Posts Tagged ‘Sean Gallagher’
Sean Gallagher for the Park
So my great friend, Sean Gallagher, is hoping to run for the Park in November’s Presidential election. The news that he is entering the race appeared in Sunday’s papers. Late on Saturday night I had received a courtesy text from Sean telling me there would probably be something in the papers the next day about his candidacy as an Independent.
Ever the gentleman, Sean was giving his close friends a heads up. Since then I have been amazed at the number of people who said to me he would make a great candidate. I don’t mean to sound surprised but when you know someone so well, after all, we have shared a dressing room on the Dragons’ Den set for three years, it is more difficult to think of him as possibly, “His Excellency, Sean Gallagher, Uachtaran na hEireann”.
However, at a time when employment prospects are dismal, it would be fantastic to have a person in the Aras who understood the importance of people creating a job for themselves rather hoping to be offered one. Separate from our current economic woes, the days of lifelong employment in a firm, ending at age 65 with a pension and a gold watch, are over. Those entering the job market today have to possess a knowledge, skill, service or product they can sell to companies. That’s how many people will earn their living in the future. We have entered the age of the sub contractor and perhaps the only prospect of earning decent, dependable money will be to become self-employed. This is a seismic change in our job structures and requires someone who fully understands and appreciates the challenges facing the self employed and the small and medium sized business operator. For that alone Sean is worthy of serious consideration.
The fact that he also has championed so many, what I will call, disability causes, would also be a benefit to the entire voluntary sector that does such Trojan work throughout Ireland. When people see Sean on the TV they see him as a relaxed, jovial, warm man but they don’t realise the daily struggle Sean has with his greatly impaired vision. Something he has suffered from childhood. In the Den I have to constantly tell Sean what is on the large display board in front of us on the easel. Of course this is always edited out of the programme. He can’t see big letters on a board from fifteen feet. A combination of his ever worsening impaired vision and the bright studio lights leave him blinded. But Sean never complains. He is one of the most positive, uplifting people I have ever met.
He faces a difficult challenge to win an Independent nomination for the Presidency but Sean has a long track record of overcoming challenges. With his energy and self belief he has every chance of succeeding.
The Entrepreneur Show
What a weekend, last Friday and Saturday and the Entrepreneur show. As a first time event it was a real success and congratulations to entrepreneur, Darren O’Toole who created and executed the show.
The exhibitors I spoke to were all quite pleased with the show but I thought there were far too many talks going on. It has to decide for the future is it a conference or an exhibition?
Too Many Talks
For those of you who didn’t get to the show it was in the main Hall 8 of Simmonscourt, so it was a very large exhibition space, larger than the Ideal Homes the previous weekend. On top of that you had four very large arenas for speakers like myself and my fellow Dragons and some Dragons from the BBC.
Why four arenas? It meant the crowd was being divided by five all the time, i.e. the four arenas and the exhibition hall. It would have been so much better to have just one arena or theatre with half hour talks. But as in business you have got to start somewhere and this was a brilliant start. I look forward to Darren and his team doing it next year.
New Ideas
At the show, everywhere I went, people came up to me with business ideas. I was only too delighted to stop and chat. We have enjoyed a great season of Dragons’ Den on TV and the Irish public have been so supportive so I, and my fellow Dragons, were keen to give a little back. I actually did see a few ideas with real potential. A anti burglar device for sliding patio doors, a gift wrap alternative and a new twist on a scissors.
But coming up with a prototype for a good idea is so long away from an actual successful product. Through the Dragons’ Den people have seen that I am a marketing person who can take a product from an idea to mass market and fast. Becuase it is on TV I actually pay to do that. I invest in the company.
But I assure you the real investment is my time. To bring the Toilet Pipe Cover, the HidBin or TanOrganic to mass market success requires a huge time commitment.
I am very fortunate that the very large Corporations will pay large fees to retain me to advise them on their strategy and launch of new products or brand extensions. But this leaves me with hardly anytime to look at ideas other than those I have invested in on Dragons’ Den.
The Cost of Going to Market
What I am saying is if somebody came up to me with a brilliant idea I can tell you to get it to a ploace where people are aware of it and are looking to buy it in a shop takes at least €250,000 on marketing. And with marketing you need the very best advisors so as little of that spend is wasted.
Look what I am saying is, a good idea is only the very start. Imagine where TanOrganic would be now if Noelle O’Connor had not been brave enough to go on Dragons’ Den. I still believe Noelle is such a trooper that she would have got the product to market but it wouldn’t be the household name it is going to be by the end of 2010.
All the creativity that goes into inventing something is fantastic but you need to spend more time thinking about how are we going to get people to buy this product?
It all begins and ends with Marketing and Sales.
Finally – Best Speakers
Doug Richards who resigned from the BBC version of Dragons’ Den after two seasons to go off and manage one of the world’s big venture capital funds was at the show and was a great contributer. He is an expert in Technology but was alos great fun.
The speaker that impressed me most was Ian McDonald of weedle. Ian was one of the team behind Perlico and he has taken the money he made from its sale to Vodafone to now have a go at a skills version of Linkedin.
I didn’t get to hear it myself as I was speaking in the various arenas all day but Rachel Elnaugh’s talk was considered by many to very inspiring.
Keep it touch with my blog, next Blog Friday.
The Final Curtain
I was so disappointed tonight. I think it is the first time I have been caught on camera looking really annoyed. I made a hash of it. I loved Grab Radio but said I was out. But I was deploying an unusual tactic. If you are out but another Dragon makes an offer and it is not accepted and a negotiation starts you can come back in. It has not been used as a tactic in the Irish Den but it is used in the Dens in both Canada and New Zealand quite a bit. Aonghos O’ nEocha grabbed the offer and I was blown out. Good enough for me. You can be too smart assed for your own good at times and this was one such occasion.
I do hope Susan has stuck with Seka Cosmetics but it needed work.
Now you know my views on golf, but, I was very interested in Cathal Boyle’s Easi Croc. I hate the name, I like the idea however in the end it just didn’t grab me enough.
David & Cathal’s Dabble appeared to have really irritated us. It is the luck of the draw. We start filming at 7am and by 7pm you can be very impatient. Sorry guys.
The Dragons will try anything. Seeing us there in the Nosey Rosie hats, what were we like?
Alan Rudden didnt ever get my interest. I just don’t see a r.o.i. in landscaping.
What a great way to end the series.
Daithí O’Regan was brilliant and he really pressed Sarah about her committment to manufacturing in Ireland. By the way all the women on crew on the set thought he was really handsome. Daithí thanks I still have your presentation hurley at home above our mantlepiece. Good luck to both Sarah and Daithí.
Herbie, Noelle and Mark in the RDS this weekend.
Don’t miss this weekend’s Spring Ideal Homes Show in the RDS, Friday, Saturday & Sunday. My investments, Herbie Porsche and his Toilet Pipe Cover, Noelle O’Connor and TanOrganic and Mark O’Loughlin of HidBin are all there on a big stand so please go along and say hello. Sean Lemass of SDL Exhibitions has been very good to us. He was so keen to have the guys along so Sean a big THANK YOU!.
Alright I am going to sign off.
Next Blog Monday Morning – Bye!
Any Marketing Geniuses out there?
Good morning what a fantastic Monday morning.
If you have just caught up with us recently, I blog twice a week. Thursday nights, 11:15pm, after Dragons’ Den is broadcast and Monday mornings. They are two definite updates but of course as you have seen I will also go in and update from time to time.
Looking for Great Marketing Ideas
There are now thousands of people following this blog. I am flattered especially by so many overseas friends from around the globe. This is a big resource and I want to use it.
So please check out www.TanOrganic.com and www.Hidbin.ie
I want your advice on how we should best market these two products. Gives us your views on both or which ever one takes your fancy.
Let me give you a bit of a steer. For Tanorganic, the 100% natural, organic, anti-aging, healthy, sunless tan-lotion I am looking to really grab the Irish public’s attention when it is launched mid to late May. I am thinking of billboards around the cities of Ireland and a large prize for the most beautiful tanned woman to appear actually live on the billboard and wave at people as they go by. Please don’t involve yourself if you think it is sexist or demeaning of women etc. It is a beauty product aimed at women and also it is a bit of summer fun. If you can’t get your head around that you are wasting your own and our time. Don’t restrict yourself. Let your imagination runawy with itself. Please submit your ideas for this one to info@tanorganic.com Now don’t restrict them to the billboard concept I just want you to know what I am thinking.
Hidbin, as you know is a synthetic screen hedging that neatly hides your ugly wheeliebins. “Making the unsightly unseen.” It costs €99 for a one bin unit and €179 for a two bin unit. Can you think of any guerrilla marketing tactics for this concept. Please send your best ideas to info@hidbin.ie
Our Last Show This Thursday
Thursday’s show is the last in the series and I genuinely believed they have saved the best to last. I am actually going to be out of the country with all the Dragons, well actually Sean can’t make it now. We are going on a late season ski trip to Zermatt. It is all down to Sarah’s great generosity. I am not the facebook type but I will ask Sarah for her permission to report from there and her wonderful chalet, www.chaletgrace.comI am told it is literally out of this world, so Bobby, Niall and myself are really looking forward to a few days ski-ing and crack with the hostess with the mostess.
Great Ideas and a number of Investments
The show on Thursday, and I will be blogging at 11:15pm directly after the show, features some really interesting pitches including an Irish developed, I-Phone App’ and you will also get to see just how bad Sean Gallagher is at hurling. If you are a Dragons’ Den regular and you followed last year’s first series I’d like to know why you think this was even better? I say it is better because the ratings are even higher. During the series the programme had a bigger audience than the main evening 9 o’clock news (Programme 6). That’s a large audience for 10:15pm and the viewers stay right until the end until well after 11pm.
Desperate Housewives twinned with Dragons’ Den
Also we are informed there was a very large number of female viewers. In fact the programme was “diaried” and “twinned”, we are told by the media buyers in the advertising agencies. That means about 125,000 women had two favourite shows per week, that they definitely would NOT miss. Desperate Housewives on Tuesday and Dragons’ Den on Thursday. Sean says he knows why, he claims it is his sex appeal. I argue his most endearing quality is his modesty. But if anything, I believe, it is down to the humour. Niall O’Farrell was just so funny at times this year. For example when he held up the Feel Good energy boost cocoa ball and said “It looks like something you’d find behind the couch,” I cracked up. Bobby can be so brilliant at giving fantastic advice to the point and succinctly and then the next minute he can crack a great joke. And all the audience research tells us women are fascinated by our Sarah. I feel privileged to be in such great talented company.
Eugenia Cooney Producer
Sadly not coming away on our little Dragons’ Den trip, though we did everything to twist their arms, are Larry Bass and Eugenia Cooney. Larry, the Executive Producer, is at the TV festival in Cannes this week. By the way that’s where he bumped into Mark Burnett in a lift in 2004 and that led to him acquiring the rights to both the Apprentice and Dragons’ Den. Both were invented by the genius of Burnett.
But the genius behind our Dragons’ Den is, Producer, Eugenia. She and hubby Ed’ are attending a family wedding this weekend and couldn’t join us. I would have dropped my family to go to Chalet Grace but Eugenia is a good Dundalk woman and they value family not like us south Louth, Drogheda types who eat their young, well that’s what they say about us in Dundalk.
600,000 Viewers
The success of the programme, and the almost 600,000 viewers a week is down to Eugenia who takes it from people applying to come on, vetting them, accepting a fraction to come to studio, recordings for weeks, editing down 120 hours to about 7 hours in total for the full eight shows of the series and she is across every item until the last credits roll this Thursday night.
We have been honoured to work with such a great leader.
I will talk to you on Thursday night.
Bye for now.
Don’t Miss Thursday’s Show
We are having a great series this year. Thank you for all the appreciative emails and comments.
It seems a lot of people feel the show is a real bright light in the dark depression our nation is struggling through at the moment. Dragons’ Den shows every week that are loads of people out there with great ideas willing to make it happen for themselves.
As you know I blog on Monday mornings and Thursday nights immediately after the show but I really would hate regular viewers to miss the show on Thursday night so I want to give you advance notice.
What happens When The Dragons Are Turned Down
We see a Kerry based businesswoman turn down an offer from the Dragons. What happens next is really worth seeing so please, please don’t miss it.
Also on the show, I fell in love with Catherine Doherty from Donegal. catherine came on the show even though she was expecting, looked beautiful and spoke eloquently. Watch out for her on the programme.
There’s also a big business lesson to be learned. Beware of those offering to help you but making you sign over your profits. Watch out for the Pixie Cubes.
Then there is the lady who tells Sean if you don’t like you can…, There’s also an idea that should appeal to boat lovers and there is the lovely Melanie McGuirk who was so passionate about her business.
Finally Ciara Crosson makes one of the better Den Presentations, so good she gets a job offer but will she get an investment? All will be revealed Thursday at 10:15pm on RTE 1.