BizBuzz
business in brief
Politics, marketing, trade & trends
By Conrad Dahlson
HISPANIC COMMERCE: Latin American boom for U.S. business
 United States exports to Latin America are outpacing those to the rest of the world, even though the scheme to unite the hemisphere into a single free-trade area never got off the ground, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said in a recent Bloomberg interview. Last year’s exports to the region increased some 13 percent over the previous year, compared with an 11 percent increase to other regions.
Even though the defunct Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, is history, a series of piecemeal agreements are taking up the slack, Gutierrez said.
The United States has free trade agreements with Mexico, Chile, Central America and the Dominican Republic. Congress passed a new trade accord with Peru last year, after Democrats were able to amend it to include labor and environmental provisions.
Despite White House urging, House leaders have balked at passing a similar agreement with Colombia until that country shows more progress in stopping violence against trade unionists and putting murderers behind bars. Nonetheless, a previous pact that allows Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru duty-free access to the U.S. market for most of their products was recently extended by Congress for another 10 months.
But the biggest boost for hemispheric trade, according to Gutierrez, would be an accord with Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy. However, he does not agree with the Brazilian government’s thesis that in such a pact, developing nations should be allowed to lower their import duties at a much slower rate than rich industrialized countries.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to do considerable business with Brazil and other Latin American countries with which it has no free-trade pacts. Venezuela, whose leftist President Hugo Chávez rails against “el imperio,” not only sells the U.S. some 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, but imports vast quantities of basic food staples to make up for the shortfall of the country’s own broken food production process.
Monterrey rustic
Back in 1993, Ramiro Garza opened a furniture store in his hometown of Monterrey, Mexico—until the economic crisis facing the country forced him to close it down. The taste of running his own business convinced him not to go back to work in his dad’s used car lot, but rather to head north to try his entrepreneurial luck in Chicago.
With the help of a brother living there, according to an interview in Rumbo of San Antonio, he opened a grocery store, but a better opportunity was soon in the offing. In Monterrey Garza earned the confidence of furniture-makers, and several asked him to be their distributor in the U.S. He jumped at the chance and headed to San Antonio, where, with economic aid from the furniture companies and his family, he opened a store downtown in 1995. Initial furniture sales were disapppointing, but Garza soon realized there was a hot market for rustic items, so he decided to specialize and turned what might have been a failure into a resounding success. “I began this business with zero money and pure confidence,” Garza told Rumbo.
Today the downtown store premises—which he owns—have appreciated so much in value that he’s thinking of selling and moving the business to the tony north side of town, were most of his clients live.
X-ECUTIVE CALENDAR
April 11-13: 17th Annual International Franchise Expo, Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC. For more information, call 201-226-1130 or visit www.ifeinfo.com
April 14-16: 41st Annual Chicago Business Opportunity Fair, sponsored by the Chicago Minority Business Development Council with a theme of “Growing Minority Businesses to Sustainable Enterprises.” Navy Pier, 600 East Grand Avenue, Chicago. For more information visit cmbdc.org.
April 16-18: Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies 24th Semi-annual Conference, “Reboot for the Future,” Grand Hyatt, San Antonio. For more information visit ahaa.org.
April 21: Maryland/DC Minority Supplier Development Council’s 26th Annual Procurement Conference & Golf & Tennis Matchmaker Outing, Turf Valley Conference Center Resort & Spa, Ellicott, Maryland. For more information, call 301-592-6700 or see www.mddccouncil.org
April 23-25: DiversityBusiness.com’s 8th Annual National Multicultural Business Conference, Disney Broadwalk Resort, Orlando. For more information contact Bill Stokes at 203-255-2972.
May 3-4: Franchise & Business Opportunities Show, Riverside Convention Center, Riverside, California. 800-891-4859 or www.FranchiseShowInfo.com.
May 17-18: Franchise & Business Opportunities Show, Arlington Convention Center, Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. 800-891-4859 or www.FranchiseShowInfo.com
May 23: 1st Annual Latina Leadership Summit on Corporate Procurement. Las Vegas. www.ushcc.com
June 4-5: South Region Minority Business Council’s Business Connections 2008, Montgomery, Alabama. For more information call 205-957-1883 or see www.srmbc.org
June 23-26: Women’s Business Enterprise National Council’s 9th Annual Women in Business Conference, Atlanta, Georgia. For more information, call 202-872-5515, ext. 8020, or see www.wbenc.org
GRAPHICS
Printing money
 Half-brothers Omar Rodriguez and Hugo Cervantes in East Los Angeles made a seamless jump from working in a print shop to owning one. When the print shop where they were employed was acquired by a new owner, according to a report in La Opinion, they both felt they’d had enough of working for someone else.
At first they acted as brokers, picking up print orders from former customers and subcontracting the work. Good, but not good enough. So they cashed out the equity in a house they bought in 2000 and set up their own print shop in City of Commerce, putting down the $70,000 they needed for the basic installation to get started.
“At the time we already had contacts and a certain reputation, which allowed us to continue building our client base, “ Cervantes told La Opinion. But, adds Rodriguez, “That doesn’t mean we didn’t have to work hard to get new clients.” By 2002 they were billing a respectable $600,000. Last year they broke through the $1 million barrier. They have now moved the business back to East L.A. in a million-dollar building of their own, employ 15 workers and this year expect revenues to hit $2 million.
TRENDWATCH:
Economic indicators
Confidence in the U.S. economy if falling, while fears increase that the labor market could get worse and that a recession is a distinct possibility. According to the index of the RBC Cash Company, consumer confidence fell to 48.5 percent at the beginning of February, from 56.3 percent in January. It was the lowest showing since the beginning of the index in 2002 and surpassed the previous low recorded in January. —Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press
TRENDWATCH
uncertain future
Banks have tightened their lending standards, and credit-card defaults are up. Home values continue to fall, ending many entrepreneurs’ plans to use home equity lines of credit for quick cash. Energy prices are sky-high. And although the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates twice in January and once in March and an economic stimulus package is on the way, how much those changes will help small companies—and when—remains to be seen. —Business Week
HOTELS
When bad times are good
 As a hotel entrepreneur who put together a portfolio of 60 hotels over the last nine years and helped sell 14 of them for more than $250 million, Miami-based Carlos Rodriguez of Driftwood Hospitality realizes the current market downturn requires a new strategies.
The country’s economic tailspin means fewer hotel guests and fewer investors interested in plunging in the hotel sector. But judging by past history, Rodriguez is up to the challenge.
According to El Nuevo Herald in Miami, Rodriguez’s first company, Cardel Hotel Development, built its first hotel, a Holiday Inn, using money Rodriguez got from the sale of his own home and furniture. Rodriguez and his wife were virtually broke until the hotel started making money.
Rodriguez actually believes that bad times can be good times if you know how to use them. “After 9/11 nobody was buying, except us,” he told El Nuevo Herald. He estimates that Driftwood will buy 10 hotels this year—now that prices are plummeting—with the goal of selling them in five years. “The best deals come in the worst of times,” Rodriguez said.
—Douglas Hanks, El Nuevo Herald
CONSUMER ADVOCATE
Money-back guarantee
 At one time or another everyone buys something that turns out to be a complete dud, but only about 4 percent of unsatisfied customers ever file a complaint or demand their money back. It’s often just too much of a hassle, starting with the recorded voice on the phone that rattles off a menu of unhelpful options. Most people feel they’ve got better things to do with their time.
That’s where Mexico-born Allen Bañez got the idea for his company, LetterChamp, according to Yolanda Arenales in La Opinion.
So you bought a car with a faulty transmission, or the online travel agency sent you tickets to Toronto instead of to Tampa? LetterChamp will carry your complaints forward with bulldog tenacity until you get your money back, additional discounts, replacement parts—in other words, the best deal possible for you.
In compensation, LetterChamp gets to keep 33 percent of the money returned. The company claims it has a 96 percent record of success. “My strategy,” Bañez told La Opinion, “is to go to the companies’ top executives, bypassing the client service people.”
TRENDWATCH
healthy growth
 Total U.S. measured advertising spending is projected to increase 4.2 percent while Hispanic Advertising is expected to grow a healthy 7.8 percent in 2008, according to the full-year forecast by TNS Media Intelligence. Measured expenditures are forecast to grow by 3.6 percent in the first half of 2008 followed by a gain of 4.7 percent in the second half.
—Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA.org)
FRANCHISING:
CLEANING UP IN THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS
 Jose Aladro was doing just fine, thank you, as a VP of Citigroup in Mexico, when he decided a lifestyle change was in order. So he picked up and moved to Tampa, where he could spend more time with his family and be his own boss.
The franchise he decided to buy into is somewhat surprising for a former banker: FiltaFry, a business that provides restaurants and catering professionals with a quick, safe and clean way to maintain deep-fat fryers. The company operates out of vans that each can service 30 to 40 restaurants.
The company’s cooking-oil filtration and fryer management system means cleaner and longer-lasting oil, hygienically clean fryers, improved food quality and less chance of accidents. FiltaFry is not only quick and cheap—the entire service taking only about 30 minutes and costs only $50 per visit—but it has absolutely no competition. No other company offers the same service.
Aladro, 35, was able to get his franchise going even though he spoke no English at the time. And even now as a bilingual, he finds speaking Spanish a huge advantage in the Florida restaurant scene. Applying his FiltaFry techniques to every customer once or twice a week, Aladro reinvests virtually all the money he makes.
“I am very organized and disciplined with my work,” Aladro says. “I am going to do whatever I need to do in order to grow my company and take it up to a medium size corporation with more than six vans in the next four years.”
QUIPS & QUOTES:
“Las Vegas...operates, literally, on the backs of immigrants.”
-Pilar Marrero, columnist in La Opinion
“Forget ‘Chindia.’ A growing number of entrepreneurs are finding Latin America a great place to sell, source, and outsource.” -Amy Barrett, columnist in BusinessWeek
“Marketers really don’t understand the multicultural market any better than they did 20 years ago.”
-Pepper Miller, president, Miller Hunter Group,
as quoted in Advertising Age
“Mr. Bernanke, leave the federal interest rate alone. Fix the dollar value that is dropping into the cellar.”
-Robert F. Hudson in the Los Angeles Times
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