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How to Start a Business in Mexico as a Foreigner

Starting a business in a new country can be intimidating and confusing when you don’t know where to start. If you are looking to expand your company to Mexico or start a business in Mexico as a foreigner, here are some useful resources to help you enter the market successfully.

Starting a Business in Mexico as a Foreigner

When starting a business in a new country, there are a few things you need to pay attention to. For example, registering your business, tax information, business phone numbers, marketing to locals, and more.

Here are a few helpful steps to guide you when starting a business in Mexico as a foreigner.

1. Decide on a Company Name

First, choose a name for your company. Research local company names to get a sense of the way locals name their business. Then, find one that is most suitable for your business. Keep local slang in mind and consider the use of translation.

2. Create a Deed of Incorporation

Next, draw up a Deed of Incorporation; that is a deed for business entities. To do so, you will need a notary public. You may work with a Corredor Público, a type of attorney that specializes in deed formation. You can register your business as a:

  • Sociedad Anónima de Capital Variable S.A. de C.V. — a regular corporation
  • Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada S. de R.L. — an LLC
  • Sociedad Civil, S.C. — an LLC or PC, or
  • Asociación Civil, A.C. — a non-profit

When signing the Deed of Incorporation, ensure you have the following:

  • All owners are present and mentioned in the Deed
  • Owners’ Identification — official ID for Mexicans; passports and proof of legal presence for foreigners
  • CURP number (like an SSN)
  • RFC number (tax ID)
  • Proof of address

3. Register the Business

You must register your business with the National Business Information Registry (SIEM). Then, register its address by obtaining a Domicilio Fiscal — a registered address. This is the location where you will receive notifications from the government and carry out your business operations. Lastly, you will also need to register with the Mexican Tax Authorities (SAT) through any of their local offices or online.

4. Register with the Foreign Investment Register

An important part of starting a business in Mexico as a foreigner is registering with the Foreign Investment Register. If the owner is a foreigner without a permanent address status, then they have to register here.

5. Get a Mexico Phone Number

Next on the agenda is getting a Mexico phone number. Virtual phone service providers like Global Call Forwarding can help you get Mexico virtual phone numbers so you can get started on your business from wherever you are located. We offer Mexico toll free numbers and Mexico local numbers for different locations within the country.

Mexico toll free numbers let local Mexican residents contact your business for free while local Mexico numbers charge callers local calling rates. You can have these calls forwarded to any number or location of your choice. This way, even before you open field offices in Mexico, you can start communicating with locals through these numbers by having calls forwarded to your office or smartphone wherever you are located.

6. Start Advertising & Marketing

Finally, once you have your business registered, you can start advertising and promoting your business and its products and services. You can use international SEO, paid advertising, social media advertising, as well as promoting your business in local directories, etc.

Get Mexico Numbers with Global Call Forwarding

We offer business phone numbers for companies looking to expand locally and globally. Our plans come with advanced virtual communication features that help with call management and improve productivity within the office. To learn more, speak with one of our experts today!

Benefits of Recording Business Calls: Invest in Call Recording Software

Considering recording business calls? You are on the right track. Utilizing a call recording software is becoming a common part of running a company. This is because recorded calls can help with training new employees, identifying areas of weakness, and protecting your enterprise from liabilities and scams.

Call Recording Software for Business Communications

More and more companies are investing in call recording software. This is primarily to document incoming and outgoing calls and prevent the loss of important customer data. Additionally, transactions and purchased records act as receipts. But the important part is that recording makes this information accessible in the future. It can, then, be referred to resolve doubts or concerns and set the record straight.

Global Call Forwarding’s Call Recording software lets you record 100% of calls and stores them as MP3 files for up to 6 years. You can add this feature to your inbound or outbound calling plan. And you can adjust the recording percent to whatever your needs require.

Let’s look at some of the main reasons why corporations are recording business calls.

Record-Keeping Made Easy

With call recording, you can keep track of incoming and outgoing calls, and why these calls were made. This can then be referred to in the future to resolve an issue or to study consumer behavior. For example, you can identify a common issue with your service if a good percent of incoming calls revolve around that issue.

You can also use recording software for call tracking purposes. Call tracking is where you make a note of call timings, call lengths, average handling time (AHT), where calls are coming from, etc. Such metrics can teach you more about customer preferences — such as preferred calling times and days, and more — which will help you serve them better.

Quality Assurance

Recorded calls make for great training material. Call center managers and team managers can study past calls to review their employees on call. This can help identify successful sales tactics or areas of error. Some common points to focus on when conducting performance analysis are:

  • Is the agent sticking to the script or wavering too far?
  • Are they able to answer customer questions and doubts?
  • Is the interaction positive or dull? And so on.

Then, you can re-train employees with real examples to encourage them to meet your standards. You can also highlight good customer service behavior and reward agents who do well. This further incentivizes other employees to follow suit. Call recording, therefore, can improve quality assurance.

Protection From Liabilities

Lawsuits are a common occurrence in the business world. And record-keeping is one way to deal with possible future issues. Call recordings can, therefore, function as evidence to prevent personal or business liability or to resolve an issue that can land a company in jeopardy.

Compliance Requirements for Financial Companies

Corporations offering financial services are required to be in compliance with different regulations, depending on their location and who they are doing business with. The MiFID II legislation is for EU-based companies doing business with EU clients while the Dodd-Frank Act is focused on US-based services and customers.

In addition to this, different countries and states have different compliance laws that state the nature of consent required. For example, some countries ask for written consent by both parties before calls are recorded while others accept verbal consent. The GDPR compliance is one such important rule. These rules must be kept in mind when utilizing a call recording software for business.

Increase Efficiency and Productivity

Reduce errors and miscommunication with a call recording software and improve office productivity. Sign up for a new business number with us or port your existing number to Global Call Forwarding and add Call Recording to your business communication system. Not convinced yet? Contact us to learn more.

Decision-Making Techniques to Keep You On Top

When you’re a business owner, decision making can be even more stressful than usual. If you want to be a superior leader, decision making is an essential skill. Knowing how to make timely, well-thought-out decisions can earn you and your team legitimate success. It doesn’t matter what type of decision you’re making, whether it’s who to hire as an addition to your team, or which financial strategy to adopt, the ability to make the right decision utilizing all the available information is crucial. There are tried and trusted techniques that you can use as you approach decision making, which will help you avoid making bad choices and give you confidence in your judgment.

Establishing an Objective

From the outset, you need to establish the right environment for making a decision. For this to happen, you and your team must understand the issue at hand and agree on an objective. This will ensure that the appropriate concerns are being discussed and that the process will continue to move forward. You must initiate interpersonal considerations from the get-go. Don’t forget to keep the stakeholders keyed-in to what’s going on, and facilitate an honest and open discussion between all involved.

Generate Alternative Solutions

Another vital aspect of a sound decision process is to generate numerous realistic alternative solutions for consideration. Attempting to implement the first solution you come up with, is almost certain to preclude much better options. Take your time to brainstorm with your team and think up a number of ideas.

Weigh the Alternatives

Now that you have a list of alternative solutions; it’s important to consider each one carefully and assess the pros and cons of each possible outcome. This is usually the most time-consuming stage of the decision-making process. Three of the most important factors to consider are risk assessment, consequences of your decision, and the feasibility of implementing the decision.

Making the Decision

Here comes the part that is the most exciting and also the most stressful. At this point, you must be able to deal with these emotions objectively. Don’t rush to make a decision, even though you may have a deadline. Taking time to consider what will make your decision the right one, will increase your accuracy.

Assess your Decisions

When you are making your assessment, don’t forget that not every aspect of the decision process is objective. It should also make sense to you on instinctive and intuitive levels. If you assess your decision from all of these perspectives, you will be able to validate it more readily.

Implementing your Decision

You have now reached the final stage. Don’t try to force other’s acceptance. Communicate your choice clearly, and explain your reasons behind it. This is the best way to garner the support of your team.

Can you Be Decisive?

  1. Before making a decision, do you evaluate all the potential risks?
  2. Do you consider a variety of potential options before deciding?
  3. Do you take the time needed to make a decision?
  4. Do you often have doubts about your decisions?
  5. Have some of your decisions been more difficult to implement than you anticipated?

If you answered no to the first three questions and yes to questions 4 and 5, you need to reassess your decision-making techniques in order to avoid making a bad decision and to boost yours’ and your team’s confidence in your decision-making skills.

Think about developing a structured plan to help you implement your decision. Individuals respond to a clear plan with a positive attitude. Once your team knows exactly what to expect and what they need to do, they will understand and respect your decisions. Think ahead and take the time to figure out exactly what would make your choice the right one.

Decision-Making Mistakes

There several common mistakes people make when faced with making decisions. One of the biggest is that people either rush into making a decision without thinking it through carefully, or they procrastinate for so long, they lose sight of the objective. Another mistake is a failure to trust your gut instincts when trying to make a decision. When you tune into your intuition, you can make much better decisions in the long-run. Another pitfall to avoid is trying to make a decision without having enough information. If you’re faced with a big decision, and you’re feeling uncertain about what to do, it may benefit you to consult an expert for advice. Getting another party’s opinion can help you keep things in perspective.

There are many different tools and techniques you can use when faced with making a decision. Choose one that feels right for you and be prepared to be flexible and modify your decision-making techniques.

Opening a Business in Dubai

Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates. It is situated on the Persian Gulf coast and is bordered by Oman in the southeast, Abu Dhabi in the south, and Sharjah in the northeast. Often called “The City of Gold,” Dubai is known for its luxury shopping, opulent skyscrapers, and offshore artificial islands.

Expanding your Business to Dubai

New businesses are welcomed in Dubai. Newly established companies are very attractive to investors because of the city’s economic stability in the global market. Current economic trends offer a wealth of opportunities for foreign investors to make the most of imports and exports and increasing tourist traffic in the area, which means you will have plenty of new and recurring customers passing through.

It’s important to be informed of all the necessary details needed for business start-ups in Dubai, that way you can avoid any issues or complications. If you’re setting up a physical location in Dubai, one thing you will need to do is to connect with a local sponsor. This person must be a UAE national and must be your partner with a 51 percent share in your business. You must pay your sponsor an annual fee which you will negotiate at the outset.

If you prefer to own your own business completely, then you will have to locate your business in one of Dubai’s free zones. While this is a viable solution for some types of business, it won’t work if your company needs to be directly a part of the city markets, for example, in the event you own a retail store or restaurant.

Selecting the most suitable location for your business is as important in Dubai as anywhere else. The most crucial thing to remember is that even if you set up a profitable company in the heart of the business district, it still isn’t going to work well for you if your customers are unable to reach you.

The Easy Way to Extend Your Business to Dubai

If this is all starting to sound a little complicated, fear not, there is a way that you can enter the Dubai marketplace without even having to have a physical presence in the country, simply by using a virtual phone number. Here’s an example of how your company can reap the benefits of virtual phone numbers in Dubai with a company such as Global Call Forwarding.

Let’s say you have a small business in the U.S. and you would like to develop a client base in Dubai. All you need to do is sign up with the service provider, and they will assign you one or more local or toll-free numbers in Dubai. You then pass these numbers on to your clients in that region. When they wish to call you, they dial the local number, and Global Call Forwarding redirects the calls to the number of your choice; this can be your landline, office number, cell phone, or customer service call center.

Having a Dubai virtual phone number is great for boosting customer confidence in your business. Market research studies have shown that customers are much more likely to call a local number for assistance because they prefer to do business with companies in their vicinity. With a Dubai virtual phone number, you can establish a presence in the United Arab Emirates without having to travel there. Additionally, your customers don’t have to pay for expensive international calls, nor do they have to deal will confusing international dialing codes.

If you’re considering opening a business in Dubai, virtual numbers present a way to do so that is efficient and cost-effective. You don’t have to pay for a dedicated phone line, additional phone equipment or expensive software; you simply use the resources you already have. It’s an affordable way for your colleagues and clients in Dubai to reach you. Not only that, even if you have a small business which you run from your home office, it gives your company international status.

opening business in dubai
Source: Stockphoto.com O#20443 – MID#4976853

Other Advantages of Dubai Toll-free Numbers

  • Boosting your brand: International toll-free numbers increase the reach and reputation of your brand by giving you access to untapped international markets.
  • Increasing your response rate: Studied show that adding toll-free numbers to your advertising campaigns increase your response rate by a significant percentage.
  • Tracking your marketing campaigns: Because there’s no limit to the number of virtual phone numbers you can use, you can add a different one to each of your websites, newsletters, TV ads, and ads in local papers. It makes it a cinch to see which of your marketing strategies are the most effective and which ones you need to improve.
  • Keeping your personal and business calls separate: There’s no need to put your cell phone number on your website, business cards, or ads, and no need to get an additional phone. You can use the same phone for personal and business calls while keeping them both separate.

Other Features of Virtual International Numbers

When you sign up with a company such as Global Call Forwarding, you also have the benefit of a suite of additional features.

  • Black and whitelisting: You’ll never have to answer unwanted calls, and you won’t miss a call from an important client.
  • Failover forwarding: This feature enables you to program your account with several different phone numbers so that if the first number is busy or does not answer, the system will automatically redirect the call to the next number in the queue, ensuring that calls are not dropped.
  • Fax to email: You will be able to send and receive faxes via your virtual number. Each fax is received as an email attachment, and you can read it or print it with ease.

If you’re considering opening a business in Dubai, it pays to use international virtual call forwarding. Your business will increase, you will gain more customers, and your employees will be able to work from wherever they are, even when they are not in the office.