Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of Rhode Island entrepreneurs. To get a sense of the issues they face, Providence Business News is following 15 people through a 12-week business planning course for Latino entrepreneurs at the R.I. Small Business Development Center. This is the ninth article in the series.
Andres Almonte started ABC Insurance 13 years ago. Since then, he’s grown the business from about 70 clients in the first year to 1,342 today.
By the end of next year, he would like to be serving 3,000 clients and have a second office in Providence for his son, who recently became licensed to sell insurance.
Almonte said he sees the potential to grow because “everyone needs insurance.” But there’s more to it than that.
People come to him, he said, because he provides more than just insurance. Almonte also translates for his Latino clients, who make up the majority of his business, and serves as a mentor to small business owners when they need advice.
Providing those extra services has allowed Almonte to build relationships with his clients, who are extremely loyal, he said.
He knows he could attract more clients, he said, but to serve them, he’ll need to hire at least two more employees, bringing his staff total to five. He’ll also need to upgrade office equipment, he said. And build some capital for marketing. Until now, his marketing has depended on word-of-mouth.
That’s why Almonte is participating in the R.I. Small Business Development Center’s Primer Paso FastTrac 12-week business planning workshop. His goal is to qualify for a loan so he can expand his business.
After nine weeks of attending the class, which is being taught in Spanish as a way to reach out to Latino entrepreneurs, Almonte is halfway to accomplishing his goal. He applied for a $35,000 microenterprise loan from the R.I. Economic Development Corporation almost two months ago and is awaiting a response.
(Victor Barros, urban development manager at the EDC, attributed the delay partly to the absence of the EDC’s bilingual account executive, who has been out of the office for weeks due to complications from a car accident.)
In addition to helping him apply for the loan, Almonte said, the class is teaching him the importance of planning ahead. Previously, he said, he was just selling and selling with no focus or direction or plan for the future.
Though the business is profitable, he said, he felt it was in disarray, because he has so many clients and not enough employees to make follow-up calls and provide other services to meet their needs.
In a recent class, Almonte said, he also learned the importance of keeping track of cash flow. Though he already has an accountant and accounting software, it was good to hear the importance of cash flow reiterated, he said, adding that he is passing along many of the lessons to his clients.
Almonte himself has come a long way since he moved to Providence from the Dominican Republic in 1984. It took him about six years of working in a factory and taking English classes at night to prepare for the tests required for his insurance license. Then he worked for John Hancock Insurance and Financial Services in Warwick for three years.
Today, though he’s not the only bilingual insurance agent in town, Almonte said, he’s still in a good position. “I think one of the biggest advantages I have is the ability to communicate with the people.”
