Peter Brawley
peter.brawley at earthlink.net
Wed Dec 4 13:42:06 CST 2013
On 2013-12-04 11:15 AM, Rocky Smolin wrote: > Arthur: > > Here's my observations about Canada vs. the U.S. when you're trying to do > business: > > All the time I was marketing my software in Canada I sold only one system > there in spite of many leads and much conversation. I found that Canadians > will study the smallest decision to death and in the end decide not to make > a decision. They seem very bureaucratic - and very unwilling to take risks, > even small ones. > > Whereas, the typical American company will tend to fit the resources needed > to make a decision to the size of the product or service being considered, > make a decision and get on with the job. > > Cultural difference I assume, mediated I think by the more Socialist > orientation of Canada's political culture - which tends to dissociate one's > activities from the efficiency or profitability of those activities and > evaluate them more along the lines of whether or not they have satisfied > some standard operating procedure. Why the capital-S in 'socialist'? Over the 25 years or so that Arthur & I have been selling software tools & books, Canadian sales have always been way less than the 9% of US sales you'd expect simply from the 10-1 population ratio. That's been so whether sales were based in Canada or in the US. Canadian sales of our current book have been just 3% of the US total. Ditto for free, open source downloads. Why would being a bit more socialist, cautious, communitarian, cooperative, traditional & loyalist than USAmericans discourage Canadians from downloading free software? Why would being a bit more socialist, communitarian, cooperative, traditional & loyalist than USAmericans discourage Canadians from buying books? On the whole, Canadians read more than USAmericans, not less. Your explanation for your Canadian sales failures doesn't hold water. Here's a plausible alternative: your sales pitch didn't persuade quite well enough, but rather than just shut you out, your polite Canadian interlocutors thought to give you another chance. > > My product cost in the neighborhood of $3500 and after two conversations > with a Canadian company I usually took them off my follow-up list. And > never completed the RFPs they would send with 5 pages of questions obviously > crafted by a mainframe systems analyst, 80% of which was irrelevant to my > product. Because I knew that the evaluators were more interested in > satisfying their superiors that they had done a thorough job than actually > finding a product that would solve their problem. > > My conclusion is that Canada has oil, coal, timber, and other natural > resources which support its people at a level of affluence that allows them > the luxury of this mindset. > > Generalizations, I know, More like non sequiturs. PB ----- > but based on 30 years of trying to conclude any > transaction with a Canadian company. Perhaps you are running into the same > thing. > > Rocky > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller > Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 8:22 AM > To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues > Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posing > thequestion. > > Jim, > > I can only speak from personal experience, and that is not much evidence. > But something strange has happened to me in the past year. A bit of > back-story first. I am 66 years old and have previously declared myself > semi-retired. I love in Canada. My last three contracts have all been with > firms in the USA. Granted that the USA comprises about 90% of the > continental economy, this is hardly a position on which to bet. But the > point I am trying to make here is that I have way better luck with obtaining > contracts with American firms than Canadian. I cannot explain why that is. > One of the last three derive from a book I wrote about MySQL. The other two > happened because of my involvement in AccessD and DbaSQL. > > You should understand that this is not a complaint.I just find it > interesting that Americans are interested in hiring me but Canadians are > not. I have no idea why this is the case. > > > On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 10:55 PM, Hans-Christian Andersen < > hans.andersen at phulse.com> wrote: > >> From a radio show I was listening to, I think they said that Norways >> government has a policy of selling all the natural gas and oil and >> putting all the profits into social system and also into a nice big >> fat bank account, so that they can use the money wisely in the future. >> They didn't want to suffer the "Resource curse" that many countries >> seem to suffer when they suddenly strike rich. >> >> Wikipedia has a good article about it: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse >> >> - Hans >> >> >> On Dec 3, 2013, at 7:00 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote: >> >>> It is interesting to note that Norway, a country who actually >>> products >> and subsequently sells oil has the highest car fuel prices while Saudi >> Arabia has the lowest? >>> Jim >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Hans-Christian Andersen" <hans.andersen at phulse.com> >>> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" < >> dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com> >>> Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2013 2:32:36 PM >>> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posing >> the question. >>> I'm only surprised Denmark wasn't among the top 3 most expensive >> countries. >>> We're number 5! We're number 5! (or 6, if you buy Diesel) >>> >>> - Hans >>> >>> >>> On Dec 3, 2013, at 1:59 PM, Jon Tydda <jon at tydda.plus.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Well I'm stunned. You've managed to find somewhere that petrol is >>>> more expensive than the UK! >>>> >>>> I found this site: http://www.fuel-prices-europe.info/ which has >>>> some >> nice >>>> comparisons in Euros and the local currency... so I'm paying about >> double >>>> what people in the US are paying. >>>> >>>> >>>> Jon >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com >>>> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of >> Salakhetdinov >>>> Shamil >>>> Sent: 02 December 2013 22:21 >>>> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues >>>> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Way OT but I love you people so I'm posing >>>> the question. >>>> >>>> Hi Jim -- >>>> >>>> I have been in the the East-South Italy Salento region this summer >>>> - I >> can't >>>> say prices somehow differ (/are lower than) from Paris or Amsterdam >>>> or >> Ghent >>>> or Brussels, where I have been last year November. And gasoline is >>>> very expensive - 1.7x EURO in Italy ( http://www.energy.eu/ ) ), >>>> even here >> in >>>> Russia it's now "just" ~1USD+/liter. Well, ordinary everyday good >>>> wine >> costs >>>> in Italy are low (up to 3EURO per 0.7l bottle) as well as prices >>>> for >> some >>>> Italian local fruits and vegetables but that's it AFAIHF. >>>> >>>> Thank you. >>>> >>>> -- Shamil >>>> >>>> >>>> Monday, December 2, 2013 12:25 PM -07:00 from Jim Lawrence >>>> <accessd at shaw.ca>: >>>>> Italy would definitely be a good place to go...considering >>>>> Italians >> have >>>> been running things for around 3000 years, first the Roman Empire >>>> and >> then >>>> the Roman Catholic church...so they have hordes of culture from >> everywhere. >>>> Then there is a bit of a recession going on in the country so the >>>> prices might also be excellent. >>>>> ...And anyone that can build the Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini >>>>> to >> name >>>> a few... >>>>> Jim >>>> <<< skipped >>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> dba-Tech mailing list >>>> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >>>> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >>>> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> dba-Tech mailing list >>>> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >>>> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >>>> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> dba-Tech mailing list >>> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >>> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >>> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> dba-Tech mailing list >>> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >>> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >>> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >> _______________________________________________ >> dba-Tech mailing list >> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >> > > > -- > Arthur > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >