March 10, 2009

Today we started the morning at the Tech de Monterrey campus in a lecture about the doing business in Mexico. The professor had 20 years experience in the Marketing of P&G products in Mexico. The most important idea that I came away with from this lecture was that to forget the bottom of the pyramid in a place like Mexico will not allow you to sell the most important market in Mexico. That answered a big question that I have had since arriving in Mexico, how do you spread your product. The key is through the small mom and pap stores. Of course this applies mainly to consumer goods, and food. But it was a great lesson to learn.

My interview with Zions Bank was very interesting. I thought that Skype would work, but apparently it is not that reliable here, or Zions Bank just hangs up on unknown numbers. I ended up having to make a cell phone call @ 99¢ per minute for 30 minutes, OUCH!! On the whole though I felt like it went well. Even though it was a behavioral interview that went like, tell me about a time when….., and you can fill in the blank after that.

Tyco in the afternoon was really interesting. I always enjoy seeing business in action, especially manufacturing. Most of the lecture focused on the importing of products and the procedures that accompany importing. All that I can say is what a freaking hassle. There are so many forms to fill out. It did, however, help me to understand how important NAFTA is. One thing that did cross my mind after hearing how many US policies Tyco used was how much we have made Mexican business a slave to American policies.
This evening Jonathan Ritchie and I went looking for some familiar food that wasn’t fried. What we ended up finding was the best Italian restaurant ever. This place was incredible. The noodles were hand made, the bread was made at the restaurant. Both Jonathan and I had fettuccine alfredo with chicken parmesan. It was plated just like you would see on the food network, and our waitress was also incredibly gorgeous. All of this cost Jonathan and I $228 MXN, which roughly translated was $15 for the both of us to eat. This mean in the States would have easily been $50-$60 for the both of us. I am loving the food here in Mexico