I have a client, a nice lady from El Salvador, whom I represent in a stupid custody case -- someone, either her son or his whacky wife, abused her first grandson. It's a terrible case, actually. Thirteen broken bones on a three month old child.
And we spend a lot of time in court, just sitting around, waiting for the case to be called. So I have learned a lot about her and her business.
The first thing I learned, months and months ago, is that people learn business slow and hard. She saved up $300K for a restaurant, but did not know that you don't give the money all at once, you give it in tranches, as the work is done. So she gave the entire $300K to the builder, and he was never seen again. Left the country. That was two or three years ago.
The second thing I learned, a couple of days ago, is that she saved up enough money to try again. Amazing amount of money she makes just selling groceries and sundries to Latinos. Just one little lady from El Salvador, with 17 employees and a lot of drive. There is so much money around here. Very few of these guys have green cards and nobody cares.
Anyway her stupid son is probably going to be deported.
But what she is thinking about is selling frozen pupusas and cabbage in jars, wholesale, to other Latino groceries. And she should be thinking about getting incorporated and non-compete agreements and non-disclosure agreements, and she wants me to help her. I do want to help her, I think she's remarkable.
I doubt very much she or anybody in her family can compete with a Chinese boy or girl about math.
But you don't need to be a rocket scientist to sell pupusas. All you need to do is make it taste like home.
I see these people who come here from Latin America. They work all day and all night. They work very hard. They do beautiful work. All they want is what everybody else wants -- they want nice things for their family. They want a nice house. They want a nice car. They want respect.
Here I don't think it matters what color you are.
What matters is forming bonds. That's the way you get rich. |
