KEY POINTS:
Canadian entrepreneurs are hearing all about how New Zealand does things better than most.
And the man hailing kiwi successes to the North American audience is a Canadian-born management consultant who spent several years in New Zealand.
Ed Bernacki liked a lot of what he saw here, and he's bringing the message to fledgling Canadian entrepreneurs in a series of seminars across that country.
In an article published in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper this week, Bernacki says Canadian businesspeople hoping to attain success have to stop looking to others for answers.
He says hoping for freebies like government handouts and tax cuts isn't the solution.
What Canada needs to do, Bernacki says, is focus on its unique, high-value products, especially those where design or creativity gives an edge.
And New Zealand, he enthuses, is an example of how they can do it.
"Take the example of Les Mills gyms, which has grown into an iconic New Zealand business. One wouldn't think that fitness could be an export product, but the company has designed and patented fitness programmes that it sells to 11,000 gyms around the world, including one major chain in Canada. The company won the exporter-of-the-year award in New Zealand, and it did it by out-thinking its competitors," says Bernacki.
"It's almost impossible to find clothes made in Canada, but Ottawa shoppers are shelling out big bucks for Icebreaker outdoor gear, made with New Zealand merino wool," he points out in the Citizen article.
"The New Zealand lamb story is particularly astounding. How can a country so far away sell fresh lamb in our supermarkets and outcompete lamb producers right here in Ontario? Easily, as it turns out, and they do it around the world."
Bernacki asserts that Canadians need to be much more entrepreneurial.
He quotes the following: "New Zealand has it all - rushing rivers, alpine mountains, dramatic fjords, subtropical rainforests, golden beaches, icy glaciers and emerald valleys dotted with grazing sheep."
From a travel brochure? Not so, points out Bernacki.
"That little bit of poetry comes from the people who are marketing lamb."
Bernacki wonders why his native country hasn't had the same kind of success with Canadian beef.
"Instead of selling our cattle to other countries, which then convert them into higher-value products, we should market Alberta cattle as "Rocky Mountain beef," a premium product."
Bernacki addresses his audiences with an almost religious fervour about how New Zealand has been smart about driving export business.
As a tiny Pacific country, he says, New Zealand doesn't have the advantage of a giant market right at its doorstep, but Canadians do.
"It doesn't have cheap labour like many Asian countries or vast natural resources. And yet New Zealand is still competing worldwide and it's doing that with an industrial strategy based on design and innovation."
New Zealand's edge over Canada is easy to explain, Bernacki told the Ottawa Citizen.
"They've simply out-thought us."
