Posts Tagged ‘Recession in Ireland’

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Do you always do what you are told?

July 27, 2010
Disobedient Child!

Not always doing what you are told!

Start a new business in 2010 in the middle of a recession? Are you totally out of your head, nuts, crazy?
The minute you open your mouth you will probably crumble under the weight of naysayers, who without a doubt are being genuine in their advice to you.

The fact that you are opening your mouth at all means that you have an itch that needs scratching, there is some enterprising spirit inside you that is just waiting to break out, some independent streak that makes you want to be master of your own destiny. It could be as simple as you are out of work and you just want to make things happen for yourself.

Well done, so what do you do?

As an Accountant who came away from the “darkside” and joined the world of Marketing & PR after a long period in General Management I can offer  you my tuppence worth of advice and a few do’s and don’ts .. (should I put in a disclaimer here??)

It’s a great time to start a new business because..

1.    Who else can you depend on today to put bread on your table?
2.    The smaller you are the less overheads you have – customers can get a great personal service
3.    The cost of entry is smaller than it has ever been
4.    The local agencies such as the Enterprise Boards offer Mentoring, Training and other Supports, which really help people  get on their feet
5.    With the whole new world of the Web and Social Media including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on, the small guy can actually compete with the big guy
6.    The Press love positive stories and will more than likely be happy to give you some coverage, free!
7.    You would be surprised how many people out there will give a new business a chance, everyone loves a Trier!
8.    You will love the sense of achievement from the feeling of doing it for yourself, it’s liberating
9.    Being your own boss is great
10.    It’s a whole new world, once you cross over to the other side – network with others like you!
11.    It can be great fun

On the cautionary side, which is very real ..

1.    Only do it once you are truly ready – while the cost of entry is lower than before make sure you are in a position to make a great first impression, looking the part from the very start
2.    Run your business idea by someone knowledgeable with a positive nature that you know will give you honest advice – not all ideas are great ones!
3.    Make sure your business passes the recession test – the luxury type products and services are suffering at the moment. It might be a case of wait a while for these types of businesses.
4.    Be practical – do your pessimistic financial plans and make sure you have enough cash to pull by, in particular in the early stages. That financial pressure is horrible, I’ve been there more than once ..
5.    Once you make that move you will never be able to work for someone else again!

So, did you always do what you are told?

Didn’t think so.. enjoy the ride, our economy needs you and more like you

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications , Marketing & PR.
http://www.fuzion.ie

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Posted in Business Start Ups, Irish Economy, Marketing, PR, Recession, Social Media | 10 Comments »

Bill Gates and his last dollar

July 4, 2010

 

Bill Gates

“If I was down to my last dollar I would spend it on PR” was the famous quote that Bill Gates made and one that many of us in the PR industry use when we are trying to draw attention to the importance of our services.

Ironically many of us are nearly down to our last dollars, or Euros and you might question does this piece of advice really hold water, how applicable is it and is this really what Bill Gates meant when he made the comment?  Was he ever down to his last dollar? – I wonder..

Does he really suggest that when a business is really tight that it spends its income in such a way?

When the recession kicked in how did you react in your business? What overheads got the chop? I’m suspecting that Marketing & PR budgets were given the scissors treatment – was this the right thing to do? How did this affect your business and the attitude of those working there?

Positive Attitude, Positive Activity and Positive Spend

Not knowing Bill I can only guess but this is my interpretation of what he meant ..

PR is as much an attitude, a process, a set of beliefs, a way of behaving positively as much as it is about Press Releases and actually employing a PR resource.

PR or Public Relations is all about Managing your Reputation– protecting, maintaining, building and managing your reputation. Even if you are down to your last dollar you need to keep investing or doing this.

There is nothing more valuable as a good reputation and this is about a lot more than employing PR companies or about issuing press releases. Your reputation is every single aspect of how your business relates to the outside world, your customers, your prospects, the general public and the media. This applies equally to a self employed candlestick maker as it does to a large multinational.

Ok, how about 16 Tips for improving and managing your Reputation (PR) for €1

1.    Answer the phones politely and helpfully
2.    Return missed calls promptly
3.    Return email enquiries quickly
4.    Deliver a good service to customers
5.    Handle complaints fairly and efficiently
6.    Deliver products and services on time
7.    Ensure your billing is correct
8.    Be polite, fair and efficient with your suppliers and staff
9.    Keep customers and prospects up to date with new products, features and services
10.    Treat your suppliers fairly
11.    Treat your customers with respect (even if they are experiencing difficulty and are under financial pressure)
12.    Ensure that all correspondence is well laid out, with correct English, is easily understood, professional and properly reflects your business
13.    Ensure your premises and vehicles are kept neat and tidy
14.    Ensure the attire of your staff is in keeping with the standards of your business
15.    Ensure your staff always talk up your company and do not air grievances outside of the four walls with external people – make a pact to sort things out internally
16.    Talk up the achievements of your company and the staff working there – their talents, skills and achievements

This is not an exhaustive list – have a think about it and add another 5/10/20 points to improve your reputation even more. Even better get your team to help you with this task.

Ok, all of this is good for your business reputation, it didn’t require the intervention of third party consultants and oh yeah, it didn’t really cost a shilling – you still have your €1 left!

So far we have looked at some housekeeping reputation issues.

Positive Attitude

As we mentioned PR is in essence a positive attitude – first and foremost you need to declare war on this recession and ensure that you and everyone in your business understands the importance of your reputation and a Positive Attitude towards your business. You will thrive in this environment and if you are alert you will not only survive but you will be in a position to seize on unique opportunities that may arise.

Back to the job of spending our last €1..

Communicate that you are going to invest in positive activity for your business – You have been in Retreat mode and now you want to invest funds in forward mode – you want to “Storm” this recession. Your staff must understand that every €1 is vital, that you want maximum return from it and challenge them to achieve this. Show and positively display the faith that you have in the business and communicate that you and your team are adopting “attack” mode!

This positive mind shift is essential for the business.

Where do we spend our €1?

–    Refresh your Website – review and refresh the text, besides being new and positive it helps your Search Engine ranking
–    Optimise your Website (do a Google search on this and you will learn find how to do it for free)
–    Update the News items on the website – announce new customers, products or services
–    Set up a Facebook business page, it’s free – take the time and build a following for your business online. Ask customers to sign up, email them, ring them, tell them..
–    Start using the other social media sites such as Twitter or LinkedIn to build your contacts and spread awareness for your business, products and service. If you’re not sure how to do this – Google it .. there are plenty of articles and tips available online
–    Prepare Press Releases about your company or services . Do you have anything interesting or new happening in the business? – let the press know.
–    Advertising: maybe you have an advertising campaign running with the local papers or a trade publication – negotiate that you get some free editorial to support these adverts (keep it interesting, they won’t print boring stuff!)

All of this is positive – have you ever noticed that you like being around positive people? In business we are no different and we like dealing with positive, successful businesses. Behave like one of them.

Build your reputation, shout it from the rooftops and make this a clearly understood activity in your business.

Big problem… we still haven’t spent that €1

Print a few posters and put them around your business “We are Storming the Recession”

If you have more than €1 to spend feel free to give Fuzion a call and we will help you achieve the maximum from your Marketing & PR budget.

Bill, thanks for the PR thumbs up ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Marketing, PR, Recession, SEO, Social Media, Web Marketing | 16 Comments »

Is it worth investing in PR in the Fashion Industry?

June 22, 2010
Fashion PR

Fashion PR

We just had a fashion client cut back on their PR activity, which has left us all really surprised and disappointed in particular seeing as they received terrific coverage around the country and nationally for their brands.

While trying to figure this one out internally we have to put ourselves in the client’s position and  ask ourselves the  simple question – If it was us would we invest in PR?

We use a simple criteria here – if you have access to strong, high quality current fashion visuals, in particular for a female brand the answer is yes, yes, yes!

I must admit that PR for a male brand is not quite as straight forward – you will get coverage but you need to work a lot harder to achieve the same result. Male fashion is not featured as much by journalists and is just not as sexy!! More imaginative solutions are needed here.

If you are a brand owner or agent make sure that you have a PR resource (internal or external)  in place so that the national fashion press and the local press where you have stockists can get their hands on the latest collections (press release & visuals). Make sure the stockists are mentioned in the local releases.

If you are a store owner and you know that the brand/agent are not engaging with a PR resource then take the matter into your own hands get those images from the brand and issue them locally yourself (or your PR person).

The print media absolutely love strong fashion visuals and if you have access to those for your stock then you will in all probability get coverage, which should build the profile of your store and brands with your existing and hopefully new customers.

Budget, budgets ..

I guess it all comes down to money and you need to decide how much can you afford to invest in this area.

If you have the quality material then don’t waste the opportunity for press coverage – if you can’t afford an external resource such as ourselves then try your best to allocate some internal resource to the task.

We do a lot of work in the fashion PR sector and once done properly you will achieve really good results.

Choosing brands for your store or agency?

In choosing what brands to stock in your store or what brands to take on in your agency it is worth considering –

  • Will the brands be supported by PR?
  • Will the PR extend to the local stockists?
  • Failing this will you have access to high quality visuals that you could use for your own PR drive?

This could be the difference between free coverage in the papers for your store/brand and none.

Choosing which product to stock in the store?

A little tip that we give everyone is to make sure when buying that you look for that item or that brand that is very unusual, which will create a talking point. The press love things that are attention grabbing and a little bit different.

So to answer my original question – would I invest in a PR resource ?

Definitely – If I couldn’t afford an external resource with experience in the sector I would make sure someone internally had PR as part of their role.  In the fashion industry it is the best value way of Marketing, achieving coverage and interest in your store or brand.

One thing you can be sure is that there are less people investing in PR than before so it is possible to make a bigger splash with less effort.

so .. another thing for you to consider along with all the multiplicity of challenges you have to face every day, as if you didn’t have enough on your plate already!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in PR, Recession, Retailing, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Accountants and Marketeers Working Together?

May 11, 2010

Can these professions actually work together pro-actively and deliver excellent results for a client or for a business?

Tug Of War

Accountants and Marketeers pulling together?

At the beginning of 2009 when fear had totally gripped the whole business community I was staggered by the amount of clients ringing to cancel their Marketing activities – Advertising, PR and even some suggestions to get rid of their websites!

As someone who is a reformed accountant it made me cast my mind back to those days in practice and I had to question myself – when I was wearing those shoes is that the advice that I would have been giving my clients?

The logic is simple – Remove “unnecessary” expense to protect the bottom line.

With my marketing hat on I always question where current and future sales come from and I ask why did the business conduct these activities in the past?

Is attracting customers less or more important in a downturn?

Ok, we have to extract the best value for money, be extremely careful as to where every single euro is being spent and make sure that every euro must work hard in delivering value. However we just can’t cut out the activity totally.

Is this how accountants generally view Marketing?  Many of them don’t but I wonder do many think this way?

How about a scenario whereby the Accountant and the Marketeer work together for clients in devising proactive but yet prudent solutions that protect the business in the short term and the long term?

We have only ever once met a client with their accountant – Should this be the case?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Accounting, Irish Economy, Marketing, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Grace Under Pressure

May 5, 2010

Grace Under Pressure

Thank God for the Good Guys!

Many of you will have read the “Credit Control Warrior” piece I wrote having being inspired by the behaviour of a particular businessman, Famous.

Basically, if you read the piece you will have learnt that not only did he not pay his bill but he felt this was quite funny, the joke was on us. He laughed in my face saying “We would never get paid!”

The joke is on all of us who do our best at all times to behave honourably, pay our bills and behave honestly. If you think about it we are all subsidising these guys.

The circumstances of a changed economic climate have worked against many of us but this does not stop the honourable guys still behaving properly even when they just cannot pay. Once a gentleman, always a gentleman.

As long as someone who is under pressure communicates with you, realises that you are out of pocket as a result and will try their best to sort you out I have no issue. Unfortunately we have a few clients who have been caught in the storm and thankfully they have not stopped being good decent people.

I Salute You

I Salute You

This morning I received an email from one such client who has been doing his utmost to sort us out on an unpaid bill. At all times he has been upfront and honest, he always returns calls, he always appreciates that we are out of pocket as a result of his misfortune and he has done his best to give us a few quid whenever it is available.

The email:

“Hope you enjoyed the long weekend.

Just wanted to let you know that I’m transferring €xxxx off the account in the morning – some modest funds came in from the sale of the leasehold but we couldn’t have money come in and not deal with your account.  You’ve been beyond fair and I sincerely want to clear the account faster than we have been up to this point.  This will leave us with a balance of just over €xxxx and I’ll increase the monthly payments on that.

Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding”

This is what I would call Grace Under Pressure.

I salute you.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Marketing, Recession, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

High Five When You See a ’10

April 19, 2010

Isn’t it fabulous to see the amount of ’10 Registration Cars on the roads since the start of the year.

Last year people, even those with the necessary funds were wary about buying a new car due to the “what would people think” syndrome – we need the positive activity to set the wheels in motion for our economy!

So, the car sales are up 31% in the first quarter – if you think about it this is probably with about 2/3 of the garages that were there last year and the good chance is that the existing garages are well down in staff numbers – time to start recruiting I wonder? Maybe a little bit premature? Whichever way you look at it – it leads to a higher tax take for the government and an industry starting to move again and some funds are back in circulation. All of those garages and car salesmen have money to spend elsewhere.

From what I can gather those sales are probably less than they should be – a few car salesmen I have spoken to have been telling me that accessing cars is a difficulty due to pessimistic predictions when they were placing advance orders – you will be lucky to get a new 5 Series BMW before next September!

And what else does all that mean? – well, that is a lot of positively motivated individuals driving around in their new cars – a new car is a great feeling – well done! It does put the rest of us in the mind for a new car – it’s a positive target to have for all of us. I want to buy a new car in 2010 – that’s a goal for you.. try to make it happen.

The “confidence wheel” is simple and this is what will get our country moving again, not any superb government policy – in my view their attempts to positively mobilise Ireland have just not happened. On the jobs creation front there has been zero strategy – the government have even slashed budgets in “job creation” departments, I’m deadly serious – if anyone has the time to check budget allocations, check out if budgets in government departments with the agenda of helping new business have been increased? – I promise you they have been cut in the same way as everything else, strategy – I don’t think so!

Ok, so there is positivity creeping through and that is coming from “us”, from pure positive attitude.

Performance will follow “positive attitude” – despite the odds, so keep it going.

While we are on the “positive” agenda and this is so critical for recovery I can finally report that the house across from us has been sold!

The sale seemed to be almost completed and then fall through a few times in the last 9 months. The same banks that would have handed out a mortgage at double the price have eventually approved a loan to our new neighbour (and they have picked up a fabulous bargain at the bottom of the market) at half the price. Something wrong somewhere!

Sherry Fitzgerald - Sold!

The Big "Sold"

The amusing thing is the sign put up by, Sherry Fitzgerald the auctioneers – in the same way that I am saying to celebrate the ’10, the auctioneers are celebrating the ‘sale’ with giant ‘SOLD’ text across their signs.

Well done to whoever is completing purchases out – high 5 when you see a  ’10 and celebrate those ‘Sold‘ and lease agreed signs – things are looking up, celebrate the positivity that is all of us ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications, Marketing & PR

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Posted in Irish Economy, PR, Recession, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Have we less to say to our Customers?

February 15, 2010
Billboard Advertising

Billboard Advertising in Ireland

I am amazed by the amount of empty billboards that I am seeing around the country at the moment.

In what I consider to be quite a good location quite close to where we live there are three billboards and they have been empty pretty much since the start of the year – eventually this weekend two of them were filled.

There are clearly huge cutbacks going on by the big mainstream advertisers.

Why did we advertise last year? The year before?

Is now a time for advertising less?

Is now a time for not talking to your customers?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Marketing, Recession, Retailing | Leave a Comment »

What would Darwin think of Nama?

February 9, 2010

Charles Darwin the English scientist who passed away in 1882 had a very famous quote “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”

What would he make of our property industry? In the muck for the best part of two years and no new initiatives, besides reducing prices and passing the buck from the developers to the banks to Nama. Is this the best that we can do?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Recession | Leave a Comment »

Eircom Business Customer Service!

February 4, 2010
Eircom Business

Eircom Business

I am sure that I am not the first to have experienced lousy customer service but I just have to blog about Eircom. At a time when we are all busting a gut to get by, delivering excellent customer service it astounds me how some companies can get away with the total opposite.

Without going into the blow by blow of the story they made a total shambles of a simple leasing agreement on a phone system and put us on a careless business tariff that had us paying about €300/400 too much every month. This went on for over a year – I was offered a credit of €200.

Read on …. the text of my last email to them (lets see if they are listening to their customers online: I will circulate the blog on LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter)

email: 4th Feb 2010

Hi Padraic,

This is going from bad to worse ..

In response to your efforts to get this sorted on your side I received a call yesterday from a ‘Debbie’ in Eircom.

While very pleasant and courteous she seemed to be quite junior. She politely explained that her credit jurisdiction did not extend beyond €200 and if I wanted to achieve something more than this I would have to make an ‘official complaint’!

Aaaaaahhhhhhh …. what in the name of god is going on at Eircom.

In fairness to Debbie she saw the funny side and acknowledged that what was going on and my steady flow of correspondence did qualify me as ‘a complainer’. She totally empathised with me and promised that someone with some sort of authority would call me back in half an hour.

I needn’t tell you that I never received a call from anyone.

Officially ‘This is a complaint’ to Eircom and not me writing for the fun of it.

I would appreciate some action please.

Regards,

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Recession, Retailing | 5 Comments »

2009 – The Ultimate Business Boot Camp?

December 22, 2009

2009 – The Ultimate Business Boot Camp

Pretty much anyone who survived business in 2009 has had to dig deep, start operating really efficiently, offering good service and value and genuinely appreciating their customers. It has been normal and a matter of course to demand the same from suppliers, looking for value and quality service from everyone. Business practices have had to be sharpened in every area – to survive the services provided have had to be excellent and no longer just ok.

We have learnt more about ourselves this year I suspect, our resilience, our adaptability, our ability to deal with adversity and worry, our ability to work even harder, our customer knowledge, our staff motivational skills without writing cheques, our negotiating ability and even our credit control skills!

Has 2009 been the ultimate Business Boot Camp?

My dad was in the US army for 2 years and he always talks about how the Boot Camp period at the beginning was absolutely terrible but he will always say how is was totally valuable and necessary.

While it was incredibly challenging and really tough we are now better equipped than ever to face the future and reap the rewards of the upturn when it comes. I look forward to it!

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion Communications

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Posted in Irish Economy, Marketing, Recession | Leave a Comment »

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