Marketing and Selling to Multicultural Customers with Michael Lee

Welcome back to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. On today's exciting episode, you have a chance to hear Dan Kennedy talk with Michael Lee about how to start selling and marketing to multicultural customers. Now some of you guys may be thinking, ah, it seems like too much work, I don't know if I wanna do that, I'm just gonna keep doing things the way that I want. What Dan talks about is the fact that if you want a piece of this $2 trillion multicultural market, then you're gonna need to put in a little bit extra work. But the coolest thing is that when you do that, it gives you a competitive advantage that allows you to carve out your own niche inside the marketplace. So with that said, let's hear from Dan Kennedy and Michael Lee.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy. The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril. They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by. Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless. His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy. Hi, this is Dan Kennedy. Welcome to another gold program. I'm here with Michael Lee, who's an MBA, for which we will forgive him. But what is more important is that he's the reigning expert in an area that I think will be of interest to just about every business person person that we have on the call, which is marketing and selling to multicultural customers. And as we'll discuss, it's a growth area where there is opportunity and there's also some sort of mandated changes in the way you do business coming down the road. Michael's got a diverse background here, been a producer for ABC Television Network, done marketing for the state of California, and his company EthnoConnect provides training and speeches and consulting on selling to the diverse ethnic markets in America. And if you want to connect with Michael, you can find him at ethnoconnect.com. Michael, thanks for being with us this today.

My pleasure, Dan. Thanks so much.

Before we dig into the meat, I'll give you a chance to supplement that little introduction with a little bit of background and what led you to this field.

Well, Dan, I would have never chosen this for myself, I promise you. I wanted to be the great motivational speaker about 15 years ago, and but you know, Zig Ziglar had that already locked up. And people kept asking me, but do you speak on culture diversity? And I said, no, I don't, because I'm a fifth-generation Chinese American. My great-great-grandfather came to the United States in 1859, and as a result, I'm as American as anybody. In fact, I don't even speak Chinese. Thanks to the California public school system, I speak Spanish. And so, but after the third time that happened, I said, "Okay, if you want something on diversity, what would it be?" And the California Association of Realtors said, you know, this is 1985, and they said, "We have all of these Asians coming out of Hong Kong because China's taking over Hong Kong, and they're not sure what's going to happen once that happens. So they're selling all their property, and they're bringing it over to California, and they're driving our realtors crazy with stuff like, feng shui and which way the house faces and lucky numbers and stuff like that, and they're driving us crazy. Could you just do a class on selling to Asians? I'd been a realtor for a couple years, and I said, yeah, I could probably do that. My parents had taught me a little bit about feng shui, and I'd been a university professor before that, and I said I could do the rest. I could research it. And I did. I put together a little class. Daniel loved this. It was cleverly titled Selling to Asian Home Buyers.

There you go.

Is that catchy or what?

Yeah, but one, you know, there's a number of things about titles, but one is it's helpful if it actually matches the content.

You know, that's one thing I actually did right. And people, they asked for the class.

We did it.

They loved it. And then somebody came up to me and said, you know, this is a great class on Asians, but how about Hispanics? Could you come back and do a class on Hispanics? Now, why she thought I could do a class on Hispanics is beyond me. But again, I was a university professor. I could do the research. I did. I did the class. We had fun with it and people said, you know, Hispanics aren't a whole lot different from anybody else either. So I did that and then somebody else said, what about African Americans? And I said, oh, wait a minute. I'll just do a class on culture. How do you sell to people from diverse cultures in the real estate industry? And then a woman came up to me and she said, this is a great class on selling selling to the minority market in real estate. But she said, my husband owns a new car dealership. And we have the same challenges there that we do in real estate. Could you do a class for his dealership on selling cars to the minority market? And I did that. And so since then, I've expanded out and I've taught for General Motors, Coca-Cola, all the major 100 companies. In the country, because this is a huge and growing market. Dan, as you may know, one-third of all Americans today are currently minorities, and by the year 2038, it is estimated that the minorities will be the majority in the United States. And if your members are not getting their share of this business, then they're missing out on a huge market. Right now, for example, Home builders are really hurting because the home market is a little bit slow, but minority home buyers are currently 70% of all home buyers today according to the National Association of Realtors. And so what I help—

That's an amazing stat. Is that? I pay attention to that field, but I had no idea.

It's 70%, and that's because, Dan, Minorities want to own homes more than the average, and they're not affected by interest rates. They just want to buy homes for various reasons. But for example, if you look at people in Mexico, only about 5% of all Mexicans own their own home. Whereas in the United States, over 70% of white Americans own a home. And we have tax laws that encourage it and things like that. But in Mexico, very few people own a home because You know, the average income of the average Mexican is so low they can barely make a living, much less save up to own a home. In China, it's less than 2% of all people own a home. Again, because of the standard of living, but also because people in mainland China have only owned homes since 2001. Before that, the government owned all the homes, and it was illegal to own private property. And on it goes. So you, you take these different cultures that come to America who probably have never owned a home in the entire history of their family, generation on generation on generation back. They've never been able to own a home. It wasn't even a dream they could possibly conceive of having come true. And yet they come to the United States and even making bare minimum wage, Dan, saving like crazy, working 5, 6 days a week, 7 days a week, sometimes 12, 15 hours a day.

Pretty soon they can own a home.

Because for them, this means, you know, I've made it in America. And it's not just in homeownership. But of course, as I mentioned earlier, you know, new home builders, as the market slows down for them, they can make up the difference with the minority buyer if they'd only be a little bit sensitive to culture. But again, elsewhere outside of the building industry, new car sales, anywhere there's a fairly large purchase, or even if you're just buying socks, at a store, for example. You know, if you can get people to come back over and over and over again, as you've taught people before, Dan, you know, hanging on to your best customers. If you can get them to come back, you don't have to spend marketing dollars trying to bring them in. You just need to retain them with good customer service. But part of good customer service, Dan, is being sensitive to people's culture today. It's a whole different mindset, I think.

Well, I think that a lot of, particularly small business people, I think probably have, you know, not given this a lot of thought unless they have maybe been forced into it by geographic location of their business. But I mean, what are, you know, you say that these different groups buy differently— they're really different groups of consumers requiring different tactics. What are some of the things that business owners need to know that they probably don't about, to use your language, being sensitive to these different groups?

Well, I think the first thing business owners have to recognize, Stan, is the fact that Minorities don't necessarily want to go to a minority business. Now, they generally go there because they know they're going to be treated appropriately, and yet frankly, many minority businesses charge a premium because they are specialty businesses. Just like when you go to the convenience store, you are going to pay more than if you go to the large grocery store chain, but the convenience of being able to go there 2 blocks from your home or 1:00 AM in the morning if you just have a need of some ice cream or something else, you're going You're going to pay a premium, and many of these minority stores charge a premium. And a lot of the multicultural community, you know, they're a little bit sensitive to money because they don't always have a lot of it as they just come over to the United States. So please recognize that these cultures— Asians, African Americans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and others— don't necessarily want to work with somebody from their own culture. In fact, there are some instances where they deliberately go outside of their own culture to work with people. Let me just give you two quick examples. Number one, in real estate, a lot of minorities don't want to work with somebody from their own culture. Particularly Hispanics and Asians look for salespeople, both in new homes and in resale, who are not necessarily from their culture. There's a lot of fear on the part of just as an example, Hispanics and Asians, that if I work with somebody from my culture, they might take my personal financial information and spread it around our community sort of like, you know, sort of like the internet or a blog, and there goes all of my privacy. Well, obviously it's probably not true, but that's a fear on the part of many people. And yet it's not just immigrants. African Americans have a bit of a fear working with African American realtors.

For a couple of reasons.

Number one, we all know there's been discrimination in the past against the African-American community in the United States, and a lot of African-Americans may think that if I work with an African-American realtor on the biggest purchase of my life, it's possible I may not get someone with the best education who may not be able to help me as well as a non-African-American realtor. Now, yes, there are some African Americans that only support the African American community. They only buy from African American businesses and patronize African American realtors, and that's terrific. But there is a large group of African Americans that have a little bit of fear about the discrimination and about the lack of education that they know many of their brethren have gotten, and so they may not necessarily want to work with somebody from their own community.

You know, this is a very interesting thing. Again, I would assume, I would assume most people's assumptions would be the opposite. Absolutely. That, you know, that, that, that I would have a disadvantage in attempting to target market my dental practice or chiropractic practice or car dealership or shoe store or whatever to Hispanics or to Asian Americans or to African Americans by not being one of them. And yet you are suggesting that quite the opposite is true. The Hispanic car salesperson may actually have a disadvantage attempting to target Hispanics, whereas if I do a few things right, I may have a great opportunity.

Absolutely, Dan. Again, there's a lot of myths about selling to multicultural customers. I mean, that's the first myth is, oh, they don't want to do business with me because I'm not from their community. Unless there's a tremendous language problem, and only a very small percent of people in the United States do not speak English, at least on a conversational level. So most people, 90% of all Americans, can at least speak English and go into a store and buy stuff.— and most can figure it out. But let me just give you a couple of examples. You know, a lot of people that I know and myself in particular have had challenges with our own community. For example, you know, I'm Asian American. I look Chinese, and so Asians assume that I speak Chinese, which I don't, and there's no reason I should because, you know, I was born here and there's, you know, I learned Spanish in high school. In the real estate industry where I practiced for many, many years, I had very few Asian clients because they looked at me and they said, ah, he probably speaks Chinese. We wouldn't have a lot of privacy around him because we might want to speak our own language and talk about the price and whether this home is right for us, but we may not want the salesperson to know this because it gives us a disadvantage. We might want to be able to really negotiate hard. And we don't want them to know that we're really interested in— that's good negotiating technique as you've taught before, Dan. But, you know, we don't want to work with somebody from our own culture who knows what we're saying. And a lot of Hispanic salespeople will tell you this, that they don't have a lot of Hispanic clients. Now there are a few that because of the language difficulty may go to someone from their own culture. But then Asians also look at me and say, "Well, if he doesn't really speak Chinese, then he's probably lost his culture." And in the Asian culture, that's probably the worst thing that could happen to you being an Asian because Asians are really proud of their culture, Dan, as you probably know. And if you lose your culture, you are the lowest of the low. Dan, you would have better luck selling to Asian customers than I would. Because they don't expect you to speak Chinese, and they wouldn't expect you to know about the culture. But because I look the way I look on the outside, I'm expected to know that, so they don't give me any respect whatsoever. So any of the folks on this call will have more credibility with people from other cultures than I would, for example. So Again, that's one of the things we've got to get out of our heads that, oh, they don't want to do business with me. We've got to provide equal buying opportunity because people want choice today, Dan. They don't want to just go to the Asian food store, the Hispanic food store, because there's limited selection. They want to be able to go to a shoe store or a car dealership and have a wide selection and to be able to have full choice. And maybe if they only go to a Hispanic or an Asian or an African-American salesperson, they may not be necessarily getting the best deal out there. And there have been instances where minorities pay more for a vehicle, for example, when buying new and used cars. They're also charged a higher interest rate when buying cars and homes and other large purchases. So there is fear promulgated by the media that they may not be treated fairly out there. And one last thing before we talk about cultural competence, Dan, is a lot of your folks on the call I know are very, very nice and they're very caring. And they often say to me, "Well, we just treat everybody equally, so we don't have to worry about it." Well, that's a nice thought, and it's really a good goal, but it's impossible, and I don't think it's really very practical. Because if you treat everybody equally, Dan, what it says to me is that if I came into your store or your office with a seeing-eye dog and a cane because I'm totally blind, You would show me to a chair and then you would hand me a brochure to read if you were treating me equally, right? Because that's what you do to everybody. But you wouldn't do that. Your folks are way too nice and way too savvy. You would customize your presentation to meet my unique needs. If you were selling me a car or a house, you would describe it to me and all of the amenities and then you'd let me— well, I guess hopefully not a car.

I was about to say, let's hope I'm not selling a car to the guy with the dog and the cane. I've heard the stories about that, but yeah, and I'm pretty sure I was behind that guy.

But there's no need.

It's a point— well, take it— is about— and I mean, we do it at the marketing side, you know, quite well, although not, not so much with, with ethnic breakouts, but where we customize the ad, the sales letter, etc., depending upon the media being used or the list. Are being mailed to, but we probably aren't giving enough thought to what happens in the next step and the next step and the next step and actually customizing the sales process.

You are absolutely right, Dan, but let me just back up to the marketing piece. You can't just take a standard marketing piece and put minority pictures in there and attract your minority consumer. The first thing you want to do is find out exactly who's in your customer base. If you're a locally-based business, it's easy. Just go to the census website and have a look, and they'll take it down to the census tract for you as to how many different cultures and how many of them are there in your area. Now, you can also look at your current customer base and look at, you know, we have a few minorities from this culture. But number one thing you got to do first, Dan, is you got to find out exactly who's coming into your store or for your office. I mean exactly. It's not enough to know that you have Hispanics, for example, because there's 6 different cultures that call themselves Hispanic. You got your Mexicans, your South Americans, your Central Americans, your Cubans, your Puerto Ricans, you got your Dominicans, and they're all very different, and they look different. You've got in the Asian culture, you've got 13 separate cultures— Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipinos, Thai. They're all different. They all look different. They all speak different languages. Their food is different. Trust me, a Filipino can tell the difference in a picture whether they're Filipino or Thai or Chinese. Hispanics can tell the difference as well. You've got to know exactly who you're marketing to. Of course, if you're doing in-language ads, you don't want to run an in-language ad in Korean for the Chinese or Japanese market because it's totally different. So you just have to do a little bit of homework. You can do research, you can hire companies, or you can just ask your customers, where are your ancestors from? And people are happy to tell you. So once you've targeted your market, then you have to go to the next step. As you mentioned, Dan, we miss the sales cycle because we think that marketing is enough. Well, let me just give you one example of how that's not enough. A large pizza chain in Los Angeles, which shall remain nameless, but they're well known for their quick delivery. Did a large advertising campaign to the Hispanic community. This is brilliant, they're thinking. We have lots of Hispanics. They don't buy much pizza yet, but we could get them used to it if we offer a substantial discount to people with Spanish surnames in the LA area. And so they sent out all of these coupons all over LA. The calls started to come in ordering pizza. The only problem was there wasn't anybody who could answer the phone in Spanish.

Now, can you imagine what kind of marketing as well as public relations nightmare this caused?

So the first— On a small scale, I had exactly the same thing happen with a chiropractic office.

And so if you're going to market—

They put the marketing in place and now patients are coming in and they can't deal with them.

And what does that tell you though? You're after my money, but you truly don't care about me. And when it comes to the minority communities, they're more concerned, and this is good news for the folks on the call, Dan, they're more concerned about the care that they receive and the sensitivity they receive than the money. They are willing to pay a premium, and as everybody is, for good customer service.

But for them it means culturally sensitive customer service.

So number one, you have to have at least a couple of people who speak the language. And we could spend an entire teleseminar, Dan, on talking about hiring and retaining multicultural employees, but that's a different subject. But just recognize you do have to reach out to the multicultural communities that you service and get a couple of people that speak the language. You don't have to all speak the language, but a few. At least you've got the language ability. Then you have to go to the next level. Which I call sales cultural competence. Because now they're in front of you. You did a good job at the marketing. You brought them in.

You had someone who could answer the phone and set appointments or whatever.

Or they just come into your store assuming you could speak their language. And many of them, again, don't have to speak the language. Most of them don't. But at least there are a few that do speak their language. And there's a few people from their culture that they can see, which implies to them that you're sensitive to their culture. Fine.

But then everybody in your company, Dan, has to be trained to be culturally sensitive.

Now what does that mean? That means from the moment you meet them, you have to be sensitive to their culture. Now what am I talking about? Dan, what's the most common greeting salespeople are taught to make the minute somebody walks in?

Well, the physical portion is of course the handshake.

Absolutely, and guess what? Not everybody is comfortable shaking hands in the multicultural community.

In fact, the most common greeting in the world is not a handshake, it is a bow. And so, and I'm not saying you should bow necessarily, I'm just making a point that don't assume that everybody's comfortable shaking hands.

And if you deal with couples, men and women, recognize that touching a woman from various cultures can be extremely offensive. Asian Indian women, Middle Eastern women, Japanese women, and others, you never ever touch them, whether it's a handshake or a pat on the shoulder or anything. And whether you're a man or a woman, you never touch them. And to do so insults them as well as their spouse and their family. So what do you do if you can't necessarily touch them? You've got to teach your sales force, your frontline staff, That instead of assuming that everybody wants to shake hands, and this is true for a lot of good old white Americans too, not everybody is comfortable shaking hands. If you ask around, you'll find out. Instead of sticking your hand out, welcome them to your establishment, and if they're comfortable shaking hands, Dan, what will the man do?

Oh, he'll, yeah, he'll extend, right?

He'll extend his hand, absolutely, take his hand and shake it, but then train your frontline staff to do something crucial. Once you're done shaking hands, shaking the man's hand, you drop your hand to your side and then you turn to the female.

You do exactly the same.

You look at her and if she's comfortable shaking hands, Dan, what will she do? Well, she'll extend as well. Absolutely. You'll see that most of the time the woman will not. So what do you do? You just nod at her to show respect and you welcome them in. Same thing with the man. If he doesn't put his hand out, you nod to him, look at the woman, again with the hand at the side, nod to her if she doesn't put her hand out, and then take them in and show them around and do what you would normally do initially. But that's the first step.

But you see, Dan, if you don't do this part right, how this could ruin your whole relationship?

Well, sure, and I think that I would imagine that you are going to hear, and what's already running through people's minds, and you must hear it a lot, is in a sense the same objection that we hear about complex marketing processes, and that is, you know, I don't have time to learn all this stuff and adapt my marketing and my sales and train my salespeople to deal with 18 different cultural situations. And I would imagine you hear it a lot. I would also imagine that the answer has to do with recognizing the size and scope of the opportunity.

That's right, because it does take time.

Not a lot. We're not, you know, we're not talking about changing the entire way you do business.

It does take some training, and it does take some sensitivity, and it does take ongoing training, because you got to keep reminding your sales staff about culture cultural differences.

And it's new frontline staff. It's not just salespeople, but it's cashiers, checkers, customer service people, greeters, whomever.

But periodically you have new people coming in. They've got to be trained as well and then retrained as time goes by. But, you know, it's really up to the folks on the line.

If you want a piece of the $2 trillion multicultural market, you've got to do a little bit of work. Not a lot. But a little bit. But let me just put this into perspective for you, Dan.

The multicultural market in America, their buying power is larger when it's combined.

The buying market— the buying power of minorities in America is larger than all but 9 of the largest economies in the world.

The largest countries in the world, the minority community Their buying power is larger than all but the 9 largest countries in the world.

And if you want to ignore this size of the market, of course, that is your right. But when I show you how little work it takes—

and by the way, your, your competition is probably not doing this, so it gives you a tremendous economic as well as competitive edge. It's really your choice. Again, we're not talking about changing everything that you're doing, just a little bit.

Well, one of the key things that I would emphasize, and you've made the point twice a little bit differently each of the times, is that as a lot of businesses find themselves in an increasingly cluttered or competitive marketplace one way or the other,, and the results from their big broad brush generic advertising marketing and sales are declining, this is a way to go and do something that, as you say, the others, the competitors will not do, or in some cases perhaps cannot do. And now the closed loop is, now you have an opportunity to niche market, to target market, to carve out a small segment of a marketplace and be able to go after it in a way that no one else is.

Oh, you're absolutely right, Dan, and you've taught people target marketing is really the way to go. It's too expensive to try and reach everybody, but it's very effective reaching a target market.

There's a big health publisher that some years ago 4 or 5 years ago had a huge hit with a diet program, and their case study was reported in the direct marketing trades. They targeted Hispanic households with dual-language direct mail, and they got almost a 4 times bump in response over non-Hispanic households and chalked it up to two things. One, the Hispanic households get less direct mail because a lot of mailers actually cull them out and don't mail to them.

Because they assume they didn't speak English.

Yeah, well, they assume they— a lot of assumptions. They assume they don't speak English. There's still an erroneous assumption in the direct response community that a lot of them don't have or won't use credit cards, and so they don't have the ability to buy. There's a, I think, a belief that they're all low-income consumers, which of course they aren't. Absolutely not. And so the combination of, I guess, the respect by putting the dual language piece out, even though as you say most of the households are English-speaking. Yes. And arriving someplace where there's less clutter. The response rate was again nearly 4 times what it was from the non-Hispanic households mailed the same sales piece.

For exactly the reason you mentioned, Dan. They don't receive much, and studies show that Hispanics open their direct mail, and they're more likely to read it than any other group in America, including the white group. Because they don't get that much of it. You know, and so marketing is a little bit different. I have a couple of quizzes on my website that your folks could look at. One is a multicultural marketing quiz, and the other is a multicultural salesperson quiz to see what do you know about the various cultures right now? How savvy are you? And if they want to go to take that quiz at some point in time, Dan, it's www.ethnoconnect, E-T-H-N-O-C-O-N-N-E-C-T, all one word.

Ethnoconnect.com.

And they can take those quizzes and they can see how savvy they are and, you know, what they already know about marketing to people from other cultures.

But once they— I think everybody on the call ought to go do that.

It's an extension of the call. I would think so because you'd learn an awful lot. You may know a bit already, but you also might find out how much you don't know. But let me just tell you a couple of other things, Dan, about cultural competency. So the first thing is You got to meet them and greet them properly. If you don't, if you touch the woman or give them a greeting that they're not comfortable with, it says to the customer that, you know, I really don't care about your customer. Either do it my way or it's the highway. Well, they're taking the highway right now to companies that are sensitive to their culture. The other couple of things you got to be aware of, just as an example, is personal space. When you stand and talk to a customer, how close or how far away you stand is crucial to making them feel comfortable or uncomfortable. In the United States, we shake our hands, we drop our hands, we're standing about 2.5 feet apart, and most Americans are comfortable standing at that space distance. But there are some cultures, for example, the Japanese culture, that are much more formal than we are, Dan. They don't, you know, they want want a lot of personal space. So they will shake hands or bow and then they step back. But now they're 3.5 feet away from you. And what do you think that— how do you think that the salesperson, American salesperson feels when the customer steps back, Dan? What do you think they do?

Well, some of course will continue to step forward trying to close the space.

Right, to their more comfortable personal space, which is comfortable for them. I don't know, Dan, have you ever had your personal space violated? Somebody standing too close to you?

Mm-hmm.

How does that feel? Well, you know, we try and get away from it. Absolutely. Others would erroneously judge it as some kind of non-buying signal.

Right. That they maybe meant— because we're taught proxemics and other kinds of things. Oh, maybe I need to close that gap and get back into their buying zone. But what we're doing is we're violating their personal space. So the customer naturally steps back to continue to maintain their personal space. The salesperson steps forward, the customer steps back. So the salesperson chases the customer all over the store.

Well, you know what's very interesting about this? I've been recently doing some work with another consultant, and we're bringing her to our group very soon about what we call sales design and choreography. And almost everybody just focuses on the language. So everybody's got sales scripts, but nobody really designs the sales behavior.

And that's really what you're talking about. I'm talking about good customer service, just making the customer feel comfortable. Well, if you violate their personal space, if you give them a greeting they're not comfortable with, right away can you understand why? Minorities might go to an establishment that's more comfortable and sensitive to them.

And by the way, these same principles, I mean, this is not— this really is not unique now to ethnic. No, Dan, this is just good customer service. Well, and you sell to seniors differently than you do to 30-year-olds, women different than men. And so, I mean, this has to be thought out— and really should be thought out carefully. Again, as you said, starting with who are your current customers?

Right.

And are you really serving them well in a way that makes them as comfortable as possible?

And then who could be your customer that you might be turning away just with some little things like this? And, you know, besides just cultures that stand farther away, there are cultures that stand much closer. Who make the salesperson feel uncomfortable. For example, the Middle Eastern culture, they will shake hands, maybe even kiss you on both cheeks, and then they step in 6 inches from your face, which tends to make people think that Middle Easterners are aggressive. No, that's just they like to be close. But of course, the American salesperson naturally steps back because that's much too close. And especially if you're a woman salesperson, That's way too close. You will step back. Again, there's that distance that's uncomfortable for the customer. They will step forward. You'll step back and they'll chase you all over the store. Salespeople and other frontline staff have got to learn to stand your ground. Whatever distance the customer sets that is comfortable for them, you allow them their space. Again, do what's comfortable for them.

So there's just— Who's doing a really good job with this? I mean, maybe a case history or a company people would know who has really put a priority on this.

There's a— well, Blue Shield is probably one of the premier companies. You know, the insurance companies out there are doing some of this. Cultural sensitivity and cultural competence really started in the healthcare field, Dan. Because it's not just about money. People were dying because physicians, nurses, and other frontline staff were not being sensitive to people's culture. And what we recognize now is that, you know, different cultures have different illnesses. They believe different things. I speak to a lot of cancer centers and a lot of hospitals on how we need to be culturally sensitive to our patients. And today they find it's really all about your bedside manner, whether you're a nurse or a practitioner or a doctor. You know, they found that doctors who get sued more often are not necessarily more or less competent than others who don't get sued as often. What they discovered is doctors who get sued more often are less sensitive to their patients, less caring, and just don't have as good a bedside manner. And so a lot of companies, like I say, Kaiser Hospitals, Blue Shield, Blue Cross, those folks are doing a pretty good job at it. And Verizon is also, the cellular company, doing a great job at multicultural marketing. They have their own segments. They have special marketing campaigns. It's amazing. And just as an example, Verizon is marketing to the African-American community heavily because African-Americans use cell phone minutes more than any other group in America, including the majority white group. So it's a huge opportunity for them just because of the culture. And you got to recognize that culture impacts the way people communicate as well. So it's not just how far you stand, but it's the whole sales process. You've got to adjust your presentation and everything else to meet their needs. I'll give you one example about sales presentations, Dad. In the new home and the resale real estate industry, the one thing that really bothers salespeople the most is when people from other countries go off in a corner and speak in their own language. And the salespeople are so offended by this because, you know what, you know what they believe that these folks are talking about? They're uncomfortable. The salesperson is uncomfortable because they believe that the customer is talking about them, and they're really not. You know, I've had some friends who listen in and what they're talking about is the house and the financing. Can we afford this house? Do you think the builder would take a little bit less off the price or would they throw in hardwood floors for free if we bought today? What they're doing by speaking their own language is they're trying to gain privacy while standing in front of the salesperson. And this is a buying sign, as you know, Dan. And yet the salesperson is standing there getting angry and seething because they're talking about me, they're talking about my suit or my hair, and they're talking behind my back in a language they know I can't understand. When they should really be glad that they're getting a buying sign. And number 2, they should go give them some privacy because that's what they're trying to get. They should say, you know, I'll be down at the at the model, or I'll be out in my car. See, it looks like you'd like to talk. Take your time. But no, they're standing there trying, well, what do you think?

What do you think?

You know, they're killing their deals by being culturally insensitive. So you got to recognize that many cultures will use language to gain privacy. And this is true in the retail side as well. They'll just stand there talking in their own language and salespeople I'll see them just getting red as a beet being angry. When this may be the only buying sign you'll ever get.

So you've got to adapt.

Somebody that wants to explore this further and get good at it, what are your recommendations? Well, you need some books. You need some training. There's plenty of books available on the web. The classic book is a book called Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands. It talks about the various cultural differences and how people relate to each other. Does this culture prefer to kiss you on the cheek? Does this culture prefer to shake hands? Or does this culture prefer to bow? But it's— frankly, it's overwhelming. It's like trying to read the encyclopedia. What you want to do is you want to try and get some training for your frontline staff just on cultural sensitivity. You can see that it doesn't take a lot. Just don't necessarily impinge on people's personal space. Learn how to meet and greet them properly. Don't try and look people in the eye, Dan. There's the second most common thing that salespeople are told. Look them in the eye. Well, guess what? Some cultures don't like to be looked in the eye. In many cultures, it is thought that looking somebody in the eye is rude. And so to show people respect, what they will do is they will look down instead of looking you in the eye. And of course, for Americans, this is very uncomfortable, so we do everything we can to gain their eye contact, which is very offensive to them. So you just got to learn to let the customer take the lead and tell you how they want to be treated. Obviously, our company provides this kind of service, and there's probably a couple of others out there. I'm not aware of any others at the moment. This is sort of cutting-edge stuff. There's a lot of companies that provide generic diversity training, how do you be sensitive to others' culture. But our company provides training in how do you provide culturally sensitive sales to other cultures so that they come into your store or office. You build a relationship and not just a one-time shot. This is building a long-term relationship. Going back to your comment about, Well, it takes time. Yes, it does, Dan. But it's worth it because in the long run, if you'll make an investment of time to be sensitive to some of your customers' unique needs and their culture, in the long run, they will then refer friends and family for a lifetime if you've built that trust. And as you know, Dan, referrals don't take— they don't take any time. 'Cause you don't have to spend time building rapport or trust or credibility because when somebody comes on a referral, you have that built-in trust and credibility. And so while it takes a little longer on the front end to build that rapport and trust, in the back when it comes to getting referrals, it's easy. They will refer till the cows come home. You'll have plenty of customers from other cultures and you won't have to spend a lot of money doing marketing.

Well, the way this fits, I mean, I'm constantly talking to people. You know, most, most business owners and most salespeople on the prospecting side, they're so focused on more leads, more customers, more customers, more new patients. And really, so they're spending all their time and energy and money there and not properly investing in handling the prospect and the customer well when they get them. And if they just invest more there, then they'll get a higher ROI and as you say, more referrals. Gradually then a mature business can do less and less and less external advertising.

Yeah, you know, I know that you really are heavy on this, Dan, because marketing to new customers is marketing to customers you really don't want. Because new customers are not loyal because they're new. They're price conscious very often. So are these customers that you really want? You really want to be, as you teach people all the time, Dan, is you teach people keep your current customers, keep them coming back and get referrals because they already know you, like you, and trust you. So you don't have to spend much to keep them. Just keep that good customer service going and train your frontline staff to earn the right to ask for referrals. Anytime someone says, "Thank you. I really appreciate this," that's the time that they should say, "Well, you're welcome. Is there anybody else you know that would like to know about a great chiropractor or a great grocery store or whatever?" You want to keep your current customers.

Very differential, and I would I would think there is. Are certain cultures more likely to refer and/or refer in significant numbers than others?

Well, I think, you know, when it comes to the African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern community, Dan, there's no difference. It's so hard for them, and including the African-American community, believe it or not, it's so hard for them to find establishments that will just treat them with a little bit of sensitivity to their culture. That once you do, they will give you endless referrals. I've never heard that one culture refers more than the other. All I've ever heard is, man, once you build that rapport and trust, they will refer friends, family for a lifetime. So referrals are there for you if you will only treat them with sensitivity to their culture and then ask for it. But you've also got to recognize that this is an entire system that you must learn. Not just the meeting and greeting. But if you sell major items, then you've got to negotiate. And trust me, Dan, ask your members here that these customers will negotiate like crazy. Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Asians, I don't care what it is. They will walk into any store where your prices have been posted for 1,000 years and try and negotiate the price. Because there's two types of countries in the world, Dan: negotiating and non-negotiating. What would you guess the United States is, Dan?

Negotiating or non-negotiating?

We're non-negotiating. We don't negotiate anything except the two biggest purchases in America, which are what? Real estate and cars. Yeah, cars and houses we will negotiate kicking and screaming because we know that if we could save a small percentage, we could save a lot of money in the long run. Long run, but we don't like it. Dan, you've heard of the Saturn car company. Got to be very big in a short amount of time, not because they promised the world's greatest car. They promised a solid car at a fair price. But Dan, what do you think has made Saturn so popular? It is their negotiating policy, which is what? None. They will not negotiate, and Americans love it. They will just buy them out the door. But think about it, Dan. When was the last time you saw an Asian or Hispanic driving a Saturn? I really hadn't thought about it, but— Well, if you look, it's pretty rare because they think they paid too much. They want to negotiate. And so you need to expect it, be ready for it, and, you know, your members need to take a couple of really good negotiating classes. Because even if you take a whole semester-long class at a college, How much competition would you be against a 12-year-old kid from Mexico? Because they haven't had a semester-long class in negotiating. How long a class have they had, a 12-year-old kid from Mexico, Dan? Well, 12 years. All their life. All their life. Yeah, because in Mexico, in China, you would never walk into a store and just pay what they asked. They'd think you were stupid. So they will walk into your establishment and they'll try and negotiate absolutely everything. Everything from financing to the price to you name it. Whatever you've got, they will try and negotiate it. And so you'd better get yourself a class. And then if you have a major purchase where you've got a contract with them for the purchase— cars, houses, refrigerators if it's financed, whatever— they will negotiate every part of the contract And they will negotiate after the contract is signed. As you know, Dan, in the United States when we sign a contract here it means what about negotiating? Well, we view that as the end of a process. Yeah, but in many cultures— Yeah, but in many cultures, Dan, that's the beginning of the negotiating process because what they're saying to you is this is what I'm interested in. I'm interested in doing business with you, yes, yes. But this is the beginning of our relationship. And as our relationship changes and you get to know me a little better, my needs will change and you need to change this contract to reflect the needs that have changed. And in the United States, we consider that unethical. In many cultures, that's standard business practice. So you can see that every part of the transaction can be impacted by culture. And Dan, we haven't even talked about beliefs and colors and numbers and how that impacts every caller on the line.

Well, unfortunately, clock's going to get us. But look, it's been a very—

it's been a very interesting call, Dan. It's been an honor to be on this call. Thanks a lot, Michael.

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