Customer feedback can be considered a gift when it prevents clients from shopping around

Daryl -Lynn Carlson
Sun

Reduced consumer buying power coupled with fewer resources at most businesses prompts a poignant question: What can be done to maintain or even grow sales without spending money? Tyler Gompf has the answer: Deliver outstanding customer service.

Twelve years ago, he had a bad experience shopping for a stereo, a significant investment for a 22- year-old, and left the store emptyhanded.

He ended up enlisting the help of his brother Kirby, who is younger by a year, and the two came up with a computer program for consumers to communicate with companies about customer service for the benefit of both the business and the buyer.

That was the beginning of Tell Us About Us Inc. Winnipeg-based TUAU has flourished; its 60 employees process upward of 300,000 customer feedback surveys and data every week for more than 100 corporate clients, most of which are based in the United States.

In the past year, smaller businesses are recognizing the value of customer service as a means of sustaining profits. “Companies, instead of investing their budgets into marketing and attracting new customers, are really trying to focus on retaining the ones they have,” Mr. Gompf says. “It’s more important now than ever for smaller operators to have a program where they can listen to the customers and respond.” During tough economic times, client loyalty is crucial and each customer’s feedback or comment should be treated as a “gift,” he says.

TUAU has a complement of services that can be tailored to a business based on its size and budget.

Those include customer surveys, mystery shoppers, live operators to field complaints, employee surveys and research.

It introduced a Small Enterprise solution for independent businesses in 2008.

At the Business Development Bank of Canada‘s Entrepreneurship Centre, customer service has become a key focus since the economy soured last fall. “Every customer now expects a very high level of service. You have to return your calls quickly, you have to follow up and you have to follow through on what you say you will do,” says Theodore Homa, managing partner of BDC’s Montreal consulting division. “If you help your clients, basically you’re helping yourself.” Coaches at the centre recently assisted a young printing company experiencing a slowdown in business by urging the owners to call clients and ask why they haven’t been ordering services. “Some companies are not at ease doing this,” Mr. Homa says.

But even if clients don’t need more product, there could be smaller services to sell and the communication will be valued in the long term, he says.

“People don’t speak to each other anymore,” he says, noting younger entrepreneurs in particular are comfortable communicating via text messages or email rather than actually meeting to talk. “But some customers want ‘high touch’ rather than high tech and in those cases, you have to get out and see them.” This requires business owners to know who their customers are and what they expect in terms of communication and service.

“There’s not one approach for all clients,” Mr. Homa says. “But if you learn to help your clients, basically you’re helping yourself.” Eric Fraterman runs Customer Focus Consulting and says good customer service starts in the workplace culture and with the employees who are the face of a business to the public.

His services emphasize the “People Service Profit Chain” through which “to make good profits, you have to give great service and to give great service, you have to hire the right people and treat them well.” Once a customer service environment is achieved, businesses must respond in a meaningful way to ensure the initiative succeeds, Mr. Fraterman says. “Everybody is under pressure, they’re running ragged and their fuses are shorter so the margin for forgiveness is much smaller, which means managing complaints in a meaningful way is very important.” Appeasing a customer who complains doesn’t have to involve giving away product although it’s up to the business to creatively determine what they can do within their budget to resolve problems.

Customers who complain constitute only about 4% of disgruntled customers, says Ray Miller, author of That’s Customer Focus, a four-book series and workplace training program offered through Toronto-based The Training Bank.

Most disgruntled customers will keep silent and simply take their business to the competition.

Research shows achieving a 5% increase in customer loyalty can ultimately contribute from 25% to 125% directly to a business’s bottom line in the long term.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

‘Short of a revolt, we certainly need to make a huge protest’

Katie Mercer
Province

One of B.C.’s feistiest former premiers is calling for a revolt against the Liberal government’s new harmonized sales tax.

Bill Vander Zalm — the defiant Dutchman who resigned as Socred premier in 1991 — says something needs to be done about the “$2-billion tax grab.”

And he’s willing to lead the charge.

“That’s why Bill Vander Zalm thought, ‘Well, if nobody else is going to bring this out, I’m going to have to step to the fore and do it anyways,'” the 75-year-old told The Province Thursday.

“I don’t want to get involved in politics, but I’m concerned about what’s happening to the province and I don’t mind tackling issues.”

Beginning next July, the seven-per-cent provincial sales tax and the five-per-cent goods and services tax will be merged into a 12-per-cent HST.

Previously PST-exempt items — restaurant meals, taxi fares, hydro and cable bills and more — will be seven per cent more expensive.

Vander Zalm says he’s irked that the Liberals broke their election promise to not introduce a new tax during an economic downturn. What’s worse, he says, is how they announced it.

It was hot and muggy last Thursday — the same day as commissioner Thomas Braidwood was grabbing headlines with his much-anticipated report on police use of Tasers — when the announcement was released.

Vander Zalm said it was a smart political move to effectively bury the story. The year-long delay before the tax is implemented will also help citizens to forget the issue, he added.

“It’s not a bad political move to do it this way, but we best be aware that it is a political move and we best act now,” Vander Zalm said.

“Short of a revolt, we certainly need to make a huge protest,” he said, imploring B.C. citizens to phone, write, organize demonstrations and put pressure on their MLAs. He can be reached at www.billvanderzalm.com.

Vander Zalm said the saddest part of the HST is that the poorest, who pay the most as a percentage of their income, will be hardest hit.

The move toward HST is contradictory, he said, as the government asks people to cut back on spending while taking more money from taxpayers.

Then there’s the economic impact, which will likely cause unemployment in industries such as tourism, homebuilding and restaurants, he said.

Vander Zalm said that none of his own, or his family’s, interests would be affected, and that was not the reason he was objecting.

Meanwhile, the Mining Association of British Columbia came out in support yesterday of the HST.

Association president and CEO Pierre Gratton said the new approach could lower operating costs that can then be reinvested in the province.

“When the mining sector is doing well, companies have money to invest in growth and that means new job creation,” Gratton said in a news release.

“This new tax structure will help attract investment into B.C. and help speed the way to economic recovery.”

© Copyright (c) The Province

 

$5 billion in undeclared online revenue, Ottawa says

Mike De Souza, with file from Fiona Anderson
Sun

The Canada Revenue Agency is planning to begin a wave of audits within weeks targeting Canadians who derive at least some of their income from regularly selling products on the online eBay marketplace website.

The agency warned on Thursday that it planned to launch the audits by the end of the summer after obtaining a list of high-volume eBay sellers (known as “PowerSellers“) along with their transaction records.

Federal Revenue Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn says a legal process which allowed the government to obtain the list has opened the door for the taxman to go after information from other marketplace websites and crack down on up to $5 billion in undeclared revenues from people who do business online.

“This is certainly only the beginning of the process,” Blackburn told Canwest News Service. “We believe that a whole new market is opening [for the revenue agency].”

The government obtained the list of 5,000 individual members or companies and their online transactions on Nov. 7, 2008, following a lengthy legal battle that reviewed privacy issues as well as an appeal from eBay. The website unsuccessfully argued against disclosing the information on the grounds that it was stored on an electronic database outside Canada.

Blackburn said the government could not immediately use the information in November since there were still unresolved legal issues and a possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court. But he said the government has since reached an agreement with eBay — described in court documents as “the world’s largest global online marketplace” — that will allow the revenue agency to use the information from the list.

It includes members who sold more than $1,000 US worth of products per month (or its equivalent in Canadian dollars) for any period of three consecutive months in 2004 and 2005.

He said that anyone with previously undisclosed revenues should voluntarily come forward immediately to avoid audits, penalties and fines.

While interest charges may apply, he said the agency can reach agreements to help people with massive tax bills manage the cost through a payment plan.

“Within a month we will start the audit process, one by one, to determine whether these people [on the eBay list] declared their revenues on their tax returns in 2004 and 2005,” he said. “If they haven’t done so, it’s certain that we will send them a new notice of assessment with penalties.”

Blackburn also said the court decision would open the door for the revenue agency to obtain transaction records from subsequent years.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said it disagreed with the government’s approach. The lobby group believes the government appears to presume that people doing business online are guilty of tax evasion.

Gary Petersen, owner of the Tale of the Whale art and antique store in Sooke, buys on eBay but doesn’t sell. He supports the CRA’s move to tax those who do sell. The other day he came across a seller who had more than 80 pages, about 1,500 items, for sale.

“People who do this for a living should be paying tax because tax is what pays for roads and schools and police and fire departments and everything,” Petersen said.

Chilliwack-based Antiques by Design sells some items through eBay. But co-owner Dennis Dargatz said that eBay providing information about them to the CRA “doesn’t bother us a bit.”

“We declare everything we sell as income, so it doesn’t matter to us,” Dargatz said. “We’re a real business, we’re not doing this as a sideline or for extra cash. So for us it has no effect whatsoever.”

Dargatz doubts the CRA will spend time going after someone who has sold half a dozen things through eBay over the past few years.

“But the people that are actively selling, sure that’s income and they should be declaring it as income,” he said.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Service providers say the HST will add to customer costs at a time of falling sales

Brian Morton
Sun

Many in B.C.’s service industry fear the province’s proposed harmonized sales tax will not only increase costs for clients, but make a bleak economic climate even worse.

Expect pricier movie tickets, too.

“When it goes into effect, you’ll probably see all movie theatres raising their prices by $1 to make up the lost revenue because of the tax,” said Leonard Schein, owner of Festival Cinemas, which operates Fifth Avenue Cinemas, Ridge Theatre and Park Theatre.

Although Schein said he doesn’t think the tax will drive customers away, some may opt for less expensive tickets offered for Tuesdays or matinees. “Movie theatres are still the cheapest form of entertainment. I don’t feel attendance will drop that much.”

However, Sam Ponnayya, co-owner of Oakridge Laser & Skin Care Clinic, wasn’t so optimistic.

“Sales are going to be down, at least 20 to 30 per cent, minimum,” said Ponnayya. “Eighty per cent of our business is service, and customers say it’s an added expense for them.”

Ponnayya said the new tax was announced at a time when the slowing economy has already hurt his business. “We’re planning to hire people, but I might have to hire part-time [employees], instead of full-time. We should have gotten a bit of a warning.”

Under the harmonized tax regime, announced last week by the provincial government, the five-per-cent federal goods and services tax will be combined with the province’s seven-per-cent provincial sales tax to make a 12-per-cent harmonized tax, effective July 1, 2010.

The added costs to consumers will come from the fact the new tax will apply to the same goods and services that the GST applies to, and that includes many items that are currently exempt from PST.

Personal services affected by the new tax include hair care, dry cleaning, repair services for household appliances, household maintenance such as renovations and painting, real estate fees, membership fees for health clubs, movie and theatre tickets, funeral services, professional services such as accounting and home care, and airline fares within Canada.

Scott Russell, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, said that while he did not yet know the full implications of the new tax, it will result in higher costs for such real estate-related services as realtors’ fees and house inspections.

“It’s just going to be an added cost at the end of the day,” said Russell. “Typically, the seller pays the [realtor’s] commission. So there’ll be another seven per cent on top of that. On a $10,000 commission, that’s another $700.”

Russell said appraisals usually cost about $300 and home inspections between $300 and $400 — both now subject to the HST. “And in rural areas, people have septic tank inspections.

“Real estate is an important economic driver. Some consultation would be helpful.”

Steven English, a certified general accountant in North Vancouver, said the new tax won’t be great for his profession overall because it’s an extra charge and could result in some people opting to do their own accounting.

Nevertheless, he said, the tax doesn’t bring a massive increase and in the long term, “I think it will be good because it [the harmonized tax] is easier to work with once it settles down.”

English said accountants will likely have to lower their fees a bit, with clients making up the rest. “I’m going to have to start eating some of it.”

Ron Zalko, owner of Ron Zalko Fitness Centre, Gym and Personal Training in Vancouver, said that while he doesn’t believe the extra cost will drive customers away, it sets a bad precedent.

“I think all fitness providers should be exempt from the tax,” he said. “If you encourage people to [stay fit], that will take a burden off the health-care system. If you’re fit, you’re healthy and productive. And most of this generation has just quit exercising.”

Zalko said the new tax could stop some people on limited budgets from joining fitness clubs.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

‘The outcome is likely layoffs. Care providers won’t have any choice,’ says head of organization

Brian Morton
Sun

B.C.’s care providers are worried that the province’s proposed harmonized sales tax (HST) will significantly reduce quality of care for seniors.

“This could mean a lower quality of care, as care providers are already stretched,” said David Hurford of the BC Care Providers Association. “It’s a very uncertain time, and there’s a growing demand for seniors’ services. This makes a tighter budget even tighter.

“The outcome is likely layoffs. Care providers won’t have any choice,” said Hurford, whose organization represents more than 130 non-profit and private B.C. seniors’ care providers responsible for more than 10,000 residential care beds in the province.

Under the harmonized tax regime, announced last week by the provincial government and planned for July 1, 2010, the five-per-cent federal goods and services tax will be combined with the province’s seven-per-cent provincial sales tax into a 12-per-cent harmonized tax.

The added costs to consumers come from the fact the new tax will apply to the same goods and services covered under the GST, including many items that are currently exempt from the PST.

Hurford said looming health cuts and the fact that care providers are already doing more for less will exacerbate the repercussions of the tax. Services newly hit by the tax include employee development, housekeeping and laundry, resident outings and travel, building maintenance, dietary contract services, refuse removal and pest control, landscape and snow removal contracts, and vocational therapists.

Also affected are personal services such as hair care, dry cleaning, repair services for household appliances, household maintenance such as renovations and painting, real estate fees, membership fees for health clubs, movie and theatre tickets, funeral services, professional services such as accounting and home care, and airline fares within Canada.

Hurford said the BCCPA was not consulted about the tax, but is conducting a review of its cost implications and plans to propose mitigation measures to the finance ministry, including a possible rebate to association members for staffing costs.

As it now stands, he said, non-profit and private residential seniors’ care facilities get much smaller rebates than health-authority care homes. He hopes that will change so all operators in long-term care are treated the same.

Hurford cited the experience in Ontario, where estimates suggest the HST could cost care providers more than $12 million.

Marilyn Slade, CEO of the non-profit Carital Continuing Care Society in Vancouver, said she believes the new tax will result in $200,000 in extra expenditures per year — the equivalent of more than two full-time registered nurses — at her 80-bed facility.

“I’m surprised [the government] didn’t think this through and bring it through with an exception for seniors’ care.”

Slade said up to 90 per cent of her expenses are labour-related, and that she will have to lay off people if the tax isn’t changed. “That’s the only way I can balance my budget.”

Hendrik van Ryk, COO of the privately-operated H&H Total Care Services, which has 240 beds, primarily for seniors, estimated the new tax will cost his company $350,000 a year and impact such services as housekeeping, laundry and food delivery.

“At one site, we’ll probably reduce staffing levels. We’ll do more with less.”

Meanwhile, Scott Russell, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, said that while he doesn’t yet know the full implications of the new tax, it will result in higher costs for such real estate-related services as realtors’ fees and house inspections.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

North Shore’s Griffin Business Centre lets smaller operators avoid having to set up their own space

Brian Morton
Sun

Unlike large companies, many small businesses don’t have enough capital for a stand-alone office with its own meeting room, technology, personal reception, or even a water cooler.

To fill the gap, North Vancouver’s Griffin Business Centre, which opened in the fall of 2008, is leasing office space to more than 15 local small businesses so that they share such things as administrative support, an executive boardroom, business machines and office services, bike storage, showers, even a soundproof meditation room.

“All they need is their own computer and they’re set up,” Griffin president and founder David Laniado said in an interview. “They can focus on their business and we deal with everything else.”

Griffin Centre opened its 15,000-square-foot facility last fall and provides a fully furnished packaged office centre, including an extensive artwork collection, a state-of-the-art business centre and technology, 24-hour access, weekly office cleaning, and two kitchens.

“We set out to create the ideal environment for the entrepreneur,” said Laniado, who has four full-time employees at the centre to answer telephones for clients and take care of other business. “They want a first-class, inexpensive work space, and they don’t want to waste time with the usual hassles of running an office, dealing with IT, HR etc.”

Laniado, who has a background in real estate development, said a typical office at Griffin Centre rents for about $800 a month.

The centre also offers a “virtual office” starting at about $70 a month that includes telephone answering, mail handling and administrative support, as well as access to other services.

Laniado claims that by utilizing his model, clients can save about $25,000 in start-up costs and at least $50,000 per year. Laniado got his centre off the ground with a $6-million investment, including $3.5 million for the building and $2 million in renovations.

He has room for 34 clients and expects to be full by the end of the year.

Laniado also notes that more than four out of five businesses in Canada are micro-businesses, or companies with four or fewer employees.

“We have small companies and some larger businesses that don’t require a lot of space,” he said. “We also have large companies with satellite offices. [They have] very, very modest overhead, no capital expenditures. The desk and phone is there. The meeting rooms and projectors are all there.

“We have [as clients] a basketball school, an inventor, a couple of people in the medical field, and an architect. It’s an entrepreneurial atmosphere.”

Some of his clients are North Shore businesspeople who transferred their operations from Vancouver.

Steven English, a certified general accountant who has an office at Griffin Centre, said he’s very pleased with the centre because it has given him everything he needs at a good price.

“It’s saved me a lot of money and inconvenience. I’ve got a central point of reference for clients, who can drop things off if I’m not there. And I’ve got a meeting room any time I need it. The reception is excellent.”

Laniado is also working on a plan to open another centre in Surrey.

His advice to other aspiring entrepreneurs?

“Keep your overhead under control. There’s a tendency to look bigger than you are.”

He said one way he’s building his centre in recessionary times is to go back to the basics.

“Don’t be so cocky, be more appreciative of every deal. And I focus on service, on providing clients with the ultimate office experience.”

Griffin Business Centre

Website: www.griffincentre.ca.

Date formed: November 2008.

Number of employees: Four.

Startup costs: $6 million (including purchase of building).

Number of clients in November 2008: Two.

Number of clients today: 15, plus another nine “virtual” clients.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

There are no secrets on the Internet

Amy Minsky
Sun

Bank account numbers. Home addresses. Phone numbers. Most people probably wouldn’t volunteer this information to a stranger, yet millions use the Internet every day to send and store sensitive information — not to mention the countless secrets and embarrassing stories people share online.

Everything communicated on the web has a long shelf life — a really, really long shelf life — making it virtually impossible to leave the past . . . in the past.

Once someone uses the Internet to send a message or document, they have little to no control over the data. They also risk losing even more control over data, according to Hank Levy, chair of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington.

Cloud computing — storing information on the Internet instead of a hard drive — is becoming more common as more people opt to use web-based word processors and e-mail programs, such as Google’s online word processor, Docs, or Microsoft’s forthcoming online version of Office.

Levy said people put a lot — maybe too much — trust in the Internet.

People go online to write notes to themselves, manage their calendars, share photos and manage contacts. And although storing information online means it’s accessible from any computer, it also means it’s in the “cloud,” an enormous data centre in cyberspace.

“In the Internet world, data never disappears,” said Levy. “It has a potential to stay around forever.”

Much of the data is stored by third parties and because storage is so “unbelievably cheap,” there’s no reason to ever delete data, he said.

Hackers could potentially breach the stored data, compromising thousands of people’s personal information. And as soon as that data has left the servers, where it goes could be anyone’s guess.

Earlier this month, a hacker calling himself Hacker Croll successfully infiltrated 310 business documents belonging to social networking site Twitter that were stored in Google Docs. The hacker then sent that information — including what he claimed were PayPal, Gmail, and Amazon accounts — to various technology blogs.

And while a person has some control over information contained on their home computers, Levy said, they should never believe that deleting a file actually means it’s gone.

“The truth is [that] bits from the file still remain in the computer and can be recovered,” he said. “But there are tools to make sure the bits go away. Ultimately, you can take a hammer and ‘smash’ the disc.”

Unfortunately, the Internet is not so destructible, leaving people with little control over information transmitted online. “We’ve basically lost control of our data and the lifetime of our data,” Levy said. “We have no way to ensure that it is ever deleted.”

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed software, appropriately named Vanish, that is expected to give back at least some control.

Once a text is entered in an e-mail, for example, the sender highlights it, right clicks and presses a button that codes the message, turning it into gibberish.

In order to render the message legible, the receiver highlights the gibberish, right clicks on it and tells Vanish to decode it. After an amount of time selected by the sender, the code will expire, permanently reverting the message to its encrypted state.

Because neither the sender nor the receiver ever knew the encryption code, the text doesn’t risk ever being retrieved. The only catch is, the sender has to trust the receiver to not print out, take a photo of, or cut and paste the text into a word document, said Roxana Geambasu, a doctoral student involved in the software development of the encryption device.

She said she hopes Vanish, currently available for download from the university’s website, will help people gain at least a little more control over the “uncontrollable” web. “It’s a big problem,” she said. “People need to realize the Internet is a really dangerous place, with almost no privacy.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Marke Andrews
Sun

If, say, you want to start a chain of coffee shops in the Metro Vancouver area, Sean Gorman recommends using visual intelligence (also called location intelligence) which provides digital maps and data to give a snapshot — actually more a panorama than a snapshot — of an area.

Using this technology, you can determine the abundance and location of competitors in various neighbourhoods, the demographics of a specific neighbourhood to see how many high-income earners live there, transit routes, transit stops and roads, crime rates, unemployment rates, the number of home foreclosures over the past year, even the number of parking tickets issued on

nearby streets.

Visual and location intelligence has fast become essential not only for starting new businesses, but for managing existing businesses, says Gorman, who is CEO of Arlington, Va.-based FortuisOne and a speaker at this week’s GeoWeb (today through Friday at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue), the annual conference devoted to geographic information systems.

FortuisOne has a system called GeoIQ, which retrieves data and creates maps that allow people to analyze information. For entrepreneurs, the maps can be very useful as they plan their next move.

It is important to make the maps easily readable by the public.

“We invested a lot of time in focus groups and user studies and worked with cartographers at the University of Wisconsin,” Gorman said in a telephone interview. They came up with something called a map brewer, a process that creates an “aesthetically pleasing and statistically accurate map.”

For a story last February, The Vancouver Sun used FortuisOne to help map where the most parking tickets are written in Vancouver.

“Before computers, when maps were paper-based, artists drew maps that were interpretive to try to convey a message,” said Ron Lake, chairman and CEO of Vancouver-based Galdos Systems, and a GeoWeb organizer. He cites the tourist maps with icons of landmarks, large buildings and museums that may be out of scale and have a kind of cartoonish look but communicate with the map-reader.

Gorman says visual intelligence is not only valuable to those thinking of starting a chain of coffee shops, it also helps existing chains of coffee shops. Using it, they can find out why certain outlets succeed while others fail.

Lake said location intelligence can help consumers make informed decisions, citing the example of a home buyer looking for a West Vancouver home with a view. If all the realtors with West Van homes for sale had photos from their front and back decks available, the homebuyer could narrow his search. If you want to open a new bank branch and your clients tend to shop at certain stores, you may want to find an area where those kinds of stores are.

GeoWeb’s first two days will be devoted to workshops, with speakers and panels Wednesday through Friday.

For full information, go to geowebconference.org.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta are within easy reach of picturesque town

Alan Ferguson
Province

TEQUILA, Jalisco — It may seem a long way to come for a jar of hand lotion, but this is a very special unguent. Applied with regularity, it is guaranteed to make your hands as silky-smooth as a 15-year-old’s.

I say guaranteed loosely, for no such pledge is written on the jar. But I put my faith in the solemn promise of Izmael the Jimador, the man who makes it.

A jimador is an expert in the cultivation of the agave plant. He is constantly wielding a variety of long-handled, razor-sharp tools in fields baked by a tropical sun.

Izmael’s hands should be calloused and rough. They are as smooth as a 15-year-old child’s. That’s good enough for me.

The ingredients of his magic lotion aren’t listed on the jar either. They’re a secret. All we know for sure is that his concoction is based upon a liquid squeezed from the spiky leaves of the blue agave plant, source of the sugar from which tequila is made.

Izmael keeps a stash of his secret potion in unmarked jars in the cab of his pick-up truck, parked right there on the blood-red soil of a plantation owned by the fabled Jose Cuervo (‘Joe Crow’) distillery.

You can buy a small jar of this elixir of youth for a mere 50 pesos. Less than five bucks Canadian. According to the jimador, a handsome figure in spotless white shirt, blue jeans and sombrero, you can rub this balm over your entire body with equally beneficial results.

You would think its alleged recuperative properties of his potion might have made Izmael a millionaire. But he tells me that the process of making it is too costly to be a commercial success. Most of the agave leaves are ploughed back into the ground as fertilizer for a new crop.

You’ll have to go visit Izmael if you want to buy. It’s easy enough. The privately owned Mexicana Airlines offers generous legroom to passengers on its frequent flights from Canada to Mexico City. (There are 11 flights a week from Vancouver.)

Upgrade to business class and you’ll be pampered like a baby. There are convenient connections to Guadalajara, the bustling capital of Jalisco state, from where you can easily arrange trips to the picturesque town of Tequila, named after the liquor for which the state is justly famous.

Once you’ve nailed your magic lotion, you can head on downtown to the headquarters of the venerable Cuervo distillery, founded in the late 18th century and set amid luxuriant gardens. For a small charge, you can take an instructive tour of the premises, sampling the product at various stages of its evolution. By the time you get to the family’s private cellar, where they keep the good stuff, you should already be relaxed.

Euphoria sets in only after you’ve scooped a ladle of the special reserve liquor from its burnt-oak barrel and let it trickle seductively down your throat. It’s like liquid cocaine. The effect is hardly less miraculous than Izmael’s cream.

Connoisseurs of tequila — and there are many around the world (70 per cent of Cuervo’s production goes to export) — may stop reading here. But for initiates –or those for whom the word tequila has sickening evocations of a teenage drinking orgy — there’s much to learn. You should never, for instance, drink tequila neat unless the bottle is marked “100 per cent agave.” If it isn’t, it’s been mixed with sugars other than agave and is good only in cocktails. The Cuervo workers said they preferred “blanco” tequila, a pure white spirit. Other tequilas are imbued with their honey colour after maturing in oak casks — mere months for “reposado” varieties; years for aged, or anejo, types.

The true tequila was first crafted only after the Spanish conquerors brought their distilling skills. Until then, native tribes supped on a rougher “mescal” wine whose chief effect seems to have been to make them dance. Today, the state of Jalisco is, with minor exceptions, the sole originator of genuine tequila, the quality of which is monitored by the Tequila Regulations Board.

Tourists are being more and more drawn to the area: there is even a “Tequila Express,” a liquor-sodden train excursion from Guadalajara. Those who survive it describe it as a riotous experience.

More sober-minded travellers may prefer to stay in the capital, whose tumultuous history is reflected in many impressive works of art. In the 1930s, the social realist artist Jose Clemente Orozco dared to paint subversive murals depicting the stupidity and avarice of bishops and politicians alike, while advancing the cause of downtrodden peasants. These dramatic works can be viewed in various public buildings in the city and pack enormous graphic power.

A brief stay in Guadalajara can accomplish many things. Visitors to the second floor of the block-long Corona market on Hidalgo St. can browse among a cornucopia of traditional “cures” for everything from arthritis to impotence. Here you can meet Sant Muerte — the patron saint of death — whose grinning skull is everywhere on grisly display. The theory is that a prayer offered up to the death saint will spare you from his clutches. Criminals hoping to evade a sad end are said to be among his fans.

A short trip to the suburbs takes you to Tonala, where the twice-weekly street market boasts more than 1,000 vendors selling wares from pottery to furniture to shoes — a handmade pair of leather sandals sells here for around $15 Cdn. For higher-end goods, jewellery and the like, go to nearby Tlaqueplaque where you can stroll in an inviting pedestrian precinct lined with eateries such as the El Parian, a complex of 17 different restaurants sharing a vast roof and a centre stage upon which dancers and musicians perform daily. One of them, Solo Monterrey, offered more than 350 varieties of tequila — we went there. The food was delicious. Try the molcajete, a spicy stew of arrachera steak, tomato and hot chile sauce served in a bowl of volcanic rock. If it’s night life you want, you won’t be disappointed. High-end discos open at midnight and rock till dawn. But here’s a fashion alert. Young Guadalajarans, both guys and gals, dress to the nines. You won’t want to be caught looking dowdy.

Eight million people live and work in the city, with all the traffic noise and congestion that involves. To escape, hop aboard a Mexicana Airlines flight to Puerta Vallarta, less than 45 minutes away. The airline recently bought 10 brand new, 50-seat Bombardier Canadair jets in which you can stretch your legs at will.

“I absolutely loathe Puerto Vallarta,” a colleague in the travel media told me less than 24 hours after arriving in the city for the first time. We were assembling for a sumptuous breakfast buffet at the delightful Fiesta Americana resort hotel, but my dyspeptic friend could only look around in contempt at the beachfront paradise.

It’s easy to be cynical about such resorts, but Puerto Vallarta offers a vast range of innocent pleasures to a huge number of visitors at an affordable price. Who’s to knock that? More than 3.5 million tourists come here every year to paraglide, scuba dive, whale watch, swim with dolphins or just sit on the beach and drink margaritas.

The food is a fantastic bargain. Eight of us had dinner at Tinos in the old town. Delicious appetizers included crab crepes, tacos stuffed with smoked marlin, shrimp empanada and plump mussels basking in a sea of seasoned butter. Huge plates of grilled zarandeado — red snapper — followed, washed down with copious drafts of tequila and wine. Rich desserts came next, and then the bill — $300 Cdn. For eight.

Less obvious diversions lie in store for the adventurous. The authorities two years ago relaxed a former total ban on gambling to allow slot machines in local malls. And for something really different, call up the local campus of the University of Guadalajara and ask the staff if you can see their alligator research program. The star of the show is Goliath, a massive, crooked-toothed beast rescued six years ago when he strayed onto a housing development. He may look ugly, but 23-year-old science student Merab Bodillo told me he has the friendliest nature “when he’s in a good mood.”

It’s hard not to be in a good mood in this lovely old town.

I absolutely love Puerto Vallarta.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Change is inevitable, but its course will be determined by its champions and opponents – and rhetoric

Bob Ransford
Sun

We need to change the way we live in urban areas in North America if for no other reason than we want to protect the quality of life we have come to enjoy. Recent events in our own backyard demonstrate that we need to ask ourselves how painful we want to make the process of change.

Whether you believe we have to take steps to avert irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse or you simply believe that mankind’s evolving knowledge has provided us with unprecedented opportunities to reconnect ourselves to nature’s timeless nurturing processes, you are part of a new public consciousness from which action needs to follow.

That action can be painful or painless. A lot really depends on the level of rhetoric and where the push comes from.

If the push for change is controlled by those who want change immediately and wholly or completely, we are in for pain.

Just the same, if the push back in resistance comes from the absolute deniers with loud voices and ugly rhetoric, change isn’t going to come easy.

It is that rhetoric and entrenched polarized approaches to this challenge, in fact, that have generated the minor pain most of us have experienced so far from our efforts to treat our planet and its natural systems with a little more care.

Just think about the Burrard Bridge experiment for a moment. The hysteria that was whipped up in advance of the launch of the project by a few resisters with amplified voices was much more painful to experience than the actual impact of the closure of a lane of traffic in favour of bikes.

The reality is that in dense urban areas we need to broaden the range of transportation choices for a whole range of reasons. Cycling is one of the alternatives to the single-occupant automobile.

This is just one small sacrifice as a step in the right direction, whether it is symbolic or not.

Another clearly symbolic move that seemed to really irk some people was the decision by the Vancouver city council to dig up the lawn at city hall to create a food-producing community garden.

All of the rhetoric around the symbolism — especially from the irked few — ignores the fact that promoting urban agriculture makes sense and causes no harm at a time when we have the knowledge and the natural ability to produce more food locally yet we rely so heavily on imported food.

These are two examples of reasonable strides forward initiated by those with a “progressive agenda.”

Just as I can criticize those who deny the need for change and fight to maintain the status quo with hysterical rhetoric and senseless resistance, I must also take issue with those who are pushing change too fast, too hard and too far.

For change to be effective — which means change accepted as the new norm — it must be incremental.

We’re not all next year going to be floating around the city on eco-friendly hovercrafts made from recycled hemp and powered by the laughter of children.

Change that achieves a reduction in our urban ecological footprint needs to start with symbolic moves followed by deliberate steps in the right direction.

Change is also not going to work if it ignores the realities of the economic system with which we currently generate the wealth that provides for all.

An example of trying to achieve too much change too fast might be the ambitious agenda that was set for the new Southeast False Creek neighbourhood, which includes the Olympic Village.

Those leading the ecological-responsibility agenda were successful in framing this project as a model for a sustainable urban community, but the model may be at risk of becoming anything but.

The green building agenda was pushed to the limit. The range, breadth and quality of public amenities required for the site is a first for Vancouver and likely any other North American neighbourhood. The social agenda included not only a huge commitment to non-market social housing and market rental housing, but also a commitment to pioneering new ideas like urban agricultural in a high density setting.

The fact is that this layering of sustainability initiatives on one project may have killed any chances of the Southeast False Creek neighbourhood being a model anyone can replicate — especially as a private sector project. If the project can only be replicated with deep government subsidies, then it is hardly a model for sustainability.

Aim for incremental change. Keep the rhetoric to a minimum. Celebrate symbolic successes and the kind of change needed to protect the quality of life we have come to enjoy will be achieved with minimal pain.

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Bob Ransford is a public affairs consultant with CounterPoint Communications Inc. He is a former real estate developer who specializes in urban land use issues. E-mail: [email protected]

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