Despite sharing time zones and a namesake, a notable contrast between North Americans and Latin Americans is found in phone-based business development. Consider that the typical way to initiate partnerships or acquire clients in the North involves being direct with your messaging and then imposing timeframes for a meeting or a decision request. This approach effectively treats a prospective champion or client as a data point logged within a pipeline to then be tracked and nurtured throughout a period of time. What are measured as KPI’s are the number of outreach attempts to help determine the status of a prospect within a sequence. After sufficient persistence, they are ultimately designated as a qualified lead or dismissed entirely, or at the very least cooled-off until re-engagement in future quarters. While this can read a bit impersonal, the culture in this part of the region is accustomed to such interactions, and when looking at the results, it amounts to effective business development.
Down towards the central and southern part of the Americas, the aforementioned approach tends to have an adverse effect for the majority of the business population. Here, it is significantly more important to invest in the human side of the relationship before moving forward with any kind of commitment. In many ways, a relationship with Latin America businesses and people is more akin to an enterprise B2B sale as opposed to a short sales cycle B2C transaction. Expect to replace the standard introductory meetings and call with in-person meets at a cafe for a 30-to-60-minute chat over a warm beverage. If one were to identify KPI’s here, it’d likely be the talks about your family, upbringing, educational and professional background, and interest in the opportunity and industry you are both meeting over. Even if one is entering these talks from the perspective of being an expected vendor, it is still best to see and position yourself as a partner in order to raise any chance at a signed agreement or purchase order.
Even with all the advancements in marketing technology and automations, phone-centric business development is still accepted by many around the world as the channel which provides the most direct feedback and results for a company and their reps. This also includes Latin America, even if company landlines are more of a dying breed and unknown numbers are answered even less frequently when compared to the US and Canada. Generally speaking, it’s via WhatsApp audio messages where your voice will literally be heard, and ideally after a preceding introductory message or referencing of a shared contact. Although virtually every business contact I’ve ever made in Colombia and Venezuela initiated through phone first channels, the relationship was properly established through an in-person visit. It is also important to note the distinction in time frames between the two geographies. What may take a business day or two tops in the North, will most certainly take much longer in Latam. It’s not personal, it’s just things here take longer in general, whether for business or leisure.
For the sake of business development, In the US & Canada it’s not unusual for a deal to originate and take shape solely through phone and digital channels, with virtual meets in-between, before a signature is delivered. The benefit here being that business is a lot more “stranger” friendly, which is why so many entrepreneurs emerge and blossom from this part of the Americas, in comparison to further south, where people aren’t as receptive to strangers who come along seemingly out of nowhere, no matter how interesting an offer or message. For those seeking to enter the markets in Latin America, the message is clear, business development using the phone as the primary channel still works, it’s just under a nuance that most North Americans are not as accustomed to.
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