Retro-Acculturation for Both Personal and Business Growth
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There might be many reasons where Retro-Acculturation could help you, particularly if you focus on your language skills.
Here are five of them:
- You might be able to attract more business
- You might be better able to connect with your employees (not to mention being able to understand them when they are speaking to each other or to your customers)
- You could more effectively tailor your communications and offerings to the Latino community
- You could find market niches no one else sees – potential new business lines or locations, unmet needs, etc.
Aside from the potential monetary benefits, you would derive personal benefits as well, many of which are impossible to measure:
- You would be in a better position to share your re-gained cultural background with your children and connect more deeply with your older relatives and those still living in your family’s country of origin
- You would be a much better tourist in Latin countries if you could communicate and relate to the cultures you visit
- This would help you achieve a different status in your community if you could effectively become bilingual and bicultural – leadership beckons.
What would the costs of this effort be?
Minimal, frankly – just the cost of a community college class or an online instructional program, a few hours here and there, nothing major.
What would the benefits be?
Potentially limitless – both quantifiable in terms of your business but also purely personal as you enhance and enrich your life.
The statistics on the US Latino population bear this out – while the group of English-only speakers has stayed steady (and not grown as everyone expected), the group of Spanish-only speakers has dwindled slowly over time. But the group that is growing, that is now well over 50% of the total, is the Bilingual/Bicultural segment.
That is now the demographic sweet spot for marketers and business owners.
For each individual this process of cultural self-discovery will be different. But even for those who don’t achieve perfect fluency in Spanish, even those who aren’t able to realize all of the benefits I describe above, you will still learn, and learning is a good lifelong habit to develop and maintain.
Adelante.
Related articles:
Latino Research Business Owner Insights on Intra- Hispanic Acculturation
