For Latino entrepreneurs in Milwaukee and around the state, barriers exist that simply make it harder for them to start a business than it is for their white counterparts. Until Nelson Soler founded his consulting business called the Multicultural Entrepreneurial Institute (MEI), there were no business trainings available in Spanish in the area and no trainings that took into account the cultural values of Latinos.
“We are working hard to ensure that Latinos in the region are in power and they have access to the same resources that everybody else gets,” says Soler. The company was founded with the goal of filling this need and providing business training, courses and resources that take into account the language barriers and culture for Latinos and refugees. Founded in 2006, the organization started small by answering calls from entrepreneurs who were asking for help. Over the past 15 years, it has grown into an all-inclusive training institute that teaches entrepreneurial skills at all levels. From basic computer literacy skills to courses on accounting, marketing and scaling a business, Soler has established these tools to meet the needs of any aspiring business owner.
It’s not enough to provide state-run courses on business training, Soler explains, the state has to specifically target and reach out to groups that don’t have the means to find these resources. To truly make resources accessible to all races and ethnicities, the tools have to be offered in their language and with their cultural practices in mind. The MEI resources are “always in a format that’s culturally relevant for [our clients], that are respectful of their cultural differences, and we incorporate that into everything we do,” states Soler.
Grassroots Culture
He explains that the Latino culture in Milwaukee is very grassroots-oriented, and they tend to interact in person or by phone. Therefore, his clients tend to be less computer literate and learn better in person or with their phones. To work with this issue, Soler often uses WhatsApp to communicate with his clients and has spent a lot of time developing courses that teach his students basic computer skills.
COVID provided a new challenge, making it harder to work within cultural norms. Soler’s trainings were often in person, but the pandemic forced the company to adapt and teach courses using Facebook Live or teach through plexiglass at their office. This made learning harder, but Soler made sure to change his practices based on the feedback of his community.
To date, Nelson Soler has helped more than 4,000 clients build their business through MEI trainings. He has shown pre-existing business training programs that it is possible to be inclusive when offering resources for the entrepreneurial community by considering the cultural and linguistic differences that hold back minority groups. “We became an aggregate builder between those worlds,” Soler says, “and it has worked for the last 15 years.”
Learn more about the Multicultural Entrepreneurial Institute at multiculturalinstitute.com.
View the article on the Shepherd Express, part of my regular Hero of the Month column.