Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, Sales and Marketing: The Essential Cultural Guide—From Presentations and Promotions to Communicating and Closing

THREE TIPS FOR SELLING IN MEXICO

1. The Relationship

2. Eating

3. Debt Aversion

1. THE RELATIONSHIP

Sometimes salespeople are trained to figure out the “in”—in other words, divine the hook that will interest a prospect in talking about your product. In Mexico, if you do not have a personal relationship with your prospect, you have no “in.”

One way to think about how important the relationship is in Mexico would be to consider that Mexico has the largest upper middle class of all the countries in its region, and the majority of them are related to one another. The top network of key decision makers is exclusive and somewhat guarded. If you are meeting with a decision maker in Mexico’s elite network of senior executives, you already have an advantage ...