A Latin Impact on the Finance Industry

Financial Institutions are a fantastic business model to learn from when considering ever changing market conditions. Their traditional target markets are stable, but, the needs of an emerging market, the Latino market is extremely underserved. It is certainly not for lack of money. Many Latinos have zero debt and healthy saving habits. The question arises, are financial institutions doing enough to serve this population? Are they adapting to the Latino 

needs? The answer is complicated.

There are two types of Latinos in the USA. One is the immigrant seeking a better life and wanting the American dream, whether they came through the proper channels or not it is irrelevant. The second, are the Latinos that are born here. These are two very different groups of people with different needs and goals. Most immigrants bring their culture, traditions, and customs with them to the US. Those born here develop a blended culture that is both Latino and American.

Financial Institutions are taking notice and making strides to accommodate this very economically influential population. The main reason is that there is a lot of investment in education and developing trust. An untold detail is that in Latino countries, people do not trust banks and financial institution because of corruption. Everything is paid in cash and there are no debt or traditional credit scores. This means that the Latino community have cash, probably stored under their mattress or in a shoe box. This is very dangerous considering that a house fire could burn an entire life savings. Another scenario is they could become a target for robbery. This is a foreign concept for Americans. What is happening is a huge learning curve, educating them on the process of building credit, saving their money in a financial institution, getting loans (mortgage, car, etc.), and most important having trust in the financial institutions.

The younger generations that are born here learn from their parents and surroundings. There is still a disconnect from the importance of financial products, building credit, and how that process works. Many of these young people are just translating for their parents, explaining financial products, and become an intermediary for conducting business. You will notice an increase in bilingual support at many financial institutions for this reason. There is still a lot of work to do in this regard, and this process will take time.

However, more and more financial institutions are offering products specific to Latinos. Information is becoming available in Spanish and more financial institutions are hiring bilingual and multi-lingual speakers. It will be interesting to see how we as a country adapt to this important demographic. It is truly an untapped market that has an important function in our economy for growth and stability.

Bold Money Conversations That Can Change Your Life

I recently returned from Kendall SummerHawk's Feminine Money Mastery event, where women from all around the globe (and a few cool guys as well) gathered to improve their relationship with money. One of the most interesting aspects of this conference for me was learning to identify where we need to have "courageous money conversations" in our lives. These conversations are the ones we often avoid, as they bring up all sorts of disempowering money beliefs. We discussed how to make these conversations a routine practice and give them a methodology so that they 

aren't as daunting to embark upon.

Powerful conversations can follow a format that eases some of the tension. Follow these steps and engage in, rather 

than avoid, the money talks that change your life.

1. Take a moment before the conversation to breathe

 and set your intention for the way you want the discourse to go. Decide on the outcome you want ahead of time and be very clear in your own mind before the other person is present.

2. Be free from emotion and set the agenda with the other party.

 Inform them as to the reason for the discussion, the outcome you desire, and the discussion points you plan to cover.

3. Stop and listen.

 Make sure the other party has a chance to say their piece and that they know you hear them. Repeat back and summarize their ideas - whatever you can do to establish that you understand what they are saying.

4. Offer several options

 for resolving the situation in various ways, if at all possible.

Find agreement, even if it's to go to another decision-maker, and detail the subsequent steps, including who will do what, by when. Be sure to close the conversation positively.

After returning home from the conference, I immediately put this methodology to use and had two such conversations. I have been breathing a sigh of relief ever since! While it is important to take on these conversations under any circumstances, if you are intent on making a career shift or growing your business, this is a skill that is especially helpful and will pull you forward dramatically.

When you avoid courageous money conversations, you can be inadvertently sabotaging your own success. For example, a mom was recently telling me about her daughter, who has a job she loves. She is appreciated by her employer, coworkers, and customers, and received a promotion four months ago. She has not, however, received a salary increase to go with the promotion. Instead of having the conversation that needs to be had about the salary increase, she decided to look for another job. Objectively, this seems ridiculous, but she is so averse to having the necessary salary conversation that she has created a story in her head about what this all means and is taking a somewhat misguided action in response. For her, she believes it may actually be easier to land a new position than to have a money conversation where she would be championing her value to the company.

Similar to this case, when I work with clients, I often see two primary challenges:

1. Putting a voice to owning their value, and believing it as well. Examples include stating their fees, saying no to a discounted fee, or negotiating their salary.

2. Speaking honestly about an issue that makes them feel vulnerable. For example, discussing business plans with a spouse or renegotiating a loan they are having trouble paying.

Of course, taking a stance for your money will feel awkward at first. However, once you get a few of these conversations under your belt, you will be looking ahead for the next one! It's about building a muscle over time that will increase your power across the board. Don't be afraid to jump in headfirst - I promise you will be glad you did.

Michelle is the CEO and founder of Limit Free Life®, a coaching and personal development company designed to help clients discover and transition into careers or business ventures that satisfy their souls. As a former CPA, business consultant and now a certified business coach,she combines a strong background in finance and transition management with an intuitive coaching style.

4 Instant Hacks To Stop Burning As Much Money & Boost Your Business' Cash Flow

MISTAKE 1: NOT LINKING YOUR BANK TO XERO

Why?

You could potentially miss when a customer pays, or worse not notice if they don't pay, and may run into cash issues using old data, rather than real time up to date information.

What to do:

Imagine logging into an app every day which has pulled in the bank transactions from your online banking system. This means you can immediately match payments in and out of your bank to your customer invoices and any payments due to suppliers such as hosting costs, contractors etc. Xero Touch operates on IoS and Android and provides a real time hand held update on your business finances, meaning you can be anywhere in the world and never be in the dark.

MISTAKE 2: NOT BILLING YOUR CUSTOMERS ON TIME

Why?

There is nothing worse than doing the work, getting side-tracked with the next job and forgetting to bill for the first job. This can cause cash flow issues if it extends into more and more jobs, yet too often we find people are literally too busy with the work to action this.

What to do:

1) For one-off projects, when agreeing on the initial fee for the job create a quote on Xero which you can then turn into an invoice at the touch of a button when the work is done; and

2) For retainer jobs or repeat, subscription income create a repeating invoice on Xero which means the invoice gets issued each month until you tell it to stop. As an example, our invoices go out on the 1st of each month while we are sleeping!

MISTAKE 3: NOT SENDING YOUR INVOICES TO THE RIGHT PERSON

Why?

If your customers are small businesses, this won't be a big issue as the person you agree to do the work for will likely also pay the bills. Imagine, however, that you are dealing with much larger firms, with multiple sites, multiple departments and running bureaucracy crazy processes. If you don't get the invoice to the right person and department it simply won't be paid when you need it to be.

What to do:

When the fee is agreed with your contact get details on how the invoice will be paid, specifically finding out if the invoice needs a reference for their system (e.g. a purchase order) and the details of who the invoice should be emailed to (never post An invoice when it can be emailed!). Then email the invoice from Xero to your contact and the payments department and attach all the backup to the invoice when sending.

MISTAKE 4: NOT MAKING IT EASY TO PAY THE INVOICE Why?

Your customers are busy people just the same as you. What would you do if you received an invoice without bank details on it? You would procrastinate unintentionally and say, "I must check up on that" while never doing so as a million other things come in.

What to do:

Xero now allows you to insert a "pay now" link on your invoice. So, when the email is received (see Mistake 3 - never issue an email other than by email), the recipient can see the backup to the invoice and an extremely handy button which allows them to literally pay within a few clicks. Imagine being paid within an hour or so of the invoice going out! We recommend you set-up a PayPal or Stripe account for credit card payments and GoCardless for bank transfers to offer as much choice as possible.