We recently connected with Marty O’Neill and have shared our conversation below.

Marty , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

When I was around 21 and still living at home with my parents, I started seeing premium phone lines being advertised on tv and newspapers. They were everywhere. It was new and different. This was back in the days before the internet. I decided to look more into it. In the small print below the adverts were the service providers details so I rang them and asked to speak to the boss of the telecom company. It was a guy called Mark. We hit it off very quickly. I told him I had a savings from my part time bar job that I wanted to invest into something and within a few days he had set me up 100 phone lines to run my very own adult sex chat line business. I had no idea what I was doing but decided to invest my small savings pot of a thousand pounds into advertising these numbers to drive calls and revenue my way. Advertising in top shelf Adult magazines was the way to go I thought. They circulated for months being passed around friends so I thought that £50 adverts in readers wives and 40 plus back in the late 90’s might be a winner. I was right. It worked. The calls came flooding in and at a pound a minute I was quickly making money. What I hadn’t banked on was copies or proofs of each adult magazine that I was advertising in started arriving to my parents house in their droves. Being brought up in an Irish catholic family I wasn’t sure how I’d explain this to mum or even hide the growing mountain of porn magazines that were being hid in my bedroom. My friends were delighted however with their free and seemingly neverending supply of adult content direct to their homes. My mums face was priceless when I told her. All she took onboard was the adult entertainment industry bit and everything was about sex. She quickly changed her tune though when I showed her my first pay cheque.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got into social media through friends. Accidentally I suppose. I’ve always enjoyed a love of travel and good food and on a night out with them back in the day they were taking the Mickey about me constantly posting things on my Facebook page about the nice meals, city breaks and my travels and someone suggested driving all this content on to it’s own platform. At this stage I had only set up a friends reunited page and then my own Facebook profile. I hadn’t a clue but if you don’t try these things you’ll never know, right? I liked the idea. A drunken brainstorming evening commenced and names were thrown around. Play on words and puns. The name Dish You Were Here was mentioned and over cheap wine and Room temperature flat gin and tonics DYWH was born.

I was lucky because back then ( 13-14 years ago, things weren’t like today. It was new, it was fresh. It wasn’t understood by many brands and companies and a well worded email offering help from me opened a lot of doors back then. Everyone today now reaches out and expects doors to open because you’re a content creator, or a blagger / blogger. ) The arrogance today and the sense of entitlement is shocking. I stick to my original principles because I worked with our small family business and still do. Business is tough. If you can help a small local company to get the word out why wouldn’t you? I see it from both sides. You can tell a blagger from a blogger a mile away. The key is to be genuine. Be ruthless and demanding and you’ll get nowhere. My dad’s mantra when he was alive was that it’s nice to be nice, and he was right.

I’ve always loved hospitality and being hospitable and from that I’ve also grown a successful air bnb business here in Northern Ireland. I live on the water in a beautiful part of the Emerald Isle. The location lends itself perfect to holidays, staycations and hosting international tourists. I love nothing more than selling everything home grown to the bigger markets and the air BnB businesses has allowed me to do this. Ask me where to dine tonight and I’ll wax lyrical for half an hour if you’ll let me.

In more recent years I’ve been writing a monthly food and travel feature for the long standing Ireland Homes Interiors & Living magazine. How that came about? I called the editor and told her I had a dream that I was writing for you ( which I genuinely did ) and told them that I’m a good fit for what you offer – Mags the editor agreed and I started my own pages in said magazine the following month. Lucky? Maybe.

My style of writing and content is very much off the cuff. I don’t think too much and don’t sweat over it either. A lot of my content and magazine features I tend to write at 3am in the dark when I waken with an idea. Or on a flight coming home from a trip after a couple of cheeky bloody Mary’s. It’s 6am now and there’s not a Bloody Mary in sight for the record. Never force it. I find the feature you write when it’s flowing is quite often your best work.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

Never underestimate the power of you. Get your face out there. Learn to love what you see looking back at you in the mirror. In the camera. On the screen. I noticed quickly back in the early days that engagement spiked when you put yourself in front of camera. Your brand will always be more relatable when there’s a smiling happy face representing it. Hey, don’t get me wrong, we all have our off days and you don’t need to be face first every day but just remind your followers and customers now and again that there’s a friendly face behind the brand. We all love a nice picture or a well put together video, but you’ll always relate more to someone talking to you about the topic of conversation or attached media rather than a photo and some generic text.

Also never underestimate the power
( and manners ) of replying to anyone and everyone who takes the time to reach out to you. Whether it’s a simple smiley face or a thank you. We all know how it feels when your message or text is left unread or worse still, read and ignored. It’s nice to be nice.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I was stupid with money when I was younger. I think most of us were. Store cards to buy a new shirt for a night out that took 6 months to pay back on minimum payment with a crazy 80% apr. Madness looking back. But we all did it back in the day.

I left school and started in the family business with my dad when I was 16, but also took part time jobs to fund my social life, get the car I wanted or the latest sound system. It was also the second job that helped to fund my first venture – the adult chat lines – the venture that got me my first sports car six months later and then sold it a year later to fund other projects I dreamed up. One of them being an online dating website that never took off, but that’s a story for another time.

Dad was in the British army for years before him and mum got married so he always drove home the mentality of a strong work ethic. You were not allowed time off when you worked for dad. The army drill the only way he knew was put on to me. He wouldn’t speak to you for a day or two if you took time off. I still feel guilt today if I take a half day and know the business is open and the team are running it without me. I hate that.

He was right though. No one is going to hand you success. Always believe in yourself and always reinvest in yourself. Everything you touch isn’t going to turn to gold but you mustn’t stop trying to do it. Don’t take it all and spend it as you make it. Put money back. Reinvent and reinvest.

Now approaching 50 I realise the mistakes I made but learned from them too. Would I change a thing? Probably one or two for sure but I’ve no regrets.

Contact Info:

• Website: Don’t have a website
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dishyouwerehere?igsh=eW1pYzZjYnVrbXZ1
• Facebook: Dish You Were Here
• Other: Tik tok – Dish You Were Here

Image Credits

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