Tips on Conducting a Successful Business and Investment in Latin America
It is said that choosing the right person to represent your company abroad is one of the most crucial decisions you will make and this holds true if you are attempting to build a business relationship in Latin America. There are some pointers that we want you to learn here about the right point person to represent your company who will be traveling abroad, and so we encourage you to read more below about it.
The first thing to be aware of is how diverse the population of Latin Americans are thus you will not be discriminated or receive favoritism if your representative has a Hispanic name or background.
Another tip is to be aware that English is still the language of business in Latin America, with an interpreter to help further would be better, although having a bilingual representative could be a plus. If your representative has good conversational skills, it will be a plus factor for your company as this point person will be able to communicate well with the hosts and enhance good relationship with your company.
Next is to realize that your representative will have to do everything he or she can to get to know the hosts in order to slowly build a relationship of trust, over being highly skilled or knowledgeable or competent in your area of business.
Thus there are some characteristics of a good representative that you should look for and develop. So ideally, your company’s representative must be flexible, very patient and most of all a people person.
By being a flexible representative, we mean someone who enjoys new experiences, who is a bit adventurous, and who is adaptable to surroundings not familiar to him or her. The person must be willing to accept cultures foreign to him or her, available to travel on successive trips in order to seal a contract, and will act as the point person during the whole process, from the initial stage to closing the contract and then to continuously offer customer service afterwards when the business relationship has established.
Your point person must have the virtue of patience especially that the pace of life in Latin America is considerably slower. Being genuine and personal in the business dealings will have to be a trait of your representative, with the expectation of developing a long-time relationship with the Latin American company.
Know that Latin Americans appreciate intellectual conversations on broad range of topics, thus your point person must have the intellectualism to engage with the hosts in social situations, considering he or she will be spending lots of time with them.