People with skills in networking – and there are many in Mayo – are being offered a prime opportunity this week to connect local business contacts operating abroad with a new IDA appointed job-creation subsidiary here at home – and potentially earn thousands of euros in the process.
When the initiative was formally outlined at a meeting of Mayo County Council on Monday last by a representative from the company Connect Ireland, it is fair to say that the reaction of some councillors was somewhat cynical, with calls for all that is wrong in Mayo to be fixed first before reaching out to philanthropic members of the Irish diaspora abroad.
Thankfully, the situation was saved by North Mayo councillor, Gerry Coyle, who, on behalf of the good people of Erris and the county as a whole, called on his colleagues to get a grip and desist from the nay-saying. Cllr Coyle at least could recognise the win-win promise waiting to be realised here; the gigantic 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' invitation that has now been extended to the people of Mayo.
In the process of outlining how the match-making system works, The Connect Ireland Business Development Manager, Alan Gallagher, declared that at the push of a few buttons, people in Mayo stand to make one thousand five hundred euro per single indigenous job created from personal contacts operating businesses abroad. He also stated that while every new IDA sourced job costs €28,000 to create, under the Connect Ireland programme launched nationwide in recent weeks and now set to be rolled out on a county by county basis, each job will cost just €4,000 to create – €1,500 of which will go to the ‘connector’, with the expanding companies paying for their own set-up, accommodation and operation costs.
It is crucial that this innovative proposal is not treated flippantly but is recognised for the amazing opportunity it presents to Irish people to use their inate networking skills. Networking has never been stronger or more strategic in Ireland since the arrival of the recession, with business people connecting through structured get-togethers, breakfast meetings, group training courses and information events on an ongoing basis.
Anyone who has participated in such network groups with a view to growing their own business, will have learned that the best selling point for any business is the person who runs it. Once you know and like someone who in turn knows someone they know and like – connecting these two parties can sometimes generate unlimited potential.
Anyone considering excluding themselves from such networking practices on the basis, perhaps, of not knowing a local person successfully running a business abroad, would be well advised to think again. Networking is not about focusing on the top guy or gal in an effort to win the biggest contract of the day. Networking is about knowing any one person within an organisation, at any level, who just happens to have the ear of the top people purely by virtue of being liked by them.
For Irish people abroad, such instances are a common affair. One of the many things the Irish are famous for is their natural flair in wangling their way into some of the most powerful circles in the world of business, simply as a consequence of their popularity.
In the last few years we have lost hundreds of thousands of our own – sons and daughters, mums and dads, all who have flown our shores in order to earn a good living in foreign climes.
Next time you are chatting/texting/Skyping/Tweeting/Facebooking or otherwise connecting with loved ones/friends/family in such far flung places, you could mention the Connect Ireland initiative in passing. Who knows what might come of it.
