Ep. 68: How Culture Can Lead to Unique Business Opportunities

00:00:01

Andrea Marquez: A lot of small businesses are born out of a deep connection to community, culture, and identity. For Hispanic entrepreneurs, these roots often run even deeper, influencing everything from the products they create to the customers they serve. I got to see this firsthand, not only with my own family who are all small business owners, but also in the community I grew up in. I was surrounded by Hispanic-owned businesses. So I've seen the influence and the impact that they have. But don't just take my word for it. Here's Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, also known as the USHCC.

00:00:41

Ramiro Cavazos: If the 65 million Latinos were our own country, out of the 338 million, we would be the fifth-largest economy in the world. And to put a cherry on top, we're a very young population, and so we represent the business future.

00:01:00

Andrea Marquez: And yet, despite all this?

00:01:02

Ramiro Cavazos: The challenges that Latino-owned businesses face are challenges that all businesses face. It just so happens that they are multiplied for our Latino-owned businesses because research has shown Latino entrepreneurs or applicants for loans get turned down more often.

00:01:19

Andrea Marquez: So how can Hispanic-owned businesses navigate the unique challenges they face from access to capital, to representation? What does it take to turn that cultural connection into a thriving business? And what can we learn from their stories of resilience and innovation? We're here to explore these questions in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Hi, I'm Andrea Marquez, and This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. Today we'll be getting into the essential role that Hispanic-owned businesses play in the US. We'll first hear from Mayra Luz Colón, the founder of Healthy Rican, and she shares her journey of blending culture and wellness into a thriving business.

00:02:07

Mayra Luz Colón: As a Puerto Rican, I wanted to start eating healthier. I couldn't find much out there. I couldn't find many resources when it came to making Puerto Rican foods in a healthier way. I've been suffering through a lot of autoimmune issues ever since my early 20s, so I know what it feels like. I've been diagnosed with thyroid issues, Hashimoto's, which is the autoimmune. Unfortunately, in 2017, I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, which is the big mimicker of autoimmune. So I completely understand what it feels like, and I found that there was a lot of women out there, especially Latina women that suffer with all of these illnesses and just don't know what to do with themselves. So I started recreating my foods in a healthier way. And with that, a lot of people just wanted to know what I was doing.

00:02:58

Andrea Marquez: And that led Mayra to write her own cookbook, Healthy Rican: Put the Latin Spice in Your Healthy Life!, and eventually expand into selling her own line of seasonings. But the journey wasn't an easy one.

00:03:10

Mayra Luz Colón: I suffered with a lot of imposter syndrome. I feel like in that health and wellness space, there wasn't many Latinas. So with that, I felt the need. I'm like, "Wait a minute, I just can't be alone. There has to be other people out there that are interested in nutrition and health and wellness." So it was really important to me to introduce my culture. For many, many years, I was sharing about nutrition and my own journey and things like that, but I was never talking specifically about our cultural foods. When I did, people were really interested and I started talking about the seasonings because particularly the seasonings, I couldn't find anything in stores that would fit my needs. I couldn't find anything that didn't have artificial colors in them or a lot of sodium or preservatives, artificial ingredients, and just things that just didn't resonate with me. So I started creating my own. I've been doing them for many, many years just for myself, for my own household. And when I shared that I was thinking about launching this, people were just like, "Yes, when are you doing this? Because I want some."

00:04:20

Andrea Marquez: Mayra decided to listen to our customers and pivoted to a product-based business.

00:04:24

Andrea Marquez: That journey was tough because I had to move away and step back from coaching and from helping people. That is where my heart truly is at. I just love helping people. And wherever we see changes in people's lives, it feeds my soul. So to launch a product-based business, which mind you, I had no idea what I was doing, was tough. I remember there was a lot of testing involved. I would make a batch and add the salt or whatever seasonings, actually cook with them. I would make two different batches and just have my family try it and be like, "Which one do you like best?" For me, it was really important to have my mom's stamp of approval. I felt like I can't be launching anything out there that is not approved by my mom because she taught me how to cook, her food is amazing, and she's very particular.

The first time she came over, I didn't have a business yet, it was just me with my own blend and a little mason jar, and she's like, "Mayra, where's your sazon?" She was making beans or rice or something, and I gave her this little ... And she says, "What's this?" And like, "That's my sazon. I made it." She's like, "It's not going to taste the same." I'm like, "Well, just try it. Let me know what you think." The food was amazing. She's definitely one of the first people that I give a sample to, “Do your magic. Let me know what you think.”

00:05:48

Andrea Marquez: If it has mom stamp of approval, then you know it's good to go. But Mayra also had to get feedback from another important group of people who pushed her to start selling her seasonings: her customers.

00:06:00

Mayra Luz Colón: So I do email. Those are my insiders. I always say anything that I'm going to do, they find out first. I send them an email. I create a survey, so it's really easy. They can answer it in under a minute. And then after that, then I go to social media, and I share there. But email is definitely number one.

00:06:18

Andrea Marquez: The community that Mayra had managed to build was a big reason why she kept on going when things got tough. And the key to fostering such a strong and supportive customer base was clear and consistent communication.

00:06:29

Mayra Luz Colón: Like I said, I did not have a perfect journey. I was just learning along the way and sharing the journey with people. Every time I made a mistake or something happened, I would just go live, like, "Hey, this happened. Hey, we ran out of sazon. I'm sorry." And I would just be really real with people. And I think by doing that, I just gained people's trust and was able to build that foundation that has set me up to have a solid business.

00:06:57

Andrea Marquez: Mayra's journey is a powerful example of turning a personal challenge into a successful business, a path we've seen many entrepreneurs take on this small business, and it's something that Ramiro Cavazos points out as well.

00:07:09

Ramiro Cavazos: I believe that the cause of innovation sometimes comes from challenges. We have seen that because of COVID-19 in '20 and '21, that many folks lost their employment, but it also brought about businesses, especially Latino and Latina-owned businesses that made that adjustment. They started using online platforms, using the internet to provide retail and growth opportunities. So innovation comes from a necessity, and we've seen many of our Latino businesses are growing businesses at six times the rate of other women who are not Latinas. And I believe that the growth we've seen since '20 and '21 has been astounding.

00:08:01

Andrea Marquez: And just like Mayra, Ramiro says that many of these businesses pivoted into other paths that they might not have considered before. When it comes to Hispanic-owned businesses, there are several other unique qualities that set them apart from others.

00:08:14

Ramiro Cavazos: We're a younger population. We're trying new things. We're using technology and innovation, artificial intelligence, and this is an exciting time for business. We're also a community that has done better because we think globally, we speak multiple languages, and that's where online platforms and e-commerce come in. And for us, we're seeing that Latinos and Latinas are embracing that. In the last few years, Hispanic entrepreneurs, they've generated startups that do business online compared to the general population and they were even before the advent of artificial intelligence or even before COVID-19. But as far as businesses, many of them that are doing business, a lot of them are doing e-commerce by focusing on financial services in many instances, also advertising, marketing, building websites, doing translation services. There's so many things. They may not be able to have a job, they may not be able to secure something because maybe of a minor language barrier, but they're starting their own businesses.

00:09:25

Andrea Marquez: Despite their growth and impact, Ramiro says that Latino-owned businesses face challenges that are disproportionately greater than those encountered by other businesses. And that's where the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce steps in.

00:09:37

Ramiro Cavazos: We focus on three things: access to capital, access to building more connections, contracts for our businesses, and the third is capacity building. The first one is, we have looked at the data. Large banks and regional banks lend less to Latino-owned businesses that apply for small business loans. That is something that we need to share with everyone and make aware that that is actually affecting the overall economy. It's people who are ready to grow, scale and create jobs, and oftentimes they are not provided the capital that they need for whatever reason. We need to change that and make it better.

00:10:23

Andrea Marquez: Bridging that gap is beneficial for the country. Why do Hispanic-owned businesses face higher loan rejection rates and what can be done about that?

00:10:31

Ramiro Cavazos: It's a lack of understanding and belief that these businesses will succeed, especially based on the location where they are as a business. They're not your typical suburban, near, newer, more developed areas of retail that are favored by some of the larger banks and the regional bank. So we feel that it's just education that we need to provide, and having more Latinos and Latinos serve on bank boards and regional bank boards. Many of them do not have the diversity in the loan committees that make these decisions.

00:11:10

Andrea Marquez: Another challenge that Ramiro mentioned that Hispanic-owned businesses face is building more connections.

00:11:16

Ramiro Cavazos: We also want to let the US government know and Fortune 1000 firms across the country know that they need to do more business with Latino-owned businesses. We have the skill set and the talent. Again, providing capital would be critical to helping them be in position to do part of the work that the US government needs. Along with Fortune 1000 firms, we have great marketing firms, cyber firms, construction firms, I could go on and on. We're in every field and over indexed in numerous categories, but we only received less than 2% of the business that the US government awards annually. And that's also true for Fortune 1000 firms. That is unacceptable when we are 20% of the population. The third area is really getting our businesses who are just starting out to have the tools. Las herramientas, as we say in Spanish, to have the skills to do business, we just need to help them be in position to get certified and to know how to put a proposal together, and that's where capacity building comes in.

00:12:24

Andrea Marquez: This reminds me of what Mayra mentioned about learning about building a business as she went. Oftentimes, Hispanic-owned businesses are not set up for success. Ramiro says, solutions to more Hispanic-owned businesses start with three Cs.

00:12:38

Ramiro Cavazos: More capital, more contracts and connections, and more capacity building. That's what we do, and that's what every business needs. But, we focus on helping our five million Latino and Latina-owned businesses. The role that we are playing is by serving as a bridge to those communities that we are located in. We have a national association that I have the honor to work with, but these individual chambers have memberships. They have board of directors, they have relationships to the local banks, to the local communities, to local government, and each of them is an economic oasis for those communities. During COVID, they became emergency rooms for small business to find out where contracts existed, where they could find resources, where they could hire people or where they could gain an access capital. So we are all about family in our Latino community as everyone knows, but we've created a family of small business assistance centers throughout the country through our Hispanic chambers.

00:13:48

Andrea Marquez: To sum it all up, empowering and supporting Hispanic-owned businesses comes with a lot of benefits, not just for the entrepreneurs starting or growing their businesses, but for the entire country.

00:13:59

Ramiro Cavazos: It behooves corporate America to do more business with us because we are the growing consumer base for the future. We're the vendors of the future that can give them value in who they hire to do their marketing advertising or to provide catering services at their headquarters.

00:14:17

Andrea Marquez: It's very inspiring to hear everything that the USHCC is doing for Hispanic-owned businesses, because as a border child myself, I've seen that influence and impact of Hispanic-owned businesses firsthand because I grew up seeing Hispanic-owned businesses everywhere. Right? So for me, it was normal. But then I went to college in New York, and that changed my perspective a little. And then I went to Boston for school again, and that changed my perspective as well. There wasn't the same concentration of Hispanic-owned businesses that I was used to, but I also got to see how these communities were growing and how they were also being given resources to expand their brands. And for me, I feel like I've seen the gradual growth and support of these businesses, but I'm also aware of how much we still have to go. So what advice would you give aspiring Latino entrepreneurs, especially with the challenges they might face as they try to build their business?

00:15:17

Ramiro Cavazos: Achieving the American dream is to do it and to do it without hesitation. If you looked at the Fortune 500 firms in this country, 43% of those firms were started and founded by an immigrant or the son or the daughter of an immigrant. And like you, I was born along the US-Mexico border, and everyone was entrepreneurial. It was natural on both sides of the border. My family was entrepreneurial, and it was just something that we did naturally and instinctively. But my advice would be to do it without hesitation, to ask for help, to know that there are groups like the US Hispanic Chamber and their local affiliate that is a part of our chamber that are there to help give them that equitable resources with their local banks for capital.

Last point I would make is, there is not a successful billionaire or a CEO of any company in this economy in America that has not had several business failures as a part of their resume. You need to learn how to succeed by failing. Many of our entrepreneurs that have been incredibly successful, nobody knows the story that they might've had one or two businesses they started that didn't succeed, but they did not give up. They kept on going. And that's the advice I would give to our Latino and Latino-owned businesses, is to move forward and know that you will learn from your challenges and overcome those.

00:16:53

Andrea Marquez: Know that you'll face challenges, but will overcome them, like Mayra, who ended up finding a lot of success because she went all in without hesitation and pivoted when things didn't work out.

00:17:06

Mayra Luz Colón: My journey started in middle school. I was always the one girl selling something, and people that know me know that about me. I sold anything and everything. And I think it wasn't until I truly, truly started following my heart and my gut. I remember I used to be in this other business, and I just kind of flat out quit one day out of nowhere. People were like, "What happened?" I'm like, "It's not my calling." And I need to pursue what I have in my heart.

At that time, I felt in my soul that I needed to go back to school and get the certification to be a nutrition health coach. I just felt that that was my passion. And with that, again, came really embracing my culture. What do you know best? What do you cook 90% of the time? It's going to be Puerto Rican food. So I think following your heritage is great. I think being super authentic and being who you are. I always tell people, show up as you. Don't try to imitate anybody that's out there doing something. They might be great and you might be super inspired and motivated, but you have to be who you are because that's what really resonates with people.

00:18:18

Andrea Marquez: Lean into what makes you you, important words to end on this episode, and that can apply to every entrepreneur. Mayra and Ramiro gave us a ton of helpful information. If you missed anything, don't worry, we've taken notes for you. You can find them at www.smallbusiness.amazon/podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And I'd love to know what you think, so send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com or leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts with your thoughts. Maybe you'll get to hear your review on the show.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next time, I'm your host, Andrea Marquez. Hasta luego, and thanks for listening.  

This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon with technical and story production by JAR Audio.