You arrive alone. Your heart is beating a little faster than normal and suddenly all of your charisma and charm go out the window. You try to lock eyes with someone so that you can find a temporary home in what can feel like a sea of strangers. But everyone looks happily engaged in conversation.
While this might sound like your experience at a middle school dance, it’s also what many people feel when they enter a networking event. These are completely natural reactions, even for the biggest ext
When he was 15, an immigration raid at a Japanese flower nursery turned Arturo Flores’s life around.
The owners needed a new group of workers to replace the ones removed by immigration officials, and Mr. Flores landed a job cutting flowers. He slowly worked his way up to packaging and delivering them. In the mid-1980s he got a call from two businessmen looking to start their own cut-flower business. They asked him to manage deliveries and distribution.
Today Mr. Flores, 50, is the president of
Increasing workers’ earning power and offering Hispanic-owned companies easier access to funding that can be used for growth can help improve the social and economic status of Latinos in the United States and across Latin America, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim says.
In a speech at the annual conference of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders, Slim spoke on how to better the plight of Hispanic workers and Latino-owned businesses.
Slim, ranked by Forbes magazine as the world’s second-rich
Maricela Vazquez, Meteorologist Telemundo Chicago
Maricela Vazquez of Telemundo Chicago to moderate the Sales & Entrepreneurship Networking Forum this Tuesday, August 19 at Vertigo Sky Lounge Chicago.
Maricela joined the Telemundo Team in January 2011; she is the first and only Spanish speaking Latina Meteorologist in the Chicago Spanish Media. Ms. Vazquez is a member of American Meteorological Society and a member of the National Weather Association, two of the most recognized organizations
The teenager crossed her fingers. The dark pellet was supposed to levitate. Like magic, it floated an inch into the air.
Cruz Alvarado, 16, smiled. Her science experiment worked. The pellet, a superconductor Cruz created, rose when the professor poured liquid nitrogen near it.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” Alvarado, a junior at Meadowcreek High School in Gwinnett County, said afterward. On this day Alvarado was the one conducting the test, but she’s part of an experiment, too, one designed to get
Politicians and pundits have long been talking about the new non-white majority in the United States, and especially about the growing numbers and clout of Hispanic-Americans. As of the 2011 census, around 52 million Americans called themselves Hispanic, about 17 percent of the population — but their influence is even greater.
Whether first-generation Americans, immigrants or members of families with deep roots on this side of the border, Hispanics are shaping discussion and policy on everythi
While most Americans remain fairly in the dark about bitcoin, tech-savvy Hispanics are at the forefront of fandom for the digital currency, according to a survey .
Just 8 percent of whites polled by Morning Consult said they know "a lot," while 53 percent said they know "nothing at all" or "not much" about bitcoin. That compares with 21 percent of Hispanics who say they know a lot, and 42 percent who say they are likely to use bitcoin, against 24 percent of whites.
Figuring out why the cryptocu
Yai Vargas, National Marketing Manager, Latino Market, New York Life Insurance Co.
Yai Vargas is the National Latino Marketing Manager for New York Life. Charged with implementing strategic marketing and recruiting initiatives, Yai currently travels to 40 cities around the US where she drives local community initiatives promoting financial literacy and planning for the Latino community. Yai has corporate and agency experience in the diversity, public relations and multi-cultural communications
If you want to advance your career, you know the standard advice: Go to networking events! But attending an unfamiliar event (with unfamiliar attendees) can be intimidating, so much so that many of us shy away from attending altogether. With a few tips and tricks, you can confidently approach networking events and make career-lifting connections:
Do your homework. Some event organizers will share a guest list in advance. If so, search attendees’ LinkedIn profiles to scout out whom you’d like to
I opened two different yet similar emails this morning. The first dealt with a “Speed Networking” site promoting its services. The second email was promoting a “Networking Seminar” that uses a formulaic approach to networking similar to the typical funnel approach to sales.
What struck me about these emails was the focus on numbers. Has networking become the replacement for the old sales mantra of having to make cold calls?
When I started selling more than 30 years ago, my leaders drilled into
Mobile technologies are helping Hispanic-owned businesses improve productivity, client service and communications with employees, the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce said.
Javier Palomarez said that, according to a recent USHCC-sponsored survey taken among 513 Hispanic companies, 82 percent of respondents said that greater productivity could be attributed to the use of those devices, while 62 percent said they help grow their businesses.
"We always suspected that the Latino c
An ice-cold Corona with a slice of lime is what often comes to mind with Hispanic beers. But a growing cadre of Latino brew masters is working to change that.
Among them is Juan Camilo, a 28 year old Dominican-American entrepreneur who two years ago turned his beer brewing hobby into a full-fledged business. He quit his job on Wall Street and, with a home-made recipe and a passion for beer, opened the Dyckman Beer Company, hailed as New York City's first Latino-owned brewery.
Camilo, who was bo
Is it really a "sales presentation" if no one is listening?
As a prospect in front of salespeople, I do not always listen to what is being said. It would be naive to assume that we hold a prospect's attention 100 percent of the time. However, every salesperson can improve his or her presentation.
Here are some general tips to help you get better:
1. Establish rapport. Before you start talking about your product or service, be sure you have connected as a human being with your prospect. It is so
"I want to build beautiful things the world wants to use." So said an application to an internship program with Girls Who Code, a national group that encourages young women to consider careers in computer science.
Lots of women want to code, design, and be part of the communications/Internet/Web/mobile world. So do lots of people from all sorts of racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.
Problem: That world is a male shop. A white male shop. Always has been.
As a report released Wednesday by T
Many decision makers struggling to increase sales and stay ahead of their competition don’t understand how impactful the Hispanic market could be for their businesses.
Some executives feel that since they haven’t done any outreach in the past and they have low market penetration, it’s not necessary to invest in this target audience. However, Hispanics are emerging as a powerhouse of economic influence.
The success of any business will depend on how open-minded executives are in reacting to mark
When it comes to securing a job in the current labor market, the adage of "it's all about who you know" especially rings true.
Networking is a big part of securing a job and advancing a career, which is why networking and connecting with other professionals should be happening all the time.
At the end of July, LinkedIn released its new LinkedIn Profile on Mobile, which redesigned the way its mobile app displays users' profiles. READ MORE
It may not come as a surprise that Hispanics like to travel just as much as anyone else.
But hotel and airline companies should take note that Latinos not only tend to fly more frequently than non-Hispanics, they also spend more money on their vacations, according to a new survey by Think Now research.
“Regardless of income, Hispanics spend more money on average than non-Hispanics on domestic vacations, due at least in part to the fact that they are more likely to fly and because they have larg
Being Latino means being part of a rich, diverse culture. Or does it? Some Latinos feel removed from their peers because of their skin color, language ability, or mixed-race heritage. Others have faced criticism for holding political views at odds with the Hispanic mainstream. In fact, many Latinos know all too well what it is like not to fit in with their own community.
“Most people believe that all Latinos look like the stereotypical Puerto Rican or Mexican,” said Mirna Martinez-Santiago, 43,
Most people attend networking events to gain something: job leads, referrals, exposure, connections, opportunities to grow their business. Having organized more than 50 networking events over the past 10 years, I’ve seen plenty of these people leave disappointed, dismissing networking as a complete waste of time.
But I’ve also seen the opposite. I’ve seen people walk out with a handful of business cards feeling happy, inspired and excited. The major difference between these two groups of people
Hispanics have an appetite, and with an estimated purchasing power of $1.5 trillion by 2015, they are an important audience that grocery chains should not ignore.
Hispanics are spending more frequently on groceries and shopping perishables than other consumer groups in the United States, according to the Nielsen report “Fresh View of Hispanic Consumers.”
Fresh food is the cornerstone of Hispanic grocery shopping, as Hispanics spend $175 more on fresh foods per year than the national average. Fr
