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Networking's Latino PotentialAN INTERVIEW WITH CARLOS GUEITSFEATURE
What's your background, Carlos, and how did you get started in Network Marketing? I came to the US from Cuba when I was five -- my parents migrated over here. I'm a veteran (I was a marine for four years) and I've always loved business, but once I found Network Marketing, I knew that was what I wanted to do. I love Network Marketing; I love the fact that I deal with people. I'm a social kind of person, so the fact that here I make money socializing is perfect for me. I got started about seven years ago when my wife, Heather -- my girlfriend at the time -- told me her dad wanted to talk to me about a business. He took me to an opportunity meeting. When I understood the concept of leveraging time, that got me very excited because I've always been an entrepreneur. I've owned several businesses, but the problem I always encountered was the more businesses I became involved with, the less time I had. So time leveraging was a key thing for me. We were in that company for about four years, worked very hard, but didn't really achieve any major levels. We were some of the first people to open Chile with the company -- we flew there and spent close to two years there -- but it was too difficult. The products in Chile were three times the market price, and the income per capita is very low. It was an adventure, but I don't recommend trying to build abroad until you have a strong business at home. When we came back, I was pretty discouraged, but a friend talked to me about another company, and we went on to become top distributors with them before they went down a year later. We were pretty bitter, but after experiencing Network Marketing and the potential of it, I didn't want to get a job. We were pretty desperate for a while, until my dad came home one day very excited because he'd met Dale Brooks with Ameriplan and thought it might be for me. My dad hardly speaks any English and Dale doesn't speak Spanish, so I don't even know how they communicated, but Dale got enough across to my dad that I set up an appointment with him. The rest is history. My dad is not a Networker, but I felt it was only fair to sign up under him since he introduced me to the company. Now he's a National Sales Director at the top level of the comp plan at age 68. He totally surprised me -- I didn't know he had it in him.
Network Marketing is part of the Spanish culture. Latins are used to bartering, it's part of our culture -- we barter. You come to me and you have this, and I say, "Okay, I'll give you two of these, you give me that one." Then I say, "By the way, if you can tell me anybody else that wants it, I'll give you a referral for it." That's how we deal. If you live in a Spanish community, that's how everything is -- this businessperson refers people to this guy, he refers people to that one. So culturally Latins are more accepting of the Network Marketing business model. When I'm signing up Spanish distributors, I never have a problem with them being afraid to talk to their friends. In fact, my biggest problem is getting them to hold off talking to their friends until we get a chance to give them some training and approach people together. The minute you show it, they're off and running talking to people. Most Latins just don't have that fear -- it's natural to talk to everybody about what you have, hear what they have, and see if you can trade. That's a very simplistic way of putting it, but that's just the way it is. A few years ago, I went to a Jim Rohn seminar and he talked about finding a niche market. I didn't know much about the Spanish market in relationship to Network Marketing at the time, but when I started doing research, I found out that the US is the fourth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. We have almost 30 million Latins in the US, and the population is growing exponentially. By the year 2004, we will be the largest minority. That's when I realized that within Network Marketing, the Latin market is largely being ignored. When I got started, most of the major Network Marketing companies hardly had any Spanish literature. My company, Ameriplan, now has everything available in Spanish, and that's because when my dad and I came in, we brought such a huge influx of Latins that they were forced to do it. There's very little self-development or industry material for the Spanish market, so even though this business is perfect for many Latins, language continues to be a barrier. As that barrier is removed or bypassed, what do you seem happening? I believe from the bottom of my heart that within the next five years, many of the major leaders in Network Marketing will be Latin. You're going to see an explosion within the Latin market. It doesn't matter if I'm a new immigrant or if I've been here for years, I don't have to have a lot of money to get started and take it to whatever level I want. That's very appealing to the Latin community. Except for some of the Mexican communities that have been here for generations, most Latins are new immigrants, within ten or 15 years, so they're looking for an opportunity. They're not established, and they're looking for anything that can support their families, so when you show them this business, they don't have the same skepticism or limited comfort zone that people who are jaded about it or got burned in the industry's early days often do. If you just got to this country and you don't speak a lot of English, you're pretty limited with what you can do to make money. With Network Marketing, those people can begin a serious business within the Spanish communities as they're learning the English language. I know a lady in my group, Iris Cruz, who just got here from Cuba a couple of years ago. When I met her, she was making $700 a month at a clinic -- they were ripping her off. In Network Marketing, she makes more than double that right now after little more than a year, and she did it within her own community. Even though she's still learning English, she can succeed -- she's a tremendous leader who's only getting stronger. Network Marketing is a great equalizer. If you're ambitious and willing to work, you're going to make it. The level playing field is very attractive to the Latin market. Let me tell you something else about us Latins. We're here because something happened in our countries that wasn't good -- otherwise we would have stayed in our homelands. We can be skeptical in some ways, but if you can win us over, we'll stay `til the end because in our Latin culture, if you want to have friends, you have to be a friend. To have leaders, you have to be a leader. We will be 100 percent devoted. It's like Dale Brooks -- as far as I'm concerned, Dale can do no wrong. He believed in me when I needed someone to believe in me, and he will always have my loyalty. What about people who are not connected to Latin communities -- are there things they should know?
If you're thinking of building a Spanish downline, find yourself someone who's a leader within their community. When I wanted to break into the Cuban market, even though it was my ethnic market, I didn't really know a lot of Cuban Networkers. I went to the Chamber of Commerce and met with local leaders. I advertised in Spanish, mainly in Cuban-read newspapers. When I wanted to expand into the Puerto Rican market, I did the same thing -- in Miami, for example, there's a Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce and publications they read. That's how I found my leaders and was able to expand to Puerto Rico. One of my biggest leaders there was someone I already knew, but everyone else I met through those means. It's important to find someone within that community who has credibility -- they don't have to be famous, but they have to be the kind of person people listen to when they talk. If they're bilingual, that's much better. One thing I tell people, you don't have to speak Spanish to build a Spanish downline. Just find a leader who's bilingual and help him work that market. He's your translator. That's what Dale did. My dad was vice-president of the local Chamber of Commerce for many years, so he had a lot of credibility. I had credibility, not in the sense that I was established, but in that people knew my yes is my yes and my no is my no. I usually did pretty well in business, so most people I knew would at least listen to me. Dale Brooks is a good old boy from Texas who doesn't speak a lick of Spanish, didn't know any Cubans, yet now he has the largest Spanish group in our company because he connected with my dad and me. In less than three years, over 3,000 Latins became part of my organization in the US and Puerto Rico, which means they're part of Dale's, too. You had something to say to the Network Marketing companies -- what is that? Come out with some Spanish materials! A lot of companies' mentality is, "We'll come out with it when we have the market." That's the catch -- you're not going to have the market until you have the materials. If I try to introduce you to my company, but the literature's in Russian, I can say "Just trust me, you don't understand the paperwork, but just go ahead and sign." You're not going to do that. Don't expect to have the market and then come out with the material. I'm not just talking about prospecting tools, either. I'm talking about the basics -- applications, training literature. I urge companies out there to make an investment in Spanish materials -- it will pay off handsomely because there is a huge market out there. Reprinted with permission from Upline, Gueits Feature - February 2000, 888-UPLINE-1, http://www.upline.com |
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