| Q: |
What are you doing now? |
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We are choosing the 10 finalists for our Ultimate Job in Ireland (and probably the World!) promotional campaign. It’s a difficult task as we have had over 30,000 applications from over 90 countries. |
| Q: |
What’s your typical work day? |
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At the moment I start at 7am, check e-mails for anything urgent that came in overnight and start working my way though my e-mails. I have breakfast and lunch at my desk. I usually have a media interview either about weddings or the Ultimate Job during the morning. I follow up and draft quotes for any wedding enquiries, plan travel itineraries, update our social media. Some days are just tied to the desk others may be interrupted by a meeting with a venue, the registrar or business partners in Dublin. I break for an hour to have dinner with my family and then I usually continue until 8pm -1am as that is when LA and Australia start to wake up and we are doing a lot of media work with them at the moment. |
| Q: |
What’s your favourite aspect of work? |
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I’m the ideas person of the group. I love coming up with new ways of developing our companies and following them through. |
| Q: |
What is your background? |
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I’m a trained journalist (was awarded the International Women in Publishing Award 1996) and spent years in magazine publishing which I loved. I also worked in fundraising management which allowed me to create new ways of raising money and follow through on these concepts, such as hiking 7 canyons in Arizona in 7 days including the Grand Canyon, trekking the Ho Chi Min Trail in Vietnam, publishing ventures and other interesting projects which combined my love of travel, writing and event management. |
| Q: |
What’s the best thing that happened in the last year? |
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We recently signed an ‘exploratory’ contract with a big TV production company in LA to develop a reality TV show around our Ultimate Job idea and we were invited onto Oprah Winfrey Show. So both of those were pretty cool! |
| Q: |
What is your best source of new business/ new members? |
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Facebook is good for followers and if you have the interest of the right people on twitter it can do wonders for viral marketing! |
| Q: |
How do you cope with change? |
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I thrive on it! Whether it is positive or negative I always say ‘that’s another chapter for the book’ – which I will get around to writing one day! For instance, the recent volcanic ash cloud caused a meltdown in international travel – I saw it as a big game of chess, moving people by bus, train, car to where you can get them home. However, that is okay for me to say, as we deal with small numbers of people. I didn’t envy the task of the bigger travel companies. |
| Q: |
How do you communicate with your customers? |
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By e-mail a lot. I find the written word a better way to express myself. |
| Q: |
What does customer service mean to you? |
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It’s everything in business. Personal service gets the booking even if your price is slightly more than your competitors |
| Q: |
How do you use the internet in your business? |
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The website is our business; we don’t have a shop front so to speak. |
| Q: |
Do you manage your work/life balance? |
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At the moment not very well! |
| Q: |
Any low brow vices? Jedward? Coronation Street? McDonalds? |
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Reality TV shows, Facebook and Westcoast Cooler! |
| Q: |
Is business networking, either online and / or offline, of benefit to you? |
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Absolutely as I work a lot on my own I find my weekly BNI great for networking and I’m starting to get better at using LinkedIn. |
| Q: |
Best time management tip? |
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Take the batteries out of your clock. |
| Q: |
Best business accessory? |
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An understanding husband who enjoys cooking and taking care of the kids and house! |
| Q: |
Is there anything that defeats you? |
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Negativity and layers of management. I love the way business operates in the US – it doesn’t matter who you are or who you don’t know, if you have a good idea, decisions are made quickly and all the stops are pulled out to give you the support you need. The amount of hoops you have to jump through here and paperwork you have to complete to get support for an idea is painful and there is always someone trying to find what is ‘wrong’ with what you are doing rather than seeing it for what it is. |
| Q: |
What’s next? |
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I don’t know, and that is what I love about business! I never play the lotto because I am enjoying the challenge too much to making it on my own! I definitely want to progress fulfilling my ambition of being an author. We are going to do an Ultimate Job in the World no. 2 and, if the reality TV show comes off who knows! |
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