Your actions speak louder than your marketing. With Hispanic Heritage Month come many inauthentic marketing campaigns that claim cultural awareness, even as their actions say otherwise. When celebrating Latino culture and heritage, you can’t just show up for a month and expect your Hispanic community to trust you.
In this week’s episode, Grace and Liel share practical tips for law firms to celebrate Latinx culture beyond Hispanic Heritage Month. As the U.S. Latino population steadily grows, you cannot do the bare minimum and expect your firm to stay relevant. Being authentic in your actions and marketing is the first step to building a strong connection with your Hispanic clientele.
The discussion also looks at Google’s announcement on their upcoming core update. As a rule of thumb, pay close attention to Google core updates, especially if you’re doing Black Hat SEO tactics that will damage your website’s ranking.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
- How Law Firms can Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in 2022
- Stanford Law School’s “Spanish for Lawyers” course
- Southern Methodist University’s “Spanish for Legal Professionals” certificate
Enjoy the show? Don’t forget to subscribe, tell your coworkers, and leave us a review! Send us your questions and comments at ask@incamerapodcast.com.
Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] According to a new US Census Bureau report issued earlier this month, Texas may have achieved a long anticipated milestone, the point at which Hispanic individuals outnumber white people in the state’s population. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español – How Lawyers Win the Hispanic Market. And this is In Camera Podcast. Welcome to the 2022 National Hispanic Heritage Month. Welcome to In Camera Podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversations. Grace We’re back. How are.
Grace: [00:00:59] You today? Good. How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:01:01] Grace I’m back. I’m so happy to finally be here recording an episode with you. And you know what? It’s almost been a month. Happy to see you catch up with you. We’ve already been here on the green room for almost an hour, just chatting our way through and excited that we’re also now about to start a very, very interesting conversation and a very timely one as well, I may.
Grace: [00:01:25] Add. Yes. Yeah. And I’m excited to come back. Well, even though I was on vacation, guys, that’s why I wasn’t here for a while. I actually very happy to come back to work and get things done.
Liel: [00:01:36] So and get things done. You sure done that. So, Grace. Before we get started, I just want to, you know, brief a little bit our audience into some structural changes here that we’re going to be doing into our in camera podcast episode frequency. And so in the interest of providing you with better quality content in a more organized way, we are now going to be publishing episodes every other week. So we’re moving away from a weekly episode to twice a month format, and we’re just kind of like here trying to take an approach of quality over quantity. But ultimately you’re will be the judge. You will let us know whether you think less frequency, but more diversity in the content that we’re covering per episode is something that you’re appreciating. So bear with us here. We’re in an adjustment phase, but we are really putting our listener’s interest at the forefront of things and we really want to provide you with a better experience as our audience in these podcasts that we’ve already are producing for almost, what, Grace? Three years.
Grace: [00:02:51] Wow, that many years already.
Liel: [00:02:53] I know.
Grace: [00:02:54] Like just yesterday we started.
Liel: [00:02:57] Just yesterday we started at Grace. That’s exactly how I feel. But Grace, let’s start first with the superficial part of the conversation before we get into the really meat of things. And that is Google just recently. And by recently I mean earlier this week we’re recording this on September 16, which, by the way, it’s Mexican Independence Day. So Feliz día Independencia. Yesterday, Other nations from Latin America were celebrating their Independence Day. So, you know, Hispanic Heritage Month is upon us and we’re going to be talking about that. But before we get to that, as I said, Google just recently announced that they are deploying another cor update Grace for those that do not know what is an algorithmic update in plain terms, let’s not get here. Very technical. And why does this matter?
Grace: [00:03:56] Excited about it because I think it’s going to help a lot of people right now. And just telling.
Liel: [00:04:00] Let’s hope.
Grace: [00:04:01] So.
Liel: [00:04:02] You just can keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. Yeah, go ahead.
Grace: [00:04:07] Tell us. So for those of you that may or may not recall, when we talk about Google updates, we’re usually talking about kind of smaller updates that they tend to do. And so when we speak about a core update, that is a big update that they are deploying out to all Google users. And what does that mean? That means that there’s going to be potentially a huge shift in the way things are tracked, viewed reviewed by Google user intent and all the things that go into the marketing of using Google are going to potentially change what exactly. We’ll go over that in a little bit. But a core update just for you guys. And the definition of that is a major update that is being deployed by Google. Google used to do them, I think it was like once every two years, sometimes once a year. And then they would have what we call micro updates and the sort of smaller updates that weren’t affecting the core of Google’s algorithm. And so with this with that being said, this is a core update and you need to pay attention. What does it mean right this second? Nothing just yet. But there are things that you can do besides the things that you should have already been doing to make sure that you’re not affected or your site is not affected or your ads are unaffected by this core update detrimentally.
Liel: [00:05:27] Yeah. So as Grace is saying, and she’s putting it very, very in very, very polite terms. But but, you know, to bring it to the bottom line is her updates can affect your rankings either positively or negatively. So if you’ve been ranking on position number one for a search term, that represents a significant amount of the most valuable traffic to your website, that also brings conversions, that also brings cases that is at stake right now because you can potentially lose it or you can potentially keep it right. And so during core updates, what happens is that there are fluctuations. You may see a drop, you may see an increase, and it takes time for it to stabilize. Core updates. Deployments usually take weeks. It doesn’t just happen on a day. So this can take anywhere from just 4 to 5 days to a whole two weeks. Usually, Google always says that it will take a couple of weeks. They always kind of like give extra time for themselves. But it’s not necessarily always the case. But when core updates are big and significant, they tend to take longer. Now, that’s what you need to be aware of this. Now, how impactful this core update will be, only time will tell. Now, as Grace was saying, you know, it’s all about being proactive when it comes down to Google. You don’t want to wait to Google to tell you or to kind of give you give you a little penalty in rankings.
Liel: [00:06:58] Not really penalty, but kind of like drop your rankings for you to understand that you shouldn’t be relying on Black Hat back because that obviously is going to come and bite you in the ass. So you always want to be following best practices and that should be the best way to make sure that when these things come, you’re not really, really, really hit badly. But a lot of times, you know, Google does teaches a lesson or two about the trial, the type of experience they want their users to have, and how is it that they will hope websites are continue to improve user experience. As we’re moving forward. So nothing really to do here other than just monitor your Google Analytics, see what’s happening. Do not enter in panic mode. Right. Core. Core updates usually settle after weeks, and then you just need to really see where did you end up falling? How are you doing against your competitors? And then restrategize and see, okay, here’s where we are. Here’s where we need to get. How do we fill the gap? Grace. Google car update aside, let’s talk about some real exciting stuff, right? Because this whole SEO thing can be a little bit too technical. And let’s face it, right? If you’re not really into it, it can be boring. But I’ll tell you what’s not boring. Hispanic Heritage Month, which just as we were saying, just start it now.
Liel: [00:08:34] And if you are a consumer focused law firm, as you know, we’ve said it time and time and again here in this podcast, you cannot ignore your Hispanic market. Why? Because there already represent 20% of the total population, nationally speaking. Recent news like just from this week, Grace, Texas already has a larger Latino population. Just think about that. The percentage of Latino people in Texas, Latinos in Texas are the majority population. That’s it, period. There is no other way of presenting this, so it’s quite significant. Now you want to be one step ahead of the game. If you’re not in a big city where there is a significant Latino population already established, where you should be prepared because it’s growing. And whether you’ve acknowledged it or not, it’s happening. So Grace. We’re going to use this Hispanic Heritage Month episode to remind our listeners about some good practices to follow when it comes down to engaging with your Latino community. But most importantly, how to celebrate the Hispanic Heritage Month. That is happening now, and it’s going to be here until the 15th of October. So, Grace, let’s start with the most basic of them all, and that is be honest with your intentions. Right. If out of 365 days a year, you have only shown support for your Latino community members for a month, then there is no use in pretending that you are their number one supporter. Right. Hispanic Heritage Month shouldn’t.
Grace: [00:10:21] Be the only.
Liel: [00:10:22] The only time of the year that you actually stop and kind of like pay attention to what’s happening to your Latino community. Not to be confused by. Don’t get involved. Don’t sponsor events. Don’t do and use this time to celebrate Latino culture. Do that. But then throughout the rest of the year, make sure that your actions and efforts are also inclusive of the community. Thoughts.
Grace: [00:10:53] So as Hispanic and as Liel is as well, you know, or Latin, X or whatever term you prefer, the reality is we can smell BS and and that goes across just about any demographic I’ve ever met, honestly. But the reality is, when it comes to Hispanics and we notice the things that are fake or not, and so that’s kind of what Liel is saying and the way I look at it as well, which is if you’re consistent with your message, and that includes including the Hispanic community in not just the month of Hispanic Heritage Month, then that means including the community in not just Hispanic Heritage Month, whether it’s in your communications, in your charity work, in whatever it is you do to help that community, make sure it’s consistent. And it’s always the same kind of messaging because they will know that you’re just doing it because it’s Hispanic Heritage Month, and that is not something you ever want anybody to look at you like and say, Oh, this company, this law firm, is taking advantage of a particular month to take advantage of the community because that is exactly how it will be taken. So, yeah, be truthful, be consistent and don’t just do it once a month or for 30 days out of 365 days a year.
Liel: [00:12:14] Absolutely. Grace, I agree with everything that you say there. And I would just add, you know, it’s not just about being supportive of the Latino community by your your organization giving other organizations. It’s about you making your organization welcoming to Latinos and not just Latino clients, but Latino talent. And that’s where there is a very, very big gap. Right. If you are right now in your law firm not seeing Latino faces among your team, then you should stop for a moment and wonder why is that and fix it? Because nothing you do in terms of marketing and community outreach is going to speak more than the actions that you’re taking as an organization to have Latino representation. And nothing is going to make you more appealing to actual Latino clients than actually having other Latinos inside your law firm and representing your future Hispanic clients. So. Grace, that’s one thing right now. Let’s move on and talk a little bit more about the messaging, the marketing and that sort of thing. Don’t go for the stereotypical things, right, don’t you? I don’t know, Grace. If you remember a couple of months ago when the whole thing of Jill Biden and being in San Antonio and saying that Latinos are like tacos as diverse as.
Grace: [00:13:36] Yes. Oh, my.
Liel: [00:13:37] Yeah, it was terrible, right? Terrible, terrible, terrible. So you don’t want to do that, right? You don’t want to be that. Latinos are more than just food category or anything that you would be reduced to commodity. So be mindful about that in your messaging and really speak to individuals, speak to their interests and really look at the culture.
Grace: [00:14:01] Don’t stereotype people. I mean, nobody wants to be stereotyped, much less the Hispanic community. And to be called a taco is extremely offensive. So just don’t do it. And if you’re not sure, speak to your Latin community and this Latin staff that you should have because they can tell you and steer you in the right direction and what not to say, because that is very offensive.
Liel: [00:14:25] It is great. It’s we’re in an age in a time where your intentions, as well-intended as they are, will not get you out of this kind of trouble. Businesses are expected to do better. So keep that in mind. Grace The next one that I think is super, super important is speak their language, right? Speak Spanish, make your law firm inclusive to Spanish speakers. It’s very important that we differentiate here that not all Latinos or Spanish speakers, you can be a Latino and you can be a native English speaker and come to a law firm and speak in English. But there are also Latinos who their mother tongue is Spanish, and they would be more comfortable interacting with your team in Spanish, so have that option available to them. And one great way of enabling that as an option is by having actual bilingual staff in your law firm. Now, I’m not going to be blind to the fact that not every single market in the United States has that much labor force that are bilingual. It’s just, you know, in many markets, it’s a scarcity. And that’s another thing. Another thing that that’s why you also need to to to keep in mind, like, if you want to be competitive, you need to be one step ahead of the competition and be attractive to Latino to the Latino workforce, especially the lawyers who are graduating from law from from law school right now and that are Latinos. You have no idea how much value they’ll bring to your organization if you can actually attract them and make them want to work with you. So that’s one thing. But with that being said, you can only do as much with the current resources you have. So open up an opportunity to your team and to yourself to learn the language and Grace. I will say here there is actually courses, whether it’s universities and online, that are specifically built for lawyers who.
Grace: [00:16:33] Are.
Liel: [00:16:34] Interested in learning Spanish as a way of being able to use it for their business. And obviously, this is meant for consumer focused attorneys and we will add some links here on the episode. And these are I mean, you know, Stanford is giving an actual course in Spanish for lawyers. So just so you get an idea that this is not something that it’s just happening on online universities.
Grace: [00:17:01] So it’s not going to go away.
Liel: [00:17:03] Pretty respected. Oh, yeah.
Grace: [00:17:04] So just like Liel said.
Liel: [00:17:06] From 100%.
Grace: [00:17:06] Right at the beginning, the 20% of the market and it’s only going to increase. So the reality is to be able to. Communicate with your clients and who your clients are. You should try your best to try and speak the language because it’s only going to help you, help your clients, and prospectively help everybody that you touch. When it comes to that, because it is a cultural thing, it is an understanding of not just the language but of the culture, right? So when you’re taught how to speak to somebody in legal terms in Spanish and how to explain things in a way that you would normally would in English with someone that only speaks Spanish, it can only help help your business, help you develop yourself and help your staff. Right. I have an attorney that can speak the language, even if I can’t as a staff member or if I’m a bilingual staff member or a Spanish speaking staff member of a law firm. And I know that my the partner of the firm or one of the attorneys cared enough to do that. It’s a big difference. And that’s a big way of attracting talent, even to to your firm, because you care enough not so much about my community, but you care enough to learn the language to help my community. And that is a big difference, I got to tell you, because I have seen it and I’ve seen people that make the effort as attorneys to learn the language. And how can they help me and my mom? I mean, she’s one of those that if you can speak and if at least you try, she’d rather have you as an attorney than somebody who only speaks English and may or may not care about her as a community, as a Hispanic person. It makes a difference.
Liel: [00:18:46] Yeah. Absolutely. Grace. Absolutely. And you need to keep in mind, right, that language has as itself, Spanish as itself is not just a matter of making your law firm accessible to people that actually speak that language and they are limited that language and they need to communicate with you in that language. It’s a signal you’re sending to the entire Latino population, those who are native English speakers as well, that you care about the community, that you’re taking steps to really be able to serve them in a way that they will be welcomed, comfortable, and they will feel safe. Right. And I think those are things that most particularly speaking about personal injury lawyers, workers compensation lawyers, all of these practice areas, they want to create that type of environment for their clients. And so doing that is actually putting you one step ahead of many other law firms that are not taking it yet. They are after their cases. So Grace. We’ve already mentioned that higher Latino talent is super important, but we’ve also talked about, well, in many markets there is scarcity about it. So what are you doing to promote more Latino lawyers in the nation? Right. I’m yet to meet a law firm who is not tried to do some sort of community outreach or marketing through scholarships in the last ten years. And I really wonder how many of them have actually focused scholarships to help aspiring Latino lawyers. Right. And this goes back to what we were talking about. Make your law firm attracting to young talent that you’re going to need in order to stay relevant five, ten years from now.
Liel: [00:20:49] And this brings us back to the whole conversation about where the legal industry is heading to now that non-lawyer law firm ownership is a thing and acquisition of law firms is going to be a thing. What do you think is going to make a law firm more attractive to investors? A law firm that is inclusive to the general market, or a law firm that is limited to a very specific segment of the market? What’s more scalable? Right. And so that’s what your vision and strategy should be. And again, going back to it, because you’re generally care about it, because otherwise you’re going to see yourself in the same spot that the NFL is right now. I don’t know. I don’t know. Grace, if you if you this just happened today, of course. So it’s fairly new. But, you know, Hispanic Heritage Month started yesterday. And so what happens? All of the big brands, every single big brand out there has been working for months, not to say at least a year in their entire Hispanic Heritage Month activities and marketing efforts. Right. Because at the end of the day, let’s call things for what they are. Most of the things that happen surrounding Hispanic Heritage Month are marketing initiatives from corporations that are trying to monetize it. That’s it, period. There is no way to cover this up. Right? But here is the thing. Who gets away with it and who doesn’t get away with it? Who gets away with it in good terms and comes out winning? Are those are well, I mean, they’re not just talking about law firms.
Liel: [00:22:31] We’re talking about business in general that actually put up the work throughout the year to really win the trust and the the loyalty of the market. Who comes who who doesn’t stand out and actually end up coming out of this? Well, are the brands that are just showing up for Latinos in this month and then they’re going to get called out by the community. And that’s exactly what happened or is happening to the NFL, right? The NFL just yesterday launched their new Hispanic Heritage Month logo, which is as dumb as it can get, because what they did, Grace, is they added an ñ. And ñ, they don’t stroke. They did like a stroke over the end on the NFL so that it makes it Latino. Right, ñ? But what just like the most basic part of it all is that the moment that you add that you make your n and ñ, the name changes. We don’t it’s not NFL. Right. So why why would you even do something like that? Right. So very, very, very lame attempt. But then in the announcement of it, they’ve also put up their some sort of word salad talking about the unmistakable Latino flavor. And it’s like, what are you talking about? And what is an unmistakable Latin flavor, right? Because as far as we all know, the Latino community is very diverse and particularly getting into flavor. There is not one Latino flavor, right? There is many.
Liel: [00:24:16] And that’s what makes us special, diverse and unique in our own way. And to try to make it all, one package is not great. Now, I’ll tell you one thing. Race this. Any other brand gets away with it. There is a lot of scrutiny. That skin that’s getting into this campaign, it’s really not that terrible as we are criticizing it to be. It’s not great, but it’s not that terrible. The problem here is that we’re talking about the NFL, the NFL. Latino fanbase has only been growing over the past few years. It’s just growing and growing and growing. And the NFL makes millions of dollars every single year from their Latino fanbase. But here is the problem. The problem is that there is not representation of Latinos in the sports. So if you are not addressing that issue, if you’re not actually showing initiatives that are making the sport more more inclusive at all levels, not just at a fan base, but at the game itself, more inclusive to Latinos. Then don’t come around when the Hispanic Heritage Month time is with this nonsense messages because there are not going to be welcomed because they are not consistent with your action. And yes, they created a website which is called Por La Cultura, and yes, they’re highlighting characters and bringing J Balvin to talk about Latino comedy. But that’s marketing. Show it with your actions, make it obvious to the Latino community that you’re actually taking steps to welcome them to the sport, not just as fans, but also as actual participants of the sport.
Grace: [00:26:06] I actually have a very, very specific thought on that, and that is just yesterday when I was watching football, Thursday Night Football with my husband and I happened to notice there’s a show that I watched. It’s basically like the Hard Knock show and it shows you like things when they’re doing practice sessions and practice runs and people that are going to get drafted or not or, you know, basically people that are going to work for part of the team. And there was one Hispanic one. Right. And one of the comments that I happened to make at that time, not knowing that this was going to come out today with the Hispanic ñ FL. Come on. That’s not. Anyway, so with that being said, I actually did make a comment and I was like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hispanic player other than the kicker. Right. And that is because generally speaking, and, you know, not to be stereotypical, but the reality is, you know, they’re phenomenal soccer players, you know, fútbol, which is what it’s called in Spanish, but not American fútbol. Football, which is soccer in America. You know, here soccer players are the only Hispanic consistently Hispanic players that I’ve ever I personally have ever seen in the NFL. I personally have never seen any executive members or other owners or really anything other than kickers that are in Hispanic crazy.
Liel: [00:27:40] Yeah. I mean, let’s let’s go step by step, right? Let’s start with players and coaches. And you see, if you do the research and obviously there’s you know, you and I are not here coming up.
Grace: [00:27:52] As experts in NFL.
Liel: [00:27:53] No, the football. Yeah there have been great. There have been. But when you’re looking at percentages, you’re talking at less than 1%. Exactly less than 1%. And you’re talking about a nation that nowadays, going back to our opening, 20% of the US population right now is Latino. It is estimated that the NFL has a fan base of over 30 million.
Grace: [00:28:17] I mean, some of the biggest games that they have had in terms of attendance have been in Mexico for American football.
Liel: [00:28:26] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s and that’s and that’s a complete different demographic there. But yes. Yes, the point is, is that it’s very, very popular. And I’ll tell you what, kids are playing it like it’s a sport right now. Soccer is having like a.
Grace: [00:28:42] Resurgence, having having it.
Liel: [00:28:44] Today. It’s having a huge momentum here in the United States. And thank God, because it’s really, really exciting what’s happening in there. Maybe in another conversation, we’re going to talk about the massive opportunity that there is in sponsorship of of teams, particularly when you’re when you’re looking at MLS’s. But the bottom line is that football is also popular amongst Latino kids. It’s just where are they getting where are all of they where are all the initiatives to to bring them in and make the path between liking the sports and playing it as a child to building up a career on that. Right. And we just need more from organizations to bridge the gap. And the NFL here is just an example of how does that look like when you’re coming out with a marketing strategy, with an idea and it just fails to deliver because what you’re doing outside of that doesn’t live up to the expectations of your audience. So. Grace That’s our episode, and I think we are ready to just wrap up here with some takeaways, which I’m sure we’re not going to have any issues coming up with. So you’re always go first.
Grace: [00:30:07] I guess I’ll address the Google Core update. You absolutely need to pay attention to it. And if you’re doing any tactics that are black hat meaning not correct and trying to game the system, you will get dinged again. So just make sure that whatever you’re doing that is consistent. Correct. And what? Tactics you should be able to and everything should shake out within the next few days after the core update is done. Your ranking shouldn’t be too affected again if you’re doing it correctly. If you notice that they are and there’s something that you’re not doing that you’re doing and still correct. You can reach out to Google. Guys like Google is a company that you can and it may be a while before they communicate back with you, but they do respond eventually. So if there’s not if there’s not an issue with the core update, you’re doing everything you’re supposed to and you don’t see too much of a ranking change. Count yourself lucky and happy because you’re doing it right. Otherwise, if you’re doing blackhat tactics, just know that this is going to mess with your rankings and you will fall to the bottom because that’s what Google does.
Liel: [00:31:16] I’ll I’ll say this. Good luck to anyone contacting Google for a ranking.
Grace: [00:31:22] Yes. They don’t care.
Liel: [00:31:23] Good, good. Good luck on hearing back on that one. Grace Yeah. core updates are important, and that’s a fact. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Hispanic Heritage Month, right? I think the biggest lesson that we’ve learned on day number two of Hispanic Heritage Month is that this needs to be authentic. This cannot be something that you just show up. Put up a post on LinkedIn, happy Hispanic Heritage Month with a sombrero, a donkey and a taco and a bottle of tequila. Right. This is not what this is about. Your Latino community expects more from you live up to their expectations. Oc And community outreach is fantastic. It’s where everything starts. But I think it’s also very important as your growing as a law firm, that you do not make the mistake of not looking at the diversity that is inside your organization. And you see, I’m not saying that you should be setting up diversity goals, but you should. We need to have an awareness level that answers to the question in a very, very, very simple yes or no. And that is am I really inclusive to my market, to my general population. Because if you have doubts or the answer is no, then there is something there that needs to be fixed.
Grace: [00:33:00] You know, I count myself extremely lucky to be in a in a in a law firm that has always, since the very beginning, embraced diversity. And how diverse are we? A lot of the upper executive membership is not just Hispanic, but diverse and female. So, you know, I have to say, I know I don’t know if it’s luck or what, but I know that comes from the top. And Edward Lake of the Lake law firm has always promoted diversity across the board, whether it’s culturally, you know, race or otherwise, female, male, whatever it might be. He’s always embraced diversity and in turn allowed me to create a hiring and a structure within our organization that promotes that right. We have a Puerto Rico office. We have a managing partner who is Hispanic. She is a female on top of everything else. And we actually attracted another Puerto Rican attorney from the other side, the defense side, because he liked what we had and what we stood for in our offices and as a whole. So I count myself lucky, but at the same time, this is something that can be done literally by anybody. And you want to know how I found her? I actually found her and found her as well. And we found the other individual together. So it’s because that is part of our structure. It’s part of who we are. And if you can accept, particularly in this day and age and you have a remote law firm, you can attract talent. You can attract talent because what we care about, at least what I care about is a good work life balance.
Grace: [00:34:52] But a company that cares about me and my community and I truly believe that with who I’m working with now. And as Liel said, if you’re not authentic, you will not get there, you will not be able to get there. So you need to ask yourself that hard question Am I truly attracting that talent? Am I truly attracting a diverse group of people? And if it takes Hispanic Heritage Month and these faux pores from these massive brands to do that and to make you realize that you can’t just put an ñ and a donkey on something and a burro and a Mexican hat and think that that’s going to attract the Hispanic community. If you think that, then you need a new lesson in an ethics, in culture, in everything. I’m sorry, and I hate to say it that way, but that’s the reality of it. You know how many times I’ve seen I mean, look, like you said, this massive brand, how could they be so out of touch? So out of touch with all the money and people? And it’s because they don’t have the diversity within their organization to tell them, what are you doing? This is wrong on every level. Don’t be calling people tacos and don’t be adding an ñ something because you think it’s fun and funny. No, it’s not fun or funny. It’s bad, it’s crass, and it looks terribly on you as a massive organization.
Liel: [00:36:13] Yeah. It does matter who’s calling the shots. It doesn’t matter who is in the room where shots are being taken. I have no doubt that the NFL has Latinos within their organization. I just don’t know how much of a say they had in all of this. Right. And again, I do want to make it clear that they that they do have an initiative behind this. It’s not just a social media post that they’ve created, but obviously it did not set up the right tone and it actually shed light in a lot of the other inefficiencies that they’ve had, more so than, you know, open up the door to. All right. You know, these these guys have been living up to their you know, Grace, I don’t I don’t want to deviate here. But also this week, Patagonia, right. You’ve heard about it?
Grace: [00:37:02] Yes, I have. I didn’t hear what happened, but I. I know that.
Liel: [00:37:07] Patagonia just basically took the entire company, 3 billion word company, and they gave it to a cell phone, I believe, to a set of foundations, the entire company, to the to foundations and nonprofits and organizations that are basically sole purpose is earth preservation, like global warming, prevention, the whole thing. The entire company went to these organizations. That’s what the owner of Patagonia wanted it. He, he, he he had a goal. He had an a y, right, as we all call it. Right. So, so famous in corporate world, too, to have a y. His Y was the world. And he actually lived up to the expectations by giving away the company to save the world. And so when you have that and people see that right, it’s genuine. You earn the respect when you are playing by different set of rules and then come up and say, Yeah, I care, right? It just doesn’t show up when. When imagine if Patagonia, instead of being authentic and who they are, they would go on and mark it and so forth about saving the world and being outdoors and, you know, not throwing away your clothes and all of the things that Patagonia does. And at the same time, they were shareholders.
Grace: [00:38:36] A fracking company.
Liel: [00:38:37] Exactly. Fracking, which is so common nowadays. Right. That that companies are diversifying. And so imagine how that message would be perceived. But no, they actually where genuine, authentic. And they’re getting a lot of praise. I mean, it’s really unmeasurable. The amount of positive media and mentions that they’ve gotten over the past week just because put.
Grace: [00:39:01] Their money where their mouth was, huh?
Liel: [00:39:03] Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that’s exactly what you should be using here as a role model of what’s the good way? What’s the wrong way. All right, Grace and yes, just to bring your take away to to kind of like wrap it up, it all starts from the top. It all starts with.
Grace: [00:39:22] It sure does. And I’m proof of that, honestly, because it can’t all came from Ed when it came to the talent and the allowing me to diversify our talent and him looking for talent that was diversified, it always came from him. So, you know, to me, it’s always been exciting to be here because of that and how diverse we are. And you know, you know me, Liel, now of at least three years. So you know that that we we talk to talk and walk the walk here when it comes to that.
Liel: [00:39:50] That’s right, Grace. Well, thank you very, very much for a great conversation. And we’ll be back in two weeks. So. All right, Grace, thank you. And have a great rest of your day. And if you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your coworkers, leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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