EATING IN SPANISH. DRINKING IN FRENCH.

 

DUALITY OF CULTURES

By Don Merlot

[WCNews Service]

My first trip to the outside world started in New York in 1968 when working with our international advertising agency and the account people. I met them face to face and  worked with them to carry out my responsibilities. 

I had grown up in Mexico City. My parents were American; and we spoke English at home.

I attended the American School which was a primary school and junior and senior high.  Classes would be half day in English and half day in Spanish. Most students had similar backgrounds; mostly Americans; or European or Mexican parents who wanted to have the children have a bilingual education.

Many fathers worked for American companies or the U.S. Government. There were also Canadians, and Europeans. We were part of the Anglo-American community of Mexico City. When we visited friends, we would walk or ride our bikes to see each other. As we matured we could take busses if we went beyond our neighborhood.

 

One day I was with a friend on city bus and we were talking in English when an older woman asked us,  Por que no hablan en Cristiano? ( “Why are you not speaking in Christian?”  She meant Spanish, of course.) I remember being startled by that. We knew other passengers we interested in our answer. I was instantly aware that we were in an awkward situation. We apologized and talked in Spanish. Mexico’s language is Spanish and “in Rome do what the Romans do.”

In Training

 

MAD MAN

By Don Merlot

[WC News Service]

The flight from Michigan to New York City was on a clear night. I could look out the plane windows and see the towns and villages. We were traveling from Chicago to New York City.  As we came into New York’s air space, we cruised over the metro area and saw the Statue of Liberty and the buildings on Manhattan: The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were front and forward. The ribbon of street lights looked like gold necklaces. After landing we took a taxi to the hotel in Manhattan. It was late so we settled in for the day to prepare for the next day.

 

The excitement was high for me. This was my first business trip with my first job. This was not my first time to New York. My earlier visits were when I went military prep school in Virginia in 1958 to 1959. One trip was to visit my school roommate’s home in Short Hills, New Jersey, and the other was to catch up with a childhood friend that I had known from the American School in Mexico City, whose father had moved and worked in the city. He commuted from Roslyn, on Long Island. The other two trips were interviews for jobs when I was at Thunderbird (1967).These experiences prepared me for the massive size of the greater metropolitan area; the cosmopolitan culture; the skyscrapers, and the blaring noise of the traffic that was constant from day break to nightfall. These visits were a test to see the big picture for business, and the global world as well: The preparation to see the world: the big picture. It reminded me of the movie Auntie Mame, and I was the bronco being busted to become a worldly executive.

 

This trip was tremendous boost for my persona and very emotional. I was in the throes of the beginning of my international career and on the road to become a world savant and traveler.

  

Brown Out

BROWN BROTHERS BEARISH ON WALNUT ST.

The only person I've 'known' to have an account at Brown Brothers Harriman was a long-forgotten character in a John O'Hara novel. You get the idea. But the Main Line was derailed long ago, and it's not surprising that this vestige of that past Wasp elite is downsizing.

 -- Richard Carreño

 

The following is excerpted from the Philadelphia Business Journal:

Pearl Properties has plans to convert offices that now house Brown Brothers Harriman Co. at 1529 Walnut St. in Center City into retail space, giving that retail corridor a much needed boost. Space is tight along Walnut Street.

Business Life

Business Plans that Count: Stay Current!
J.P. Morgan, right: He had a Business Plan

By Mark Carreño

Junto Contributing Writer Bio
A business plan is beneficial only if it is updated frequently to reflect the current changes in your business. A constant review and study of your projections against what actual real sales in your company helps to refine and adjust your numbers. Use the business results to analyze and make changes that are working well for the company. Then you can implement real changes and make decisions that give you a competitive edge and a new outlook for a more profitable business.

A professional business plan is a reflection into your business for investors or lender’s to judge and qualify your company for potential success. The plan should be concise and run no more than 50 pages in length, excluding much of the supporting documents, which may be irrelevant to current business. If you are seeking an investor or loan from a lender simply include only the supporting information that of immediate interest to your the direct person examining and reviewing the business plan.

Keep the other supporting documents on file where they will be available on short notice. The supporting documents could be: distributor letters; Presale letters, Supporting Financial Documents, Financial Schedules, Insurance Letters, lease contracts, Projection, letters of interest from buyers, distributors and others.

Make your business plan presentable by binding it professionally yourself or at a local printer. Keep it simple and use traditional black, blue or brown formal covers. Make individual copies for each lender or investor then, number each proposal, recording each lender and investor name, business name, address, phone number, date of submission.

Keep a wish list of all your investor contacts and track your list with care.

You want your plan to be read by only qualified investors and lenders. It should be very carefully distributed. Try to learn as much as you can about the investor so they don’t waste your time. Research the investor and his investments so when you make a cold call you are prepared so you can decide if it is worth meeting the investor, mailing out the business plan or simply not doing anything.

Be careful and polite on the phone and ask them why would they be interested in your category of business? For example, an IT firm will usually not invest in an advertising agency. Take it from me their thinking or model does not match up well with an advertising agency model or approach to business.

Look for businesses you can align with that have an interest in you and your business. Do not give out too many copies at once. You don’t want to expose your business plan to the marketplace at once. A non-disclosure agreement should accompany your business plan for some level of privacy for your business. If you are turned down for financing, be sure to retrieve your business plan. Find out why they turned you down and on what basis. This may help you polish the plan.

Also remember the plan must be updated while you are raising funds! KEEP IT CURRENT!

(Mark J. Carreño is president of C&C Associates, Los Angeles, and can be reached via (310) 869-3360/ (310) 869-3360, or at http://ccbuildsbusiness.blogspot.com).