Even when advisors have good knowledge of their clients' cultural background, there are hurdles to overcome. Daniel Yasharel, vice president of AFP Group in West Los Angeles, is a native of Iran who has been working with Iranian clients since 1987. There are times, he says, when he has difficulty selling his clients on the idea of life insurance, because in Iran the tradition is that after the death of a family member, the survivors are always cared for by other relatives.
"The idea of life insurance, even after being in the United States after 25 years, is something they're a bit uneasy with," Yasharel says. "However, people who grew up here and are in their forties or fifties, or under, are more receptive to life insurance."
Mortgages are also a more difficult concept to convey than with U.S. citizens, because so many of his clients had homes in Iran that were passed down through generations of family members.
There are other inconveniences as well. It took Yasharel months to figure out how to translate the meaning of "due diligence" to his clients. And when he's confronted with products that use baseball analogies, he's at a loss for ways to convey them to a clientele whose main sports interest is soccer. "With an American-born prospect, it is a lot easier," he says.
Yet, like other advisors serving ethnic communities, he says the rewards are lasting relationships that often cross over to a second generation of family members. Yasharel, for instance, often acts as an advisor on ancillary issues he has no direct involvement with, such as educating his clients on Social Security regulations, passing along books on sales and marketing to his business-owner clients and reviewing loan documents.
Ironically, Yasharel, who has about 130 clients and $15 million under management, didn't consciously plan to specialize in serving the Iranian community.
"You don't want to limit yourself, but that's your natural market," he says. "It keeps coming to you because of the commonality of culture."