Los Cabos Surcusal

Wow! where to begin.
For nearly the past year I have spent more time in Los Cabos than in San Miguel de Allende. Getting a new store opened is more work than one can imagine especially when you choose a location that is Minimum 5 hour travel time by air and 2 days by car. I know it seems how can it be 2 days by car and 5 hours by plane. The problem is the large body of water between mainland Mexico and the Baja. A ferry is an overnight trip. The ferry from Mazatlan is more like a refugee boat than a cruise ship.
Opening a new location is a challenge in itself. Add on top of that several other barriers and it's impossible for the average person. Not knowing anyone in town to call for store remodel, fixing a leaky faucet is trial and error. I spent the better part of the day driving around looking for someone to weld a repiso. Finally I ended up at a auto shop and what I got back was less than level. You know those old Mexican pickup trucks that when your driving behind seem to be sitting crooked on the frame. I think this is where those guys go for repairs. Then try hiring a staff. I ran an ad in the Cabo Mil radio station. That was expensive and wasteful. In Cabo there is a shortage of workers. 8 businesses are fighting over the same 3 people. Therefore two things happened in Cabo. Anyone with experience is worth about 3 times as in the mainland and everyone else works a job until they get too drunk one night of want to go surfing all day knowing the next morning they can be either back at the old job or have a new one by noon.
This is great for employees but not for the employer. I've had potential employees in hard negotiations over salaries. This is like swallowing a spoonful of sand when my wife and I cleaned out our savings accounts and charged up a few cards. I haven't seen a dime from Cabo. I'm eating canned tuna and worried about the light bill and some young punk comes in and tells me he won't work for less than 2K a month! Being without my family is also a strain. After being gone so long I realize my daughter who just turned 2 years in December doesn't speak any English.Her Spanish and Italian are great! Believe me it's a strange feeling when I need to communicate to my own child in Spanish. That's when I knew I just haven't been around enough. Ahh Los Cabos Paradise right. I tell you it felt more like purgatory in the summer. All in all the obras for the house construction working under extreme conditions. It was 38c and guys are tossing bricks all day or digging ditches by hand. I have a lot of respect for them. Like my dad always said,"get a desk job use your mind not your back". My father worked hard labor all his life. He will tell you it wasn't all that hard but climbing ladders and hanging pipe for sprinklers is hard work. I guess all that reminding paid off. There is somethings he couldn't prepare me for. When your working with your hands or doing something that doesn't have that much responsibility you are more relaxed. Physical stress is big but you rest easy at night. The thing he didn't know is the mental stress and battles a person in my position deals with daily. How could be know, for my father when Friday afternoon came it was over and not much thought was put on Monday morning.
Fast forward to Los Cabos. After 3 months in Cabo we made our first real sale. On the 4th month I hired a real sales person. A real sales person is someone who says "YES". Most people think if there selling toilets they have to know every detail about the toilet industry. They may feel a need to read a biography about Henry Crapper the inventor of the closed coupled toilet. Yea I read it but a real sales person knows the magic in selling is being with the clients. Making calls, sending emails and building relationships. Once we started closing a few deals it seemed we became a beacon in the night. For the next few months we did nothing but order parts and pieces for the mistakes of sales persons from other stores. We knew this would pay off and all the builders are becoming loyal to us.
Now it's March and things have really broken loose this year. We have secured relationships with 4 major developers and many other small firms. We have added more people in the office and it's helped a lot. No more 7am to 10pm days. I look back on the last year from when I signed the lease in Los Cabos and see that it's all going well. We're farther ahead than I imagined and still have room for growth. I'll still be away from my family often but I don't have to eat canned tuna or worry so much about the light bill and when I'm ready to come home for a couple of weeks I can do it knowing things in Cabo will go on without me. If you ask me would I do it all over again? The answer is YES!