Tom Kadala on the Hispanic Consumer

Opinion: Hispanic Professionals have become a rare commodity!

As stated by the US Census, 78 million retiring baby-boomers will eventually generate approximately 35 million unfilled job openings in the next two decades. These job openings will eventually be filled by the growing crop of minority candidates, among them Hispanics. At present the ‘pipeline’ of available Hispanic professionals cannot meet the soaring demand of job openings. As a result, human resource departments have been working overtime to come up with successful ways to attract and retain the few bilingual Hispanic professionals available today.

Contrary to popular belief, the pool of available bilingual Hispanics with sufficient professional working experience continues to grow smaller not larger. Part of the reason is the increasing competition among corporations looking for similar Hispanic talent. Also, the pool of qualified candidates is shrinking because the majority of Hispanics are too young. According to the PEW Hispanic - www.PEWhispanic.org, the average age of 60% of Hispanics is just thirteen.

Their increasing quest for qualified candidates able to communicate effectively with Hispanics has created a need for innovative solutions. Currently the most common options companies use to access Hispanic professionals include career expos and executive search firms. Career expos provide a large number of targeted candidates in a brief period of time, but may require an entourage of interviewers. If the event occurs when job openings are available, this option can present a ‘quick fix’ solution. However, for a more continuous flow of qualified candidates, some firms retain executive search firms who have access to an extensive network of potential candidates and active jobseekers. Some search firms focus specifically on attracting candidates directly from a client’s competitor.

Surprisingly these ‘true and tried’ options have not rendered favorable results with Hispanic candidates. Some of the problems highlighted include the following: First, career expos targeting Hispanic candidates are also attracting many more candidates from other ethnic groups; hence, rendering lower than expected qualified Hispanic candidates. Moreover, many executive search firms, particularly the larger ones, are too impersonal to attract qualified Hispanic candidates. What then have some companies done to attract and retain Hispanic professionals?

A Fortune 100 firm in the financial services industry decided to take a different approach. Rather than focus their resources to attract Hispanic professionals, they chose to invest in their existing pool of employees by hiring an outside firm to teach their non-Hispanic employees basic cultural selling skills needed to close and maintain a transaction with Hispanic consumers. In part they chose to ‘Hispanisize’ their non-Hispanic workforce. Other firms turn to smaller executive search firms that specialize in hiring Hispanic candidates. These specialty firms tap on their personal networks to gain access to a larger pool of potential Hispanic professional candidates.

Tom Kadala is the president of ResearchPAYS, Inc., a strategic business consulting firm dedicated to the development and expansion of Hispanic consumer markets. - (www.researchpays.net). Mr. Kadala can be reached at tom@researchpays.net.

Opinion: Sales Managers must leverage ‘Cultural Fluency’ awareness

If you have ever managed a sales team, you are familiar with the pressure associated with the next successful cold-calling technique to close more sales. The chain of command from the sales manager to the field sales person often appears as a tug-of-war eventually measured by the final sales numbers. However, what happens to sales people from the time they identify a prospect until they close a sale is often ignored, an interval of many potential hidden expenses.

In today’s business environment, good sales managers are expected to focus on the ‘number of sales calls’ completed per day. The more sales calls made per day by each team member, the greater the likelihood of closing more sales. Networking is also encouraged despite its greater time commitment.

As though the challenges to develop a solid sales team were not enough, a new and less familiar factor has started to surface, namely ‘cultural fluency’. Buyers not only come in all different shapes and sizes but also respond differently to sales pitches and advertisements. Ignoring these cultural subtleties could increase the cost of selling and ultimately make a difference in closing a transaction or not.

Take for example, Hispanic consumers. At a recent presentation on “Important Tips on Closing Transactions with Hispanics”, members of the audience shared their field experiences. One sales person mentioned how he did not seem to have any trouble connecting with Hispanic prospects but for one reason or another could not complete the sale. In one particular situation, after repeated follow-up calls, one Hispanic prospect responded that he was interested but that ‘now is not a good time’.

In reviewing the sales person’s dilemma, the speaker highlighted a cultural detail that the salesperson might have missed during the first encounter. How did he approach the Hispanic prospect initially? Did he spend time getting to know the individual or simply rushed to ‘pitch’ his business? In retrospect the sales person began to evaluate his first encounter and recalled potential uncomfortable moments with his prospect.

An increased awareness of important cultural signals among Hispanic consumers may force sales managers to rethink their sales strategies. Managers can no longer rely on traditional sales techniques alone to make their budgets. They should encourage additional sales training to address cultural preferences particularly at the first encounter phase, otherwise, their sales people will learn the hard way that ‘now is not a good time’ really means ‘no thanks’.

Tom Kadala is the president of ResearchPAYS, Inc., a strategic business consulting firm dedicated to the development and expansion of Hispanic consumer markets. - (www.researchpays.net). Mr. Kadala can be reached at tom@researchpays.net.