On Nov 25, 3:23 pm, Brian Henderson
wrote:
On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:34:47 GMT, Ralph wrote:
Have to agree with you Mac. Remember when "J.A.Pan & Co." meant junk or
popcorn toys (must be dating myself there). Their first cars into North
America were a joke, but they did their homework and now they are
forerunners in industry. It seems that China may be following the same
route.

Precisely. They succeed because they want to succeed, they're hungry
for success. You get a lot of American companies who think that
because they bother to open their doors in the morning, they deserve
success and the world will beat a path to their door because they're
Americans.

Ain't so.

There's a word for that: Arrogance.
I dealt with a product 20+ years ago. The producers of that product
'Corp X' didn't think I was important enough to be dealt with on the
same basis as their 'bigger' accounts. I didn't get the price-breaks,
I had to pay for freight, while their 'bigger' accounts were getting
wined and dined. That was all to be expected....up to a point.
Then, when the 'off-shore' boys got into the game, and even one Texas
company, I was treated like I was going to be a player in my
territory. They helped me with samples, gave me price breaks on
quantity orders..IOW.. they did all the things that the other company
simply didn't have time for.

I wasn't the only fabricator who got sick and tired of feeling like I
was 'bothering' them when I placed an order with CorpX.

All of a sudden, CorpX headquarters realised that sales were dropping
all over the place. They lost massive market share. They tried
everything. Intimidation, bullying, starting rumours, lying about the
quality of their competitors...and it just made me and my fellow
fabricators more and more resolved to beat the big guys who danced to
Corp X's fiddle.
Guess what?
"We have a whole new attitude" (After a few of the big guys went belly
up because of the onslaught of eStone etc)
Now they are all over us, giving us stuff, trying to get back the 80%
of the market share they lost.
Now, they are arrogant in a different way. They think we don't see
through their schemes. They think we're stupid.

Now, if a woman cheats on you...will you ever trust her again? Or will
you save the nice presents for your mistress?

....waitasec... that didn't come out right...but I had already hit the
'send' button...