Language Leads Enterprising Agent Into Successful Niche

At first glance, Kathryn Soderberg seems an unlikely expert on marketing insurance to Hispanic customers, but the tall, fair-skinned Caucasian is a frequent radio talk show guest and leading Hispanic market-training sessions for large insurance companies. Soderberg, president of Soderberg Insurance Services Inc. in Lynnfield, Mass., a Boston suburb, derives about 25 percent of her business from the Spanish-speaking community.

She credits her niche business selling insurance to Spanish-speaking customers as a key pillar that has helped her agency weather the soft market and economic downturn. “”The slow down… would be more dramatic if we didn’t have the credibility and we weren’t as established as we are now in the Hispanic community,” she said.

It wasn’t always that way. Twenty-five years ago, none of her family-owned agency’s business was derived from that community, despite the fact that Soderberg is fluent in Spanish, has studied in Mexico and Spain and taught Spanish at the graduate level. But a chance encounter during a voter registration drive at the local town hall changed all that.

Soderberg was paired with a Guatemalan native, Rosalina, to verify voter-registration documents. “We hit it off immediately,” Soderberg said.

The woman was selling home products, and soon would make the move to selling real estate, and became a source of frequent referrals for Soderberg.

Centers of Influence

“Hispanics are still buying properties and businesses fervently, so I realized I needed to concentrate on these centers of influence, like real estate agents, that work with the Hispanic community.”

One of the best things about it, according to Soderberg, is that the agency’s focus on the Hispanic community has allowed her to “marry the love of languages with our family business. That’s kind of what led me into the niche marketing.” Soderberg said an agency doesn’t necessarily need “to be fluent in Swahili or Spanish or Korean to make that niche marketing successful, but it certainly helps.”

The majority of Soderberg’s Hispanic clients have roots in Central America, but South America is also well represented. Most of that business comes into the agency through referrals, Soderberg said. “We’re kind of in an upper middle class bedroom community, of all single family homes. It’s not an urban setting, so I think the fact that we’ve had that kind of penetration in the marketplace is pretty remarkable,” Soderberg said.

A Personal Connection

There is a different kind of personal connection that occurs when providing service to Hispanic cultures, Soderberg said. While Anglos typically will use the phone or Internet to conduct business, Hispanic clients more often want to “sit down face to face and talk to the person who’s helping them out. It’s kind of part of that culture.”

One thing to be aware of when working with Spanish speakers are the cultural differences between various nationalities, Soderberg says. “There’s a big difference, culturally, in someone from El Salvador, from someone from Peru, versus someone from Argentina, versus someone from Mexico. We have to be very sensitive to the differences between these nationalities. It’s like the United Nations here.”

But those differences and the need for sensitivity make her office an interesting place to work, Soderberg said. “I think everybody’s learned a lot from working with different cultures. It’s really beautiful, actually. What has inspired me is the gratitude. When you work with people who are not from this area and they find a company or an individual that really treats them with respect and gives them what they need, it’s not only good for the referral business. … It makes you want to work even more and help them more because they are grateful.”

Soderberg’s pursuit of the Hispanic community was not always well-received by her business partners or some of the insurance companies with which she has relationships. When the agency started to get recognized for its expertise in the area, one carrier suggest that they shouldn’t pursue that market. “I just thought, are they crazy? In this recession, in this down economy we have right now, I think — thank God for that, for the Hispanic clients, because they’re still rockin’ and rollin’. They still believe in the American dream, they’re still buying stuff, they’re still starting businesses.”

The personal relationships she’s developed with her Hispanic clients have not only helped to expand the business through referrals, they also have been useful in the hiring process. When Soderberg, 18 years ago, was looking for the agency’s first Spanish speaking employee other than herself, she “told a client, who told a friend.” Since then, none of the agency’s Spanish speaking employees have been hired through traditional methods. “We found them through networking. Networking in this culture is extremely valuable,” Soderberg said. “It helps us establish our credibility. … Helps us also find answers to situations that we have. It helps us find employees.”

Soderberg stressed it’s not absolutely necessary to have employees who speak Spanish in order to serve this market. “But you have to have people that have the right attitude, that have the patience to work with people for whom English is not their first language.”

For example, Hispanics typically like to conduct their business in person and that can take a lot of time. Employees need to be prepared for that. Also, because application and claims forms are generally written in English, clients often need help filling out those forms. Hispanic clients usually want to pay premiums in cash, Soderberg said, and the agency has had to make adjustments for that.

While it’s an inconvenience, she figured if they didn’t find a way to handle cash payments, some other agency would. Additionally, all conversations with clients regarding coverages are “100-percent documented” in English, Soderberg said, “so that everybody in the office understands what transpired.”

A Nice Ride

Soderberg Insurance Services recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Soderberg’s mother and father, who started the agency, still work part time, and her sister are involved in running the business as well. The rest of the staff — there are eight in all — feel like family, she said.

Of their foray into the Hispanic market, Soderberg said, “It’s kind of serendipity. I never really thought that it would turn into what it has turned into. But over time it has grown. It’s been a nice ride.”