Canadian entrepreneurs kick ---

I'm not one for the A-- word myself, but I like this article from PROFITguide.com, "Canadian entrepreneurs kick ass."

Jim McElgunn interviews Leonard Brody, a sometime entrepreneur turned author (Everything I Needed to Know About Business...I Learned from a Canadian), about why Canadians are really global entrepreneurial leaders. I don't agree with all of Leonard's analysis (a more realistic explanation for Canada's high level of self-employed people is our sprawling and inefficient farming and fishing industries), but his enthusiasm is welcome.

But not everything is rosy, even on a book tour. When asked how Canadian entrepreneurs could improve, Brody has some good ideas.

"* We need to overcome our risk aversion. Canadians are not yet of the school of thought that failure is a badge of honour, not of shame. Entrepreneurs do not become great until they fail. Rupert Murdoch went bankrupt seven times... If we don't start accepting the importance of failure as a lesson rather than a badge of shame, we are going to lose out on opportunities.

* "Second, we need to work on our marketing prowess. We are not good marketers. We need to get better. The very fact that we need to have a conversation about whether Canadians are good entrepreneurs says something—we wouldn't need to have that in the U.S.

* "Finally, we need to become more venturesome...We need to start taking some serious swings for the fences. If we match that with a greater tolerance for risk, we'll have a great mix for future growth for this country."

Read the whole thing here.

(Ironically, PROFIT chose to follow this story with a link to a classic 2001 cover story, "Why Canadians Can't Market.")