Spanish & Catalan Sales Outreach - From Andorra to Venezuala

Whilst a token effort to learn how to ask for a sangria whilst holidaying in Benidorm is a nice part of a family break, it doesn’t really cut it when trying to introduce your company to the Spanish speaking world. It is an common assumption to say things like “English is the language of business” and whilst that does ring true for a lot of large, multi-nationals - most countries are made up of tens of thousands of SMEs - your potential new clients.

Size of the opportunity

It is easy when thinking about how to better serve “Spanish” markets that you might only think of Spain, but of course, whilst Spain is an attractive marketplace with the 14th highest GDP in the world - there are plenty of other “hunting grounds” across Central and South America too - as you’ll see from the map and list below.

• Andorra - Catalan is the official language in Andorra but over 60% of Andorrans also speak Spanish with 6% speaking French - we have all bases covered.

• Argentina - With thriving food processing, textile and automobile manufacturing industries there is huge potential in Buenos Aries and beyond.

• Bolivia - Mining and the hydrocarbon industries dominate here and the tourism market is growing. Less than 6% of Bolivians are fluent in English.

• Chile - Chemical production, copper mining and agriculture make Chile an interesting prospect and less than two million of the population speak English.

• Colombia - With less than 4% of Colombia’s population fluent in English, Spanish is the only real way to penetrate this market.

• Costa Rica - Whilst an impressive 38% of Costa Rican’s are fluent in English, 62% of their huge tourism and electrical manufacturing industries prefer Spanish.

• Cuba - Petroleum, pharma, tobacco and steel make up a large portion of Cuban GDP and a lot of Cuban’s have basic English skills but few are confident or fluent.

• Dominican Republic - Medical device manufacture along with pharma, energy and a growing telecoms industry provide a diversity of opportunity here.

• Ecuador - Outside of the huge tourism industry you’ll struggle to find Ecuadorians who are fluent in English or confident enough to not speak Spanish.

• El Salvador - Often overlooked, El Salvador has the third largest economy in South America and has an enormous beverage production industry.

• Equatorial Guinea - Outside of oil and gas there are slim pickings here as it makes up around 90% of GDP. But around 90% of the population only speak Spanish.

• Guatemala - Bananas, coffee, sugar and palm oil are the most significant industries in Guatemala. Around 43% of Guatemalans speak fluent English.

• Honduras - Mining, fishing, cement production and agriculture are opportunities here. Less than 0.5% of Hondurans speak English.

• Mexico - A huge Spanish speaking market with significant growth industries including audio and visual equipment manufacturing and air transportation.

• Nicaragua - This is one country our team have not yet worked - but we’re always open to a new challenge.

• Panama - Adhesives, aircraft spares, shrimp, clothing, cement - with only around 14% of Panamanians fluent in English there are plenty of leads here.

• Paraguay

• Peru

• Spain

• Uruguay

• Venezuela

And then there is also a lot to be said for approaching individuals and specific companies in the United States in Spanish as 41 million citizens speak it too, not to mention large parts of Belize and Gibraltar where Spanish is widely used.

A note on Google Translate

This free tool is always improving but when it comes to understanding localised Spanish and industry specific jargon it has a long way to go. If you try an introductory email using such a tool, 99.9% of the time it will be very obvious to the recipient - and they say first impressions count. Our fluent B2B Spanish speaking team are skilled in writing exceptional sales copy in Spanish and can make introductory or follow up calls in Spanish meaning your approach is 100% professional.

What about once a client is won and you still don’t have an inhouse Spanish speaker?

This classifies as a “nice problem to have” but we understand that you need to think ahead.

We are happy to discuss ongoing Account Management in Spanish as this is a service Silent Sales offer. Either whilst, or instead of you hiring a Spanish-speaking colleague.

Are all call charges to Spanish and Catalan speaking countries covered in our pricing?

The following calls to Spanish and Catalan speaking areas are covered as standard. But if you have a requirement that means we’d need to call outside of the listed countries then we’d be happy to speak with you about how to make this work on our VOIP calling system.

Spain and Mexico - Landline and mobile

Chile - Landline and Chile Santiago

Andorra, Argentina, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico - Landline only

Do we make Spanish and Catalan B2C calls?

We try not to take on much B2C work. We do occasional B2C projects but they are usually either very specialist or for some of our legacy clients where we’re very familiar with the set up. This is a very difficult area in terms of GDPR compliance and our team don’t enjoy B2C work in the main - we stay in our lane which is expert B2B calling.