In most of the many offices I have had in my legal career I have had Spanish speaking employees. This only made sense in a city like Los Angeles.
According to this article on the dramatic growth of the U.S. Hispanic market, today you might want to have Spanish speaking employees no matter where you practice. But there’s another way you can leverage this growing market.
The article lists seven industries that will benefit most from the growing Hispanic population:
- Residential buying, food (grocery and restaurants)
- Retail (especially clothing and electronics)
- Education (higher education and technical schools)
- Financial services
- Transportation (automotive and airline)
- Entertainment
- Media
Legal is not on this list, but it doesn’t matter. You can leverage the growth of the Hispanic population by aligning yourself with professionals and businesses in these industries who already target the Hispanic market.
Let’s take financial services, for example. By networking with bankers, brokers, financial planners, and CPAs who target the Hispanic market, you can grow with them.
What this means is that you don’t have to re-brand yourself for the Hispanic market in order to benefit from its growth. You can piggy-back on the influence of business owners and professionals who have already established themselves in that market.
Of course this is good advice in any market. When I moved out of Los Angeles and started over in a city where I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t merely hang up a shingle and try to compete with already established firms. I hired someone who had a lot of contacts in the market I chose to target and through him, met many professionals and business owners who already had influence in that market. My practice grew quickly because I wasn’t really starting from scratch.
The next time you want to get into a new market, try the side door.
