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January 13, 2002 at 07:00 PM
Latina-Owned Businesses Are A Fast-Growing Sector
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Many Latinas living in the United States have become so adept at managing a household and professional life that starting a business of their own is almost part of a natural progression.
This is perhaps why a number of agents working in the Hispanic market have in recent years noticed a sharp increase in Latina-owned businesses.
There are three categories feeding into this phenomenon says Robert Bard, president of LatinaStyle magazine.
One is the Latina professional who does not fear leaving the corporate world for her own operation once she “hits the glass ceiling,” he says.
Another group entering the business world with increasing frequency is the older Latina generation, which traditionally stayed home with their children, Bard says.
“Once the kids were gone, a lot of these women who are 50 and older founded small businesses stemming from hobbies and interests that took off,” he says.
A third group is Latina women who start a small business in the home and eventually find a niche, Bard says.
Once they become successful, they rent an office, hire staff and become part of the mainstream business world.
The operations Latinas begin range from the traditional, including consulting, to the nontraditional, such as auto dealerships, hotels and construction companies, Bard says.
The biggest impediment to the start-up of minority-owned businesses is that banks often rebuff minorities seeking credit lines, he says. But Latinas seldom let this stop them.
“You will find they are starting their businesses with credit cards, by families pulling money together, or they take out mortgages,” Bard says.
Some use personal savings to finance the start-up of a business. Thats how Tina Cordova 11 years ago started Queston Construction Inc. in Albuquerque, N.M.
With $5,000 and “just me and a couple of guys,” Cordova says that initial investment ballooned to more than $50,000 in sales her first year in business, and to three and four times that amount in subsequent years. “It continues to grow rapidly from there,” she adds.
