FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[keldjarn]

I completely agree. Being rude and insulting people get you nowhere in business and also contributes to "negtively poluting the social environment". But there are important cultural differences which sometimes are hard to bridge. Many American and European collectors and dealers dislike dealers from other parts of the world who do not display their specimens with prices. To us this is often perceived as a kind of rudeness. But I know from many years of discusssing with such foreign dealers that their policy is often dictated by their wishing to avoid what they sometimes feel is a rudeness in our way of conducting business. With the merchandice properly priced, they often experience customers just buying a specimen and leaving without discussion and in this way they feel robbed of the oportunity to get to know the market, the customers, their priorities and what they consider is the right market price. I have professionally handled business, negotiations, contracts and politics on all continents experiencing the converging of business cultures in many other areas. One of the fascinating aspects of dealing in minerals is the oportunity to meet with people representing the tradional business cultures from their own countries. It really teaches you what is allways important to remember also in cross-cultural relations: "you make business with people and not with companies".