Fernando Maroniene reminds us that business is business everywhere yet paying attention to details delivers success.
In this episode, we have an in depth discussion about how he helped drive efficiencies with content creation across the region to support the local sales efforts.
His insights and experience on content creation, translation, and quality can help every country head or marketing person.
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Fernando - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernandomaroniene/
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:00:34] Wendy: Thanks for tuning in to listen to this episode of the global marketing show. What do you get when you combine HP, Adobe and Ricoh? Well, today you're going to find out cause Fernando Maroniene is here to talk to us. He's a seasoned marketing leader with more than 20 years experience in the high tech industry with [00:01:00] responsibility, senior responsibilities
[00:01:02] at HP Adobe and Rico. So that's what they have in common. He's got experience in B2C and B2B across multiple geographies within Latin America region. So he's really a specialist on how you want into Latin American south America. So, Fernando welcome. Thank you.
[00:01:22] Fernando: Thank you so much. I'm
[00:01:25] Wendy: so excited to talk to you today because [00:01:30] I know so many times people in the United States will just say, okay, we're going to go into Latin America, but you really pointed out to me when we were talking earlier that there's 33 different countries and they all have their own personality.
[00:01:45] So I'd love for you to start out and just talk about what are some of the differences in the countries in Latin America.
[00:01:52] Fernando: Well, thank you for having me, uh, actively as you mentioned, 33 countries, there are big counters, like Brazil, Mexico, smaller [00:02:00] countries in central American, Caribbean islands. You have also countries, uh, around 30 to 40 million, uh, people like Columbia, like, uh
[00:02:09] So I would say despite Brazil that speak Portuguese, most of them speak Spanish. And that's the only common thing between them. The rest are exactly what you said. I mean, each market is different depending on the industry you are depending. On the, on the segment you're targeting, uh, they might have their own differences and that's the main, [00:02:30] I would say the first mistake people take, uh, when they talk about late in America, they use to consider the region as one.
[00:02:36] And when actually you have 33 countries. So if you really want to go deep, you need to dig into the details. Again, depending on the market, depending what, what you're looking for, but that's the first starting point 33 countries. Uh, the only commonality or at least for 32 or most of them actually is, uh, the, the, the common language.
[00:02:58] That's it.
[00:02:59] Wendy: [00:03:00] Um, into an example. I mean, imagine you're talking to a business owner that has a limited budget and they're thinking, well, I'll go into Latin America and I'll start with Spanish because it covers so many countries. Now talk to me about when you can get away with this and when you can't.
[00:03:19] Fernando: Okay, so let's, uh, let's start well, uh, I'm sorry, because I have a certain bias because I'm Brazilian.
[00:03:25] So I always going to put a little bit of Brazil on that, as I, [00:03:30] I mentioned is the only counter that speak more to this. Uh, but you're right. If you, if you want to start late in America, please apply Brazil at first. I mean is not only because of the language, but it's the most complex country not, uh, not in terms of logistics.
[00:03:45] Uh, first of all, it's a continent and country, uh, big distances, uh, as well. The backs station is very difficult, a very difficult for, uh, someone outside Brazil to understand, even for me to understand for us, Brazilians is very [00:04:00] difficult to understand. So that's the first point, the other countries, most of them speak Spanish.
[00:04:05] And, uh, as I mentioned, they have, uh, different. Concept. So usually when we talk about central America, um, you'll see that some of the companies that are there, they actually are in three or four countries, at least. So they, they, you, they tend to act as a conglomerate of countries. If you are a, a community of countries, Mexico is the largest one.
[00:04:29] [00:04:30] Uh, I would say. Easiest one for American specially to be, uh, to start with, uh, specialty because they're number one, uh, logistics ma much easier, especially if you're shipping from the us or having some kind of, uh, logistics facilities, uh, that, that are going to be share. Also Mexico shares a lot of brands as well.
[00:04:52] So most of the American brands you can find in Canada, but you can also find in Mexico too. You can find [00:05:00] also local brands too, but, uh, there are more similarities, uh, for us in Mexico. Then you can find like sample in Argentina. That's another country by example, which is a big market, but it's very, very difficult to, I mean, just like Brazil, Argentina is suffering a lot now with, uh, economic crisis.
[00:05:18] It came before, even before COVID, but I mean, Argentina, it's a beautiful country. It has a beautiful potential, but it's very complex to hyperinflation. Um, the [00:05:30] government now they have a lot of, uh, restrictions in terms of employment. So, uh, it's a more complex country, Chile. It's a very open country. It's just the opposite.
[00:05:39] I mean, usually, uh, companies like, uh, American companies or foreign companies like to do business in Chile because of of the openness of it market. So that's something you need to take in consideration when you're talking about late in America and I'm not even touching uh, let's say things like Culture, right.
[00:05:57] I mean, culture in Mexico totally different than culture in [00:06:00] Brazil is totally different than culture in Chile. That's another point. Uh, let me give an example in Latin America, in particular, not only Brazil, but mostly in Brazil, WhatsApp is the most used it. May, uh, channel of communication between consumers and the companies, uh, can imagine that.
[00:06:19] I mean, it's not used for, for personal issue. It's use it for business issue. So it's a, it's something that sometimes you don't know, but I mean, it's, it's something important also [00:06:30] another important thing. Yeah. Very
[00:06:30] Wendy: interesting to me, because whenever I've gone over to Europe, what's app is completely used for personal and not for business.
[00:06:38] Fernando: Yeah. In Brisbane in lake and American general, especially in Brazil, it was initially been used for, for, for, for personal portals. But it expanded very fast that to business because also especially in the self Sheila Brazil in Argentina, uh, we are very tack, I mean, the, the adoption of social media, I think Brazil is number two in some of the platforms [00:07:00] that are available.
[00:07:01] So, uh, social media and the internet adoption is very high in America. They are very tacky. I mean, uh, and that's something, another, another concept that's called the leapfrog. Uh, I dunno if you know about the concept, but, uh, by example, when I got married a long time ago, I remember my. And my father-in-law, he gave me a full line.
[00:07:23] Is that what you said? It's a phone line. Why you're giving me a phone line? Well, I was very young, so I didn't know, and I [00:07:30] couldn't understand, but he told me, did you try to get the phone line right now to buy one you can't? Uh, and if you want to buy a phone line, you need to buy from a third party is from someone else and you need to pay for 20, from 20 to $30,000 a phone line.
[00:07:45] I don't have a phone line today, a landline today. Right. But by the time I would say, uh, for, um, almost 30 years ago, I mean, a phone line, uh, was, uh, a luxury, uh, encounter like Brazil, obviously. I'm talking, [00:08:00] uh, before. In the, as the starting of the new century, what happened is a new company start like a Telefonica.
[00:08:07] Us companies went down to those countries and today is, is fairly available. But at the time it was very difficult. So what happened is actually most of the population couldn't have access at the time to a land line, but as provide decision is started, they had very easy access to cell phone, to mobile phones.
[00:08:28] So that's what we call the [00:08:30] leapfrog the same in the, in the banking industry. Uh, I would say I'm not sure if the number is correct, but the, between 70 to 80% of uh, the population in Leeton Latin America doesn't have a bank account. So it's a leap frog to new technologies offered by the feedbacks because that's what happens when you have these huge.
[00:08:52] In this kind of commodities for us hearing the us, but there it's not available. It's simply very difficult. [00:09:00] So that's what happened in Latin America. Usually this leapfrog from what would say they skip the basic technology and they go to the newest and the high-tech offer that's available. There.
[00:09:12] Makes sense. Yes,
[00:09:14] Wendy: it does. And I have heard that about the electronic payments are a lot more prevalent down in the Latin American countries than they are here in the United States. So that's that's okay. And I've heard about the leapfrogging from, [00:09:30] you know, skipping over the land lines to the cell that that's very common in Africa.
[00:09:35] Fernando: Correct. And I think that's the root calls. Why late in America is so high-tech, uh, I mean, why they like, uh, internet, they like, uh, they, they, they accept those technology, uh, in a, in a way that's much faster than all the countries around the world.
[00:09:53] Wendy: Hm. Okay. So a lot of the stuff I've heard now is that if you [00:10:00] understand those cultural differences, and there's a lot of similarities with tech and language that you could, as an American company say, I'm going into Latin America and start in Mexico, it's easy.
[00:10:12] And then expand from that. What are some of the differences between the countries that you've seen.
[00:10:19] Fernando: I, I say the difference. Uh, let me give an example when my last position I call it the peel, the onion, the big problem. When you have, man, I'm not talking about the, when you manage a [00:10:30] region, when you have my last company I used to have, we used to have 12 operations do all subsidiaries.
[00:10:35] So if you have a market. No, it was in all the countries. So 12 countries along in, across the region. The problem I would like to S to mention is when you have uh, numbers, like, uh, I was in the tech industry. So I use a lot of IVC numbers. You have the market share, right? So you see, you have 30% of market share.
[00:10:57] Wow. That's an amazing market [00:11:00] share you're number one. So if you see that number sometimes in a regional level, that's, that's, uh, the master, like the convey here is, uh, it can treat you because you need to really peel the onion and you need to see country by country, how your market share is in, in that specific country.
[00:11:18] And sometimes, uh, the competition is different in every single country and sometimes, uh, in a country maybe you are number five, number six, and the important counts like Mexico, Brazil, [00:11:30] and, uh, you're, you're leading in the smaller countries, which is. But by the end of the day, it represents an opportunity.
[00:11:37] So my recommendation is don't treat if you let's say if you are in late in America, don't treat the, the continent or, or the region as one, you really need to clear the audience. You need to go country by country, see your position counter by counter. Who's your competition. What's the go-to market in each country.
[00:11:55] What are the differences? And that's, what's going to make the, the, the, [00:12:00] let's say the, the, the best spot, the sweet spot, uh, working late in America when you don't fake it as a region, because I know that the us, uh, you have, uh, 50 different states, they function differently, but by the end of the day, the infrastructure is very similar and the currencies is one.
[00:12:18] We are one country. But when you're talking about 33 counties, you are talking about 33 countries. So logistics, not the same currency is not the same. Taxation is not the same. And, uh, [00:12:30] business-wise if you start digging market share, it's like nation. I mean, your competition is not going to be the same.
[00:12:36] Healthcare is not going to be the same. Telecommunication is not going to be the same. So you really need to see it has 33 different countries and not assume one size fits all. I think that's could be the biggest mistake by one side and the biggest opportunity from the stand, how to do it. Well,
[00:12:54] Wendy: that's an interesting list that you just said, you know, the logistics, currency, [00:13:00] taxation, competition, telecom healthcare.
[00:13:02] That's a good place to start when you're looking at different countries to go into, to do a grid across with the countries and the different variables of what you'd want to look at.
[00:13:12] Fernando: Yeah. And if you, and you should go to specifics, like I mentioned, with health care, it's going to be totally different. I mean, for me, it was very difficult coming from Brazil to the us during the sun, the healthcare here very difficult to understand how it works.
[00:13:27] I mean, uh, it, it was totally different and [00:13:30] I'm assuming I'm not coming from China. I mean, from from the Western industry. So, uh, I don't see I mean these kinds of functions like healthcare or segments, if you will working in the same way, they're totally different. And you need, you must understand.
[00:13:44] And as I said, not only the entire region, but you need to understand down by country how it works. I mean, sometimes it's more state uh, smart, privatized at some time, for example, Brazil, uh, let's say It's the health system in Brazil. Good. I mean, if I [00:14:00] get, if I get a, let's say a problem there and I'm in good hands, I mean, it's going to be okay.
[00:14:06] Yes and no depends. If, if you have money, you can go to a private hospital. I would prefer to be in Brazil, to be honest, indeed. I talked to my doctors there by form. Can you do that here in the us? I can ask for WhatsApp here. They don't answer me. Uh, hopefully their assistants are going to answer me.
[00:14:25] That's the difference? They are. No they're you can talk to them. There is more personal [00:14:30] touch. And so if you really want. The ability to pay for a private service in Brazil. Just an example, she lived maybe you're going to be very good friends, but by the other hand, if you don't have the resources, obviously the experience is going to be the other extreme.
[00:14:46] So that's what you need to understand when you go in different, uh, let's say segments in different industries inlaid in America. You need to understand this, this indie cross high school English in the courtesy
[00:14:59] [00:15:00] indie curiosity. Well, forget it.
[00:15:04] Wendy: Do you know how to
[00:15:05] Fernando: say it in Spanish? I . Oh,
[00:15:09] Wendy: idiosyncrasies.
[00:15:13] Okay. Yeah, I don't speak Portuguese, but I do speak a little Spanish so that when I get there, it does, it does there's words all the time. Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting. I just want to go off on a tangent here, you know, you know, different healthcare systems all over [00:15:30] the, you know, probably 33 different countries.
[00:15:32] What, what, when do you think, does it the best. And what and why? Like what's the setup of it, or if you had to take the best of each one, what would you, what would you do? Well, I'm
[00:15:42] Fernando: not the expert in healthcare to be personal touch. Now I was talking to a friend that lives in Spain and he told me because I told him I told him, Hey you guys are lucky.
[00:15:54] You have the best healthcare system in the world. It's like, yes and no. If I get the way I prefer it to be in [00:16:00] Brazil, because there are obviously having money, you can choose the best care. But here, I mean is the same for everybody. So if there is no spots in the hospitals for me, there is no spots I need to wait as anybody else.
[00:16:14] So it depends. It really depends on the situation, but that's just the personal touch. I'm not an expert on Africa.
[00:16:22] Wendy: Well, that's interesting. It was a good little tangent there. So back to, to Mexico, which was really interesting to me, you were [00:16:30] talking about the large market and how it's easier to enter.
[00:16:33] And I've also heard that Mexico has the largest Spanish speaking population in the world and the country with the second largest Spanish speaking population in the world is the United States. So did you see any of your countries leveraging the translation you might've used for United States, Spanish speaking market and Mexico, or [00:17:00] did, did you consider those two different
[00:17:02] Fernando: markets?
[00:17:03] So, so if we think about, uh, linguistically speaking and again, Spanish, not my first language, it's my second actually. What we talking, if you go to, to Microsoft word or to any software, there will be a late in America, Spanish. That's where he asking. So it's totally different. Uh, from the Spanish spoken in, in Spain.
[00:17:24] But. Obviously, there are some countries that they, they are going to have their own languages, their own [00:17:30] expressions, their own words. Sorry. And they are expressions, but, uh, there is a commonality I would say, in the Spanish from Latin America. And yes, for sure, Mexico is uh, is, is, uh, a country where there's a big influence in the us, uh, especially because of immigration in central America as well.
[00:17:48] So, uh, there will be there, uh, an interesting exercise to do, especially for Spanish speaking people is to watch Netflix original. So I love to watch a Netflix [00:18:00] productions, uh, from Mexico and compared to the Spanish ones and compare it to the Argentina one. I mean, it's amazing how different it is when you know the language.
[00:18:09] Right. But business-wise there, there is some commonalities. Um, this, the Latin American Spanish is quite the same, uh, everywhere. You just need to eliminate, uh, expressions that are very, very specific for each country. And here the country that in Latin America that has more is Argentina. Argentina.
[00:18:28] If you, if you [00:18:30] here, you're going to hear that the way of speaking steadily different. Usually actually, when I was at HB, um, all the translations, I need to do a special one for Argentina sometimes, especially for consumer.
[00:18:41] Wendy: So you worked at HP, Adobe and Rico. Can you talk me through how each of those companies handled the translations for their marketing?
[00:18:53] Fernando: Well, usually the translation, as I mentioned, business-wise is exactly the same, uh, for the, [00:19:00] for all, regardless of the company, uh, we have the late in America, we try to avoid. The Argentina, Argentina and, uh, expression, specially, uh, the way they speak like a Vos versus to, uh, that's one of the bigger differences, but mostly, uh, uh, usually you can handle one translation.
[00:19:20] If you are in consumer, especially when I work at, with uh, agencies like McInerney Erickson or policies, I mean, uh, and you're doing a specific ad. [00:19:30] Uh, Dan is different. Uh, so one thing is collateral is common business uh, tax. But, uh, when you're talking specifically about advertising in Argentina used to have a different translation specifically for that country.
[00:19:44] Wendy: Oh, I see you with, so even at the large companies, you would do one good Spanish translation and then a good Brazilian Portuguese translation to target the Latin American countries.
[00:19:56] Fernando: Correct. And you can also leverage a star. The good [00:20:00] starting point will be from Europe. I mean, you can get the Spanish and Portuguese materials from Europe.
[00:20:05] You can adapt. Uh, you can, uh, uh, let's say Portuguese, the Portuguese from Portugal is slightly different. So probably you need to adapt a 10 to 20% or no, actually 10% or less. There's some, some expressions that, uh, it's just like the us and the end of the UK or England. Right? I mean, uh, sometimes, uh, you're not going to say Lori, you're going to say truck.
[00:20:28] You're not going to [00:20:30] say the, some words. So, so those are the words you need to get and try to convert to what your market is. But I would say most of let's say from England, if you get the tax that business tax, I would say 95% of the, of the tax should be applicable to the.
[00:20:49] Wendy: And then did you go out to an agency to handle your translation?
[00:20:53] Or did you have internal translators or people in the ground? How did you do
[00:20:58] Fernando: no. Uh, due to the volume [00:21:00] that the content that we generate in all the three companies that I work at four it's huge. You cannot have that internal. You need to go in. Usually we used to have two or three agencies who help us, uh, and actually we split the job because the volume is so big.
[00:21:15] Some I saw so high sometimes that you need to split the job, but there is another job that people don't think about, which is you need to read, you need to correct. So although someone is doing the job for you, you is, [00:21:30] uh, I mean the marketing departments is, is, is responsible or at least accountable, uh, for the, the final result.
[00:21:37] So you need to check average. So it's not only translating, but also you need to check everything. So translation is part of the job, but, uh, the check-in is internal, I would say. And very time consuming. Actually. I cannot imagine how people in Europe do that. I mean, with so many languages, because we're talking about only two [00:22:00] different versions in Latin America, Europe should be very more complex.
[00:22:04] Wendy: Did you, was your marketing department, a global marketing department, or did you have marketing departments by country or region?
[00:22:12] Fernando: Usually the, let's say the brand, the positioning is global. You need to have a framework if you will globally, and then you need, you can adapt some things locally. Uh, especially when it goes to demand generation, that's more local, but [00:22:30] whenever we're talking about brand or big problems, they're more global oriented.
[00:22:34] But what you need to have basically the field marketing. So field marketing is going to take those uh, those materials, the content created, uh, globally or regionally, and they are going to implement, uh, in a local fashion. So the field marketing is, is key. So, uh, my last position in this company with 12 subsidiaries, there are at least 12 marketing managers in my team, one in [00:23:00] each operation to make sure we used to have a, you're going to have this kind of a local flavor or local translation, and actually also to implement some of the strategies.
[00:23:10] And right now it's a little bit different, difficult to think about events, physical events, stuff like that. But when it resumed, I mean, it's a big Bart. I mean, people still want to. I mean, I know that, uh, in the last two years, uh, we got used it to zoom and to webinars, stuff like that, but I faked that once we [00:23:30] can go back and have this personal touch is going to come back.
[00:23:33] I mean, people need to see each other because by the end of the day, business is about trust and trust is about people. So that's why we have those local field marketing managers in the field, uh, organizing, uh, these kind of marketing activities, especially the, the, the, the law, the no fee, the physical ones.
[00:23:53] Okay.
[00:23:53] Wendy: So you're, I'm going to bring you down on some of the subjects into more detail about what you're talking about there. So [00:24:00] your last position was with Rico, correct. Okay. Can you talk about what your responsibilities were? And this is a larger company, but it helps give a vision for companies of all sizes of how a larger company might be doing it.
[00:24:14] So can you talk about. what your organization looked like, and it was responsible for,
[00:24:20] Fernando: so let me put in perspective. So he called pre pandemic was around a hundred thousand people around the world in late in America. We're talking about 3000 people in [00:24:30] my department, marketing used to have around 40 to 50 people just to put in perspective for a Latin American market in Latin America.
[00:24:39] Correct. So 3000 employees and 40 to 50 in marketing functions, including the the, the field marketing. So around 20 in the regional level, uh, to create content campaigns and stuff like. And the other health, I would say, uh, at least 12, as I mentioned to you was, uh, the few marketing managers [00:25:00] in some countries you have three or four people like Mexico and Brazil.
[00:25:03] So, um, the stricture I used to have, there was basically three departments. The first one I was responsible for problem marketing. So problem marketing is original function and that's different because at HP, I used to have a problem marketing in each country, uh, at Rico, you, we, we actually had, uh, just, uh, problem marketing in the regional level.
[00:25:25] We don't have in the local, in the country level. So [00:25:30] that's, uh, that's how it depends how each organization, uh, they structure the, the team. But basically the difference is because Being a problem manager today, for me, it's very different than it was you in the past years. I mean, in the past years, you need to be, uh, I'm talking about dance 15 years ago.
[00:25:48] You need to be the such expert manager um, the subject matter experts, sorry, SME. So you need to be the person who knows the product. Usually you need to have, uh, engineering backgrounds. [00:26:00] Uh, you need really to know the product In, in very deep, uh, concept. Right. But, uh, today I would say the product, not that people don't care about the product anymore, but I mean, you cannot go to a customer and say, Hey, this product has a 40 DPI.
[00:26:18] This product has, these has that. I mean, they don't care. I mean, they, they have a problem, they have a pain and they want a company to solve their problem. So the. [00:26:30] The problem manager today is a totally different concept, uh, at HP by, eh, by any instance, I mean, it was one of the, I learned it was one of the most, uh, important positions in the company, a problem manager, exactly the CEO of, of it own product line.
[00:26:47] I was a problem manager at HP for consumer notebooks. So my function was to deal with the business unit, to talk about logistics, to talk about service, to talk about roadmap, to talk about [00:27:00] configurations, stuff like that. By the other hand, going to the country, uh, looking out to the, to the country level. I need to work with, uh, the problem managers in the country to understand the market needs, to understand marketing, to understand sales, to understand the different go-to market.
[00:27:16] So the interesting part of being a pro manager, each at HPS. You are accountable for your PNL. You're accountable for your product line, but you're not responsible for everything. So you need to develop [00:27:30] the inference capacity capability to influence people from different areas to make sure your product line is going to be successful.
[00:27:38] So HP is actually a great school for problem managers. I mean I've been in that position and I totally recommend to be in a company like HP with this kind of a structure, because it's where you understand how difficult it is to manage a company. You are as a nation, that many CEO, you have accountability for the [00:28:00] results, but you need to influence people.
[00:28:02] So it's a great school at Ricoh, uh, used to have it more centralized in the region. And, um, what, what I was trying to do. Change the problem manager from the technical guy and to become more of a market guy. So understand the go-to market. Let me give you an example. Um, there is one country where there was a big opportunity, uh, this country pedal we are, uh, it's the third county for a specific product line.
[00:28:28] And we are not [00:28:30] even scratching the surface in terms of market share we're number five or number six. So I asked them my problem marketing team to work together with the field team and understand what was going on. So we realized that, uh, most of the sales in that particular category was being done in government.
[00:28:49] So then I ask it, uh, the, the local team. Hey guys, what's your go-to market strategy in terms of government? Do you have what I mean about go to market? Do you have a specific [00:29:00] Salesforce? Sales reps actually, uh, to go out to government, federal uh, state or even, uh, in the city. Or do you have a channel that does that what's your go-to market?
[00:29:11] And then they said, no, we don't have, I mean, we never sold to government or our strategy to solve that. The government was very reactive. So well, but you have a problem because 90% of your market actually is government today. So that's things that I, I think it's important for the problem [00:29:30] manager to do is to build the on and go market by market, understand how it works.
[00:29:35] Not being just the specialist in terms of the technology, but understand the market, understand the problem, because what happens is usually sales is telling you we need more discounts and, and me being, uh, the, the owner of the problem management PNL, I cannot give you more discount, especially because your problem is not price.
[00:29:57] Your problem is go to market. So [00:30:00] that's the kind of, uh, purely on that I was talking about. So, sorry, I actually, the initial question was the structure, right? So I used to have problem marketing. I used to have, um, marketing communication and I used to have a solution team. So that was my last structure in terms of team for specialty, for the regional level, which was around 20 people in the region.
[00:30:24] Wendy: Okay. So, so you had product marketing, communication and [00:30:30] solutions, and you had. You had 40 to 50 people total and Latin America, your product marketing people were the ones who really would know the country. So you had, but you had them regional, not in country.
[00:30:46] Fernando: Yes. So in this company, Rico, they need to work with the field.
[00:30:50] They need to work with the country managers structure at HP. We could afford to have a product manager in the field. So problem manager in the [00:31:00] original level was talking to the problem manager in the field in Rico. The problem manager in the original level was talking to the country, man. In the field.
[00:31:09] So it's just a matter of structure, but usually you need to talk to someone in the field because they are the ones. So you can help them to ask the right questions. Are you in the right way or doing these? Are you doing that? But the local people, the ones who are going to answer those questions yes or no.
[00:31:26] Who is your competition? I mean, some data you can leverage [00:31:30] regionally or globally. Sometimes we also want information from Japan, uh, from Rico. So the data you can have, but the local. Understanding needs to be local, either a problem manager or a country manager or someone in the country sales sometimes that are the ones who can help you to understand the situation, because that's the most important function of the problem manager is to understand the market, not the product, the product.
[00:31:56] Wendy: So they're really your market strategists that you have. They [00:32:00] know they have to figure out how to go get the information and then how to position it and then, and, and measure it. How many product manager, how many product marketers did you.
[00:32:13] Fernando: So it depends on the, on the time. I think the last one was about, uh, seven or eight, probably depending on how many, uh, pro lines you carry, because at pre-cal I used to handle not only the office printing, but also the [00:32:30] industrial printing.
[00:32:31] Uh, you, we also have, uh, what we call communication services like interactive whiteboards for meeting rooms solutions for meeting rooms. And then, uh, that's the second group or the third group. I mentioned the solution teams because sometimes. Your product is just one component of what you're offered to the customer.
[00:32:51] By the end of the day, you need to integrate a solution from different vendors and put them all together because your customer, they [00:33:00] want a one-stop shop. They want to talk to someone who's going to solve my problem. They don't want to buy the projector from this guy, the interactive whiteboard from this one, the zoom from that one stall.
[00:33:10] They want someone who can handle every fee cook and make sure that everything comes back. Right. Uh, I mean the, everything, uh, you press a button, you're starting a resume section. You don't need to think about if this is compatible with that. No, no, that, that's why a solution teams is important. So at [00:33:30] Rico, uh, the third group I used to Fandel actually, we created during my tenor there, I stayed there for five years about, uh, was to create, uh, those kinds of solutions.
[00:33:40] So integrate different solutions, sometime Rico province, sometime third party products, but we integrate them into a single point of contact for the customer one stop shop.
[00:33:50] Wendy: Okay. So this, they would be a resource for the salesperson. Then when they're working with this client that wants a specific solution, they could come to [00:34:00] the solution partner who would.
[00:34:01] Be efficient at putting together. Absolutely.
[00:34:07] Fernando: I would say the, the, the, the team in the field that work most with them are what we call the presales. The, uh, so you have a, pre-sales basically a technical salesperson. Will we S who is, uh, the one who understand how to, how, how the solution operates or the solution works obviously supported by the regional product [00:34:30] manager, but they are the ones who actually are going to have the technical discussion with the customer.
[00:34:35] So the salespeople, they are approaching the customer, they are talking about pain points. They are talking about, uh, business, but there is a point in time that you need to talk about the solution. You need to talk about technology basically. And then the, the, the, the pre-sales, uh, the technical pre-sales scams to support sales, uh, in that.
[00:34:57] Wendy: Okay. And then they lean on the solutions [00:35:00] provider that will say, okay, this is what they need, Rico doesn't have it. So I'm going to go find something else that would integrate in with what we have now. How many people did you have in that area?
[00:35:11] Fernando: In pre-sales to me,
[00:35:13] Wendy: the solutions department.
[00:35:15] Fernando: So it was around five people, probably.
[00:35:17] So one, uh, IP infrastructure, one talking about process automation, one talking about 3d printing. Uh, and, uh, there are two more so around five plus a manager.
[00:35:29] Wendy: [00:35:30] So that, and then, and then you have the communications area that reported into you. So I'm drilling down in this. Cause I think we can make a lot of leaps as to no matter what size you can, you can focus on this. So tell me about your communications people and what
[00:35:43] Fernando: they did. Okay. So communications responsible for the content.
[00:35:47] So let's start, uh, defining what communication for marketing communication means. For me, I think a marketing communication. You have two big functions, actually. That's not something I say is someone I see actually the former uh, [00:36:00] pharmacy. I work at the four, uh, actually the CMR for Adobe. She's still there.
[00:36:04] I mean, uh, is fair on the Phoenicia. I mean, uh, marketing has. Brand awareness and dementia iteration. Actually the two things they complement each other. I think they are the same, but in different phases of the customer journey, brand awareness by example, um, I wish we can only leave with a brand awareness and have no demand generation at all.
[00:36:28] Companies can do that. One of them [00:36:30] is apple. There's that right? I mean, it's very few companies can actually do that. You're not going to see, um, a Christmas ad or or even better. Uh, I mean, uh, Thanksgiving that, uh, talking about discounts on apple or something like that. I mean, it's very difficult to see that because their brand is so strong, there is so much desire from a consumer point of view to have that product that you have very little, uh, very few work that you need to do on the demand generation portion.
[00:36:59] But [00:37:00] as I said, very few companies can afford that. The point is the branch of the ration is. Uh, or our positioning, uh, sorry, brand awareness. Our positioning is a long-term is something you need to create. You need to work on that, but there is, you're not going to see demand generation neatly. If you work only on brand awareness, I mean, it's going to take some time, but you need to do.
[00:37:24] Uh, otherwise it's going to be a very hollow strategy in demand generation, if you don't have the other [00:37:30] part. So for me, they are, they work together. They work in conjunction. Uh, okay. So can
[00:37:35] Wendy: you tell me what Rico did for brand awareness? Okay. Okay.
[00:37:41] Fernando: So the first one and that's w that's very particular from Rico because Rico is a Japanese company and they don't have a global governance, uh, on that very strong.
[00:37:51] They are trying now to make them now was there, I mean, each region, they have their own marketing departments. They can create their own brand awareness [00:38:00] campaign and do that, that they rely on the, on the regions to do that companies like.
[00:38:09] Wendy: There was nobody global corporate creating content that you could take and adapt or modify.
[00:38:15] So everybody was creating their own stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That, that's probably a problem because then you've got different messages going.
[00:38:26] Fernando: Well, uh, depends on Rico believes that the [00:38:30] regions knows their market better than someone seating in Japan. Right? So they, they, they believe that, uh, giving autonomy to the regions is the best way I would say, uh, should be in the middle, uh, because I did as arriving late in America.
[00:38:45] It's a funny story because my first week, that week I went to the countries, I sit with the marketing managers and ask them, Hey, what do you do? Oh, we do problem for sure. We do collaterals. Uh, it's funny. I'm coming from another country. They go exactly the same. Isn't the problem saying? So there's some [00:39:00] things that you can actually leverage, but, uh, there are others that you cannot, so it depends on the company, as I mentioned Rico, because it's a Japanese company and in each freak or is their culture is to give regions more freedom Adobe NHS, Forget about it.
[00:39:18] I mean, it's totally different, but I did a lot of things that at HB, especially when it was like special programs for economic Erica. So I would say
[00:39:27] Wendy: pause there because that's what you're making a [00:39:30] really good point is that different companies have different philosophies of how they come out with their brand building awareness and positioning.
[00:39:37] Now I have a bias. I think if you let too much. On your corporate positioning, go out to the regions, then you're not getting a global brand that's going out there. So picking out your differentiators. No. What things as a corporation, you're trying to do, like your mission, your vision, and your, your positioning and your differentiation can come from [00:40:00] corporate.
[00:40:00] And then if you create the content, once you're saving a lot of money by not having to recreate it, I think an excellent podcast interview that I had earlier was with rotary international when they were trying to pull in from their localized markets into a global brand and how they've leveraged that they, they that was, uh, a wonderful example, Patrick newness talking about that, but back to you.
[00:40:24] Okay. So awareness, you had everybody in the, in the different countries creating the same [00:40:30] brochures and messages.
[00:40:32] Fernando: Yeah. So one of the first thing I said is, okay, so let, let me do the following. Uh, if I create this reserve for you, which is a proper sir, by the way, uh, make sense for you. Oh yes. I just, uh, I just do that because nobody's creating that from a global level or from a region.
[00:40:50] So I took that one thing interesting thing I did at Ricoh that I think is I tried to replicate something I did at HP is okay, let's talk about what do we need as [00:41:00] a marketing organization, because we need to create a lot of content. Let's not create a, not, let's not reinvent the wheel, every country talking about the same thing.
[00:41:10] Let's think about what we need to do as a company. In the next a year, two years in terms of content, let's, let's talk about the solutions. We create a, like a process of automation, like a management of things like, uh, so different solutions we need to create. So we not only need to create content for the solutions, but we [00:41:30] also need to create thought leadership content.
[00:41:32] So when, when you're in a B2B, uh, especially with their price segment, I mean, the customer wants to be educated by the company. So tell me more about automation. Tell me more, more about artificial intelligence. Uh, what are the different, so you need to create this kind of content. Then I, uh, I invited, uh, the local teams to say, Hey, we need to create all of that content.
[00:41:54] Let's create a map, let's create a scandal and let's see what, what kind of content we need to [00:42:00] create as a region, and then forget about the country who wants to volunteer to create content for. B's I want. Okay. So you're going to be responsible for that. As a region was obviously overseeing as the head of the region was overseeing, ever faint, but I try to delegate more to the countries I tried for, for them to understand they're contributing more to the region and not only for them.
[00:42:24] And that in particular happened during the pandemic, because as the pandemic start, every single country [00:42:30] was doing a webinar. I said, no, let's not do that because let's go to the first, very first question you asked me. I mean, later America, 90% speaks Spanish, right? I mean, not in population, but, uh, 90% or 99% of the county speaks Spanish.
[00:42:45] So let's do, if you need to have to do a webinar, let's do one avenue. Subject a one about subject B another about subject. See another one about subject the, and by the way, we have the industry, we need to do [00:43:00] something for retail. We need to do something for healthcare. We need to do something for education.
[00:43:05] So who is the who? Who wants to do these one for education? I want, okay, so you're going to do. the person or the professional who's going to develop that formed entire region in Spanish. Obviously the only work I need to do was later on to the pre-K that in Portuguese, but I could do more with less.
[00:43:24] So that's something I did. So it's a change of, uh, it's a management change. Uh, you need to [00:43:30] change the culture of the company, but first you need to gather the trust of the countries, you know, so they need to understand they can still, because let's be honest, we are marketing people. We want to create things, right.
[00:43:41] We don't want to get, uh, a global campaign and just translate. And that's the campaign. No, we want to add value. Okay. But let's do that in a organized fashion way. Let's do that because that's the only way we can do more with less, uh, resources that we have right now. And we can be more effective because that's what [00:44:00] the company is asking us.
[00:44:01] You need to do. Wow.
[00:44:03] Wendy: Okay. So you don't even need to go listen to the, to the rotary one, although you might find it interesting, but exactly what you were talking about is how do you, how do you maximize the output of the team that you already have across the whole region or across the whole language, if you happen to be,
[00:44:21] Fernando: and something that happens very spontaneously, you're going to see people who has a specific interest.
[00:44:28] So remember people in [00:44:30] Peru, they are very interested in, interested in, uh, in education, people in Argentina sometimes because you have a good customers, sometimes you have, uh, a good leader, local leader, or just the marketing person likes that subject. Uh, somehow they're going to pick something that they like.
[00:44:47] So, uh, it's very it's for someone that likes education to talking about finances is very difficult. Uh, so FSI. So by doing that, they can also exercise what they're passionate about. So that's a [00:45:00] great solution. I use that at HP and I use that at Ricoh as well. That
[00:45:05] Wendy: is fantastic. You brought a lot of good, big picture thinking in there now.
[00:45:10] Okay. So that was awareness. And how you create content and leverage your people. What did you do on the demand generation side?
[00:45:19] Fernando: Okay. That's the hard part and it's not easy. You need to have a good content. You need to have thought leadership. You need to think about the customer journey, but, [00:45:30] uh, obviously digital marketing has changed obviously the way we do marketing.
[00:45:35] Right? So the first question, uh, I used to have, uh, so I need to actually to convince, uh, each counter because that's something different. I had that Rico than I had in other companies, in other companies, HB and Adobe. I used to handle the regional budget and I need, I used to distribute the budget across the county.
[00:45:55] According to the revenue or according to the potential of something like that. Enrico, [00:46:00] each country has their own PNL and they are responsible for setting apart some marketing budget. So I need to convince the country managers that they need to spend money on digital. Uh, they may need to spend money on demand generation.
[00:46:14] So the first thing we did was the reverse waterfall. So used to have those solutions are the new, those new solutions that we need to sell. Uh, we knew that we need to sell X amount of revenue or in terms of dollars, uh, which [00:46:30] translating to X amount of deals, like, um, just an example of a hundred deals.
[00:46:34] We knew that from those a hundred deals, 10 are going to be a big deals. 80 are going to be a small or medium, something like that. So by the end of the day, we came together with sales to define, Hey, we need to sell X amount of solutions. That are going to generate X amount of dollars in, in the region.
[00:46:55] And we have that number by country. So I was standing there. [00:47:00] So this new solution that we created during the pandemic, for example, uh, you need to sell a hundred solutions and to sell a hundred solutions across the year. So probably 12 years is going to have to be something like that more or less by month.
[00:47:15] You need to generate X amount of opportunities, right? Where we, and to generate that amount of opportunities, you need to generate X amount of marketing, qualified leads, and to generate that amount of qualify need to need to generate that amount of leads [00:47:30] that needs to be qualified somehow. So we work it on this reverse order.
[00:47:34] And then we realized that we have a gap in dementia generation. So we are not generating enough leads to fulfill that number of opportunities that are going to represent, uh, that, that specific revenue. So we talk about, we discuss with them, Hey, how we're going to do that. So there are different tools we have, we have.
[00:47:54] That we are going to provide the content regionally, but you need to define, [00:48:00] but remember email is not just in may is the database and database. I can not handle that for you. Each country needs to handle the database locally because they, they, they are the one who wants a database, right? They, we have the seasons, we have the content so on, but they need to handle the database.
[00:48:16] So that's one option. The other option is paid ads. So you can put the pay that, uh, uh, different ways. I mean, the one I liked the most, uh, is a SCM SEO was in the original, uh, something would concentrate [00:48:30] regional, but as CGM you can do locally or paid ads. So depending on, uh, so w and that's not something that's not this much expensive, right?
[00:48:39] So we try to work with the country managers to show them the value of different tactics and out the ones that works the best. But we used to do. But don't create the content. If you want a specific content, let me know. We're going to build that regionally, leveraging all of the countries that we have, all the resources and the, and the talent [00:49:00] that we have, uh, in the region.
[00:49:01] But you need to take the decisions about how we're going to demand generation locally. The only thing I can tell you is that we're not generating enough demand for the new solutions we're creating, because remember Rico is a previous manufactory that's what the, what they do. And that's something we never had problems by generating demand.
[00:49:19] The proper generic demanded the new solutions, the new products we created to transform the company from an office printing company to a digital servicing company. That was the goal that we have [00:49:30] that by the way, was set by Japan, by the headquarters. So the vision and, uh, we had it in a global way, but we need to, to translate that locally somehow, and we need to demand generate demand for those new solutions.
[00:49:43] So the local team, uh, were responsible. The marketing person, plus the country manager was responsible for defining the strategy, uh, or acknowledge that that is how to get into the market and to generate demand. And then you have a [00:50:00] contribution then you have, I mean, ROI, you have other things that is very difficult to do sometimes to measure, but I mean, you need to start from some point in time.
[00:50:07] Wendy: That's so fascinating is that the content, which was an extension of the awareness, you would create at a regional, and then if you found things that worked, you were sharing that information across them, but they had to keep their local database and then they had to decide where to allocate their spending.
[00:50:27] Can you talk a little bit more about [00:50:30] SEM, SEO and paid advertising?
[00:50:33] Fernando: Sure. So what SEO means is search engine optimization. What that means, if let's, let's talk about Rico. So Rico produced sprinters and multi, uh, only one multifunctional. Right? So if I tied multifunctional I want Rico to be the number one in the Google list, right?
[00:50:53] Uh, that's what I want, but in order to beat. There, this is a very complex subject. They're SEO [00:51:00] experts. I mean, I hired the one before I left the company athlete. Uh, and sometimes you can outsource that different agency only working on SEO. So what are the key words? I mean, a long tail, there are a lot of tactics that we can use, uh, like sample having video, different kinds of content that are going to increase your SEO.
[00:51:20] So sometimes so whenever someone type printers or computers or wherever, I mean, you're going to be the first, but if you do announce that you're [00:51:30] going to see, Hey, I'm not doing, not being the first on that, uh, on Google. I'm not even in the second or third party page. I need the fourth page who actually goes to the fourth page of Google.
[00:51:40] Nobody. So as CEO is very commonly. But, and it's it's long time, so you really need to invest on SEO because that's something you need to have. It's a must, it's part of a, it's more connected to your brand rather than to demand generation and, and, uh, in order [00:52:00] to To work on more on demand generation.
[00:52:02] You have SCM. So if you're not getting to the first lines of Google, then you need to pay. So whenever I paid printer is going to be an ad on the top of that with Rico, uh, advertising, or you can even go farther, you can book your competition. They are Xerox. For example, you can, whenever someone dies. Uh, it's going to appear, uh, pre uh, Rico at, on top of that.
[00:52:28] So those two [00:52:30] strategies, they work together, but from a regional perspective, SEO is more for the region is a long term and the FCM is more dementia. The is more local. So then you start defining what the region does and what the country does. Otherwise, everybody's going to do the same. You don't scale.
[00:52:49] You don't have I mean, it's going to be a properly
[00:52:52] Wendy: country, have their own website, or did you have a regional website with dropdown and
[00:52:56] Fernando: pick in the past, you used to have 12 different websites. [00:53:00] As I left the company used to have one website. But they have, uh, they, you can, uh, actually define the counter are going to be, uh, so they, so it's the same, uh, website when you go, but then you change the flag or the country and you can go to the local, but the content, I would say 99% is going to be exactly the same.
[00:53:21] So very, very variation. So five years ago was totally different. I mean, countries were managing the website. That's not, that's not [00:53:30] what they need to do. So the website, especially because it's a long-term strategy and it demands a lot of content creation. I mean, videos, a lot of bags thought leadership, uh, white papers customer case needs to be handled in a regional level, actually, if not globally.
[00:53:48] Okay.
[00:53:48] Wendy: That's what I wanted to get into. Cause SEO seemed like it would be at a regional or a global level because you're, you're managing that now. Okay. So then you're, so for [00:54:00] brand awareness, you brought a lot in to the regional level and all the content creation and then the local company countries were deciding whether they were going to do email campaigns or pay.
[00:54:13] Really, this is where they could allocate their money.
[00:54:17] Fernando: And one thing, one of the discussion I used to have comes when he goes to social media, for example, because let's say you have the organic social media, which is fine. So then we can have local touch as well too. But when you talk about bait [00:54:30] ad and social You can not say one size fits all because I remember talking to about the malice, an example from central America, they used to tell me, Hey, Fernando, LinkedIn here, uh, is more for jobs is not really for dimension the ration, uh, and all the counters, like the longer they used to tell me, Hey, no, here leaving works well.
[00:54:49] But Facebook works, works the batter, right? So each country needs to define what words the better. And to be honest, there is no way to know that you need to experience. You need to experiment, sorry. You need to [00:55:00] experiment and see what works and what does not work. So marketing is, is about experiments.
[00:55:05] So you're not. And the good thing is that you can invest a small amount of money and see what works. Um, but you need to be very smart because a black sample, I remember when he did a webinar, we want, we are short in terms of attendance for the webinars. And then we've asked some some dollars in, in social media to, to, to talk more about that.
[00:55:26] And I remember we invest some money in Facebook and some [00:55:30] money. Uh, Facebook actually was much better in terms of response in terms of um, in terms of fleets, uh, for, for the event, right? People that actually subscribe to watch the webinars. But the problem is that, uh, once you start doing the qualification of those leads, you're going to see that there also are no qualified leads.
[00:55:50] Meanwhile, the leading one that was a few leads, more expensive, there were more qualified. So you need to take everything into consideration, but those are the discussion you [00:56:00] need to have in the local level. Then you need to prove to them, you need to show the data. Hey, uh, you spent that amount on LinkedIn that amount on Facebook.
[00:56:08] So Facebook, you have, you got a hundred uh, people and, uh, on LinkedIn, you had 20, but let's see now the marketing qualified leads where they came from. And when you analyze that, you're going to see that Facebook generates a lot of. Trash, if you will, or not decide to be more polite and the other one's in the rate, more qualified but call, but [00:56:30] I'm not saying that that's the truth.
[00:56:32] You need to do that country by country. It need to do segment by segment I'm by example. Uh, I think people tend to say LinkedIn is for business. Facebook is for pleasure is for personal proposals. I don't agree with. I understand Barson. And I wa I see Facebook and I see lately and, uh, it affect me the same way.
[00:56:53] So you need to be careful before you say this is for business. This is for personal, because by the end of [00:57:00] the day that the person is exactly the same, the only difference.
[00:57:04] Wendy: And I know I'm going to jump in here, cause we're almost up to an hour. I haven't gotten to the personal questions, but I wanted to loop it back into and tie this up.
[00:57:11] I think I could go another few hours with you. So product marketing, you've got seven people on there, your strategist solutions, you've got five, we're pulling it all together. Communications that leaves about 30, 40 people in that area then. Right?
[00:57:26] Fernando: Well, uh, it was about, um, [00:57:30] It depends on the, on the time where I stay there, but now most of the team was in the field.
[00:57:34] Right. I mean, regional, it was about 20, uh, oh,
[00:57:38] Wendy: well, okay. So you had about eight to 10 people in communications and then the rest were, yeah, because there's
[00:57:47] Fernando: one person responsible for SEO, one person responsible for marketing automation and campaigns, one person responsible for events. So a one designer. So these are the different functions that I [00:58:00] used to have in the marketing communications.
[00:58:03] Wendy: Okay. Okay. So half your people were in the field, half were at corporate, and that makes sense about how, how you did it now. It was all your content created in Spanish.
[00:58:13] Fernando: Yes, I can leave that. That was the key. For the last company we create the, because, uh, sometimes, uh, Japan or, uh, in Rico, but, uh, sometimes at Adobe or HP received those campaigns in English or in Japanese, that doesn't make [00:58:30] sense at all.
[00:58:30] So because we're creating our campaign, we created a campaign, we started that in Spanish and later on, I translate that into English, just for people in Japan, in, uh, in north America to, to understand what we're doing. But the original language, as you mentioned, was in Spanish. And it was very easy. And later on to translate that into Portuguese because the, uh, they function about the same, but doing a campaign in Spanish was, uh, one of the key [00:59:00] aspects of the, of the sex as of the last complainant.
[00:59:04] Wendy: Yeah. Yeah. And that's interesting because it was primarily a Spanish speaking market. So you would create it. But if you go back and listen to rotary, which had a different one, or you're talking about HP or Adobe, they created an English and then translate it. So there, you know, you've just brought in so many different ways to handle.
[00:59:22] All right. Let's, let's jump into the personal questions. You know, I always ask what's your favorite foreign word?[00:59:30]
[00:59:30] Fernando: Well, it should be part of the cell dodgy so that it means that you miss something, but it's more like a nostalgic, not just meet someone, but you can miss a, a food. You can miss a flavor, something like that.
[00:59:42] So the word is so dodgy from Portuguese. That
[00:59:46] Wendy: is great. And you know, and all the episodes that I've done, somebody else said the same word. He's a Brazilian,
[00:59:52] Fernando: any other language, uh, any other language in the world. That's why it's so unique from.
[00:59:59] Wendy: Yes. Yes. [01:00:00] Now we got to start using it more and more in the U S so it can be incorporated into the English language.
[01:00:06] How about
[01:00:07] Fernando: there is no relationship? There is no other related. It's really important.
[01:00:14] Wendy: Yes. Yes it is. And it's, it's more than reminiscent from what I gather. And it's, it brings up a big feeling. Yeah. How about favorite vacation?
[01:00:26] Fernando: Well, I love Europe. I mean, uh, I'm resilient. So [01:00:30] I, I have beach all the time. I'm original from Rio.
[01:00:33] So I live in Florida, so I have beach and the sun every year. So whenever I am on vacation, I love to go to Europe. Uh, so that's my personal, what part of Europe? Every time it's a different country. I mean, even Portugal is create, Spain is great. I mean, France and UK. Uh, my last one, I usually, I, I land in a country and then I grab a car and then I go, my last one, I started in vanish in Italy.
[01:00:59] Then I [01:01:00] went to Louisiana, uh, in Slovenia. Then I went to Budapest. Then I went to Austria. So I always make those crazy drives or train. Yes.
[01:01:12] Wendy: Yes, that's fantastic. When I was 26, I quit my job and packed a backpack and throw and took the train. I got a year, a rail pass and took the train all over Europe.
[01:01:22] And
[01:01:26] I would just say, there's no way you're 80 now, [01:01:30]
[01:01:31] Fernando: because in Brazil you have a test when you, when you go to the university called visible lab. So usually do a bit in between 17, 18 years old. I remember I went to review my, my, my age here because I remember a day before there was a very great show called rocking Rio.
[01:01:49] And I said, I can not lose that show from a guy called Freddie mercury. So I went there, I sang with Fred mercury and the day after that, when I was still at [01:02:00] 17, I made this great trip to Europe with backpack and train. So it was awesome. Oh
[01:02:08] Wendy: yeah. Do you have any final recommendations for any marketing people or business owner or business leaders that are interested in doing international business?
[01:02:18] Fernando: Well, I think it's, um, I think a business is business everywhere. You just need to be sensitive to the local culture, but it's not a master of seven heads. I [01:02:30] mean, you just need to be careful. You need to consult local people. You need to ask the local guys, but also challenge them to, because one thing I always remember working with Latin America, especially Brazil and Argentina, they used to say, no, no, here, everything is different.
[01:02:46] Come on. It's very different. Uh, I would say, as I mentioned, the beginning taxation the banking system, uh, some things are different, but I mean, the fundamentals of the business is not right. [01:03:00] Scale could be different. So. Careful about infrastructure, about scale. You need to learn a little bit more.
[01:03:07] The concept of business, uh, is the same, but you need to look at the details. Those are the tails that usually are the ones that people need is scale infrastructure, taxation. Um, these are the one that you need the local guys to help you out. By the end of the day, 80% you can apply, but 20% you need to [01:03:30] really do local because it's going to be totally different.
[01:03:33] Wendy: You've had tremendous experience working with these large companies, growing them in the Latin American country. You were currently looking for a new position. Do you want to tell us about that? And then how can people reach you? And we have about one minute to cover all that.
[01:03:51] Fernando: Yeah. So I ended that with Rico by August, uh, and, uh, I mean, some kind of some process, hopefully now in the beginning of the [01:04:00] year, I should land in one of those new positions.
[01:04:02] I'm Amy should be back, should be B to B. But I'm looking for a very soon to announce my, my new position. I mean, unfairly those process takes a lot of time, especially at the VP level. Uh, you need to talk to eight. People sometimes takes a mouse and special
[01:04:20] Wendy: giving you the opportunity to put it out there because now you've heard it.
[01:04:24] If you're interested in Fernando growing your Latin American country, you better sweep in [01:04:30] quickly and get,
[01:04:32] Fernando: uh, that's going to happen. Absolutely. Thank you so much for
[01:04:36] Wendy: that. And how can people reach you if they want to talk to you more?
[01:04:40] Fernando: Well, uh, I'm in LinkedIn. I figured the best way to reach me. Uh, so there you have email Mayo, you can just ping me a message.
[01:04:47] I'm usually respond to everybody that reached me at LinkedIn and, and that's something I, I I'm used to do. Okay. So
[01:04:55] Wendy: Fernando Maroniene, [01:05:00] maroniene@hotmail.com.
[01:05:05] Fernando: Yes, for now
[01:05:12] there is no other ones.
[01:05:14] Wendy: Just you. Okay. Fernando, thank you so much for coming on the global marketing show. I mean, you really have tied in the marketing different ways to do it.
[01:05:24] And how do you, can you really focus on the Latin American countries? And I think that you did a good job [01:05:30] of bringing big company and strategy and what they were doing into, how can you apply it even if you're a medium sized or a smaller company. So thank you so much.
[01:05:41] Fernando: I do appreciate.
[01:05:44] Uh, each one of us has a a career and new Yorker is made of the companies are experienced your ad. And that's my, uh, my path, right? My experience probably should be very different from someone that some of the B to C like someone that worked on, uh, I [01:06:00] don't know, Coca Cola, Telefonica, something very different.
[01:06:03] So this is my unique experience. That's my unique value proposition now.
[01:06:09] Wendy: Exactly. And for listeners, if you want to hear John Jove, he spoke about, uh, he was a former employee at PepsiCo. And so listening to him about a business to consumer and how they handle their global marketing is very interesting.
[01:06:24] So there are many, many episodes out there. There are across all different kinds of, uh, you [01:06:30] know, marketing agencies and manufacturers and technology companies. And they're, you know, we've had some state experts in, on, on some of the resources that are out there to help companies. So go ahead and download the, the episodes that you want to hear from whatever listening app that you're on.
[01:06:48] And please share this episode with one person that you think could benefit from it. And we will talk to you next time.
[01:06:56] [01:07:00]
