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How to Position Your Brand with Multicultural Markets
Leyanis Diaz is a Bilingual Business Expert & Consultant, Community & Economic Development Leader, and the visionary Founder of MAJOR, an online platform dedicated to supporting diverse entrepreneurs. With over a decade of experience empowering small business owners and professionals across the U.S. and Latin America, Leyanis helps bridge the language and resource gaps that often hold entrepreneurs back. Her work has impacted startups, nonprofits, and economic development organizations alike—helping them better reach and serve multicultural communities through inclusive programming, training, and strategy. Her mission is simple: to make business education and support accessible, actionable, and culturally relevant. For more information: wearemajor.com
SmallBizLady: What’s the biggest mistake you see brands make when trying to market to multicultural audiences?
Leyanis Diaz: One of the biggest mistakes is treating multicultural marketing like a one-off campaign instead of an ongoing strategy. I often see businesses translate an ad into Spanish and think that’s enough. But language isn’t culture. You can’t copy and paste messaging from one audience to another. Communities want to feel seen, not just sold to. You have to understand their values, struggles, humor, and buying behavior. Inclusive marketing starts with listening, then creating content with the community, not just for them.
SmallBizLady: How can a small business start connecting with multicultural audiences authentically—even on a budget?
Leyanis Diaz: You don’t need a big agency or a huge ad budget to do this well. Start by showing up where your audience already is—local events, community spaces, and platforms they use. Build real relationships with community leaders, influencers, and customers. Ask questions. Use your social media to spotlight diverse voices, languages, and stories. And be intentional about representation in your visuals and messaging. Authenticity doesn’t cost a lot—it just requires care, effort, and consistency.
SmallBizLady: What’s the difference between inclusive marketing and tokenism? How can businesses avoid crossing that line?
Leyanis Diaz: Tokenism is performative—it’s when a brand uses a person or cultural reference for optics, without deeper engagement or understanding. Inclusive marketing, on the other hand, is rooted in purpose. It means your team is diverse, your campaigns are co-created with community insight, and your business is committed to equity beyond marketing. To avoid tokenism, ask yourself: “Am I just using this group for visibility, or am I investing in them as customers, collaborators, and partners?” If it’s the latter, you’re on the right track.
SmallBizLady: How can Latina entrepreneurs build credibility in industries where they may feel overlooked or underestimated?
Leyanis Diaz: First, you must believe in your own value—before you expect anyone else to. Building credibility starts with showing up consistently, delivering on your promises, and sharing your story with confidence. Don’t be afraid to highlight your wins, even the small ones. Also, leverage your community. Let your results and your clients speak for you. Most importantly, understand that your lived experience is a strength. The way you solve problems, connect with people, and lead from a place of heart—that’s what sets you apart. Own it.
How to Turn Your Divine Gifts into a Business
Michelle Kopper believes your calling is your compass. It’s the key to creating impact and prosperity. She helps coaches, healers, and experts turn visibility into income. With over 30 years of experience, she’s helped thousands share their voice and turn visibility into prosperity. From the inside-out. As CEO of The Inspired Voice Business Coaching, she helps clients refine messaging, elevate presence, and grow faster. She’s a master at helping leaders create more impact by stepping more fully into who they truly are. For more information: www.michellekopper.com
SmallBizLady: How Do You Discover Your Purpose?
Michelle Kopper: Purpose isn’t something you find—it’s something you recognize by paying attention to what keeps calling you back. It’s the thing that lights you up, the idea or dream that won’t leave you alone.
Your calling won’t quit. You can ignore it, bargain with it, or try to push it aside, but it will keep tugging at you. It might show up as resistance or frustration at first because it asks more of you. But when you tune in and listen, your calling becomes your compass, guiding you toward the work you’re meant to do.
The real work is trusting it—learning to follow it even when it doesn’t make logical sense, even when fear shows up, even when the path isn’t clear. For me, my purpose showed up in my voice—first as a whisper, then as a song, and eventually as a business. I had to clear my own resistance, fear, and self-doubt before I could step fully into it. But once I did, I realized that my purpose wasn’t just about expressing my voice—it was about helping others express theirs. That’s when everything shifted.
SmallBizLady: How Can You Turn Your Divine Gifts into a Business?
Michelle Kopper: Your gifts are meant to be shared, and business is one of the most powerful vehicles for doing that. The key is aligning your work with who you are at the deepest level—your Frequency Factor™—so your business becomes a true extension of your calling, not just a job or a hustle.
I spent years believing that once I found my voice, the rest would just happen. But getting paid for my gifts required something different—it required me to become a conduit for them, to let them flow through me in a way that others could receive. That meant learning how to package, position, and offer my work so that people could say yes to it.
The turning point was when I realized that I AM a conduit—that my message, my voice, and my energy don’t just come from me; they flow through me in a way that serves others. And the truth is, we are all conduits. When we learn to allow that flow—when we stop forcing, filtering, or second-guessing ourselves—we naturally connect our calling to our content, our presence to our people, and our voice to the work we’re here to do. This is how we grow our audience and our revenue from the inside out—not by chasing, pushing, or trying to fit into someone else’s formula, but by fully owning and expressing what wants to come through us. When we align with that, everything shifts. We stop chasing clients and start attracting them. We stop pushing and start allowing. And most importantly, we step into the next version of ourselves—the version that knows our work is valuable and isn’t afraid to own it.
SmallBizLady: Inspired Action vs. Required Action—How It Affects Entrepreneurs?
Michelle Kopper: Inspired action is when you take action from a place of alignment, excitement, and intuition. It feels natural, like a pull rather than a push. It’s the kind of action that generates momentum and creates results with ease. It’s following that nudge to reach out, to go live, to make the offer—not because you “have to,” but because you feel the energy behind it.
Required action, on the other hand, is action taken from obligation, fear, or a sense of “should.” It’s checking the boxes, following someone else’s formula, or grinding out work that doesn’t feel aligned. Required action often leads to burnout because it drains energy rather than fueling it.
For entrepreneurs, the biggest shift happens when you start leading with inspired action. That doesn’t mean you skip strategy or structure—it means you build those things around your own energy, your own gifts, and your own intuitive knowing. When I stopped forcing myself to follow rigid marketing tactics and instead trusted my voice, my presence, and my message, my business transformed. The key is learning to tune in, listen, and trust that the right action is always available to you—it just might not look like what everyone else is doing.
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