A conversation with Julio Martinez Clark about Growing Global Sales in Latin America

Welcome to the Global Sales Mentor Podcast for conversations that drive growth. When you are ready to grow your international sales, join the conversation with your host, Zach Selch.

So thank you for joining us. I am here with my friend Julio, and we are going to talk a little bit about driving international sales, another conversation that drives international sales growth. And I'm trying to bring in an eclectic group of people from different parts of the world, and Julio is Colombian, which is where my wife comes from. And Julio really focuses on sales within the Western Hemisphere, going from Latin America and North America and back and forth and different things. He has a lot of great experience with that. So I'm just going to jump in and ask Julio to introduce himself and talk a little bit about what it is that he does, because I think he has a very interesting perspective compared to some of the other things that I've talked about.

Excellent. Thank you, Zach.

Julio, welcome and thank you very much for joining us.

My pleasure.

So maybe you could just introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what it is you do.

Absolutely. We are a contract research organization and a market access consulting firm that helps medical device companies from the US and also other life science companies, biotech, et cetera, from the US to do business in Latin America in basically 2 fronts. One front is early-stage clinical research, and the other front is market access or market entry, how to find distributors, how to do local market research, how to obtain regulatory approvals, et cetera. And we focus particularly in Colombia for many reasons that we can talk about.

Well, the Colombian medical market is a great market, so I can understand that. And very often when people are trying to get into especially life science things, the regulatory is a very big problem, right?

Yeah.

And sometimes it's even the thing that scares people most. When I talk to people and they're talking about expanding internationally, very often what they say is, well, I'm not quite sure about how I'm going to deal with the regulatory. So what you basically do is you help companies With their regulatory process, right, across Latin America. And you do that pretty much in virtually every country in Latin America, right?

Yeah, we help them with the regulatory process. But however, our scope, Zach, goes beyond that.

Of course it goes beyond that. It also goes into the research and finding the distributors.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and also clinical research in case they want to do Studies to validate the technology, studies to facilitate physician adoption in the market, to gather local clinical data, to show local key opinion leaders, et cetera. So we go beyond what the typical regulatory affairs consulting firm does. In pretty much every country, you'll find a regulatory consulting firm. Emergo is probably the leader and some other ones.

Yeah, that everybody knows them, right? Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And you find attorneys. that do that in pretty much all countries in Latin America, et cetera. However, we go way beyond that because we realize, Zach, that these companies need really handholding in many instances. So the regulatory affairs consultant, the typical service provider in this sector, it's short.

Right.

It doesn't really fulfill the needs of these companies. So we go way beyond that. We give them regulatory strategy. We give them advice. In commercial strategies, reimbursement strategy, et cetera. Everything that needs to be done to make sure they ensure long-term success in a particular market. And we focus in Colombia. We have an operation in Colombia because we believe that Colombia is probably one of the best countries to start doing business in Latin America, both in clinical research and also sales. And we partner with some other trusted partners or companies in other countries in Latin America to make sure our clients have a full service provider here.

That's great. So I'm always telling people how important it is to choose markets correctly when they're expanding internationally. And I also think that Colombia is a great first market in Latin America or one of the first 2 markets in Latin America to go into. What can you tell me about the success you've had in getting companies to sell in Colombia and then go from there to expand into other parts of Latin America?

Yes. The reason why many companies choose Colombia is, I would say first, is the 3rd largest economy in Latin America. It's the 3rd most populous country in Latin America. it has a top-performing university.

And it's nicer in a lot of ways than the other, the 2 bigger ones, right? That's true.

It's a lot more fun. And that plays a big role in doing business.

Right.

So the regulatory approval process is fairly straightforward. INVIMA is a level 4 regulatory agency. But overall, There are four countries in Latin America that are OECD-aligned. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is the club of wealthy countries around the world that have recently included Latin American countries, namely Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Colombia. And these four countries are putting together what is called the Pacific Alliance, which is. the wealthy club or the club of wealthy countries in Latin America or countries where it's a lot easier to do business.

Right. Now remind me, if I remember correctly, if you bunch those 4 together, what are they? They're the 7th or 8th largest economy in the world, right?

Yes, yes, great point. It's about the 8th largest economy in the world.

Right.

Yeah, it's about 200-something million people.

All speaking one language.

Yes.

And like you said, They don't have the bureaucracy. I've never had a problem with anybody not paying me from Colombia or from Chile, right? Or you get money out. The bureaucracy is relatively simple, right? So if you're doing business with those countries, you're avoiding— and don't get me wrong, I love Argentina, but sometimes they have—

Of course.

They have trouble sometimes. Of food. But they have trouble sometimes with their currency, right? Yeah.

Very unstable economy.

Right. So I've had people say to me, look, I can't pay you for another 180 days until, you know, I can free up some foreign currency. Never had that problem with Colombia or Peru or Chile or Mexico, right? Exactly. Yeah. Mexico's currency has dipped a little bit and Colombia's currency has dipped a little bit. But But again, those are, you know, between those places, if you were to look at that, you could say that's a really good solid place to do business, right?

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. The other aspect of it is the geographical location of Colombia. A lot of companies choose Colombia as their headquarters for Latin America. For example, Johnson& Johnson just opened a $40 million headquarters in Bogotá for Latin America, Amazon and other companies.

Look, good airport, right? Good airport.

Yes, one of the top airports in Latin America.

Bogotá. Yeah, not that far from, I mean, not that far from Miami, right? It's, you can fly out 6, 7 AM.

2.5, 3 hours.

Right. You fly out 6, 7 AM from Bogotá, you're in Miami by 9 o'clock and you can get on a plane someplace else, right?

Exactly.

So yeah. And, you know, and the crime is nowhere near what it was when you were a kid, right?

Oh no, I mean, it's totally different. It has shifted. Yeah, it's very different. Actually, I was reading some stats the other day and they were saying that the crime rate in Washington is a little higher than in Bogotá now.

Yeah, up. Washington, D.C. Yeah, yeah.

Some parts of Washington, D.C., Maryland, Baltimore, it's really scary there.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. No, so that makes perfect sense. And when you're dealing with, science stuff with medical devices, right? Colombia has— now, again, you take a look at it, Colombia has some great hospitals, right? In Barranquilla, Medellín.

Great point.

Great point. A lot of very advanced surgical techniques, cancer treatment. I want to say in Medellín they do lung transplants. Yes, I would say so. Very good medical, right? Very good medical facilities across the board. So they're buying high-quality stuff. They trust Americans.

Yes, yes, very much. They love Americans.

They love Americans. More than that.

Right.

Yeah.

So actually, actually, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you're bringing up a good point. Colombia is considered the Israel of Latin America. In other words, it is the most protected country in Latin America by the US empire.

I've never heard that, but that makes perfect sense.

Yes, because of its strategic location, because of the political dynamics that are happening here. Colombia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in natural resources.

Yeah.

And, and that is right next to Venezuela, is right across the pond from Cuba. So you have all these socialist, leftist, uh, communists, whatever you want to call it, regimes trying to get a hold of Colombia because it's really the most precious jewel in, in the region for the Spaniards. That's how it was. The Vice Kingdom of Spain was based in Colombia.

All the, all the gold used to leave out through Cartagena, right? Yeah.

Yes. Yes. So Colombia has an interesting history and everybody wants a piece of Colombia and that's why it's heavily guarded by the Americans.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. As an American who's done business in Latin America, the other thing I can tell you is it's a really good way to do your week. You start off in Buenos Aires, you do Santiago, Then you do Lima, you do Quito, you end up Friday morning in Bogotá, and then you fly home on Saturday, right?

Yeah.

It's a pretty good week that way. It's pretty neat like that. Yeah, great. So what are some of the challenges? I mean, there are lots of stereotypes about the cultural differences between Latin Americans and North Americans. But what would you say some of the challenges are in Understanding the— from a cultural perspective, understanding business culture. You know, your typical gringo shows up in Bogotá, goes to a meeting, and what would you teach him about that? What would you tell him to do differently?

I've been in situations like that.

I bet you have.

It's funny. It's so funny. I mean, to see the gringos trying to understand what's going on. First of all, the meetings never start on time.

Right.

Second of all, probably 15 minutes into the meeting, everybody is still speaking about personal stuff, about the news, about their families, about the soap opera.

Yep.

And everybody wants to get to know each other. And sometimes for Americans, it's hard to understand because they want to get straight to the point.

Right.

Just, they're there for business.

Exactly. And I'll tell you what, American business culture is what we call situational trust. I show up, I'm a VP, I trust you, I expect you to trust me. That's it. We don't really need to know each other.

Yeah.

Colombia is totally different, right?

Yes, yes.

You have to talk, you have to get to know each other. You might have to have a meal with somebody, right?

Yeah.

And that's one of the—

You find people in common. That's also key. You find who, who we know in common so we know that we can trust each other.

Yeah, a while back I went for a road trip in Colombia with my mother-in-law and I was joking. I said, you know, an American goes to check into a hotel and you, you fill out the form, you give them a credit card, they give you a key and that's it. When a Colombian goes to check into a hotel, it becomes an hour conversation about mutual friends. You know, because because you find I know somebody who was here before last year, and she was such a nice lady, and blah blah blah. And a lot of talk and and stuff goes on.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. But it's not a waste to see the dynamics.

Oh yeah, but it's not a waste of time. You simply.

No.

You can't cut it off. You can't say, look, I don't have time for this, right? It doesn't work.

Yeah, you can't avoid it. You can't avoid it, especially scotch. Sometimes scotch gets in the way and you need to have it as an American, even if you don't like it. That's part of the way it works here.

There you go. It's funny, I haven't been to Venezuela for a couple of years, but I used to say they have fantastic rum in Venezuela, but everybody wants to drink scotch. Because they don't want to—

It's one of the largest consumers of Scotch in the world, actually.

Exactly. It's really interesting because they have such good rum, you know, but there you go.

Yeah, everybody wants to be a foreigner, and that's, that's the thing around here. Um, everything that is American, everything that is imported, everything that is British, Scottish, Irish, German, is highly regarded as a product of quality.

Oh yeah.

So yeah, and that applies to medical technologies, especially that now that you have all these Chinese products or Indian products. So the FDA certificate is really, it really helps get into the market.

That's been my experience.

If the price is right.

Yeah.

The value proposition is right, of course.

Right, right. But they do want good quality stuff. And honestly, if you go into Not every hospital in Colombia, but you go into a lot of hospitals, you would not know that you're not in America, right? At a good hospital in America, right? There, it's across the board, top-of-the-line equipment, top-of-the-line beds. Everything is really good. And the doctors are really good. The doctors in Colombia are fantastic. Yeah.

Let me say something about that. That's also an excellent point. There is a ranking, annual ranking that a magazine, a prestigious magazine in Chile does. It's called América Economía Magazine or something like that. And they publish their annual ranking of hospitals, the best hospitals in Latin America. And Colombian hospitals are always in, in the top 40, 50% of the best hospitals in Latin America.

Yeah.

And, and, and you are also bringing another point, which is the fact that a lot of the physicians here Because of the geographical proximity with the US.

Absolutely, right.

Like my brother.

Going back and forth, right.

Exactly. And they sometimes train in the US. They go for rotations in the US. They spend a few months in a hospital in the US. A lot of doctors do the USMLE test in the US, trying to get into the US system. Sometimes they fail. They come back to Colombia. Or sometimes they spend a couple of years in the US. They do their residency and come back to Colombia and whatever. I mean, different personal reasons, but a lot of them come back. So you have bilingual doctors trained in the US, board certified, some of them. So yeah, that's what you find.

And my feeling is, from my experience, is getting a good reference site. Let's say you get a good reference site in one of the good hospitals in Colombia. If you're selling an American product that isn't yet in Latin America, and you can get it into one of the good hospitals in Bogotá or Medellín or someplace like that because you meet a doctor who studied in America, who did his residency in America. Now you have a reference site in Latin America. And you can go down to Chile or Peru or Brazil or Argentina and you can say, look, I'm in one of the good hospitals. And what I— the other funny thing that I like as a reference site in Medellín Is you have a hospital that's right next to the airport, so you can fly people in, go, go to the hospital for a reference site, and get out. It's really easy.

Yeah, yeah. San Vicente Fundación just built a world-class facility in the Río Negro area close to the airport.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's, it's really beautiful stuff. Yeah, yeah.

So please No, I was gonna say that now you're talking about reference sites. For example, if you say that you did a study or one of your key opinion leaders is the chief of cardiology or whatever at Fundación Santa Fe, for example, in Bogotá.

Yeah.

I mean, that's like the crown jewel of medicine in Colombia and South America.

Right.

Fundación Cardioinfantil, also in Bogotá, Clínica Country, Marley, et cetera. I mean, you have some top facilities. Actually, Colombia is a medical tourism destination. A lot of the hospitals— I'm sorry, a lot of the governments or the healthcare systems in the little islands in the Caribbean send their patients to Colombia because they need high complex procedures because they don't have the infrastructure for that.

They can't hold it. Like, you go to Aruba, I think they have 250, 300 beds in the whole hospital, in the whole island. Country, right?

Yeah.

So they can't, they can't have a good cardiac. I mean, no offense meant if any cardiologist from Aruba is listening.

Yeah.

But they're not going to have the same level of a cardiologist or oncologist or anything like that. Yeah. Right. So yeah, so they—

They don't have the volume.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Right.

No. Yeah, they feed it to Colombia. Same with Panama. Same with Ecuador. Even Peru, Bolivia, all these countries come to Colombia for—

When you're selling into Latin America, like you said, it's really a good first stop, right? Because you get in, you can find people who like Americans and so on. You get yourself a solid reference site and then you can leverage that reference site to move to other countries in Latin America, right? Absolutely.

That's a common strategy. Yeah.

I'm also gonna say that about half the time I've had a regional manager based in Latin America, I've based him in Bogotá because again, what did you say in the beginning? Great airport, right?

Yeah.

It's good. You can find well-educated people. I mean, they're—

Yes.

You talked about the doctors, but there's a good business school too, right? So you can get a good person with an MBA. And maybe you can get somebody who has, you know, a few years experience working for one of the US headquarters, right?

Yes, that's something that we use for recruitment. We look for people who have worked for a US-based company in Colombia.

Exactly.

They get the training, the US mentality, the structure.

Exactly. You grab some guy who spent 5 years at J&J, you know he's going to be a good guy, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, And maybe he doesn't want to work for a big corporation anymore. Maybe he wants to work, you know, at a higher job with a smaller company or something, right? So it's a great way to snag people.

Exactly.

And you have a lot of people like that. You know, you have a lot less in other countries in Latin America because a lot of places, like you said, headquarter in Bogotá, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you find a lot of smaller countries. I mean, Latin America has 33 So unless you are in Mexico or Brazil, you are in a very small country.

And that's not even counting the— that's— are you not counting the— are you counting the Caribbean? That's without the Caribbean?

No, counting the Caribbean, 30-something countries. Yeah, Latin America, the English-speaking Caribbean, the French. There's a couple of— there's a French department or territory.

There's another Dutch or something.

Yeah, it's a lot of little countries.

Exactly. Yeah.

It's very fragmented. Extremely fragmented.

Yeah.

And that makes it challenging for US companies to do business in Latin America because a lot of my clients say like, oh, I wish Latin America were like the EU, the European Union.

I know. And it's always like, I'll tell you what, the Caribbean was always my nightmare because you can't find one distributor that can handle the Caribbean. You need 5 or 6, like 5 or 6. And then you're looking at, you know, each one of them is going to pull in a quarter of a million dollars a year, $100,000 a year, something like that, because there just isn't enough volume.

Yeah.

But you can't have one guy doing all the Spanish islands and the Dutch islands and the English islands. They don't do it. Yeah, you never find somebody who can cover everything well. So I always had a lot of trouble with the Caribbean. It's, it's a difficult area to cover in a cost-effective way, right? And then you end up with somebody out of Panama who is managing 6 distributors and he's taking 7% off the top. So now your prices are up, right? Exactly.

Or from Miami too.

Right, or from Miami or something. And you're going, well, how come my prices are so high in Aruba? And you're like, well, you have a distributor and then you have another distributor, right?

There's like 5 middlemen.

Yeah, right. So what else can you tell me about that's unique or close to unique about doing business in Latin America that people in America should hear, in North America should hear about before they come down that will give them a little bit of preparation?

I think something unique is that nobody is in a rush here somehow. Life, the world vision, the worldview is different.

And yet it gets done, right? Everything gets done.

Yes, everything gets done, but everything is about mañana. Yeah, there is no rush, take it easy, but I'm going Americans, and I consider myself an American too, because I'm a US citizen. I've been in the US for 25 years.

I know, but it's always sort of funny to be in that middle where you understand both cultures.

I know. Yes, yes. And my company acts as a buffer so that my clients do not have to suffer so much.

But I have the experience.

That's really good.

I'll tell you what, I used to work with this company and it was really funny. We had a very, very nice sort of like a demo area in the factory. where you could come in and see our devices and everything like that. And you could get coffee delivered there. But if you did it, you had to fill out a form 2 weeks in advance.

What?

Because you had to fill out a form for everything you wanted that day and you had to give it in 2 weeks in advance, including the coffee. Now the thing is, if you wanted— so if you wanted coffee, you had to say the people are showing up at 9 o'clock. But if you said 9 o'clock, the coffee came at 9 o'clock or 8:55.

Yeah.

So if you, if you were having people that were supposed to come at 9 o'clock, you'd say, but you know what, if they show up at 9:30, the coffee will be cold. But if I ask for coffee at 9:30 and they do show up at 9, then we don't have coffee for half an hour. And I used to say, I used to say to people, come on, I'm getting people in from Latin America. I don't know when they're going to show up. Can I get some hot coffee? Can I just pick up the phone and say, now bring the coffee? And they said, no, no, they have to show up at the time they're telling you they're showing up. And I'd say, I can't tell them that they have to show up at 9 o'clock. Right? They're not going to show up at a specific time because I told them to so that we could get hot coffee.

Yeah.

And I couldn't get anybody at my factory to understand that. And it was the funniest thing because Yeah, sometimes they'd show up at 9 o'clock, sometimes they'd show up at 10 o'clock, and, you know, they were right. They were like, well, I woke up, breakfast was really good, I wasn't in a hurry, I called my wife. You know, you can't argue with that. Those are all perfect.

You can't argue with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to deal with things like that all the time, Zach. For example, I'm trying to set up a meeting with somebody in Colombia and they tell me, I, I I text them. WhatsApp is widely used here.

Yeah.

You send them a WhatsApp message, hey, I want to meet with you, when are you available? Oh, Wednesday afternoon. Okay, what's Wednesday afternoon? Is it 2? Is it 2:15? Is it 3? Is it 4? Is it 4:30? Is it 6?

Oh, we'll see.

We will speak in the morning and we'll set it up. I'm like, I have to schedule my week. I have to put it in my calendar. So I can't block the whole afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, because this guy hasn't given me— but that's the way it is. So then you have to remember, set a reminder to send him a text message in the morning, Wednesday morning, to set up a time, a specific time in the afternoon. So—

Exactly. But that's the way it works, right?

Yeah.

On the other hand, we— the bit— like I say, business gets done, goods get shipped. People might be running a little late, but we're still doing a lot of good business, right? And a lot of people are making, you know, a good living selling products from North America into South America, right? So it's, it's really a good market. And in the end of the day, you take away these things like people a bit late for a meeting or whatever. There's still a lot of fun to do business. I have some great friends from Colombia and from Peru and from Chile, from Brazil, I mean, and Argentina. A lot of great friends from Latin America. I've had some great experiences and I've sold, you know, well over $100 million over the years in Latin America. I mean, it's a great market. Yeah.

And you know, also we forget to mention the language. I mean, if you speak Spanish, that will make things a lot, a lot easier. I mean, you have no idea how frustrated sometimes some of my customers sometimes are when they sit in a meeting with me and the locals and everybody starts speaking Spanish and everybody's talking to each other.

Very quickly.

Very quickly. And they're like, what's going on here? Their face is like a— their head is like a fan going this direction to this direction.

Yeah, no, that's true. But at least you know that if you get, like, if you get a regional manager in Asia, there's no way he speaks all the languages. But in Latin America—

That's a great point.

Essentially you have 2 languages and there are a lot of people who speak—

And they're very similar, by the way.

And they're very similar. So you can, it's very easy to get a good solid regional sales manager who obviously speaks fluent Spanish, pretty good English, and can get by in Portuguese.

Yeah, he can get by in Portuguese. Yeah.

And that's very, very common. So, but you know, when you're dealing with Africa, you're dealing with Europe, you're dealing with Asia, there are so many different languages. You're never going to get somebody who speaks all the languages, you know?

Yeah. Interesting point. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it does make things easier. Also, if you have to translate your manuals into Spanish and Portuguese, that's 2 languages, right? If you have to do a little bit of paperwork or that kind of thing, everything in Latin America, it isn't exactly identical, right? And also the Spanish is a little different, right? You know, the Spanish in Argentina and the Spanish in Colombia are a little different.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

But they're— it's the same language, right? You can get by. And that's very important.

And the region is homogeneous, culturally homogeneous.

Exactly.

Everybody pretty much has the same background, Spanish background, European Spanish background. The American influence is extremely strong in all countries.

Right.

So you find homogeneity in the region. Unfortunately, the regulatory pathways are not so homogeneous yet.

Yet. Eventually that will—

to get fixed with the Pacific Alliance.

I agree with you. I think we're going in that direction. I think we're going in that direction. Great. Oh, 2 more questions because we're talking a little— or one more question. We're talking a little bit about healthcare products. We're both from the same background with that. Best show, what do you prefer? Do you prefer FEMA or Hospital R?

Hospital R. FEMA—

Me too. Me too. I'll tell you what, like, I haven't had a booth at FEMA in years, but I've been going to Hospitalar for about 20, 25 years. I almost get the feeling that the people who go to FEMA are from the Caribbean more than they are from Latin— from South America.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And the real business— I do really solid business at Hospitalar. I'll usually show up at FEMA without a booth. I'll just meet people and talk to people. But the heavy, the real business in Latin America gets done at Hospitalar, right? I wanted to see what your take on that was. Yeah.

Yes, yes, I agree. And FEMA has now a lot of Indian and Chinese products. Hospitalar has probably more advanced German, more high complex products, more innovative.

Yeah, I think you're right. That might tie up with the whole Latin American Caribbean thing. FEMA also has a lot of booths that sell They sell used and refurbished stuff.

Yes, exactly.

And I don't remember ever seeing that at Hospitalars. So people from FEMA are going to send me a letter bomb probably now.

I was going to say, Zach, that for example, in Colombia, it's illegal. There are restrictions to import used equipment.

And you know what? That's happening in more and more countries now. And I think it's going to hit that whole business of refurbished. It's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be interesting.

Yes.

Yeah. Well, Julio, anything you wanna tell us about your business just to sort of give yourself a little pitch to the people who listen?

Yes, absolutely. I think Colombia has positioned itself as one of the best countries overall in Latin America to do business. in many sectors of the economy. Since we're talking about life sciences or healthcare or medical technologies, let's dig deeper into that. In terms of clinical research, before we started operations in Colombia, Zach, Colombia wasn't really on the map for early-stage clinical research for medical technologies. But just to give you a little bit of context to your listeners as well, My brother Pedro was really the visionary here of our organization because he trained at Harvard, at the Beth Israel Medical Center, as an interventional cardiologist. He is the only Colombian who has been accepted to this program and probably one of the only Latin Americans, or one of the few Latin Americans. And after that, he became a professor at the University of Miami, and he started getting involved with the development of several cardiovascular technologies in the structural heart space. So a lot of startups were coming to the university to tap into the knowledge of the team where Pedro was a part of, and some of the best interventional cardiologists were at that hospital at the University of Miami. So he started traveling to Paraguay, to Colombia, and other countries, and he quickly realized that companies in the US really, really suffer when they wanna do business in Latin America.

Yeah.

Specifically for early-stage clinical research, finding that key opinion leader, that investigator that can ethically and cost-efficiently lead a clinical trial for an innovative technology that has millions of dollars in investment is sometimes difficult. And they sometimes go to places Poland, go to New Zealand, Australia, far away places, Georgia in the Eastern European area, Croatia, Lithuania, et cetera. And Pedro said, hey, there's a country here where I'm from—

3 hours away, right?

Exactly, 3 hours away, great healthcare infrastructure, great cost savings because of the peso exchange rate versus the US dollar. So it makes it really cost efficient and ethical to do business here for clinical research. So let's set up a company that helps these companies. And that's how we got started. That was our genesis.

Oh, great.

And organically we were growing and we started expanding our services to include market access products. I'm sorry, services. So that companies that were already commercial, that had an FDA or CE mark product, could have help navigating the waters of Latin America. So in essence, that's who we are and that's what we do.

No, that's great. Thanks. So I'm gonna thank you very much for participating. And I'm gonna tell people, you know, when you are ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. And when you're ready to go into Latin America, if you're— especially if you're in the health science area, or medical devices, reach out to Julio. And, um, thank you. Thanks a lot for your time.

My pleasure, Zach. Thank you for having me here.