Part 11

Should your business not warrant such an outlay, the next best method of approaching the situation is the appointing of some high-grade, resident merchant, either foreign or native, in each country, as your exclusive representative. It is obviously unnecessary to state that in making such a selection the greatest care should be taken to investigate most thoroughly the business reputation and financial standing of the one appointed. Very often it is wisest to give your agency to some small, young aggressive firm, with limited capital, rather than to a staid old house with much money and prestige. These suggestions are given for what they are worth. Common sense will indicate the concern which in your good judgment is best adapted to represent you properly. Old established houses generally have the capital and means to introduce goods through the country and will often guarantee to place a certain amount of business within the year upon conditions to be specified. Once you have placed your agency, be sure to turn over all inquiries or orders received from within their territory to them for their attention. This I regret to state has not been typical of American houses and has done much to make responsible firms hesitate about accepting exclusive agencies. A strict adherence to this suggestion will tend to establish your honesty of purpose and will be deeply gratifying to your local representatives.

The house accepting your agency will have its own salesmen to travel the country and to introduce your line to the trade in addition to other appropriate means toward this end. They will be only too glad to have your representative accompany their local man from time to time and are highly appreciative of such an interest, because it stimulates both the customer and their representative and at the same time gives you the opportunity of knowing just what they are doing and what they have to overcome in the way of prejudice and competition. It is always well to aid the local agency with a small advertising allowance, to be spent as your combined judgments may dictate. This gives a further evidence to them of your desire to go after the trade and keeps their interest more intense on your line. Unfortunately too many American houses think that it is unnecessary to spend any money in advertising their goods in these lands. The sooner they take advantage of the advertising possibilities afforded by these virgin fields the larger and quicker will come the returns. Very often it is advisable to make specific allowances to the firm holding your local agency with a view to having their representatives make special trips in your behalf. These are, however, all details to be worked out advantageously between the contracting parties and will suggest themselves as conditions develop.

In the event of your organization having an export department, properly equipped to conduct correspondence in the native tongue and give direct attention to the banking problems arising as well as to shipping and forwarding it is advisable to have your own traveller, or travellers, to cover one or more of the countries or all of the territory involved. This keeps the home office in closer touch with all the details of the business and is to be commended in certain lines of trade but is only advisable when one’s foreign department is thoroughly perfected and in the hands of a competent manager.

Orders sent in by your traveller will contain such complete and specific instructions as to forwarding and banking that they can be intelligently handled at a minimum of expense with your own force. It should be observed however that your representatives for the first few years should make the entire territory once every twelve months at least, and oftener if conditions warrant, in order to keep your goods continually before the dealers and to engrave upon their memories that you are in the field to stay and wish to cater to them and their wants.

If conditions are such that you cannot afford a personal representative the commission export house offers opportunities for bringing your goods to the attention of the native dealer. There are many of these concerns situated in all of the larger cities of the United States; New York, New Orleans and San Francisco being especially well provided with them, owing to the fact that they are the largest ports in the East, South and West respectively and have excellent forwarding facilities. As a rule these firms are well supplied with capital and capable of rendering effective and efficient services. They are open, however, to the one objection that most naturally they will give the greatest attention to the line yielding them the largest profit, and just how to induce them to handle your goods to the exclusion of other competitors is a problem to be solved by you with the concern you decide to use for your purposes. Furthermore, it should be your express duty to see positively that your customer is thoroughly protected against the commission house making any additional charges or increasing the original price quoted by you to your client. This has been a common practice, and has had the effect of tending to retard business and prejudice trade in these lands.

As a rule these agents pay cash for goods when delivered, a feature which has its attractions to the manufacturer or merchant working on a limited capital and requiring his money promptly. Their financial connections are of a kind that enable them to do this, allowing a very small commission for their trouble. In addition to all these features they have a corps of experts familiar with shipping procedures, insurance problems, the routing of freight, packing, banking, as well as the details of foreign correspondence so that much of the complications and annoyances of the export trade is taken from your shoulders and borne by men familiar with the entire subject. Every few months it is the custom of many of these organizations to send their representatives through the entire Latin American territory with the idea of developing trade and receiving orders. There can be no question as to their place in this field or as to their general efficiency, and it is always well to discuss with some high class commission export house what they can offer your particular line when contemplating the possibilities of doing business in these lands.

A few American merchants have found it expedient to sell goods through their own representatives, turning the accounts over for delivery to some local concern for the purpose of forwarding the goods and making the collections thereon. While this may be advisable under some conditions, still it is not a practice to be commended and is only warranted when the local or native commission agent is of a high grade and financially responsible and where the purchaser is likely to impose upon the buyer through some of the many methods in vogue among a certain type of small native business men.

Rather than entrust the future of one’s business in the export field with an inferior representative, it would be better to co-operate with several manufacturers in allied lines, and send one man to represent the entire group. It is questionable if one traveller could do justice to more than five or six lines and they for obvious reasons should be related to each other, the principal idea being to economize the time and expenses of the one handling them. For example, a representative might carry neckties, shirts, collars, socks, and men’s underwear and hats, or such lines as corsets, stockings, ladies’ underwear and shirt waists might be effectively presented by one salesman.

The strictest care should be taken in the selection of the person to represent each group of merchants and under no circumstances should lines which might sooner or later develop into competing ones be allowed to be carried.

Such an arrangement appeals particularly to the smaller manufacturer or merchant in that it brings his goods to the attention of the foreign dealer at a minimum of cost with a maximum of efficiency and paves the way for developing the market. Many of the leading sellers in Latin America to-day had their start along this line of co-operative selling.

Whatever medium you may feel it wise to select in entering these fields, bear in mind the fact that under no circumstances should your representative overstock the buyer with goods. It is far better to receive small orders at first than to sell large ones which may move slowly. Climatic conditions are such that in Latin America many goods, unless sold quickly, rapidly deteriorate and the consequent loss will fall on the individual merchant and result in complaints from the buyer if he becomes the possessor of damaged goods, thereby prejudicing your article in his sight. The salesman in thus cautioning a dealer will exhibit his material interest in the future welfare of the merchant and more thoroughly establish a substantial business friendship with his client.

In many of the countries of Latin America, owing to their enormous extent and lack of travel facility, as well as the exorbitant local freight rates and great distances to be traversed it is often wise to establish more than one agency. In Brazil for example, it might be well to place agencies in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Bahia, Pernambuco, and Para, for the simple but sufficient reason that the freight on goods from New York to any of these ports direct, is less than the local freights between many of these cities. To get from Callao, Peru, on the west coast to Iquitos on the eastern boundary of that republic is a difficult problem. It is really quicker, cheaper and far more convenient and comfortable to come first to New York, then go to Brazil and up the Amazon, to Iquitos, than to undertake the hazardous journey of many weeks across the risky overland trails through the interior of Peru. Assuming that you were desirous of giving an agency for some special line of merchandise liable to be a good seller in the eastern frontier of Peru as well as throughout the republic, one agency should be placed in Callao, or Lima and the other in Iquitos. In Chile, it is likewise often advisable to place an agency for goods in one of the northern ports of the republic as well as in Valparaiso, or Santiago, either Iquique or Antofagasta being selected for this purpose, as being best adapted to reach the center of the nitrate industries.

Many of the Central American countries, particularly Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras, as well as Mexico, having seaboards on both coasts will present problems for determining the location of agencies accessible to both oceans. These and other conditions will be continually arising. After discussing the matter with your factor or your representative, common business judgment will be the only safe and sane rule to warrant you in reaching a decision.

XXII THE SALESMAN AND THE CUSTOMER

The success or failure of a business venture in Latin America depends materially on the character of the representative sent to these marts of trade. Never having seen or heard of you or your goods, it is most natural for the foreign merchant to make his deductions from your emissary.

The typical ambassador of commerce for South American fields should combine elegance of dress and courtliness of manners; be a linguist; a scholar; a diplomat; a philosopher; always a student and a business man as well. He should continually bear in mind that his visit is unsolicited—that in a sense he is an aggressor, an intruder, and above everything he should conform to the usages that custom has established in this part of the world.

European merchants and their travellers, with the hope of strengthening their position have spread about the unwarranted idea that the Yankee is tricky in all his dealings and this condition must at all times be combated not theoretically but obviously and practically. Be frank with prospective customers. Do not try to load them up with goods. Keep your agreements to the letter. Live up to your contract even if you lose money by doing so. Follow exactly whatever shipping instructions are given.

After an initial visit to a possible client it is advisable to develop his social side. Ascertain to what clubs he belongs and get put up at them, so that an opportunity may arise to see him after the cares that infest the day are gone. You will find the Latin American a gentleman, a past master of the art of etiquette, a Chesterfield in matters of decorum and an agreeable companion. He, like ourselves, has his weaknesses. Find what they are and cater to them. He will be responsive, after he gets to know you. The amount of flattery that he will stand for and assimilate is beyond belief. The Spanish language is especially equipped for the purpose and provides means for raising to its _n_th power the superlative degree. Do not for a moment get the idea that you are dealing with a child, for though, like the Chinaman, he presents a bland exterior, he is uncannily wise. He knows his line and prices and market conditions. Existing in a world of little excitement, few amusements, and one foreign mail per week, his mind is not diverted and he unconsciously concentrates and becomes a specialist in his business. Having always lived thousands of miles from markets he has learned to prognosticate trade developments years ahead.

He expects to talk to you in Spanish excepting in Brazil where the language is Portuguese, and he will tell you that 100,000,000 people all over the world speak in this tongue; that European salesmen converse with him in this tongue. Obviously, if you can discuss affairs with him in his own idiom you are on the road to success. He often speaks French too, and if you cannot talk in the language of the Dons he will ask you to do so in that of the Gauls. Only in the largest establishments of the big seaport towns will one find merchants with an employe or two familiar with English. It is therefore obvious without a knowledge of Spanish a salesman in this territory is hopelessly and seriously handicapped. In fact he is inefficient. Europeans recognizing the importance of this employ only representatives speaking the languages of the countries wherein they travel. I recall meeting a German in Assam talking fluently the native tongue and later ran across him in Arabia conversing in Arabic in the market place. Americans have never been linguists, but in our business lexicon there should be no such word as “impossible.”

I remember an American traveller for an oil machinery house startling those in the dining room of the leading hotel in Lima, Peru, by pointing to the menu and alternately grunting and squealing aloud. He could not talk Spanish. In a few moments the place was in an uproar. Some thought he had gone crazy; others that he was insulting the Peruvians or the proprietor of the hotel. The head waiter rushed to me and asked that I ascertain what the trouble was. Imagine my surprise when my countryman in explanation of his barnyard impersonation said: “I was trying to tell these durned fools that I wanted ham.” Incidents like these are never forgotten; always magnified when told and invariably hurt us seriously, socially and otherwise. This little affair happening in a foreign country where news is scarce was talked of in the hotels, clubs and cafés, printed in the journals and illustrated in the comic papers. Americans were always referred to by each narrator as uncouth and the story gone into with great detail and precision. Grandparents in Peru one hundred years from now will be telling this yarn to their grandchildren.

I have long ago ceased to wonder at the lack of common sense exhibited by some large American houses in selecting the type of man they employ for Latin America. I recall one well known concern in this country sending a man to sell carbon paper and typewriter ribbons who spoke only English. Of the man personally I will only state that by nature he was the very antithesis of everything he should have been. Calling upon the leading jobber in his line in Bolivia who spoke only Spanish he found it impossible to do business, and undertook to tell his prices by yelling them, a method in vogue among those who have command of one language and who seem to feel that if you can repeat loudly in a crescendo voice, and with great precision, what you have to say your hearer will ultimately by some occult means understand. In the midst of this vocal exercise by the American, a German happened to drop in, also desirous of selling the dealer goods, and kindly offered to interpret for the Yankee, which suggestion was eagerly accepted. The gentleman from the Fatherland was also selling typewriter supplies and I heard him afterwards telling his friends in the hotel with much gusto how he handled the matter. I shall not try to repeat the conversation. It was humiliating for me to think what a fool my fellow citizen had allowed himself to be made. When the American said “These ribbons are $4.00 a dozen,” the German translated: “These ribbons are $8.00 a dozen.” The American salesman told me afterwards that he had written his house that they could not compete with European prices in this market and I am certain that this concern will never again be tempted even to consider Latin American possibilities. These two cases strikingly serve to illustrate the importance of being familiar with Spanish, or the language of the country wherein you are expected to sell goods.

Extremely sensitive and quick to appreciate a kindness, it pays to study the social usages among Latin Americans and to live in conformity therewith when among them. It is, for example, considered good taste to walk always on the side of the street next the curb, to take off your hat and stand uncovered as the funeral of peon or plutocrat passes, to bow generally to those present as you enter a streetcar or café and to salute them similarly as you depart, while gentlemen always raise their hats when they meet. The observance of these frivolous niceties marks the gentleman, the failure to do so the man, and the yawning abyss between these two degrees of masculinity to the Latin American mind cannot be bridged.

Generally speaking every Latin American is named after some saint and observes the festival of this canonized individual both socially and religiously. Ascertain what day this is and always send some little remembrance. It creates an intimacy hard for us cold-blooded northerners to understand. Never forget church and national festivals. Both of these are dearer to the impulsive natives than are our own and are celebrated more elaborately. It pays to keep a memorandum book for this purpose, noting data of this nature, so as to be always in close personal touch with customers and prospective clients. Little cards and other appropriate souvenirs from the north commemorating these events are highly cherished as well as deeply appreciated and erect invisible and effective barricades about the sympathetic Latin, sufficient to repulse the attacks of other salesmen.

Religion and political conditions should never be discussed. The Latin American is almost always superstitiously religious and intensely political. To take the wrong side of a theological argument may land you in the hospital while an error in judgment on a political problem may mean jail. Both are places to be avoided in these lands. Besides such arguments always serve to make one decidedly unpopular and materially hurt business prospects.

Religious processions are frequent in the streets. They excite curiosity and are often amusing viewed from our standpoint. Do what the populace does as they pass: kneel or raise your hat, otherwise get away from the scene as quickly as you can. Many clerical parades have been turned to riots by some foolish foreigner failing to observe these suggestions.

With but few exceptions, hotels in Latin America are terrible. Toilet and bathing accommodations are poor, the cooking vile and the dishes unpalatable, while the beds are intolerable. Vaults in American cemeteries are far preferable as residential quarters in comparison with some rooms I have slept in in this part of the world, especially in the small towns and villages of the interior. Conditions become rapidly worse the farther away one gets from the larger cities, and as one penetrates out of the way places hammocks and your own food supplies are to be recommended. It would be almost impossible to describe the primitiveness which exists in this part of the Western Continent away from the beaten path. Travel facilities are execrable. Trains are slow and late and accommodations decidedly bad. Steamers are small and stuffy and not safe. River boats are provided with few if any conveniences. Going up the Magdalena River in Colombia from Barranquilla to Bogota, a journey of about ten days, the traveller formerly had to provide his own sleeping accommodations and this _was wise_, and it always showed good judgment to carry tinned food and bottled water.

Appointments are more often honored in the breach than in the observance, more often forgotten or delayed than kept. Business for no apparent reason is deferred to “mañaña” (to-morrow). Time is not considered by our friends residing in the vicinity of the equator.

These and many more heart-breaking conditions will confront you every day of your trip through Mañaña land. Be a philosopher. Don’t grumble. You came for business. These delays and deprivations are only incidents in the game; they make the reaching of the goal all the more of a victory. Grit your teeth and forge ahead. If fleas and mosquitoes and bedbugs bite, don’t revenge yourself on your possible customer, by telling him what you think of his country and countrymen. Learn to smile. It helps more here than elsewhere.

Be a student from the day that you sail from America to the day that you hand in your last expense account. It will improve you mentally and help your firm financially. Study the needs of the various countries through which you pass. Observe what the people require. Listen to suggestions from all sources. European successes in these markets were greatly advanced by giving the people just what they wanted. Yours will come in the same manner. Remember that a vast majority of the population whom you will meet are either Indians or of Indian origin. Their tastes are sure to be primitive, to incline to gaudy colorings and lack practicability. Remember, too, that they are paying the bills. If they want the things that offend your educated, æsthetic eye, forget it and explain to the house why they should make them as desired. It is always easier to follow styles in vogue for centuries than to create new ones and foist them on the public.