Because we’re not a multi-billion dollar company, large enough to “follow the sun” with our collection of international offices in exotic countries, we rely on distributors outside of North America. Quality varies. For example, the Scandinavians are awesome: they have a clue, work hard, and communicate well. Issues escalated are non-trivial and only brought to us after a lot of thought. Business is lucrative for both parties, but we also both work at it.

A distant second on the quality-o-meter is the distributor in Japan. I try to respond to questions promptly, trying to keep to short, non-run-on sentences because there is a language gap. I also avoid using arcane metaphors and movie references in my responses.  He rarely responds. I don’t know whether this is because he doesn’t understand — and I will try to ask – or if he’s being polite. Or, they could be a sophisticated artificial intelligence program for which I am the guinea pig.

Jayden, our distributor in Australia, visits twice a year. He’s boisterous,  in an entertaining, Aussie way.  He’s always surprised when I remember an obscure personal detail revealed during a previous visit. Professionally, he is more frustrating.  His filing system uses, I’m guessing, a tame black hole as its primary storage mechanism. Information never escapes. He visited the intergalactic mothership in August:

Captain Sarcastic: “Jayden, we are now beta testing Project Unicorn. It has 30% more little pony covers, just like you asked for to break open your market. Do you have any customers or prospects who should participate?”

Jayden: “Ripper! I will send some blokes your way.”

On the trip back, somewhere near the equator, his brain is removed and replaced with someone who is incapable of responding to email or phone calls. Number of beta testers from Oceania: zero. He then called Bat-Crazy Doris last week to ask why he hadn’t been notified Project Unicorn had been released. (Um, Doris drove you to the airport, whacka, during which you discussed our pre-sending 100 Unicorn motif, southern hemisphere toilets.  Would you like me to resend the bucket of email?)

There are a dozen other distributors. The two of note:

• China: I would guess we list Li only so we can say we have a way to transact business in China. We have had several customer support inquiries, though I would be surprised if anyone has ever paid for product, if you know what I mean. Likelihood we will localize: zero.
• India: When Dhruv has a sale, it involves creative polynomial accounting. I do — and I don’t — want to know. My prediction for his next sale: we’ll leave the product under a park bench… in Ottawa. We will then receive an anonymous phone call telling us where we can pick up the sack full of Kruggerands each prime-numbered month.

I talk directly with customers in other regions “covered” by the other ten, raising questions about what value these “distributors” offer.  I am obliged to be polite, non-sarcastic and proactively send emails into the void.