BUILDING TRUST—NOT LOOKING OR SPEAKING LIKE
YOUR PROSPECT—IS THE KEY TO WINNING OVER THE
MULTICULTURAL PROSPECT.
Colleen Schueneman, CLF,
saw the opportunities that
awaited her in the multicultural market when she joined
MetLife three-and-a-half years
ago. This 25-year veteran of
the life insurance industry
realized that the five Chicago-area agencies she was
overseeing were not truly
serving the 60,000 households in the area—some
40 percent of them being
African-American and
other ethnic groups. One of
her first moves was to extend a hand.
She asked her centers of influence for
introductions to the top five leaders in
the community, who ranged from a
pastor to a board member of the local
chamber of commerce.
Schueneman, a NAIFA-Chicago
member, invited them to come together
for a meeting and “then I just listened …
and I didn’t like what I heard,” she says.
“We had no presence in the community.
They felt like they weren’t being serviced, that they weren’t being supported
and they weren’t being educated.” She
continued to hold meetings for the next
several months to hear what they wanted
from her and to build trust with them.
Building relationships
But building trust in the multicultural
market may involve strategies that
are different from those you use with
other prospects. It begins at the community level.
Pratik Shah, LUTCF, CLTC, a financial planner with Prudential in Livonia,
Mich., thinks that anyone can have success in an ethnic market. “It’s absolutely
open to anyone willing to give it an educated try—as long as you are involved in
the community at large,
as well as in the ethnic
community,” he says.
“People will accept
you when you build a
trustworthy relationship
with them.” Shah cur-
rently works with his fellow
Indian-Americans, but
actually began his practice
18 years ago working with
the American market.
An easy way to start
is to focus on cultural
celebrations. “Every
ethnic market has its New
Year’s Day. In India,
it’s called Diwali
and it’s a big-time
celebration,” says
this NAIFA-Detroit member. In Livonia
alone, more than a thousand people
attend various Diwali events. He calls
being involved in these types of cultural
events a win-win: “These organizations
are looking for sponsorship, and we’re
looking for exposure.”
But don’t stop there. Schueneman
has had great success in acquiring
multicultural clients by using strategies
that include a lot of “presence building”
in the community. Although she has a
team of agents, much of what they do
can be scaled down to any community,
budget or practice. Within the multicultural community, they support up-and-coming artists, participate in charitable
events, advertise in key publications and
attend gatherings that are important to
the community, “all without asking for
anything in return,” says Schueneman.
“Build trust first. You need to do what
you say you’re going to do. You have to
be sincere. And more importantly, you
have to be committed.”
