Final Words: Ethnic communities present opportunities

Canada’s face is changing fast. Immigrants seeking better opportunities and savvy financial services providers know they must cater to new needs.

Allen Wong, president of Allen Wong & Associates in Thornhill, Ont., has been serving ethnic markets for years, primarily the Chinese Canadian community, and shares these thoughts about how to connect with a niche and leverage targeted media to foster understanding of financial services offerings.

Media opportunities

“Get involved with the local media. In ethnic communities there are a lot of little papers. They’re trying to sell ads but they’re also looking for content and will do stories about local businesses.”

“Advertising doesn’t really sell anything, it just promotes a branding. So, take advantage of the media to brand your practice.”

“It takes awhile to break in but once you get involved they’re always asking you for content. It’s almost like a swarm of bees. Once one finds you for a story, the others come looking because they have pages to fill.”

“Those agents can in turn use those ads and the editorial those papers generate when they’re seeing clients. It shows the clients which firm is behind them, and that’s important for credibility.”

Finding new advisors

“We do advertise in those papers as well, but instead of using those ads to sell to clients, we use them to recruit agents.”

“A lot of immigrants come here and can’t find jobs. Two of our latest recruits have Masters’ degrees in finance from universities in China and they can’t do what they’re trained to do.”

“At a recent community event I attended, one of the people being honored was a woman who had been a university professor in China, but here she was selling Chinese beer. She had to become a beer distributor. You can’t get much different than that.”

“But these people don’t have money to open their own businesses. All they have is the language and their own financial needs to fill.”

“So, in that context, selling financial service products is a good fit for them; and working with an agency that has a background in that community can help them.”

Credible representation

“Be active in local business groups, or charities. That’s a better way to get into the community. People know businesses pay for ads but if you serve the community and get recognition for that, it’s more effective.”

“It just so happens that one of the representatives we use to do our marketing is involved with local civic and charity work. He was the president of a Chinese society and has large network within the business, and surrounding, community.”

“So, when I chose someone to represent me from a marketing standpoint, it made sense to affiliate with someone who was already well known in the community, and who was doing a lot of charitable work.”

Understanding the market

“A lot of our end clients are people who come form Communist China and the biggest dream they have about moving to a democratic country is freedom of choice, because in their old lives they had none.”

“We make a point of emphasizing that. You came here to exercise freedom of choice. So look at what’s out there, educate yourself and make a decision based on your understanding of what’s available in the financial marketplace.”

“Only you know what’s best for your family. We’ll give you an understanding of what the products can do, and then you decide whether they fit into your needs.”

Building trust

“The Ponzi scheme that was run by Weizhen Tang lost some credibility for the investments industry within the Chinese market.”

“These articles helped us re-establish credibility in the wake of that scandal. We did testimonials with our clients in which reporters from the papers actually met the clients who showed them exactly what the agents did.”

“It was an opportunity for us to show that the insurance agents were doing things in the most compliant ways possible and that they were looking out for the clients’ interests.”

“When working with ethnic communities, you have to build confidence and trust. You need to understand where the people in those communities came from. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

“This kind of exposure is way more significant and helpful than just buying an ad.”