Bilingual blunder

     Years ago when I was a wine and spirit wholesaler I was given a Mercado (Mexican grocery store) as a new account.  I stopped in a week before their license was approved and met a young man in the meat department.  When I told him who I was looking for he said "Yeah, that's my dad...he doesn't speak English though."
     What he didn't realize is that the 6'3", Irish, former lineman standing before him knew how to speak Spanish fairly well.  "Ok, I'll see what we can do..." and I walked over to the grocery side of the building.
     Behind the counter was Isidro, a hard working guy with a big mustache and glasses.  He looked kind of like the Spanish version of Groucho Marx.  "I'm looking for Isidiro" I said.
    "Soy Isidro, pero no hablo ingles"  (I'm Isidro but I don't speak English)  Just then the Budweiser rep walked up to the counter and began to speak to Isidro (in Spanish).
     I had met this guy in a few of my other accounts and knew he was from Nogales so he spoke fluent Spanish.  Realizing he probably needed to wrap up some business before he moved on to his next stop I decided to wait.
    In Spanish with me standing 4 feet away he began to lay into me.  "Can you believe they sent this guy in here?  He'll rip you off!  He'll treat you like a dirty Mexican and will never give you respect!  The guy doesn't even speak the language, how will he be able to service your account?"  And he went on for some time.  I picked up about 80% of what he was saying and did nothing for at least 5 minutes.
     Finally he started taking cheap shots at me being a "white guy" and being scared in the neighborhood.  I had heard enough and laughed at one of his jokes out loud.  "Did you read something funny there buddy?"  he said with impunity.
     I turned and looked him dead in the eye, "Quidado hablo espanol tambien"  (Careful I speak Spanish too)  With that his jaw dropped and he froze.  Isidro started laughing, not just a chuckle, a deep barrel laugh.  Customers in the store also reacted with laughter and amazement.
     Isidro caught his breath and said, "Man, thats funny!"
     "I KNEW YOU SPOKE ENGLISH!" I shouted at him while laughing.  The Budweiser rep was packing his papers up and hastily leaving the store.  Still having said nothing to me after the revelation.  I was almost twice his size so I'm sure he was afraid I was going to retaliate physically.
     From that moment on Isidro and his family really enjoyed working with me, as I did them.  I felt more comfortable speaking English and they felt more comfortable speaking Spanish.  So we worked in two languages most of the time.
     Once over the holidays my boss was with me helping sell gift sets.  I had told him that Isidro wanted any tequila gift sets we had.  We had 72 cases of Sauza Hornitos gift sets with two shot glasses in the box.
     We walked into the store and Isidro and I began to talk about the deal.  He told me he would take every single case he could if the price was right.  I asked him how many he could take if I was able to get more and he simply said "todo" (all).  I nodded my head and turned to my manager Tom, "How many more cases can we get?  He's taking the pallet we have now can we get more?"
     The look on Toms face was priceless.  He had thought I was on a bluetooth call and Isidro wasn't talking to me but the customers near the counter.  We ended up getting another 2 pallets of gift sets from different states who couldn't sell it.
     Isidro blew through the gift sets in two weeks.  He even asked if we could get more for him!  I told him the 1300 bottles he just sold would have to do for the year and he laughed.  (6 pack cases)
     Anytime I was in the store and someone began to say something "secretive" in front of me in Spanish Isidro cut them off.  After a few months of working with them I asked what happened to my buddy from Budweiser.  Apparently he had transferred to a different distributor halfway across the state.  Word had got out that he got "busted" by the "big guy" who spoke Spanish.  Isidro had told them how wrong he (the bud rep) was and how much money I had made him.  Nobody respected the Bud rep anymore and they stopped doing business with him.
     The lesson learned is always treat your competition with respect.  Buyers understand that you're doing battle with each other on a daily basis.  Some like to watch you go at it and others don't want the drama.  By allowing my competitor to dig himself into a hole he couldn't recover from and doing it with some class I became somewhat of a legend.  The next few accounts I picked up with Spanish speaking owners asked if I also sold to Isidro.  I smiled and responded with "Si, soy el"  (yes, I'm him).