course to a group of business owners, drove to Dublin for a big pitch to a potential prospect – I feel it went well, fingers crossed!

We headed for an early bird to Chez Max on Baggot Street with our crew and were joined after by friends for a few drinks and some fun.

We ended up in 37, Dawson Street for more fun and then Burger king of course.

There was a beautiful full moon hanging over Dublin on this gorgeous night as we strolled back to our hotel. Our usual haunt was booked out so we ended up trading up to the very fancy, Merrion Hotel. Hotels in Dublin are clearly getting busier, which is a great sign for our economy.

As we made our way back to the hotel I noticed the bodies nestled in their sleeping bags alongside doorways just off Stephen’s Green. At least tonight it was dry and not too cold, which is a small blessing for those unfortunate enough not to have a roof over their heads for the night.

I glanced into one doorway where i noticed there were two people sleeping alongside each other.

To my surprise a bright face was staring up at me. For a brief moment we connected “How’s it going?” he said in a soft friendly voice. “Not bad at all, thanks”

We made our way back to our hotel and put our heads down for the night.

Today it’s off to Dublin Airport as we are taking a flight to Sicily for a well earned rest and some sunshine – it should be great, we’ve never been.

I wonder what my bright faced friend is doing today.

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion, Marketing & PR with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Charities, Friendship, Holidays, Hospitality, Irish Economy, Tourism, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Good Friday and the Scarcity Principle

April 18, 2014

Good Friday - The Scarcity Principle

I’d do anything for a drink in the pub right now..

It’s always the same on Good Friday – once you know all the pubs and off-licences are closed you want nothing more. We can have wine or beer at home, like we do frequently on a Friday evening but on this day you would just want to go to the pub!

As usual in the lead up to Good Friday we heard the publican and the restaurant lobby groups giving out quite rightly about the antiquated law, which has no sale of alcohol permitted in Ireland unless it is in a club or unless you are a guest in a hotel.

The Scarcity Principle

Robert Cialdini, one of the foremost experts on influence, found that people value and desire something more when it is rare or difficult to obtain. He called this the Scarcity Principle. Across numerous experiments, Cialdini and others have found that making something rare (“only 5 left”), time limited (“one day sale”), or unique (“just for you”), increases its perceived attractiveness and value.

He explains that this Scarcity Principle works on the idea of Reactance.

Essentially, it happens because none of us like to be told no, limited in any way, or have our freedom constrained. So, when we think we might miss out, not be chosen, or be denied what we want, we “react”. That reactance makes us try all the harder and want what is denied us all the more.

In some strange way maybe this is a great marketing trick for pubs and restaurants as all of sudden we ‘desire’ a visit!

Maybe pubs and restaurants should embrace the day and take the opportunity to do some minor renovations, repairs, spring cleaning or take some precious time off and get ready for that rush..

What are you doing to create some scarcity in your business?

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Hospitality, Ireland, Marketing, Motivation | Leave a Comment »

Seven Tips to Building Your Online Tribe

April 8, 2014

Tribesman

“I’ve set up my social media platforms but I’m finding it very difficult to build a following” is a problem I hear from many of our clients and I know they look to me for a simple solution, a magic trick, a special feature or some nugget of advice that will solve this dilemma easily.

I’m sorry, the bad news is that there is no one trick or piece of magic but of course it can be done if you follow some of my tips. I’ll assume in preparing these tips that you want the right people following and not just numbers purchased online from click farms for the sake of looking popular.

Here are my seven magic tips that I believe will work for you:

1. The Tribe Mentality and Getting the Basics right

You must think in terms of building your tribe at all times and this involves exercising a discipline and structure that allows you to easily pick up new followers.

When you set up any of your social media platforms make sure you execute the process of inviting your email database to follow you, include social media links on your website and on your email signature and make it easy for people to subscribe to your e-newsletter or follow your blog.

Another simple piece of advice here is to highlight your social presence offline on all posters, adverts, signage, shopping bags and other materials where someone may interact with your business or service.

2. Start the chat,  you’re not Kim Kardashian!

Kim Kardashian & Greg CantyWe all have to do a little reality check about what type of business we are and realise that it is quite possible we do not have the natural appeal of  Kim. This is a real dilemma for certain businesses who being honest you may not be inclined to automatically follow such as the Insurance Broker in Ranelagh or the Chiropodist in Gort.

My advice to any businesses without the “Kim” appeal (that’s most of us!) is that they must initiate a lot of the social media chat by first doing the following and then interact with what that target audience are saying.

While it’s vital that we get our own message across in our communications it’s just as important that we achieve awareness for ourselves by interacting with others. Join the conversation of others, share and retweet their posts and in no time at all you will find they will do the same for you, which will bring you new followers.

3. Lose the robot, talk about the match

At some point in time we were taught about formal business communications, which has us often behaving like robots. The beauty of online is that we can lose much of the formality that can choke normal written communications and this allows us to show some of the really important attributes about our business such as our personality, our humour, our interests, our caring side and how passionate we are about things that matter to us.

It’s amazing the difference it makes to a business relationship when you discover that a prospect is also a hugely passionate Liverpool FC fan!

4. “Like” and Stop Selling

Being realistic why would someone want to become a member of your online tribe?

The Facebook word “Like” can really focus you here when you are communicating and the word dislike can be just as useful. I’ll follow you on twitter, subscribe to your blog, read your newsletter or connect with you on LinkedIn as long as it delivers some benefit to me – it should be an experience that I “Like“.

Are you going to give me advice, make me smile, be nice, let me be the first to know about special offers, offer me samples, invite me to exclusive events, promote my business, help me to solve problems, enrich my life in some way or do you just want me to Buy, Buy, Buy?

If  the online platforms are used to deliver benefits to your tribe, to build relationships and rapport with them, the sales will look after themselves.

5. Brushing your teeth

In the same way that brushing once a month won’t do your teeth any good, posting infrequently online will do your business no good.

The biggest stumbling block to success that I see with clients is that they struggle to make online activity part of their regular routine. It’s vital that you do your weekly blog post, that you schedule your newsletter, that you post daily on all of your social media platforms and this becomes part of the normal running of the business.

Every time you post you are effectively promoting your business, which is a great habit to get into just like brushing your teeth!

6. The Power of You

Just as we want to build our tribe of followers it’s really important to leverage the tribe that you have within your organisation. Online activity comes alive through person to person interactions – I’d much prefer to talk to a person rather than a logo.

Where possible I would encourage as many individuals as possible to pro-actively wave a flag for the business online, which spreads the workload, maximises the reach but also increases the effectiveness. This works as long as there is a good solid social media policy and a clear understanding around objectives and key messages.

Where companies have accounts online it is always a good idea to introduce the person behind the posts where appropriate. I have seen Eircom doing this quite effectively on Twitter and it adds a degree of trust to their content.

Show me the money

7. Show me the money!

While you can do all of the right things to build the size of your online tribe there is a time where you just have to advertise to accelerate this process.

With Facebook, advertising is essential both to build a following and then subsequently to reach them with your communications. At the moment success on Twitter isn’t as dependant on budget but unless you are as popular as Kim you will need budget to build your following quickly.

Summary

Like everything else in business nothing comes easy and if you want to build your online tribe you either get a body like Kim, do a reality TV show and have a baby with Kanye West or else roll the sleeves up and do it the hard way!

Good luck with your tribe..

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion PR and Marketing who offer Social Media Consultancy and Training to clients from our offices in Dublin and Cork.

http://www.fuzion.ie

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Posted in Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Career changing photographs

April 6, 2014

Tommy Doyle, High Court Case against Guinness

I walked out the door of the High Court with my good friend, Tommy Doyle and out jumped a photographer.

Before I knew it Tommy put his arm around me and “snap” the photo was taken, which appeared in national newspapers the following day as they covered Tommy’s high profile High Court case against Guinness, which had been settled on the day.

This court case was very high profile with the media as Tommy Doyle was a former Kerry GAA star with seven All-Ireland medals and here he was taking on the might of Guinness in a constructive dismissal case with strong suggestions of a price fixing cartel, which was a potential time bomb for the industry.

When I was General Manager of a Guinness subsidiary in Cork, Deasy & Co., Tommy was our very brilliant sales manager and a really great guy to work with. You could see all of those motivational traits and steely determination which brought him huge success on the field transferring to the business arena.

To this day Tommy is the very best sales/relationship manager I have come across.

After I left Deasy’s to take a senior role with Guinness things fell apart with the management of Deasy’s and Tommy. In my view the wrong person was put in charge of the company and instead of working with Tommy he put the boot in and they clashed immediately. I believe they tried to force Tommy out but they underestimated his steely determination to hang in there.

A super effort eventually broke him, which led to a serious bout of sickness and the court case, which was eventually heard the day of this photo.

Unfortunately for Tommy he became one of the most hated man in the drinks industry because of the court case.

On the day of the court case Tommy’s solicitor had summoned nearly every senior player in the drinks industry as witnesses around this price fixing issue. Needless to say this colossal time bomb was of huge concern to Guinness and all other industry players, which they would really want disarmed.

I was at the court case on the day because I was also summoned by Tommy’s solicitor. At the time I was doing well in my early days as General Manager of Nash Beverages, a subsidiary of Heineken. The nervousness was obvious with all of the industry heads who were there.

As the day progressed it was clear that Guinness were making a huge effort to kill this case and were prepared to settle. With my close relationship with Tommy and my good relationship with senior Guinness personnel I ended up being a go-between. Both sides were open to a settlement and this was quickly negotiated with everyone going home late in the afternoon.

This was a huge day for Tommy and when the settlement was agreed he asked would I stay in Dublin for a bite to eat and a chance to chill out.

I decided it was the right thing to do and felt it was ok not to attend a Heineken conference later that evening.

Out we walked and “snap“…that photograph.

The following day the picture appeared in the national newspapers who covered the case and I was politely told in a few quarters that appearing in “the photo” was a big mistake for me.

After that day I must admit I did feel a change of attitude towards me by senior management and a promising start seemed to turn cold despite my input that day, which resulted in a quick conclusion to a case that everyone was relieved with.

Ultimately maybe friendship and loyalty is a better choice than keeping up appearances and other people happy?

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Friendship, Media, Motivation, Personal development, Personal Marketing | 2 Comments »

Leo Varadkar – The man who answers questions!

April 4, 2014

Leo Varadkar - Fine Gael

I was listening to George Hook on Newstalk as we were travelling down from Dublin. He was broadcasting from San Francisco and he was chatting about some politician and he described him as being a “Leo Varadkar type of politician“.

Immediately you know that he means a politician who will give a straight answer to a question when asked.

When you think about it this is quite an incredible and simple attribute to be known for!

In assigning such an attribute to a politician you would imagine  that no one single name should stand out – surely there are plenty who demonstrate this attribute on a regular basis either currently or in the past? Can we name them?

In truth there should be so many with this quality, that describing the straight talking/answer a question when asked attribute by mentioning a single politicians name would be confusing!

How is it that the youngest member of the Irish Government carries this torch?

Is it youth, is it not enough time in politics to be ultra cautious, is it a lack of fear of making an error against party policy, is it 100% confidence in his own ability and capability, is it not caring too much about politics and being prepared to simply say it as it is?

Is it his upbringing or the career he had before he became a full time politician – he lived in a relatively good part of Dublin, he studied medicine in Trinity and he worked in hospitals before opting for General Practice.

As a doctor do you get used to answering questions when asked?

Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar of the Fine Gael party was appointed by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny in March 2011. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 2007 and prior to this is served as a member of Fingal County Council since 2003. He received the highest vote in Ireland in the Local Elections of 2004.

Did his constituents like him because they saw him as someone who was prepared to answer their questions?

It is a great thing to see him doing really well and to see someone with these attributes progressing effectively in the Government but it is a very poor reflection on our recent political history that being prepared to answer a question is something that makes you unique!

Is there a lesson in this for all our politicians? 

Is there a lesson in this for all of us?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

 

 

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Posted in Irish Politics, Personal development, Personal Marketing, Politics, Tourism | 4 Comments »

Big, Bold, Brave ….Belief

January 28, 2014

Teamwork.com

The .com domain name for Greg Canty gregcanty.com can be registered with Register365 for the total price of €8.95 per annum.

The .com domain is the big one, the universal one, which is easy to register and without any fuss. For example with the Irish domain .ie you need to jump a few hoops and at least make some attempt at proving that you or your business has a valid reason for being able to claim that name.

The frenzy at the beginning of the internet boom was the practice of some very clever people anticipating which domain names would be popular in the future. They purchased these in the hope that at some point in time they might earn a windfall when they could sell them off for big money.

A lot of domain names are still registered to people who will never use them and are still waiting for their big pay day!

According to Wikipedia the top ten most expensive domain names are:

  1. VacationRentals.com $35 million in 2007 
  2. Insure.com $16 million in 2009 
  3. Sex.com for $14 million in October 2010
  4. Fund.com 2008 £9.99 million
  5. Porn.com 2007 $9.5 million
  6. Fb.com by Facebook for $8.5 million in November 2010
  7. Business.com for $7.5 million in December 1999
  8. Diamond.com 2006 $7.5 million
  9. Beer.com 2004 $7 million
  10. Israel.com 2008 $5.88 million

It looks like the last big money transaction was in 2010.

What would make you pay this kind of huge money for a domain name?

  • It must be a core part of your brand and who you are – so much so that you can’t have anyone else using it and must get your hands on it
  • It must have huge earning potential in order to justify such a huge price tag – unless of course you have so much money that earnings are not a critical part of the equation

Even if these two elements are in place do you have the resources to pay out big money for a domain name and this must be weighed up against what you could do with this amount of money – could you make your existing domain name or a new name just as powerful if that fund was put being a marketing campaign?

Big, Bold, Brave

Teamwork LogoLast week I was at the Guinness Store House (a strange experience for me – I could see my old office from the top floor) for the launch of a domain name by a Fuzion client and great friends of mine, Digital Crew.

The guys have an incredible cloud based project management application called TeamworkPM, which only after a few years is creating a storm online and is quickly becoming the standard within the sector for managing projects.

These guys from Cork had paid over half a million euros for the domain name www.teamwork.com and were celebrating with friends and clients – at 9pm the new domain name was set live.

When I first heard this news I thought someone was pulling a fast one on me and when I realised it was true I wondered if they had totally lost their marbles!

This was certainly a BIG move, they are paying and playing big, they are thinking big (huge!) but then again they have a global product so it is a big market. What’s more they have big plans to develop a whole suite of products under the Teamwork name. 

It was definitely a BOLD move …they aren’t a Google, a Facebook, a Microsoft, a Twitter but this was a big bold move, which shows that they see themselves in that Premier league table.

BRAVE ….I’m not sure if I could have written that cheque!

To be fair to these guys this is isn’t the first time that they have been Big, Bold and Brave.

When Digital Crew were working on their core web development business and on some complex web projects they realised they needed a project management application to help co-ordinate their teams and the multiple tasks that were required. After playing with a few different applications online they decided ….these aren’t good enough, we can do better!

While ideas are great and we all have them, the guys got together at weekends and late in the evenings when the regular client work was done and starting building a new application.

After an incredibly hard slog the application TeamworkPM was ready, which they politely rolled out.

There was no immediate success but they interacted with customers, answered countless queries, joined discussions, tracked competitors, improved their product over and over and eventually they had momentum with some serious businesses coming on board and using the application – Walt Disney, Microsoft, EA Sports, Forbes and eBay to name a few.

Word of mouth, continuous improvements and dogged determination brought TeamworkPM to a point where the income from the application had surpassed their core business income.

They made an incredibly Big, Bold and Brave move to divest of their core business and put everything into their TeamworkPM application. Every month there is a big new feature added, which is a challenge they set for themselves.

Within a year they have added significantly to the team and even sent one of the founders to take office in New Zealand (poor Sam – we all know he hates the glorious weather and the beach!)so another time zone could be looked after.

While they have been making Big, Bold and Brave moves for a long time the decision to pay over half a million euros for the teamwork.com domain name is about something much more.

They have incredible BELIEF in what they are doing, in their own capability and in their vision. They know exactly where they are taking their business.

To Dan, Peter, Sam, Billy and all the Teamwork team …..thanks for showing us what Big, Bold and Brave looks like. My belief is your domain will be worth it!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Brand Loyalty, Business Planning, Marketing, Motivation, Positivity, Teamwork, Web Marketing | 4 Comments »

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