Formalities are an important part of doing business in
Mexico. Unlike the U.S. where people often start addressing
each other by the first name, Mexicans adhere to a more
formal manner of addressing each other. For initial
greetings, you should use the person's last name preceded
by Señor for men or Señorita for women. Do not address a
woman as Señora. Using Señora assumes the woman is married,
and assumptions can be dangerous. If the woman is married
or elderly, she will be flattered you addressed her as
Señorita. If the woman is married, she will let you know.
Professional titles are very important in Mexico. Two of
the most common titles are Ingeniero for engineers and
computer programmers and Licenciado for attorneys.
Licenciado is also accorded to any professional who has a
college degree. Licenciado is for men while Licenciada is
for women. Lic. is the abbreviation for Licenciado/a and
Ing. for Ingeniero/a.
Learn the person's title as soon as possible and start
using it. If the person you are talking with is a
Licenciado, instead of having to say Lic. Perez each time
you want to address the person, you can simply say
Licenciado. The use of the title by itself is perfectly
acceptable. We often use titles when speaking to certain
people such as "Officer", "Counselor" and "Doctor".
Your Mexican host will probably refer to you as Licenciado.
In its own way, a title lets you know how the other person
views you. If you are doing business, whether by phone or
in person, most Mexican professionals will assume you are a
Licenciado meaning you have a college degree. If you are
introduced or addressed as such, just accept it and realize
they will be calling you Licenciado during your
conversation.
Understanding titles is critical because you will use them
in all of your communications. A few years ago, I was at
one of the largest industry trade shows in the U.S., the
Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). I met a
Regional Sales Director for a large U.S. manufacturer,
Dunlee. This company sends products to Canada and Mexico so
I expected a director to know the fundamentals of Mexico's
cultural etiquette.
The Director had arranged for a follow up letter to be sent
to me. Since I was representing companies from Mexico, the
Director may have made a note that the letter should be
addressed to a Mexican professional. Imagine my surprise
when I received the letter from this international company
addressed to Mr. Lic. Villasana. What does this tell me
about the company? Someone in that organization has no clue
as to how titles work in Mexico.
If I were a Mexican business person receiving this message,
I would know the company had taken no interest in knowing
the absolute fundamentals of how to address me. It means
whoever addressed the letter, the Director or a
subordinate, did not understand that "Lic." is not an
abbreviation for a name.
I told this story to a couple of Mexican professionals. One
simply could not believe U.S. businesses could make such a
mistake. After the other professional stopped laughing, his
comment was similar to, "That's terrible!" The
professionals both agreed this disregard or ignorance with
titles showed, at the very least, a careless attitude
toward doing business with Mexican companies.
I tell you this story to better represent the significant
need to understand how fundamental titles are in your
communications. Get this right and you will have set the
foundation for good business relations in Mexico.
----------------------------------------------------
Want to enter Mexico's trillion dollar economy and maximize
your return on investment in the shortest time possible?
Through his company, Richard Villasana, The Mexico Guru,
has created a system through seminars and workshops that
allows clients to quickly generate profits in Mexico while
avoiding cultural mistakes that cost companies such as
Microsoft millions of dollars every year. Go to
http://www.TheMexicoGuru.com to learn more.
No comments:
Post a Comment