When are politicians going to learn when to shut up!

I am not a great fan of ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, so I was not too disappointed when the government announced a cut back in its funding.  My problems with ACOA is that it is excessively partisan, blind to outside help and staffed with people who can count money but can't account for it.

There is no doubt that ACOA, some of the folks anyway, can and have been a help to entrepreneurs in getting their businesses off the drawing board.  A case in point is the Ocean Nutrition Canada plant in Mulgrave, Nova Scotia, which produces high quality fish oil products which are exported across the world.  It is also true that ACOA has had some major disasters!

All that aside, let's explore how the federal Minister responsible for ACOA handles the cut back.

"A careful reading of [ACOA's] annual reports will give people a fair idea of what they do, which I don't dismiss as useless, but what I question is the bang for the buck of taxpayers' dollars."

So far, so good.  Minister Valcourt makes a valid point and justifies his decision.  So why didn't he then shut up?  As is the habit of so many holier-than-thou politicians, he just couldn't stop from making a jab in the groin.  And that jab blew the crux of his argument.

Valcourt continued, "I have yet to meet an entrepreneur or business who tells me that the reason for their start up or expansion or trading around the world is because what a regional economic development agency did. Quite to the contrary, it's fully attributable to the entrepreneurial spirit of the individual and the company and the federal or provincial programs in place."

So much for his previous statement "...I don't dismiss [ACOA] as useless...!  If a regional development agency's help is never the reason for business success, then don't just give the agencies a hair cut, chop them up and spit them out.  And that includes the agencies in western Canada, Ontario , Quebec and the Maritimes.


 

Gas prices... The Big Lie

Over the past couple of weeks the price of oil has gone down and the price of gas at the pumps has gone up.  Why?

The biggest lie told about gas prices are set based on supply and demand.

That's bullshit.

In that scenario, the increase in gas prices should be caused by a reduction in supply or an increase in demand.  But that is not the state of the matter today.,  In fact, Canadian Press, just today, led with the headline -

 

Imperial Oil eyes sale of N.S. refinery or converting it to a terminal.

A quick read of the article tells the tale... "Imperial Oil Ltd. is eyeing the sale of its refinery in Halifax, citing global competition and lower demand for gasoline- particularly in Europe."

But let's not be sidetracked by the Europe reference, the refinery also supplies eastern Canada, where demand is also down.

So the next bastard that has the balls to tell you that supply and demand determines gas prices, poke him/her right between the eyes.

 

Share-of-Wallet analytics

I have been doing some thinking recently about the past bunch of years that I have spent in sales and marketing.  One basic truth keeps coming to mind.

It is cheaper and much more efficient to get new business from an existing client...

than it is to find a new client.

Little did I know that the Higher-Ups of this world have come up with a term for that truth.  They call it Share-of-Wallet Analytics or SOW.  Forte Consultancy describes SOW as follows:

"The percentage of a customer’s spend that is with a given company over a given amount of time. For a gas retailer, for example, it’s the number of times a given customer fills up their car’s gas tank one month at their own pumps divided by the total number of times the same customer fills up their car’s gas tank that entire month. So a customer who fills up his or her car’s gas tank four times a month with three of those fills at one gas retailer is giving that gas retailer 75% share of their wallet."

It's fancy words but it means the same thing.  Who knew I was ahead of the curve?

F35... an example for ALL politicians

If politicians are smart, and the jury is out on that, they will study the whole F35 debacle and learn a few lessons from it.  And I am not just talking about the Harper government but all politicians, be they national, local, municipal governments or school boards.

The fundamental lesson for offenders?  All things will come out, so don't fudge the truth or hide the facts!  And when you are uncovered, be up front rather that digging a larger hole

The fundamental lesson for accusers?  Don't gloat if you are proved correct... acknowledge the truth and move on.  The time to gloat is the next election.