Girls ….Go for It! (Lean In)

“Me, on a billboard? Never in a million years!”

That’s what I thought when I found out a promotional campaign I agreed to be part of would be more than just a testimonial on a website.

I had sent a letter of thanks to the local Cork Chamber of Commerce because I won some business after attending a Chamber event. When they called to recruit me for the promotion, I said, “Sure, of course, no bother”, thinking they’d ask me to write up some notes.

Then I found out that my face would be on a billboard!

Even though I work in public relations, I was always reluctant to put myself forward in photographs or other public displays. I thought they were opportunities that could go to clients instead.

Silly, I know; I think I was hiding behind my clients!

The Chamber assured me that eight other people would be on the billboard with me, but when I showed up for my photo shoot, I was all on my own. We were each being given our own billboard.

Roll on a month or so and the billboards went on display. We got great feedback from clients and business colleagues, although I couldn’t look at my picture. I was mortified at my face being as big as a bus, literally.

I met my contact in the Chamber of Commerce to give feedback on the experience.

I thought the campaign was great for my business, but it was a negative for the Chamber because I was the only woman out of nine members who were featured.

What she said next shocked me: “Deirdre, we asked loads of business women—you were the only one to say yes!”

Okay, I was a fairly reluctant participant, but it was a brilliant opportunity for our small business to feature in a billboard campaign in our city. I couldn’t say no, even though I wanted to, but it sure didn’t feel nice getting out of my comfort zone.

But what about all the successful, confident, intelligent businesswomen in my city who did say no?

We need to get over ourselves as women in business. We need to take more chances and seize every opportunity that comes our way, because if we don’t, someone else will.

We need to surround ourselves with positive people – men and women who will challenge and push us every day of our lives. We need to face the fear that stops us from achieving everything we are capable of and acknowledge that the biggest deterrent to reaching our full potential is often ourselves.

Girls ..Go for It!

Note: Deirdre wrote this piece for the Lean In website, which was started by Sheryl  Sandberg, COO of Facebook who wrote a book called Lean In.

Deirdre Waldron is a partner of Fuzion

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

Rewarding Loyalty

We love going there, the team know us, the manager knows us, there is always a great atmosphere and it is a real treat that we always look forward to.

The little touches are so important, finding you a good place to sit, recommending a special wine, suggesting a new beer, letting you have a sample on the house, asking your opinion about things they are doing…all in all a great place to eat, drink and relax.

The manager was telling us that they were thinking of introducing a “loyalty card” system to reward the regular customers – For every X number of meals you would get one free as well as some other benefits.

The truth is they don’t need a loyalty card system because they always reward our loyalty with their great service.

Instead of giving me one free meal for every ten we order and processing this through a card system, I’m pretty sure that I prefer being looked after in an informal, discretionary way…not because I have “earned” or qualified for my bonus meal.

Give me a drink on the house, a free dessert, a great seat, a warm welcome …it’s better than any card!

Places that don’t know you, might need a system to encourage repeat business and reward loyalty in an official way ….the great places never need a system!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Twitter Radio

“Twitter is rubbish, there is nothing but people telling me stupid things about what they are up to. What do I care?“

This is pretty much what I hear from typical Twitter sceptics ..

“It’s your own fault” I tell them – they hate that!

“You are the one who chose who to follow and if you don’t like what someone is saying just unfollow them ..“

Just like a radio if you don’t like what is playing then change the channel.

On twitter you can even arrange who you are following into distinct lists (channels) and depending on what you are doing, you may decide to just look at the twitter feed from a specific list. Using the powerful search function you may even create a special channel for people who are tweeting about a specific topic or using a keyword in their tweets.

Twitter..it’s just like a radio except you are the producer and you decide what gets played!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy services 

The Gardener

By the way ..not my garden!

I just knew it ..

When he came in the door with his notebook and pen and carefully took down the details I knew we were in trouble.

The garden was in a state, the grass was up to your kneecaps and it had been totally neglected since the end of last summer.

I reckoned our poor Flymo wasn’t up to the job, so the idea was that we would try to find someone who could come in, give the whole place a once over and leave it in a way that we could look after it ourselves for the rest of the year.

Bear in mind that we have a nice 4 bedroom detached house in a housing estate with very average sized gardens both front and back.

After he left us we saw him pacing the front garden – It looked like he was measuring the area. Not good I thought.

The following day his quote arrived by email – €1,560 !!

Oh my god – I thought it must have been a quote for the whole year but when I read it carefully I realised it was for just the initial tidy up!

If there was ever a moment to spur me into action, this was it ..the next half dry evening the Flymo came out and together we attacked the grass – it took two more evenings and a few hours on the bank holiday Saturday but we cracked it!

We bought weed killer, moss peat, some flowers, a yard brush and spent pretty much the rest of the Saturday at it.

I totally despise gardening and this for me was a real punishment day (and evenings) and there is still plenty more to do. I don’t care enough about the garden to have it perfect and I’m sure our expensive friend would definitely have had it spick and span but to me this was not worth it.

I guess at times we are like the “gardener”.

We do take careful notes, we spend time gathering as much information as we can, we try to fully understand the prospective client’s needs and issues and the challenges they face in their sector.

Armed with this information we go away, we do our own research and we write a Marketing and PR plan for them that will hopefully achieve their objectives. We then prepare a budget to execute the plan as economically as possible.

At times this is fine and everything proceeds but there are times when it is just too much for the prospective client and they must pass – sometimes they decide to cut their own grass!

Their garden will more than likely end up being like mine but sometimes with budgets being so tight that will just have to do.

The important thing is that we all do our best to drive forward and while that can be difficult with limited resources at least ..keep driving forward.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

What kind of cheese would you like?

If you are looking to buy cheese, not any cheese, but a rich, salty, tangy, creamy cheese, full of dark taste and craft, of pleasure and savour – where would you go to purchase such a food?

Would you stop and ask Sean behind Iago’s glass counter (a cheese monger located in the English Market in Cork city) about the vintage of the cheese, of the grass-fed nature of the cows? Would you ask for a sliver to taste? Would you consider how you would eat it if you bought it?

Or would you ask the random person behind the countless chocolate bars and in front of the naggins of vodka, cough sweets and parking disks in a convenience store about whether the cheddar manufacturer’s pasteurise their milk or leave it raw?

Well there are plenty of convenience stores around that sell like-for-like blocks of mediocre quality cheeses, with indefinite sell by dates and fantastic “Buy One Get One Free” offers that will taste, well, like cheese on a midweek plate of pasta, but ultimately deliver an unmemorable topping to an unmemorable meal.

I remember the first time I tried an incredible sheep’s cheese from Tipperary called Crozier, eating most of it in the car on the way home and vouching to buy double the quantity the next time as so to avoid the no-Crozier-left crisis that followed the car journey home.

And I remember the sting on my lips from Gabriel cheese, made by Bill and Sean in West Cork. I remember the conversation regarding the most oozing, perfectly ripe brie, as it almost poured as it was cut and how a certain someone (Hello Nuala!) would utterly enjoy such a cheese.

As a result I have become a wiser person – one better equipped to eat & talk (or write) about cheese, from dealing with Sean in Iago’s, over the past decade and a half.  I don’t know the name of a single person working in my local convenience store, and nor have I ever asked them for advice about their cheese offerings.

So you see, we go to experts, to savour, to experience, to enjoy and mostly to learn and benefit from them. We trust them that they know what they do is right, for them and for us. We go because when we ask they listen, and when they tell we learn.

And that’s why clients come to see and work with us. We have put long hours into developing and fine-tuning our crafts, and that our expert (we’ve been doing this stuff for a while!) opinions will enhance your brand, products and services in a professional fashion. Our opinions are worth listening to.

Trust us to guard what you have worked so hard to create and achieve.

What kind of cheese would you like?

Jonathan Leahy Maharaj is the Creative Director with Fuzion 

Fuzion offer a full range of graphic design services from our offices in Cork and Dublin

Are you leaving breadcrumbs?

“You are doing a lot of work in Dublin these days” she said to me.

“We are, but how did you know that?” I asked

“Oh ..I figured that out from your Facebook posts” she said

That conversation was about five years ago and it was at an event for a client in Dublin – for me it was what I call my “penny drop” moment about social media. At that time I was using Facebook, just like everyone else posting the odd thing about what I was doing and where I was going. In fact, I think I wasn’t that sure what I should have been posting and even how relevant social media might be for business.

It dawned on me that with every post you make people are watching, digesting and forming impressions about you and what you are all about. Often they won’t comment, reply or even “like” your posts, but they are listening and soaking up what you are saying.

From that moment I realised the power of social media and the importance of having a clear idea about what picture of you and your business you want to portray.

Every status update, every tweet, every retweet, every like, every share, every favourite, every discussion, every hashtag and every blog post are all little breadcrumbs that you leave to bring the reader to a place you wanted to take them.

Are you leaving breadcrumbs?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy in Ireland.

Thank crunchy it’s Friday?

Friday afternoon and I was in the middle of a social media training session with the team from one of our clients operating in the professional services sector.

One of the directors was in the “hot seat” sitting at the controls of his LinkedIn account, which like most people with a profile he never uses.

He never posts, he never interacts but he does press the “accept” button with some of the connection requests he receives.

I encouraged him to post a status update ..”Go on, be yourself and post something“.

He surprised everyone by posting “Thank crunchy it’s Friday” ..

I asked the group what did they think ..two of his colleagues thought it wasn’t quite in keeping with their business and profession, another said he misspelt the word crunchy and some of the others thought it was a good thing to post..after all they explained it was Friday and that’s what most people at work would be feeling.

My own advice and my own experience would have me agreeing with the guys who felt “thank crunchy it’s Friday” was a good thing to post.

It’s really important that you are true to yourself, that you post something that connects with people, that you allow people to see the lighter side of your personality and that you don’t try to post something “heavy” on a Friday afternoon …the most important thing is that you make some noise and start posting on a regular basis so that you and your business will register on people’s radar.

Thank crunchy it’s Friday …what do you think?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer in-house social media training and consultancy services in Ireland 

Trust me, I’m a Journalist!

“Trust me, I’m a journalist!”

Well, I used to be, not so long ago, until I made the not-so-giant leap to the “dark side”.

With one swift sidestep I moved from a deadline-driven, fast-paced environment of harangued editors desperately trying to feed the beast against a backdrop of plunging revenue, head-spinning advancements in technology and a crashing economy into.. well a deadline-driven, fast-paced environment and the rest…

It is a different world, there is no doubt about that, but it is also a very similar beast.

It was once very much frowned upon for a journalist to move into PR. It was considered a sell-out, an easy option. The few who did felt ridiculed and sniggered at.

But over the past number of years there has been a discernible influx of some top class journalists into PR.

So, why is this?

Of course, the newspaper industry is in serious peril, the concept of a full-time job in print now seems prehistoric and sadly every other day you hear about more journalists out of work.

But, is this the only driver behind this sudden transition?

It could be down to the fact that PR itself is no longer considered a dirty word.

In these challenging times of increasingly straitened resources but ever increasing demands, journalists are under more pressure than ever. These days a call from a PR professional with a worthwhile story, far from being considered an unwelcome interruption can actually provide a welcome lifeline.

As a reporter my job was to find interesting and relevant stories which would pique the interest of the most mercurial of newspaper editors and deliver day-in day-out, which is pretty much my current job description.

I made the move to PR two months ago and I haven’t looked back since, partly because I am too busy to do so, but mostly because it is a fun, challenging  job with opportunity and longevity.

It was essential to me to go somewhere, which shared my values and where I would be able to put my skill sets to the best use – Fuzion fit the bill.

I won’t lie, possessing a well-honed, journalistic instinct is a huge advantage – the ability to cast a trained eye through a press release littered with trivia and find the news angle and then sell it to your trusted former colleagues and friends is critical.

The difficult part is trying to convince your clients that the angle they believe to be the most relevant sometimes belongs at the bottom of the release or possibly in the trash!

But I just take a deep breath and tell them “Trust me, I’m a journalist” and thankfully, for the most part, they do..

Edel O’Connell is a Senior Account Manager with Fuzion PR working from the Dublin office.

Fuzion are a PR firm in Ireland with offices in Dublin and Cork

Learning to Crash Land

We were passing some time in New York (we were there for the christening of my brother’s daughter) on a bitterly cold January 15th, 2009 so we found ourselves in the cinema.

We came down the escalators after the movie finished to hear loud sirens and watched as police cars, ambulances and fire brigades sped by in quick succession.

We grabbed a cab to Penn Station and the female taxi driver agreed to take us once we weren’t going in the direction of the Hudson – a plane had just crashed in the river. Her mum called on her mobile and warned her to quickly get out of Manhattan.

By the end of the short cab ride the incident was clarified on the radio – it wasn’t a terrorist attack. It was a freak accident caused by a flock of Canadian Geese and the Captain, Chesley Sullerberger, a former Air Force pilot managed to land the plane safely on the water with all 155 passengers very shook but all in one piece.

Thank god ..

Two days later we touched down at Shannon Airport and grabbed a newspaper to catch up on news since we had been away. Right on the front page we read about one of our clients, a hotel in Kerry that had gone into liquidation – not only did they owe us quite an amount of money but it was obviously the loss of a client.

What were we facing this year?

Over a period of the next few weeks we lost a few really good clients as the wheels came off the economy and budgets were being slashed by everyone – we had just moved into offices only a few months previous and it felt like our plane was plummeting!

Of course we panicked, of course we were worried but we dug in just like we always do. We had a great team and we needed to have faith in ourselves and in our ability.

I remembered clearly one of the lessons of Napoleon Hill in his book published in 1937 “Think and Grow Rich” – Have faith and believe that you will succeed ..he spoke about something that he called “The Secret“.

We have always adopted a positive philosophy, which has served us well – Two months later we won our biggest account, we picked up a few other accounts and later that year we started running training courses – it was an incredibly tough year including some other large bad debts but somehow we managed to bring our plane in without losing any of our passengers!

Since then business has continued to be challenging with plenty of turbulence but thankfully we continue to have faith and we always seem to survive, grow and thrive.

One of these days it will get easier ..won’t it?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm with offices in Dublin and Cork.

No breakfast before 9 on Achill Island !

Ten past eight and I’m still lying in the hotel bed in Achill Island contemplating the day ahead.

My alarm went off over two hours ago – Yep, 6am is the first alarm setting and I have a second one set for 6:15, which is when I normally get up. The very odd time I might allow myself the luxury of another 15 minutes and then get up ..busy, busy!

That’s just the way it is these days – Monday to Friday I work my socks off , including most evenings and there is always some work to be done at the weekend. The joys of self employment!

Ten past eight ..I’m not here on holidays, I’m on Achill Island to deliver three days of social media training to the local business people, most of whom are involved in the tourism sector.

I have loads to do but the wifi only works in the reception area and my modem doesn’t have sufficient coverage to get any work done.

Breakfast isn’t served in the hotel until 9am – I’m not kidding!

There is plenty of time to do everything including taking in the most spectacular scenery you have ever seen in your whole life.

The sign at reception used say breakfast is served between 8:30 and 10 am but this was changed with a temporary sign changing the 8:30 till 9am. Yesterday morning I thought I would pop down and just grab some cereal but the dining area was all locked up – nothing for it but back to bed.

I give the course at the local IT centre from 10am – things don’t start too early around here.

Today is my last day and I’m starting to get to know some of the group quite well. The group is made up of born and bred locals, Julien the kite surfer (Pure Magic)from France, Ute from Germany, Padraig who jumped out of the rat race in Dublin and a bunch of other immigrants from all over Ireland.

During one of our numerous tea breaks (with gorgeous homemade scones) one of the immigrants explains to me how the place “gets a hold of you” and you just don’t want to leave.

Besides being very relaxed and friendly it helps when the suggestion of a visit to Lynotts pub (the greatest little pub ever) is accepted warmly.

I was expecting one or two to turn up for a pint but a good few came with their friends – the guitar was produced and we had songs in English and French ..well done Julien and Liam.

Dee is just after coming over to me as I am typing this “You’d get used to the pace of life here”.

I tend to agree ..

What can I say …come to Achill Island!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork