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Traditionally taught Spanish courses do not equip you to developing a degree of fluency. This is the most common quote from my Spanish students. Mostly very well educated adults, in a corporate setting.
From my experience training professionals in some of the best companies in the world, the following are the best practices to speak Spanish, and my approach.
1. Speak it.
Read a dialog aloud between you and your instructor. Don’t worry about not understanding the content… or the pronunciation. Just read it aloud. Get used to feeling weird listening to yourself speaking a different language. Who cares?
2. Re-read it.
Read what you just said it (for yourself). Take more time to read it at your own pace trying to get the gist. Realize that when we speak we get the general idea, and do not process every single word to make sense of what is being said.
3. Understand why it is said the way it is said.
This is the grammatical part that most of us are not particularly eager to study. By learning the logic behind it, we can start making sense of the pattern and start building our own short sentences.
4. It is a life-learning project
As a native Spaniard, English is my second language and I am learning every day. Take advantage of every opportunity to get exposed to Spanish. Listen to TV, software, radio, read papers. Don’t worry about not understanding the content. How long does it take to master the basics? For my dear friend and student, Alan, a U.S. attorney working for a top Mexican law firm, basics is a very high basics. I mean, every person’s expectations are different. Accent? What accent?
5. It is easy. To give up. Absolutely. But it is a shame because when you reach a certain level, a level you feel comfortable with, you start seeing the world not in a different light, but in multiple lights.
It is doable and like anything that is worth it, it takes practice, patience and will. The more you invest, the better focus you will gain of this multicolor and multi-lingual world. Enjoy it.
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Joaquin Frias, founder of Spanish International, originally from Madrid, Spain, relocated to Detroit, Michigan following the completion of his Master in Business Administration at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. While working in the banking industry he recognized a need within the business community for language and cultural training for companies with operations in Spanish speaking regions within the U.S. and abroad. From his experience working in international business as well as with a world renowned cross-cultural agency, Joaquin has developed specialized curricula for Spanish International´s language and cultural training programs. Joaquin is passionate about exposing his clients to comprehensive language and cultural training programs to help them realize their full potential in connecting with the Spanish speaking cultures. Additionally, Joaquin is an adjunct Spanish professor at the University of Detroit Mercy. |
making it in mexico- business customs and practices
What U.S. firm hasn’t given Mexico some thought? A surge of businesses have considered the possibilities, and many have actually entered the pool. Some start gingerly with small transactions and pilot projects, while others aggressively plunge in with hefty investments right from the start.
Still, Mexico is not the ideal market for every product-let alone for every company with exporting objectives. To succeed, you need to appreciate that Mexico is a culturally unique market. To master this market requires patience, research and lots of understanding.
Becoming sensitive to Mexican social customs and business etiquette is a small but vital aspect of cross-border deal-making. We offer some tips.
Open for Business
In Mexico City, business hours are generally 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., with time out for a lengthy lunch between 2:30 and 5:00 p.m. In the north, particularly in Monterrey, work hours conform more to U.S. practice. Factories also tend to get started earlier. 
Breakfast, usually beginning at 8:00 or 8:30 a.m., has become a popular meal for business meetings and lasts no more than one hour.
When inviting Mexican contacts for a meal, keep in mind that a breakfast is a setting for getting down to business, whereas a lunch is more of a social event. Because lunch is the main meal of the day, it tends to be much longer, social in nature and quite filling. At times, an important business lunch can last into the early evening.
Dinner is generally a lighter meal eaten after 9:00 p.m. and is not considered an appropriate time for business.
What’s in a Name? Plenty!
Mexicans usually have three names. On a business card, these are presented in the following order: first name, paternal family name and maternal family name. In addressing someone, you should use the paternal family name. For instance, Sr. Pablo Gomez Ortega would be addressed as Sr. Gomez. Increasingly, Mexicans are abbreviating their maternal family name. In such cases, the name would appear as Sr. Pablo Gomez O. In other cases, the maternal name is dropped altogether.
Take the lead from your Mexican contacts before switching to a first-name basis.
Mind Your Meeting Manners
Rule No. 1: Slow down. Most first-time visitors to Mexico try to crowd in too many appointments per day. As a rule of thumb, make no more than four appointments a day.
Rule No. 2: Don’t get down to business immediately. “Small talk” is important. It shows that you’re not in a hurry and that you are interested in your Mexican host. It can also lead to a long friendship and business relationship.
Mexican companies, many of which are family run, are extremely hierarchical. Decision-making is not usually delegated. Make sure that you get to know the real decision-maker in a company.
Do Business in Spanish
English is not widely spoken in Mexico; those who live in the northern states are more likely to be bilingual.
Mexicans prefer to conduct business in Spanish. If you do not speak Spanish proficiently, travel with an interpreter. Here are some suggestions on how to work with an interpreter:
* Meet with your interpreter before your first business occasion. Review technical phrases you are likely to use.
* When speaking, face the person you are addressing, not the interpreter.
* Use short sentences; give the interpreter time to translate.
* Abbreviate your presentation; meetings take considerably longer when they must be translated.
Your Contact in Mexico
Selling directly to the Mexican market requires a great deal of effort and works best for companies that have a limited number of potential customers. Only a small, but growing, volume of U.S. exports move this way as most Mexican retailers and food service companies are not set up to import directly.
Using a broker may be the easiest sales method – the U.S. supplier won’t have to worry about logistics and red tape and payment is ordinarily handled like any other domestic transaction with the customary legal protection.
However, in most cases this method offers the least rewards. Furthermore, the U.S. company has no control over where the product ends up or its arrival condition. It’s also difficult to build brand identity this way.
An alternative is to employ a Mexican distributor-either a distribution company or a Mexican food processor. The trade-off is more direct access to the market at the expense of time spent supervising distribution and the greater degree of payment risk. Be advised that good distributors are in short supply, so do plenty of advance research.
How much support will you need to provide a distributor? That depends on the contractual terms you work out. For instance, you may agree to provide funding for advertising and promotional work or you may consider extending payment terms to match the terms the distributor must provide its Mexican customers.
Another option is to sell through a Mexican-based agent. The investment in time and effort is great but the rewards are larger. This route makes sense if you have a significant export volume or an extensive product range.
It is probably wiser to contract with a company than to hire an individual to represent your firm. Mexican labor laws make it difficult and expensive to dismiss an individual.
Finding the distributor for your products in is not likely to be easy, and Mexico’s vastness implies that you may need several to cover all of the major markets.
The U.S. Agricultural Trade Office can usually provide a list of distributors. Also, compare experiences with other U.S. companies already distributing products in Mexico.
You cannot check credit ratings in Mexico the way you can in the United States, so make it a point to:
* Inspect warehouse facilities and delivery capabilities to be sure that they are able to meet any special requirements for bringing your products to market.
* Check references with companies that the distributor already represents.
* Ask retailers or food service outlets that are serviced by distributors to evaluate service in terms of reliability as well as timeliness.
Although most distributors will ask you for an exclusive to represent your products for all of Mexico, few can deliver on this. To cover the whole country, most need to subcontract, resulting in added markups that are passed on to consumers. Though cumbersome, it is best to have distributors for each of the key regions of Mexico.
Getting Paid
U.S. companies should sell only on the basis of cash or an irrevocable letter of credit when doing business in Mexico for the first time. As you develop rapport with your customers and they build a good payment track record, you may decide to move to a less rigid form of payment.
Due to high commercial interest rates, maintaining inventories can be costly. Therefore, payment terms can significantly affect company profits and also dictate the schedule by which your distributor will want to pay you. For instance, terms are a minimum 45-60 days for the major supermarket chains.
Promoting Your Product
Mexican consumers are greatly influenced by promotion and advertising, but personal contact is also important. While billboards, radio and television are very popular, in-store promotions, handouts, recipe cards and other forms of direct merchandising are important promotional tools, especially for new-to-market products.
U.S. Department of Agriculture
AgExporter. 11.2 (Feb 1999)
Read Morespeaking their language
SELLING POINTS
Ease customers by speaking their language
7/4/2008
By Tom Richard
Hola, me llamo Tòmas. Those four words are all that I can show for my three years of studying Spanish. During those three years, I was wonderful at memorizing information; I studied hard and was able to pull out phrases at exactly the right time. Learning a foreign language was never easy. I certainly did not pick it up as well as others in my class, but I made it through three years with excellent grades.
As I look back on those years, I realize that I was never able to make the leap from memorizing the language to actually speaking it. When I needed to speak in Spanish, I would have to translate things in my head before I spoke. It is impossible to speak a foreign language fluently if you have to do that. This is the main reason I was never able to pick up Spanish.
It sounds strange to say somebody actually thinks in another language, but that is exactly what happens. Those who are able to speak fluently in another language are thinking in a foreign language as well. They see something and, rather than visualizing their native word first, are able to jump right to the alternate word.
Those who are studying a foreign language, and start to pick it up probably experience a moment where things just start to fall into place; an “Aha!” moment when the language is second nature and no longer an academic subject. This is the moment when foreign words flow naturally, and people are able to sustain an intellectual conversation with those who speak the native language.
Just as I never picked up fluent Spanish, many business professionals never make the leap to speaking their customer’s native language. Instead of sustaining an intelligent, fluent conversation, their words come out sounding memorized and regurgitated. To the customer, these rehearsed and canned conversations sound just as foreign and hilarious as I would sound if I tried to speak fluent Spanish.
Any businessperson can memorize things about his or her products, companies or competitors, but few are able to fully digest the meaning behind the words. Few are able to start thinking in the customer’s language. You must be able to see your product and yourself the same way the customer sees you. You must understand how your customers feel about the decision you are asking them to make and truly understand where they stand on an issue.
The only way you are going to be able to make the leap from rote memorization to fluent conversation is when you stop thinking and start feeling, so put the canned, purely academic language on the shelf. Once you make the leap from thinking like a salesperson to thinking like a customer your primary passion and focus will shift from selling to wanting to help others. That is right. You will stop wanting to sell for the sake of selling.
Sometimes your passion will be focused on the customer, and sometimes it will be a passion about what your product can do for others. In either scenario, your leap will be made when you stop memorizing and switch your passion from the desire to sell to a pure desire to serve and help the person with whom you are talking. It is only through embracing and cultivating a passion for the natives that you’ll be able to pick up their language. Once you make that transition and begin to think like the customer and are no longer translating things in your head, everything you see, hear, do and say is in the customer’s native language.
This is when you will be able to speak the same language and, just like anybody who speaks the native tongue, you will be well-received, taken seriously and you will be putting your customers at ease because you will be, literally, speaking their language.
Read Morebasic but key mexico
The following classic and timeless article provides basic but key insights when doing business with our neighbors south of the border. Making it in Mexico – business customs and practices
Becoming sensitive to Mexican social customs and business etiquette is a small but vital aspect of cross-border deal-making. We offer some tips.
Open for Business 
In Mexico City, business hours are generally 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., with time out for a lengthy lunch between 2:30 and 5:00 p.m. In the north, particularly in Monterrey, work hours conform more to U.S. practice. Factories also tend to get started earlier.
Breakfast, usually beginning at 8:00 or 8:30 a.m., has become a popular meal for business meetings and lasts no more than one hour.
When inviting Mexican contacts for a meal, keep in mind that a breakfast is a setting for getting down to business, whereas a lunch is more of a social event. Because lunch is the main meal of the day, it tends to be much longer, social in nature and quite filling. At times, an important business lunch can last into the early evening.
Dinner is generally a lighter meal eaten after 9:00 p.m. and is not considered an appropriate time for business.
What’s in a Name? Plenty!
Mexicans usually have three names. On a business card, these are presented in the following order: first name, paternal family name and maternal family name. In addressing someone, you should use the paternal family name. For instance, Sr. Pablo Gomez Ortega would be addressed as Sr. Gomez. Increasingly, Mexicans are abbreviating their maternal family name. In such cases, the name would appear as Sr. Pablo Gomez O. In other cases, the maternal name is dropped altogether.
Take the lead from your Mexican contacts before switching to a first-name basis.
Mind Your Meeting Manners
Rule No. 1: Slow down. Most first-time visitors to Mexico try to crowd in too many appointments per day. As a rule of thumb, make no more than four appointments a day.
Rule No. 2: Don’t get down to business immediately. “Small talk” is important. It shows that you’re not in a hurry and that you are interested in your Mexican host. It can also lead to a long friendship and business relationship.
Mexican companies, many of which are family run, are extremely hierarchical. Decision-making is not usually delegated. Make sure that you get to know the real decision-maker in a company.
Do Business in Spanish
English is not widely spoken in Mexico; those who live in the northern states are more likely to be bilingual.
Mexicans prefer to conduct business in Spanish. If you do not speak Spanish proficiently, travel with an interpreter. Here are some suggestions on how to work with an interpreter:
* Meet with your interpreter before your first business occasion. Review technical phrases you are likely to use.
* When speaking, face the person you are addressing, not the interpreter.
* Use short sentences; give the interpreter time to translate.
* Abbreviate your presentation; meetings take considerably longer when they must be translated.
Your Contact in Mexico
Selling directly to the Mexican market requires a great deal of effort and works best for companies that have a limited number of potential customers. Only a small, but growing, volume of U.S. exports move this way as most Mexican retailers and food service companies are not set up to import directly.
Using a broker may be the easiest sales method – the U.S. supplier won’t have to worry about logistics and red tape and payment is ordinarily handled like any other domestic transaction with the customary legal protection.
However, in most cases this method offers the least rewards. Furthermore, the U.S. company has no control over where the product ends up or its arrival condition. It’s also difficult to build brand identity this way.
An alternative is to employ a Mexican distributor-either a distribution company or a Mexican food processor. The trade-off is more direct access to the market at the expense of time spent supervising distribution and the greater degree of payment risk. Be advised that good distributors are in short supply, so do plenty of advance research.
How much support will you need to provide a distributor? That depends on the contractual terms you work out. For instance, you may agree to provide funding for advertising and promotional work or you may consider extending payment terms to match the terms the distributor must provide its Mexican customers.
Another option is to sell through a Mexican-based agent. The investment in time and effort is great but the rewards are larger. This route makes sense if you have a significant export volume or an extensive product range.
It is probably wiser to contract with a company than to hire an individual to represent your firm. Mexican labor laws make it difficult and expensive to dismiss an individual.
Finding the distributor for your products in is not likely to be easy, and Mexico’s vastness implies that you may need several to cover all of the major markets.
The U.S. Agricultural Trade Office can usually provide a list of distributors. Also, compare experiences with other U.S. companies already distributing products in Mexico.
You cannot check credit ratings in Mexico the way you can in the United States, so make it a point to:
* Inspect warehouse facilities and delivery capabilities to be sure that they are able to meet any special requirements for bringing your products to market.
* Check references with companies that the distributor already represents.
* Ask retailers or food service outlets that are serviced by distributors to evaluate service in terms of reliability as well as timeliness.
Although most distributors will ask you for an exclusive to represent your products for all of Mexico, few can deliver on this. To cover the whole country, most need to subcontract, resulting in added markups that are passed on to consumers. Though cumbersome, it is best to have distributors for each of the key regions of Mexico.
Getting Paid
U.S. companies should sell only on the basis of cash or an irrevocable letter of credit when doing business in Mexico for the first time. As you develop rapport with your customers and they build a good payment track record, you may decide to move to a less rigid form of payment.
Due to high commercial interest rates, maintaining inventories can be costly. Therefore, payment terms can significantly affect company profits and also dictate the schedule by which your distributor will want to pay you. For instance, terms are a minimum 45-60 days for the major supermarket chains.
Promoting Your Product
Mexican consumers are greatly influenced by promotion and advertising, but personal contact is also important. While billboards, radio and television are very popular, in-store promotions, handouts, recipe cards and other forms of direct merchandising are important promotional tools, especially for new-to-market products.
COPYRIGHT 1999 U.S. Department of Agriculture
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group