Conversation about Global Sales Growth with Leo Prozument

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.

Welcome to Conversations That Drive International Sales. I have an old friend of mine, Leo Prossimont, here, and Leo, uh, is really also, uh, an old-timer in terms of the international sales business. But he has been really focused on a really interesting part of the world, on Eastern Europe for the most part, and he spent a lot of time in Russia. So Leo, welcome. Thank you very much for joining us and introduce yourself, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Zach. Pleasure to be here. And thank you for welcoming me and giving me the opportunity to speak to you and your audience. My name is Leo Proziment, and I have done business in Europe for over 20 years, and particularly the Eastern European sector. I've actually lived and worked in Russia for 8 years in Moscow, Russia. I've managed 2 companies, 2 Russian-owned companies that wanted to be westernized. That's the term I'm using now, and I helped them go through the process in the reorganization and making each company that I worked for to be able to sell in their successive markets and operate successfully in the long term as well.

Great. And now you've done business in other parts of the world and you've done business in Europe, but you've spent a lot of time in Russia. First thing I'd like to ask you is talk about what's different about Russia, if you don't mind, about doing business with Russia, because it's a really interesting market and it's a lucrative market. We sell a lot. Every, you know, people who sell well are selling in Russia, right? There's money there. if you know where to find it, but it is a difficult market if you don't know what you're doing, right?

It's an extremely difficult market and for a number of reasons, and I'll try to outline that as best as I can in the briefest of times. As far as the culture is concerned, and I'm talking about specifically the business culture itself, Russian people have only started really actively having opportunity to own a business in the '90s, in the early '90s. So when communism fell and opportunity opened up for many individuals who were knowledgeable in the business that they would acquire or not knowledgeable just because they got lucky and they acquired it. And I can even back up a little bit in terms of how the businesses were distributed. So when the government and the—

That's an interesting point too. Yeah.

Yeah. Let me talk about that. The society was able to actually— or the communism fell and the society was somewhat open to privatization and owning businesses, nobody really knew how to do it. That was the first main issue. The second main issue was that when the government fell and all the government-subsidized businesses went into private hands, they were basically distributed. You know, factory opened up and then there was just a bidding war for who would want to acquire this factory and usually it was You know, pennies on a dollar because government was just wanted to get rid of it.

And and and very often, let's talk about who ended up owning those businesses, Leo.

Well, they were close to the government, so they they they were able to to get the leg up on the competition, so to say.

I used to say you met a lot of businessmen with black leather jackets in Moscow back in the 90s, right?

And and bodyguards behind them.

Right.

So that in a sense how business in Russia evolved. And in the 90s, once these people began managing these businesses, there became competition. The competition did not come from the industry itself or from the rival companies. It came from people that wanted to acquire successful businesses. And what I mean by acquire is that they would knock on your door and they would say, for this amount of money, we're going to take your business away from you. And if I were you, I would agree to that deal.

Right.

Exactly. So there was a lot of, you know, a lot of my colleagues have gone through it. Some of, some of the colleagues that I know of have actually lost their lives in the '90s, believe it or not. And it was, it was very—

I remember the level of security and the level of— I mean, we used to say it was the Wild West, right? It was like, there was a lot of violence around business in the '90s in Moscow.

Well, there was no credit. So it would basically, you know, people that would either have cash or would have to borrow it, those that borrow don't return the money, that would ultimately If they can't repay, they would lose their life. And that's how it— the whole business world was just full of gangsters. Um, and that, and that was the '90s. So from that point on, from that era of the '90s, we jump into the 2000s, and this is where Putin is in power. And, uh, pretty much, um, the, the lawlessness of the business environment has gone away. Um, but the corrupt state—

Uh, sorry to interrupt you, but just in terms of the years also, What I used to look at was, if you were about 40 when the wall went down, you had spent your whole life under communism. You had studied under communism. You were used to the system. So during the '90s and the beginning after 2000, all the people in power had grown up in communism. Now you're getting to that period just after 2000, 2010, you're already seeing college students who got out of college, or people who got out of college after communism, right? So you're seeing new blood, right?

Exactly, exactly. You see new blood and you see a hungry public that demands good product and service that they see is out in the West, right? That's, that's a perfect description and summary of the 2000s, is where you have the young generation asking for product, asking for services, asking for the lifestyle that they see on TV of their American counterparts, and not just TV, but also Right. You know, reading about it. And then, of course, it was the internet era. So people are able to have an open platform for exchanging information, for doing the research, and of course, understanding how the world operates in much better terms than before.

Right.

So from that point on, you have people that are much more educated, much more knowledgeable, and they are the ones that start to get into the business world. However, again, because of the history of the '90s and the past, They still do not have the practice. They may have the brain, but they don't have the practice of actually owning a business and operating a business. Right.

This is why— and they didn't see their parents doing it. It's not like you grew up and you saw your dad working in a company, your dad was a capitalist. You know, here are these people, they didn't have any connection with capitalism, right? It was strange to them until '90. Yeah.

Yeah, and those that did were usually— they came from those rich parents that were able to be successful in the '90s. So yes, there were 2 versions of that public, correct, absolutely.

Yeah, so it's an interesting market and interesting times, interesting times, because you also had a boom, right? There were— I remember when the sushi restaurants popped up in Moscow and the malls and all of that, right? People were spending money.

Well, especially in the way— let me even go a little further in terms of the geography of Russia. The geography itself is huge, and you're looking at only a few concentrated areas of buying power.

Right.

And the rest of the geography is, you're looking at lower middle class to low class. And then there's actually homelessness and even beneath that.

Right.

Times were extremely rough, and that's why businesses tried to operate in the sectors that would give them the money and the buying power. And they would go into the cities with, you know, they would call them million-people cities.

Right.

People with populations of a million-plus, cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, et cetera. And that's where most of the businesses started their operations.

And talk a little bit maybe about the sales process, what differentiates building rapport with your customers in Russia and working like that. Because it is also, I remember, it's an interesting culture. There is a lot of warmth working. I've had some partners, some distributors in Russia that I had really good relationships with. We had a lot of fun. I remember sitting in their apartments at midnight drinking vodka and eating sausage, that kind of thing. It's a specific type of business culture, right?

Absolutely. It's the business culture of people. It's a people culture, I say, because trust is a very important factor in the Russian society and Russian culture. And they are very trustworthy people. So especially in business, they will open their arms to you if they like what you're selling and they like what you offer and they see that there's a potential to get, you know, major rewards from the relationship that you establish with them. So they open their arms to you, and Russian people are extremely open, um, and transparent.

Uh, right.

There's really nothing that they hide, and they say what they think, and they do what they say, which is extremely—

but if, if you screw them over, they don't like that.

It's over.

The relationship will be over. They're totally open Once you've established that trust, you're their friend. They're totally open. But if you abuse that, you can't fix it, right?

There are no second chances. Absolutely. And I've I've experienced it myself. You know, making some mistakes where I shouldn't have made them, and I paid for it. And I learned as I went along, and as I lived, you know, through the years in Moscow, I became much more fluent to the feelings and and and to expectations. That they have for people like me. So when you establish this trust and you go into business with Russian people, what you get is a partner, a loyal partner that's gonna do as he promised, which in most of the times it would happen, and a good paying partner where Russian people understood that there's a high risk of doing business with them. So they are able to create a A safety net of cash flow where they can pay in advance for any type of orders they would like to bring into the country in terms of product, which is extremely beneficial. It kind of gets me into the area of doing business in Russia for companies in US or in Europe. So we can talk about that if you wish.

Please, please. Yeah.

So when Russian market opened up, And I would say more in the 2000s, because in the '90s it was more localized.

The '90s were wild.

Yeah, exactly. It's, it's a wash. So it's just establishing the businesses and trying to survive. The 2000s is where you start to look at, uh, joint ventures, and you start to look at, um, bringing products and buying products from overseas and bringing them to the Russian economy and selling them. And the demand was huge. So you had All of these businesses in various sectors, you know, oil and gas and transportation and consumer electronics, pro audio video, anything that had to do with anything, there was a demand for bringing international products, not made in China, not made in Russia or elsewhere, but made in the US, made in Germany, made in France, you know, that was a big demand and you could easily establish partnerships.

Yeah.

You could easily move the product through logistics if you know the right channels and you get paid fairly quick and you can make a fairly large amount of money. That was in 2000. So that was, you know, the shift was towards doing business with overseas companies and then in the mid-2000s is when US companies actually started doing business and looking actively to get into themselves into the Russian market by establishing offices and warehouse space as well as building So what were you selling at the time?

Or what different products did you sell in Russia during the '90s and then after 2000?

So my career doing business with Russia started with a company called Peerless. And they were doing or manufacturing TV mounts for flat panels and plasma televisions. And that was a boom for flat mount displays at that time when TVs, you know, those CRT boxes started going away and then people started getting into the flat panel market. much more, especially those that hang on the wall.

Right.

And that's where the TV mounts came in. And Peerless was a very substantial company in the US marketplace, and I was instrumental in bringing them along into Russia. And that was my first introduction of doing business with the Russians, where we established partnerships with a number of distributors that were able to distribute our product in Russia. And that was my first foray into doing business there.

Great. Yeah, great. So totally different direction. Kasha. Do you know, do you know kasha?

Of course, right?

Because I know there's a different word for it in Russian, but you know kasha. Do you like kasha?

No, it is the word. The word for kasha in Russia is kasha.

Like kasha or you don't like kasha?

I love kasha.

I love kasha too. My wife hates kasha. I think one thing you find with Eastern European Jews, either you love it because you grew up with it or you hate it because you grew up up with it. But I love kasha. And every time I'm in Russia, I eat all— I eat kasha as many times a day as I can.

You know, it's an old dish and it can be made out of different ingredients. But here in America, the equivalent of it is, of course, oatmeal. But, but, you know, kasha in Russia is, you know, making it in Russia is a science. It's not just— oh yeah.

One year I brought home like some really high quality kasha. Now it's still maybe like $2 a kilo, right? But it was like the best stuff they had in the store.

Right, right. Very, very healthy.

Yeah, my wife was still like, okay, it's still— it might be the best there is, but it's still crap. I don't want to eat it. I'm eating it myself. And then my next question, as a follow-up question, are you a banya guy?

Not really, no. Um, you know, I can, I can stay there for maybe half hour or so, but I just get bored. It's not for me. Uh, but I'll tell you that that is a major part of the culture, and I would say most of my friends, 99% of them, love banya. And there's actually one in, uh, uh, in the— in Chicago, in the city. I'm not sure if you know.

Oh, you know what? I've never made it there. It's called like Red Square.

Red Square, that's right, that's right.

I've heard about it. I've never made it there. I go, I go to the Korean one in in Chicago. But I've— but when I go to Moscow, I always make sure to get to a banya. You know, if you're only once a year, twice a year, it's— you don't get bored with it. But, uh, for, for listeners who don't know, a banya is a steam bath, but it's the Russian steam bath, and it's very different from other places. And one thing I'll say, in virtually every other bath-type place around the world that I can think of The Russians eat the heaviest food in a bath. So imagine a room full of naked guys wrapped in sheets, eating smoked fish and drinking vodka.

And drinking vodka, absolutely. Salads, salads everywhere, yes. Sausages.

Sausages, smoked fish, salads, vodka. There's this great thing which is, um, honey and lemon and seltzer water. Which may—

oh, maybe like lemon, like a, like a 7-Up type of—

well, no, they give it— well, the ones I've had, it's just sparkling water. And then like they give you a little tub of honey and a sliced lemon and you squeeze the lemon, put the honey and then mix the seltzer.

I've never tried it, Zach. This is something that I'm learning now from you. So maybe, maybe I'm the one that should be doing the interviewing here.

So that's something I picked up. I picked up from the banyas. I, you know, and you go and And they give you— or well, you have to buy everything. It's not cheap, I'll tell you that. But you get like a big thing of oak leaves and they hit you with the oak leaves and all that. But it's a lot of fun.

Exactly. And it's an experience. You stay for, you know, 3, 4 hours.

Yeah, it's an experience. If you ever, you know, if you go to Moscow for business, I always tell people, go to the ballet if you can. And again, I'll tell you what, one thing that's good about the Bolshoi Ballet is they probably do 150 shows a year or something. It's not diff— you, you, you can get tickets for it. And I always go to the banya, to a bath. Those are 2 things I love when I'm in Moscow.

Now the question to you is, do you go to banya before the Bolshoi Theatre or after?

You know what, I don't think I've ever been able to do the same thing at the— both of them in the same day, but I usually end up going to the banya about 7, 8 at night after a day's work.

That's right.

And, uh, and it's usually, you know, and I'll tell you what, everybody's really nice. They, you know, they look at me like I'm, you know, it's obvious to them that I'm not— I don't quite belong, but nobody's ever been, you know, said anything to me or anything like that. Everybody's been welcoming.

So, oh, you know, now Russians, if you meet them, um, uh, especially in Russia, are very, um, uh, closed. Uh, they are not approachable. Um, uh, so that's, you know, the fact sometimes plays against them because people think that they are Either you know very negative or not trustworthy or cold or whatever it may be, but not really. You know, Russian people are just very closed and and and they don't like to smile much unless unless there's a need for it. There are no, as we say, fake smiles out there in Russia. And that's you know when I came to Russia, I was you know smiling all the time. I would go through the offices and and you know greet people. Hi, how are you? How's everyone doing? You know cracking jokes. You know people people weren't used to that.

Yeah.

And to them, I was some kind of a, you know, I brought them some energy that they never really seen before. So to them, you know, a person from America, from overseas, is something, you know, there's some type of an aura that comes with it, from their perception.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I felt that also. And there's, you know, they're I think most Russians who, you know, lived through at least some of the communist times, they looked west and they were thinking, well, we want this. And they do see us, see people from the west, see Americans as something a little special. And I've had some really good— I think, you know, you're right there. It's hard to get past the initial contact. You have to build up some relationships.

Right.

But everybody's always been very— everybody I do business with has always been very warm and very kind to me and that kind of thing. And they do seem very, very sincere and true and all of that. Yeah.

Extremely.

Over the years, I've done some really good business in Russia, and it's a very interesting market. And like we said, it can be a little difficult. There were times— did you ever Did you ever have to, uh, deal with, um, with barter back in the '90s? Did anybody ever try to pay you in—

Yeah, with jeans. Yeah, uh, you know, there was a one— at one time there was a huge, uh, phase of the iPhones. Uh, everybody wanted to get the latest iPhone. So, uh, everybody, you know, when I was living there, they would ask me when I— because I would travel back and forth, so I would spend 3 weeks out of the month in Moscow, and then I would come back here for a week and then go back again. And I did that for almost 8 years. And, uh, while, you know, I would go back and forth, people would constantly ask me to bring—

Oh yeah, no, I was thinking, I remember in the '90s there were periods of time where some of the people I did business with couldn't get hold of cash. So what they'd do is they'd say, look, I can give you, you know, a million dollars worth of timber delivered at the, you know, at, in, uh, the port, in a port, if you'll take that as in payment.

Yeah.

There was a period of a couple of years where we had to do some acrobatics to get paid because people could get hold of timber, they could get hold of oil, they could get hold of furs, they couldn't get hold of dollars. So getting money out of Russia a couple of times was pretty Pretty tricky, but I haven't had that problem in 20 years. Yeah.

Yeah, and it still is tricky. It really is. Getting money out of Russia is not as easy as it is to get it out of different countries.

Right.

Which brings us to today, you know, how is it to do business in Russia today?

And you're still doing business, you know, this is still one of your primary focuses is doing business in Eastern Europe, right?

Somewhat, yes. Although I'm much more spread out in Europe than I ever was. That was before. But yes, Russia, you know, I was able to gather a number of, you know, reputable companies. So, you know, my network in Russia is large, and it's been gained over the years with associations with, you know, different people in different industries. But doing business in Russia now is very difficult for one reason only: the sanctions. and the devaluation of the ruble.

Right.

It's affecting the economy since 2016 when the market crashed in Russia and when sanctions were imposed when the situation happened with Ukraine. The opportunity for business to go into Russia have changed tremendously. People are now much, much more considerate about opening up anything in Russia just because of the economic and the world situation of what's happening in the country.

Yeah.

And the ruble now is pretty weak. So, you know, you're looking at doubling the price of a product that normally costs, you know, less. And it's very, very difficult.

It's hard for them to justify that. It's hard for them.

Tough to justify and tough to afford as well. So you're only having, you know, maybe 1 or 2% of the population that is able to afford, you know, an iPhone.

Right.

And those that buy the iPhones usually spend their last earned money for it. So, you know, in Russia there's a saying, it's better to look good than to feel good.

Yeah, I remember all the secretaries in the offices that I'd go to, they would all have, you know, beautiful fur coats and beautiful shoes and all of that. And, you know, like, I remember they didn't make any money. But they would find a way to make sure that they had a nice coat and a nice pair of shoes when they were on the street, you know, going home from work and so on. Yeah.

No matter where you are, you know, people would go just to go to the store, they would put on their nice clothes. And that was another difference between America and, uh, and Russia. America is a, is a country where it's a culture of comfort, uh, right? Russia, it's, it's complete opposite. In Russia, it's, you know, you have to look your best, you have to be— you have to look presentable. You're gonna go to Starbucks, well, you, you've got to dress up, right?

Yeah, so that makes perfect sense. That makes perfect sense. So what, uh, what other tips? So somebody who, you know, let's say you got somebody you're talking to and he's done a lot of business in, in Germany and France and England, and he's on his way to his first trip to Moscow to, to meet with some Russians. What give, you know, what are 3 tips you would give him to help him out?

Only 3, huh? Well, the first tip is that Let's stretch that out.

Let's see.

Well, let's, let's, let's try it.

As many tips as you want. We got, we got time.

I'll listen. I'll speak from my, from my head because, uh, yeah, it's not a prepared list. So I'll tell you, the first thing that jumps in my mind is when you land in the airport, do not take the taxi, uh, taxi service at the airport.

Good point.

That's that, that, that might— my biggest— if there's only one advice that people will take from this, do not take taxis from the airports. So you would want to, you know, they don't have Uber anymore. They did kick Uber out. So you would want to find out from, you know, if you have a colleague. You have to have a colleague. You can't just go into Russia cold. So you would have to hopefully have some people that you know that can recommend and give you some type of a support system in moving around Russia. So logistically, it's very, very difficult.

But you use the metro, right?

So I always use the metro or taxi. Um, right, you know, if you use a taxi, you have to be very careful that you use it in certain times of the day.

I was actually going back about— I want to say back to about 2000. I was— somebody tried to mug me in an, in an, like, one of the old gypsy taxis, you know, the ones that were just a regular Lada car type of thing. Yeah, somebody tried to rob me and I ended up Literally getting into a minor fight and, you know, jumping out of his car in the middle of nowhere and just running, running to get away from him, right? So I know, and that's it. I want to say that's the only place in the world that's ever happened to me before, in a taxi. But yeah, so it can be a little dicey. I usually take the train in from town just also because it's a lot faster than taking a taxi or a limo. to go from the airport to Moscow, sometimes the train is just so much faster.

It's the best metro system in the world by far, even better than UK, which also has a very— I mean, Russia actually emulated their metro system from UK. But it's amazing. Basically, what you do is when— the second point I'd like to make—

Oh, I'm sorry. I interrupted you. Go on.

No, no, no, no. But it's all going to They're all going to intersect anyways. But the second point is that if you are going to schedule meetings in Russia, do not schedule more than one, at the most 2 meetings. You cannot have one of those 5.

It is hard.

Yeah. Yeah. And not just Moscow, anywhere really in Russia, logistically-wise, you know, transportation is very difficult. And to get from one place to the next, it's difficult in the sense that it takes a lot of time.

Yeah. And it's unpredictable, right? You don't know what the traffic is going to be like.

Completely. And even in the metro, you know, just to get somewhere, it's going to take you an hour by the time you change stops and then you have to walk and you may, in a lot of occasions, after metro, you take a taxi to get somewhere.

Right.

So in that regard, do not schedule more than one meeting because it's taxing to schedule more than that. The energy factor in Russia is is very low in terms of the way that people—

Right.

I would say that if you're a foreigner and you've never been in Russia and you land and you go to your hotel, I would say that it would probably take you 2 or 3 days to get yourself back up to where you were before because it drains so much energy from you and it's the air, it's the atmosphere, Sunshine is a problem in Russia. There's a— maybe they did it.

Everything's gray.

Yeah, everything is gray. You know, they say they— that there's the sunny days in Russia are maybe 75 days out of the year is when you see sun. You know, the buildings are all painted, uh, this, this, this, uh, gray-yellow-brownish color. It's just horrible. It's like the worst color palette you can pick.

And they don't clean the sidewalks, so in the winter It's extremely dirty.

All the cars are dirty. If it snows, good luck. Um, nobody really washes their cars because there's no point to it. So just that whole factor creates this atmosphere of negativity.

And you're making it sound really attractive.

I know. Well, listen, it's, it's, it's a reality. But yeah, yeah, we can talk about the pluses for days. And right, Russia has many, many positive things about it. Another factor too is people don't like to leave voicemail, you know. So if you're expecting that someone's going to call you and leave a message with details, not going to happen. The way that people leave voicemails in Russia is they call you, if you don't pick up, they'll just hang up, and they will expect you to see that there's a missed call, that you have to call them back.

So, or somebody will say, wait, wait in your hotel, we'll send somebody, you know, to pick you up or something, and you'll wait for for 3 hours because they won't specify what time.

Yeah, that doesn't happen too much. Usually they're very punctual. Again, it depends on the traffic, which is always a problem. So it's very, very difficult to come to a meeting on time. You really have to leave your house way in advance. All right, so that's definitely a problem still to date. Logistically speaking, it's a very difficult country to move around.

Right, right. Yeah. Any other tips? You said you'd have a lot now.

Well, listen, as far as business opportunities, Russian people are extremely educated. They're very well educated. They're probably one of the smartest people in the world. If you— I'll give you one example. You're in the metro at any time of the day, you will see around you most of the people in the train reading, Um, something that's newspapers, books, hardcover books.

Yeah, like really not from their phone. Yep.

You don't see that too much, uh, unfortunately in the US. You just don't.

Not anymore. You're right. But also, I mean, you take a look, we— if you don't know very much about Russian culture and you grew up in America, you know, you, you heard about communism, you picked up the propaganda we grew up with as kids. But the educational system in Russia, in terms of math, in terms of science, has always been very good. You get fantastic engineers. And if you're looking for a very specific type of physicist or engineer, you can probably find those type of people from Russia. So they are feeding into their own tech industry. You don't see a lot of high-tech companies I would say more because of the lack of the capitalist experience and the entrepreneurial experience. But in terms of good workers, good educated people, there are a lot of very, very well-educated people in Russia, right?

Extremely. The level of education is phenomenal, phenomenal in Russia. Many foreign students actually go to Russia to study, especially students from Africa. That's the big Big destination from them, and a lot of people from it used to be Egyptians.

A lot of I know a lot of Egyptians who studied in that in Russia. A lot of Africans.

Yeah, it's still still the same.

Still the same.

A lot of students go to I mean you know Moscow has a number of different universities that are world level.

I mean yep, you know I've worked with people from Russia, engineers from Russia who studied at Russian universities who were fantastic. physicists and chemists and other engineers. Yeah, right.

Yeah, another factor too is in terms of medicine, you know, that, that is a very important factor that you want to make sure that, you know, you don't have any health issues when you go to Russia because—

That's a nice way of putting it, Leo.

Yeah, you do wind— you know, if there's a, if there's, if there is a, you know, if there's a risk of something happening to you health-wise And there's a risk of you winding up, you know, in the hospital in Russia. I would not, I would not recommend to go in the hospital in Russia or any medical—

And I'll tell you what, having— so I've been selling medical equipment most of my life, right? So it's not that the doctors aren't good, it's that the equipment in the hospitals isn't very good.

Correct.

Right?

Correct.

Yeah, like I've seen hospitals in Russia with really the type of equipment you would see in the 1950s in the United States or 1960s in the United States. But the level of the medical personnel is very good, you know, very high, highly trained, very highly motivated medical personnel.

Well, a lot of them actually train overseas too because now, you know, it's an open border now. You know, you get a visa and you can go to Germany, you can go to— a lot of people actually go to the Baltics to study IT and become IT engineers or consultants, programmers. You know, a lot of the Ukraine right now, a lot of people in Ukraine are IT-focused. So a lot of programmers you'll find that not only come from India now, but they're coming from Ukraine and Russia.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Big pool of talent.

Great. Well, I want to thank you for joining us, and anything else What's the best story, the funniest story you have about doing business internationally, whether Russia or not? What's the story that you tell when you're out drinking with your friends?

Well, okay, I'll give you the story. This is a funny one. It was my first dinner with a Russian business person who became my future customer and actually my future employer. So when we met at a restaurant, and then one of the things too, customs in Russia is that when you do meet with customers the first time, you always follow it up with lunch, right? Or then if you're visiting, you know, out of town, then you follow it up with dinner, and the dinner usually lasts till 4 or 5 in the morning.

Right.

So this particular situation, same thing. We had a big meeting, finalized our contract, decided to do business together, decided to celebrate, The same night. So we we went to this one of the one very prestigious restaurants. It's called Uzbekistan, where they actually bring out they you know the waiters bring out a roasted pig, a whole pig you can order. Amazing, amazing place, amazing food. And the owner of the company that we were doing business with, he got so drunk that he called the driver. Because they all have drivers, right? They call them designated drivers. So, so if somebody, you know, cannot drive, they will call the driver to come and relieve them. So lo and behold, the driver came, joined us for dinner, and he got drunk.

So you ended up driving home?

So basically, you know, no, thank God I did not. No, no.

But yeah, it took me a couple days to get back my I remember it used to be bottles of vodka had a cork in them, not a, not a cap, because they would say, well, if you're already opening it, you're just gonna finish it anyway, right?

Exactly. There's no, no, there's no way that you cannot finish the bottle of vodka. Every bottle of vodka has to be empty.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, there were some, yes, some interesting times in Russia. The other— I remember also one thing that got me, and you don't have this because you, you read Russian, right?

Yes.

Yeah, so when I— in the '90s, I remember it was really hard to identify a restaurant at street level because the sign— they didn't typically have a big sign, they had a little sign, and very often they didn't have windows open on the street level. I— that might have been a security thing, I'm not sure, but I remember I memorized the only thing I knew how to read in Russian was the word For restaurant, because I'd get to my hotel and I'd walk the streets and I couldn't find a restaurant.

And I would look at you know you'd see ten different little signs and I'd be like nope nope nope ah restaurant okay maybe this building has a restaurant right right right right yeah most of the restaurants are most of the restaurants are situated inside on the first floor of the apartment building right in an apartment I've actually lived in one I've actually lived on top of the grocery store. store, uh, and a couple of restaurants. And also one thing too is, is, is Russian buildings that were built during the Stalin era, and there are huge pieces of architecture. You're talking about thousands of people living in one building, right?

Right.

With multiple entrances. Insane. And, and, and then basically they would rent them out to restaurants, grocery stores, shoe repair stores, whatever it may be. So the lower level is all stores Everything above is residential.

Right, right, right. Yeah, it was interesting times. Well, thanks a lot for talking to me, Leo. This is great. I hope this is gonna help out, you know. And, uh, can people reach you on LinkedIn?

Yes, yes, Leo Prozimont. Um, I'm not sure if you will be posting it somewhere, this podcast.

I will be. I'll be posting this on LinkedIn, and I'll be, I'll be, uh, I'll send you a copy. But anyway, thanks a lot. Join us Yes. For Conversations That Drive International Sales, and if you ever have any questions or anything like that, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or through my website. Thank you very much for joining us. Bye-bye!