#235 – The Expat Files: Flowers, Business, and Cultural Insights in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder My thoughts ever straight Hi everybody I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files Living in Latin America the show that tells you what it's really like to live work play and or retire in Latin America I tell it just like it is so let's get started Now today before I get to the important stuff I'd like to talk about flowers Specifically exotic flowers like roses orchids birds of paradise and all that expensive stuff Expensive for you guys up in Milwaukee and Cleveland that is why talk about flowers

[00:47] Well, that's because Latin America is the biggest exporter of exotic flowers in the world and for some Latin American countries it's the third fourth or fifth biggest export right behind the more standard agricultural products like coffee and sugar and another reason why I'm bringing this up is I'm recording this on Valentine's Day and they call it dia del carrino down here which Roughly translates to sweetheart day and believe me because flowers are so ubiquitous down here and so dirt cheap You can't drive three blocks in any city without a guy running up to you load it down with flowers And of course because it's Valentine's Day He's trying to sell you a dozen roses at twice the price as they were yesterday In fact at twice the price that they are any day of the year besides Valentine's Day So here's the facts today on Valentine's Day

[01:34] You could buy a dozen of the most beautiful roses any color you like even mixed colors for about four bucks That's four bucks a dozen, which I guess has got to be about a tenth of what you pay in the States, right? And normally for the rest of the 364 days a year You can get a dozen for two bucks and I'm talking about big long stem roses and you know today being Valentine's Day It's not at all unusual to see a guy getting into his car or walking down the street with two dozen roses One for his wife and one for his mistress naturally. This is macho Latin America you know, so that's what happens on Valentine's Day down here and Woe be to the guy who doesn't buy his wife a dozen roses and the mistress Of course, she gets a dozen roses too and always a few bangles to boot

[02:20] But now I'm gonna change gears a bit and read an email from a loyal listener Robert He like so many gringos up in the first world wants to come down here to Latin America eventually But not just to retire and sit in a hammock on the beach And you know a long time ago Eddie and I had that idea too But beach life can be its own kind of prison, especially for antsy gringos who are used to really busy lives I mean taking life and stress levels down a few notches is great and that's one big reason we're down here But still you have to stay active, you know, so anyway Robert the author of the email I'm about to read once he finally gets here. He wants to hit the ground running business wise So naturally a lot of his emails to me are about doing business in Latin America in this particular email first

[03:06] He asks the question. Where do latins look for businesses? And he doesn't mean where do latin americans look for business opportunities or how to start their own businesses He's talking about latin americans as consumers He means where do latin americans look to buy a product or service? For example, how do latins go about finding a plumber or electrician someone the fixed toaster or even where to get a cracked windshield fixed? Well, maybe that was a bad example since most latins don't fix their cracked windshields And if you move down here, you'll find that out right away Anyway, here's what robert says johnny, please correct me if i'm wrong But to summarize what you've said in past episodes if latins themselves need to buy something that's not in their neighborhood

[03:51] Then they will usually look either in the newspaper yellow pages Let their fingers do the walking and all that or check the ads in a local newspaper This is in contrast to first worlders who are increasingly hopping to the internet to find goods and services Even if there is a provider just down the street The lesson that I draw from this is that making oneself familiar with the online versions of newspapers Which I do now as a result of your advice and I make good use of latin big city yellow pages Which are also online. I know that doing that would be very educational for wannabe entrepreneurs When they finally get down to latin america, in other words, you can prepare for the move and i'm paraphrasing by the way here He's saying that wannabes can best prepare for their move to latin america

[04:40] by looking up ads for basic services in the online yellow pages and the newspapers in the city or part of latin america that you're Planning on relocating to and he goes on to say doing that gives one a big head start For a very small investment mostly time searching on the internet and of course copying and pasting and running it through a translator If you don't know spanish And then robert says it's a systematic way of preparing yourself greatly before actually getting your boots on the ground That way from up in cleveland or boisey You can do a kind of basic analysis of what goods and services are available before you even get down there For example, you mentioned that most of latin america is hot and also that electricity is expensive To me that implies a demand for air conditioning installations for those who can afford it as well as efficient equipment

[05:29] And remember i'm kind of condensing and paraphrasing this because it is a long email Then he goes on to say to me It also suggests that a smart marketing tactic would be to offer free air conditioning energy audits for people considering either first-time air conditioning Or an upgrade of old equipment Then he says as a person who likes to be cool myself My mind went in that direction without prompting and then I worked backwards from that goal to what others might like to have in latin America and what's being supplied and what smart marketers are already doing up in the first world That's just one example of what might be a very good expat business move down there And then he says speaking of air conditioning You know how many americans love their air conditioning set to almost freezing while it's very hot outside in places such as texas or florida

[06:20] Even at least I remember it that way during my visits there when air conditioning was first introduced people would go to the theaters Just to be cool The air conditioning was a big draw for customers and that was true with all kinds of retail businesses back Then just having ac drew in the customers Then he says i'm wondering if latin business owners have caught on to that or are they just behind the times as usual Maybe they have not considered it because they assume it would cost too much Which suggests that free energy audit I mentioned will get your foot in the door and he signs off cheers robert Okay. Well, let me go through a couple of points in this email first I have to say brainstorming business ideas up where you live is a very good idea and it'll eliminate a lot of iffy proposition

[07:07] So you don't waste a lot of time and money before you come down But like I always say you can do as much research as you want up in the first world You can check out latin american internet sites and download the big latin newspapers and read their classified ads and stuff You can check the current prices and see the availability of products and services But in the end you're gonna find that what you think is a great business idea up in the first world that would be surely Transferable down here to latin america. Well, I can tell you one thing It's not going to be like you imagined no matter how much long-distance homework you've done Well, the fact is and this is always hard to swallow for expat wannabes and it even makes him a bit nervous Every successful expat I know quickly changed gears about his hot first world idea once he was down here for a while

[07:57] Once you get down here, it's never going to turn out the way you imagined You won't realize it now up in seattle But if you plan on transferring a business idea that you thought up Exclusively when you were up there in seattle doing all that research from up there The bad news is that there will be big gaping holes in the information you got off the internet And that missing information will always center around the social idiosyncrasies of latin society Those little latin quirks you can't pick up unless you've got boots on the ground and are paying attention It's like up north Why does one guy's borrowed disco take off and another guy's crashes and burns even when they're right on the same block in the same neighborhood? I mean strictly by the numbers two businesses like that should have an equal chance of surviving, right? Well in that case, it's about the socioeconomic quirks of first world people, you know, what's hot and what's not what's fashionable and what's cool

[08:49] You get the picture So you can't always assume what's true in business up in the first world will translate down here Even with that gringo advantage you can crunch the numbers up north, but it doesn't always work that way down here You have to figure out if latin society is ready to pay for what you've got to offer And that means at least a passing familiarity with the latin psyche Bottom line you just have to spend a couple of months down here snooping around before you invest any real money In any kind of business idea you had percolating in your head up north No matter how many research hours you put in and how confident you are that your transplanted idea is going to work For example, let's talk about what robert was discussing in his email He mentions because most of latin america is quite hot, which is true and that electricity is quite expensive also true

[09:38] So obviously that implies a demand for air conditioning installation for those who can afford it And then he says why not offer free air conditioning audits for people Since that's what smart marketers are doing up in the first world all the time Now my take on that since i've had so many years down here in not just the altiplano where it's always nice and spring-like But in very hot areas too where you'd think most people would really crave air conditioning I mean that would be logical to any first worlder, right? Since when we're hot we'd die without it and the big missing pieces to that puzzle are this First of all, nobody bothers to insulate their houses or businesses down here at all Every building new and old leaks like a sieve people never use double pane glazing

[10:24] Which is a minimum standard up in the first world and you never see door jam molding insulation either Never in fact, you'd have a very difficult time finding any of that stuff in a hardware store unless it's a first world chain Like ace hardware they'll probably have it in stock because they're forced to from the home office up in the states But the stock sure won't move and there'll be dust on the product on the shelf And I can tell you you'd be beating your head against the wall If you tried to get a builder or an architect to insulate a building to first world standards To them it'll just add more cost to the project right now with no added return Even though you and I know that it'll save a ton of money and energy costs over the life of the building The fact is you cannot convince builders and architects to seal up these buildings tight

[11:09] Because latins are just so very used to a nice steady air flow from very leaky doors and windows Because that's the way homes and buildings are traditionally built down here The fact is latins prefer some air movement all the time And one very good argument I heard from an architect down here Is that if you seal up a building and make it pretty airtight like a first world structure? And if for some reason the air conditioning went out for just one hour or the blower fan died the place would just become Unbearable in no time and no architect wants to risk that with his new building and don't forget the word maintenance is not in Their dictionary so air conditioners break down all the time Plus these days big new latin american commercial buildings have a lot of glass in them Which can look nice and seem quite first world

[11:57] But in reality these buildings are huge energy wasters the oversized air conditioning units for these big buildings Are always working overtime against the greenhouse effect And yes, I should point out that all the big new commercial buildings built within the last 10 or 15 years Are air conditioned and they leak like sieves And as you go from one office or one room to the next the temperatures vary all over the place It's too hot too cold or just right depending on which room you're in and of course the architects who made up the plans Have all the best intentions when they went to school They learned all about heating and air conditioning and they learned about ideal building placement on a particular lot To minimize cooling costs according to the angles of the sun and like first world architects

[12:42] They learned 3d computer-aided design too But what nearly always happens is there are some drastic cost cutting measures along the way and often the building gets Reoriented to a different angle on the lot and that could be because of parking lot placement or street noise Or because the owner's mistress doesn't like the view from the jacuzzi in the penthouse And in the end little thought is given to the heating and air conditioning parameters of a building Like one commercial air conditioner installer told me it's easy This is how you do it You just calculate the actual cooling needs of a building worst case then you go ahead double that figure and buy ac units for two buildings of that size Extreme overkill. Yes, but he said it never fails The air conditioning will be going full blast and a lot of times parts of the building still won't cool down

[13:32] And here's why Employees and visitors don't like a sealed up building They all seem to crave a little outside ventilation because that's what they're used to a little touch of home, you know So when latinos walk into a room that seems a little stuffy to them They'll crack open a window or two And of course the air conditioning has got to try to overcome that and sometimes it can't Which of course makes for sky high electric bills But that's just the way it is down here and the only real saving grace is that no one's got central heating Which means no furnaces no fuel or ducting costs there So as for robert's idea of giving these guys a free energy audit It sounds perfectly logical to a first world person and you might get a latin building owner here and there to buy into it Too, but if you do that, you'll be butting up against one of those latin american idiosyncrasies that i've been talking about

[14:22] The fact that they've just got to have some windows open to get a fresh air breeze And don't think you're going to talk the workers in that building out of that mindset either Now to give you another good example why you actually have to beat down here a while to figure these things out I was in a barber shop in an upscale mall about three or four months ago and the guy had a nice new samsung wall hung Air conditioning unit with a remote control that was just pumping away like mad and i'm thinking good first world move Keep the clients comfortable except for the fact that the front door in the place was propped wide open with a rubber door stop All day long, you know to get a little outside breeze some fresh air in the place Do you see what i'm getting at here? And that's not all about a month ago in el salvado. I walked into a little tienda a latin style 7-eleven

[15:10] And I walked back to the little coffee shop area and sat down at a table And I noticed there was an old style window air conditioning unit running full blast Propped up on a metal stand against the wall. Nothing unusual there, but still the place wasn't cool at all In fact, it was hotter inside than it was outside You see they never cut a hole through the wall for that air conditioner It was never mounted through the wall so that the hot air could vent outside and the cool air in Instead it was just humming away blowing cold air out the front like it should into the building Along with the hot air blowing into the building too So the net effect was that it was not an air conditioner at all But a kind of a space heater though the owner of the place never figured that out obviously So what i'm saying is this is the third world mentality the quirks you've got to deal with when you're down here

[16:00] The kind of stuff you learn about on my show, but I can't cover everything, you know I can give you the general bits, but it's a complicated society and it would take me a hundred years to point out all the quirks Like I said, that's the kind of sociological stuff you have to deal with when you start a business down here And you know, I repeat latins are not stupid. They're just as smart individually or smarter than any first world person However, practically the whole society is under educated, especially in math the hard sciences and technology Compared to first world standards, of course, even though everyone knows we're slipping fast But that's another story for another show Anyway in robert's email he mentions another interesting thing He says remember way back when before homes had air conditioning up in the states how movie and cinnamon chains would use the fact that they

[16:51] Had air conditioning to draw in clients They'd actually advertise that fact and it was good marketing because it worked And then robert says I wonder if latin business owners have caught on to that yet or is there a big lag time on that too? Now you see there's another big missing piece of the puzzle when you consider that idea You see you have to be down here boots on the ground to realize that the average latin person perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the population They do not mind the heat at all The fact is while us first worlders are basically immobilized by the heat latins thrive in it and barely sweat All you got to do is drive your car around on any sunny day And you'll see dozens if not hundreds of people just working their asses off indirect sunlight And you and I we couldn't take that for 10 minutes, but these people work eight 10 hours a day doing it

[17:41] It's in their blood They've been doing it for generations and that's why they don't crave air conditioning or make it a priority at all Even when they can afford it and how do I know that? Well, I can tell you this fact is down here in latin america You can still buy brand new cars and trucks without factory air conditioning And if you can afford a brand new car or a truck you can afford the option of air conditioning for another grant And i'm not saying people go out of their way to find vehicles that don't have air conditioning But what I am saying is this most latins don't like air conditioning much. They say it's too cold In fact many times you'll be driving around in some latino's car that has very good air conditioning That doesn't matter. They prefer to crack a window instead. Like I said, they like that fresh air and ventilation When weather for us is uncomfortably hot. It's just fine for latinos

[18:31] And that's why when you're down here with boots on the ground for a while you'll see just the opposite, too When the temperature gets unseasonably cold down here, let's say 50 to 55 degrees to us It's just crisp fresh light jacket or sweater weather, but to them it's Miserable cold and they bundle up like it was 20 degrees in chicago And they're just amazed how easily we gringos deal with it. So what can you make of all this? Well, I can tell you one thing if you have air conditioning in your business It's not going to draw in extra customers because having ac doesn't mean a thing to the average latin But there are some businesses down here that have some very good and powerful ac units And when you walk in one of those places, it's always a little bit too cold

[19:16] Well, you might have guessed it's those first world franchises, you know starbucks mcdonald's kentucky fried sears ace hardware gold's gym Anya want to know why their new buildings are built to us standards by us architects Their cookie cutter first world plans that are approved by the franchise So they are airtight ergonomic and energy efficient just like their twin brothers and sisters up in cleveland So just like you can always count on a basic clean bathroom when you go into starbucks You can always count on the fact that the air conditioning will work just fine But does that draw in any extra latin customers in a word? No Which brings me full circle to my original proposition, which basically states there is no substitute for having boots on the ground down here

[20:02] And not just a two week in and out But i'm talking about a at least a couple of months on the ground exploring And it's not to say that all that internet research you did up on the couch in cleveland was useless or ineffectual Don't get me wrong. That's all good In business you can never be too prepared But there will be some gaping holes in your puzzle and you'll only really be able to put it together Once you've got your boots on the ground Which reminds me? I also get a lot of emails from expat wannabes from military and ex-military types who express a strong desire To expat down here and open a first world style security business since all the upper classes and people with money Have third rate out of shape useless bodyguards that probably never even fired a gun So anyway, I get emails from military types that say they know they can fill a niche either as bodyguards protecting rich latins and their

[20:56] Family's first world gringo style or even opening up a first world gringo style bodyguard training school And I say, you know, those are all great ideas, but you're about 10 years late, man It's obvious that people who send me emails like that have not had boots on the ground down here Because if they had they'd know that a lot of latin american countries have had a gringo military presence for many years Not to mention all the u.s embassies down here of a military attache too Now what you're not putting together is the fact that any u.s Military guy that's been stationed down here in a latin american country Well, don't you think he's had the same idea go through his head a million times when he sees these rich guys and their six Great educated doofus potbellied bodyguards in their bad fitting monkey ward suits I tell you over the years i've met a dozen us military guys down here in latin american who said you know what johnny

[21:47] When I muster out of the service i'm gonna come down here and work for one of these rich guys And get a first world salary running his idiot bodyguard brigade I'll be the guy in charge and you know what a scant few military guys have pulled this off But most latin american rich guys. Well, you know why they're rich because they don't pay first world salaries to their bodyguards or anyone else So though it may be a good idea and rich latin american guys would love to have a gringo as head of their bodyguard brigade They're not gonna pay you 50 grand a year to do it They're gonna pay up more like 15 grand a year and the other doofus bodyguards under you he'll pay five So again, you have to have boots on the ground down here to have figured that one out And sometimes even that's not enough look at these us military guys They had boots on the ground down here and they didn't figure it out

[22:36] Oh and another thing for you military types who think you're gonna come down here and start a first world style Security company or first world school for bodyguards. Well, that's a very good idea, too But you're about seven years late on that one because you see the israeli military guys who are extremely good at that Came down here about seven years ago and beat you to it only you can't hire a real israeli security guy You hire someone from their company which has an israeli name, which is israeli owned and operated But all the security people are latin americans that have been trained by them and they still only get five to eight hundred bucks a month Still a couple hundred bucks more than your average fat ass latin bodyguard But you see these israeli trained bodyguards get the extra dough because they come with that

[23:22] Mystique of being trained by first world israelis in the business So bottom line you guys up there in cleveland with that great idea Don't even think about coming down and trying that with israeli competition. You'll be dead in the water So i'm gonna say this just one more time If you're still an expat wannabe up there in the first world researching and brainstorming business ideas Well, that'll give you a head start All right But don't spend any real money or make any big decisions till you actually come down here and check it out for a while Because it's an expat fact of life that nearly all of the very successful ones found their niche while they were down here exploring In fact, I can't think of a single one who incubated an idea up in the states and made it work Just as he planned it up north. Okay enough about that Now I want to talk about something that might be a little disturbing to you

[24:08] But to me I kind of like it, but i'm a little twisted, you know Now i've mentioned in previous shows if you expat to a smaller latin town a town 50 000 or under They're almost always very very safe kind of like Boise, Idaho Now i'm assuming Boise is pretty safe, but I don't know And i've stated that these small towns remain safe because the population keeps crime under control Not the police because they're under trained underfunded and basically lazy-ass doofuses. Oops There's that d word again and i've stated that in these small towns Eventually the population gets to know the repeat offenders the petty criminals that rob and assault and stuff And they end up being lynched or run out of town on a rail The police do nothing so the town takes the law into their own hands

[24:55] And you know what that phenomena is starting to happen in the big latin towns now, too And you know if you've ever had a discussion with a latin person about the cops Every latin will tell you they just hate the sight of those lazy asses The cops down here are about as revered as a cockroach or a dung beetle Anyway, listen to this story out of today's big guatemalan newspaper called the principalibre It says and i'll translate here In guatemala city with a population of 2 million in the central historic park in zone one at least 1000 persons tried to lynch three local criminals who reportedly have repeatedly assaulted persons in the area It says the three men were cornered in a basement in a building in zone one The three guys being christian david cortez 23 a nikaraguan jose antonio

[25:44] Zunguia 26 also a nikaraguan and a honduranian salvin Olvido matute 28 It says the crowd that was in pursuit took away a 38 caliber revolver from one of the guys And shot one of the presumed assaultants in the stomach with it And then it says the police arrived within a half an hour record time for latin cops to make it to the scene But the police station was only two blocks away Anyway, it says when the police arrived to take away the three suspects the crowd wouldn't let them It says the mob was furious and wanted to get the revenge on these three guys And they weren't going to let the police stop them So they threw stones and fireworks at the cops who returned fire with rubber bullets and tear gas And it says after it was all over the crowd had destroyed one police vehicle and overturned another

[26:33] Resulting in the arrest of five people in the crowd Okay, now you see where i'm going with this. Well the people in the small towns They've been doing this a long time. They've got it down to an art and that's why these small towns are so safe But now what you might call vigilante acts are spreading to the big cities Which me and most expats I know think is a very good thing Why? Cops don't have the brains the incentive or the organization to clean up the big cities So the local residents who know damn well who the real neighborhood bad boys are They've had it with the cops and are finally getting pissed off enough to clean up the streets themselves But what this particular little act of rebellion shows is that the public is not only pissed off at the criminals They're very pissed off at the cops, too Look, they destroyed two cop cars, which makes me wonder when you guys up north are going to get off your deadasses

[27:21] I don't mean fight the powers that be they've got the firepower I mean become an expat down here Then instead of being in the us when it disintegrates you could watch it on cable tv You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america Coming to you each week from somewhere south of the border and don't forget you can email me on anything at all about latin America the expat files at gmail.com See you next time You