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 nth 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.