Maurilio Amorim

Month: April 2010

  • Travel Log: Brazil. Observations from an Expatriate

    Last week I had chance of visiting with the leadership of TWR Brazil. While there’s so much I would like to say about my 4 days in Sao Paulo, here’s a random dump of observations:

    1. Evangelical Christianity is booming in Brazil. Entrepreneurial Christians are taking the gospel further into the remote parts of Brazil and using technology to reach large cities as well as remote jungle locations. God is alive and well in South America. 

    Cutura bookstore. Four stores filled with inventory and lines 8 deep of people buying books. Who said Brazilians don’t buy books? 

    2. TWR Brazil has a great leadership team that is visionary and entrepreneurial. I believe their best days are before them. Not only TWR reaches the entire nation via radio waves, they now have a growing publishing division that’s resourcing their listening audience and finding new audiences.

    Tim Klingbeil (TWR Americas Director) Jose Carlos (TWR Brazil Ex. Director) Lauren Libby (TWR Global CEO) Me, Michael Visentine (NavPress COO) Lemuel Larroza (TWR Hispanic Director)

    3. We might be in a global recession, but someone forgot to let Brazil know that. Shopping Malls and book stores were overflowing with people making all kinds of purchases. Ad these were not cheap items either. Brazil is a great business opportunity at the moment.

     Shopping Mall traffic. I thought it was Black Friday it was so busy!

    4. Brazilians consume meat in amazingly large quantities. I ate my weight in beef in my 4 days in Sao Paulo. Fruits and vegetables abound but beef is king. It’s plentiful and economical.

     Brazilian Churrascaria cooks several kinds of beef and gauchos bring skewers much like these to the table often and you eat as much as you care to. And I cared a lot.

    5. Business is not all about the bottom-line numbers. It’s true that in most cultures, relationships are very important. Brazilians take that to another whole level where 3-hour lunches and dinners past midnight have as much to do with closing the deal as the proforma.

    Long lunches and longer dinners deepen relationships. If you don’t enjoy people, you might not want to do business in Brazil.

     
    6. I shouldn’t complain about US traffic. 6 million cars on the roads make Sao Paulo a driving nightmare. It took us almost 2 hours to drive the 15 miles from the airport to our hotel. The fastest growing transportation vehicle in Sao Paulo for business executives is the helicopter. Most downtown buildings have helipads where business men fly in and out to escape the traffic as well as crime.

     If you think your traffic issues are bad, think again.

    7. I take for granted how safe my life in Brentwood is. I asked one of our Brazilian hosts if it was safe for me to run on their streets. “Yes, it’s safe. But leave your iPod and watch at the hotel, don’t look around like a tourist, and wear old running shoes and you should be ok.” Needless to say, I ran on the treadmill at the hotel. At few different times as we stopped at a traffic light, our driver would say, “please put your phones down. You don’t want to call attention.” I wouldn’t last long there.

    8. Americans are not the only generous people in the world. I’m so proud of how much American’s give to causes, especially Christians in this country. But I saw first hand how TWR Brazil raised over 1.2 million dollars in support from their 15 board members in one day.

    This restaurant had a 120-year old fig tree growing in its middle and a table with 40 desserts to choose from. I had to plowed my way through it, but it was well worth it. 

    9.  Brazilian coffee is still the best in the world. With all due apologies to my international friends, Brazilian coffee is just superb. It’s strong and yet not bitter. It has a smoothness that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. 

    Cafezinho (small coffee). Don’t let the small size fool you. This stuff is powerful. By the end of the first day I had so many of them that I couldn’t sleep at night. Good times!
    A trip to another country always helps me to broaden my worldview. Where have you been that has had a lasting impact on your life?

  • The Bigest iPad Question of the Moment: Will It Blend?

    According to many reviews, the iPad will change everything. There are so many questions about what it means to the future of publishing and media-rich content. Is it going to change the way we watch tv? Is it going to finally make ebooks the new standard for reading? While questions abound, the most important question of the day for us is :Will it blend?

    Warning! This video contains graphic scenes of violence against an iPad. Apple fans and gadget freaks be warned: this will make you sick!

    Are you planning on buying an iPad? If so, why?

  • Smoothie King, Bad Customer Service and a Lesson in Flexibility

    I just paid $10.90 for a 32 oz smoothie. Yep, that’s right, a smoothie. And it didn’t have a filet mignon steak blended in with white truffle oil either. It was mango/peanut butter flavor (I know it sounds terrible, but trust me it’s excellent). The whole ordeal started during my trip to Florida a few weeks back where an employee at the Smoothie King in Destin talked me into getting their locally created concoction. I loved it so much that I wanted my local Brentwood, TN store to make me one just like it. That’s when it all went wrong and the lack of flexibility and customer service ended up losing me as a customer.

    Since I knew the mango/peanut butter is not on the menu, I called the store in Destin and got the recipe: 7 squirts of water, 6 squirts of mango, 2 scoops of peanut butter and a serving of gladiator. As I place my order, the girl behind the counter at first would not accept my recipe. “The machine prints our order. You have to order one from the menu,” was her first response. “But I want the same product I had at the Smoothie King in Florida,” I pleaded. “I’m only supposed to give you only 4 squirts of mango. I have to charge you another dollar for the extra.” “A dollar for an extra 2 squirts?” I asked incredulous? “Yes and more for the peanut butter as well.” “Don’t I get two fruits with that order?” I tried again. “Yes, but peanut butter is not a fruit,” she said losing patience with me. So by now I realized that this was not going anywhere. This girl had no flexibility and she was not interested in helping me out. “Do I get a credit for having only one fruit?” “No.”

    “Come on, give me a break,” I said in frustration. “You’re welcomed to speak with my manager but I don’t want to cheat my employer.” Wow, now she has played the integrity card. I tried telling her that I had this before several times and there has never been an extra charge, but it didn’t matter because now it was a matter of integrity and of her cheating by not charging me extra for deviating from the “printed” formula.

    At the end of it all, I end up paying $10.90 for a smoothie that should have tasted a lot better than it did. Perhaps my bitterness over the inflexibility and lack of customer service affected the taste somehow.

    As I ponder over my experience, I’m not sure that if it was the price tag, or the lack of flexibility that got the worst of me. I don’t mind paying more for something I really like, but inflexibility just drive me nuts. We’re all in the communication business, whether you’re a business executive, pastor, parent or clerk at the local Smoothie King, and when we can’t change the rules, we need to make the customer feel good about the experience.

    Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.

    Have you ever tried to order a egg white omelet at a Waffle House in southern Alabama? Please don’t. That’s another blog post for later.  

    Have you faced poor customer service that drove you away from a business lately?

  • Pimp Your Product With Dialogue and a Plot Line: Product Placement Takes Off

    With the proliferation of DVRs (Digital Video Records) such as Tivo advertisers have been scrambling to find ways to get their message across and product placement has been the growing trend. Of course, this is nothing new. We’re used to seeing our hero driving the latest Audi R8 as in Iron Man or James Bond wearing a fashionable and surprisingly resilient Rolex. We even saw Will Smith upload a virus that wiped out an entire Alien mother ship that was set to destroy earth with, what else, a Mac. However, product placement has gone to a whole new level lately.

    Take for example this week’s episode of Modern Family, one of my favorite new comedies this season. The entire episode focused on Phil’s birthday, played by Ty Burrell, and his obsession with his birthday gift: an iPad. It was not a subplot; it was the plot. The word “iPad” was mentioned at least a dozen times in the 30 minutes during the show. The climax scene pictured Phil getting a virtual birthday cake complete with burning candles on the screen of his new iPad, which he “blew” out by blowing on the tablet and then watching the candles extinguish themselves like in real life. “No it didn’t do that?!” he said incredulously. “Yes it did!!” beamed the proud wife. At the end of the show, we see him sitting on the couch caressing the iPad gently as he whisper to it “I love you.” Unwittingly, his wife thinks he’s speaking to her and answers, “I love you too.” Fade to black. Wow! Modern Family is one of the top shows this season and they wrote an entire episode around a product release. Brilliant Apple move.

    Last night I was watching “Bones” one of the many forensic-who-done-it shows. Two young attractive women are seating in a minivan about to take off. Here’s how the dialogue went: “Angela why do you drive a van. You are not married. Do you have children I don’t know about?” “No, I don’t have children. I’m an artist and the Sienna fits my lifestyle. Besides I can’t park very well and the back up camera is awesome. I can’t live without it.” You’ve got to be kidding me! That whole scene was not to develop the characters, move the plot along or provide comedic relief. All it was intended to do was to sell minivans. Shamelessly sell minivans.

    I could see a church bulletin entry that read: Pastor Pete Wilson reads primarily from the New King James Version of the Bible during his studies. For those of us who don’t have to budget to put our products or services in a movie or sitcom, where should we place our products?Any ideas?