Episode 1303: How Advisors Can Tap the Hispanic Market Without Speaking Spanish with Digna Deleon-Morris

Building a successful business takes more than hard work; it takes the right systems, mentors, leadership, and a mission bigger than yourself. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews Digna Deleon-Morris, Co-Founder of Nationwide Financial Firm, who shares her journey from arriving in the United States at 17 and earning $5.25 an hour to leading one of the fastest-growing Hispanic financial firms in the country. A Forbes-featured entrepreneur whose agents have produced more than $30 million in business, she explains how a devastating financial setback became the catalyst for a new mission centered on financial education and entrepreneurship. Digna also discusses the systems, mentorship, marketing, and leadership development that have helped her build a bilingual organization serving families and aspiring business owners nationwide. Key Takeaways: → Sustainable business growth depends on systems, marketing, culture, and leaders who can replicate the model. → A business becomes more scalable when leaders can teach others to replicate the system successfully. → Treating people well and helping them succeed are central to building a strong organization. → Bilingual financial education helps Latinos access more opportunities in the United States. → Success can breed complacency, so leaders must focus on the mission and on helping the next person succeed. Digna Deleon-Morris is a nationally recognized entrepreneur, financial educator, and co-founder of Nationwide Financial Firm, one of the fastest-growing life insurance agencies serving the Hispanic market in the United States. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Digna began her career earning $5.25 an hour and rose to manage an $82 million corporate territory before transitioning to entrepreneurship. After a major financial setback in 2016, she rebuilt her life with a mission to help families protect their income and build generational wealth. Alongside her husband, Willy Morris, Digna built a scalable virtual business model that has empowered hundreds of agents nationwide to start their own agencies and serve clients in both English and Spanish. Today, their organization generates millions in annual premium and continues to expand, driven by a commitment to leadership, faith, and legacy. Digna is passionate about helping Hispanic families reclaim their identity, build wealth with purpose, and create a future that extends beyond a single generation. Connect With Digna: Website: https://www.joinnationwidefinancialfirm.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dignadeleonmorris/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast with Kevin Harrington and Seth Green. Kevin Harrington is the inventor of the infomercial, one of the original sharks from the hit TV show Shark Tank, and has generated over $5 billion in TV and digital direct response sales. Seth Green is the world's first trusted authority on cutting-edge direct response marketing, a bestselling author, and the only three-time marketer of the year nominee. On the podcast, Kevin and Seth interview sharkpreneurs who share straight talk on what it takes to explode your business.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Forty-nine faces looked to him in triumph. Over the last 12 months, they had each taken turns and promoted his business for a week at a time, driving over $987,342 in revenue. What if you had a network of 50 centers of influence who promoted your business every week for a year? Grab your copy of the number one Amazon bestselling book, The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with a Podcast at 33% off the Amazon price by going to ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Again, that website for 33% off the Amazon price is ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Welcome to the podcast. This is your host Seth Green. Today, I've got the fortune to be interviewing Digna Deleon-Morris, who has such an incredible story.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Came to the United States at the age of 17, started working at $5.25 an hour, and now is running one of the fastest-growing Hispanic financial firms in the country that Forbes just featured. Digna, thank you so much for joining us.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  You're welcome. Super excited to be here. Thank you.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  You are welcome. Our pleasure. Let's go back in time a little bit. You came to the country at the age of 17. Where did you first work at $5.25 an hour?

• 1:46Speaker 02

  So, yes, that was a drugstore in New York. Tough place to work, but I started. I knew English, which was great. I knew English when I came here. I went to school in the Dominican Republic, and I just started as a cashier, and I thought that was my way to the American dream. So, I went to college. I got two degrees while While still working and and I climbed that ladder. So I went through different positions. Uh, it wasn't easy and so, but I, I, I managed to grow in that industry. And then to realize I was in the wrong place, which is crazy. Many years later, I'm like, what did I do in my life? I need to be an owner.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I believe, you know, climb that corporate ladder to the point where you were running an eighty-two million dollar territory. Um, what happened in two thousand and sixteen?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  So that this is the thing, I went to work for corporate and I gave it all, right? So like most people doing a job. Went and got the degrees, worked really hard. And then I realized I couldn't move any further up. Like they were like, this Latina girl isn't going anywhere. So I just felt stuck. And then my husband and I started doing businesses. And learning how to be entrepreneurs. It took me six years to get out of my own head as an employee. To transition to an entrepreneur and do the business. But then we want to have some success. We made millions of dollars in network marketing. And and we had a huge team, fifteen thousand people all over the country and ten other countries.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  And then in twenty sixteen, we lost it all. And the main reason why was because we didn't have financial education. And what seemed like a disaster at the time for us, because imagine you. You do all this work and and you finally make it and then you lose it all. And it's like, why, why God, why me? But then at that moment, all I wanted to do was to protect our family. And we had four small children at the time. And we're like, okay, we need a, a plan, a financial plan. And we started into this financial industry and it changed everything for us. It gave us purpose. Mission. And then now I'm like, I want to help a lot of families. To feel the way I felt that night when I went to sleep after protecting my, my family.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  That makes a lot of sense. So you got some financial advice, learned about financial planning, decided this is what you wanted to do. What was the first company that you went to work for in that space?

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yes, so and I tell you this because so important to know that when I was down at the lowest point, when you think it's over, you could only go up. So prayers was really big for me and my husband, prayers, and then deciding who do we work with. So we became students first and started to learn the industry. And I went to work with a big financial firm, and it was a lot of lies in there. They didn't tell you everything. I wanted to build an agency and they kept hiding things from us. Compensation wasn't right. We were calling friends and family, which we were used to doing network marketing,

• 5:03Speaker 02

  but that could only get you so far. And we realized after five years struggling with different companies, like something is missing. And then I was students, so we went to seminars and we got introduced to people that show us something totally different, where you could be a broker, where you could have more companies, where you could get paid daily, where you could have leads. And I'm like, what's a lead? And then I've learned the word of marketing and going into advertisement and finding people that wanted what we had, changed the game for us. And that's why we were able to scale up to where we are today,

• 5:46Speaker 02

  because we went through all of that. And today, our biggest mission is to find entrepreneurs in our industry. And even if they're just in the sales space, hey, there's a better way to do this. And we build a virtual business. We work from home, wherever we're traveling. And entrepreneurs, I guess, stories of people that came to us, I mean, drop out of high school, no English, and today running a multimillion dollar business. Single moms that came to the country with $200 on a child during the pandemic.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Today is running a multimillion dollar agency. Because the hard work was there. The desire was there. They just didn't have systems. They didn't have mentors. They didn't have someone that already done it. So for us, it's like, let's help the people. Let's, let's pour into people. And then we could have this business today. Thank God that we, we, you know, we care so much about the people we work with. That they are becoming leaders on the, you know, on their own right and helping others do the same thing.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  That is absolutely incredible. I believe your agency produced over thirty million dollars. What have been some of the biggest lessons you've learned going from zero to a thirty million dollar firm?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Well, I've learned that it's not about a product. It's not about the business. It's about people. And once, once you understand that, that it's about people, you treat people right. You make sure people get paid well. And they'll do anything. And then you got to build a culture around your business. And have system to support that. And then pouring into people, building leaders, that's what gets you to the thirty million, to the ten millions plus. And that's what we've done after so many failures. So we, we're not just starting in business. We've been in business for over twenty years. But we just didn't have the business the way we have it today. Cause we didn't have the system. We didn't have the marketing. And we didn't have the leaders. So now creating all of that.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Helps us scale at a whole different levels, right? So now it's pouring into my leaders. So they could do and duplicate what I did. Cause a business is not a, you know, a duplicatable business. It's just a job, in my opinion. You're just working really hard and turning the wheels. But. If you have somebody that could take your motto and duplicate somewhere else. Then you have something that's worth talking about. Cause now I have people within my organization. That have multimillion dollar businesses. Because they're duplicating the system that we created. And, and we work both languages, English and Spanish. My husband and my son. They take over the, the English side. And I just focus on the Latino community.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Cause that's a big need in the Latino community for financial education. For understand, like, I, I give you a quick story. I deliver a check, six hundred and fifty thousand dollar check to a family. A, a mom and two daughters, Mexican family. The father put a policy with us in twenty twenty. He didn't know he was gonna get sick. He got sick of chronic illness. We paid a living benefit of eighty seven thousand dollars. Helped him pay more, the mortgage, take care of himself. Well, he passed away in twenty twenty five. You know, behind is the wife that didn't work and two daughters that now have a future. They're gonna go to college, they're gonna have a career.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Because his father put this financial plan together through us. So that's what gives me joy, to continue to do that for, for our community.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Uh, you're running one of the fastest growing Hispanic financial firms in the country. Do I have to be Hispanic to be a part of it? Do I have to speak Spanish?

• 9:23Speaker 02

  No, you don't. That's the good news. We are bilingual. So we work with the English market the same way we do with the Spanish. The thing is that the Spanish has taken, you know, really fast. Because what's happening right now, millions of Hispanics are coming to the U.S. So first of all, you don't have to speak Spanish to work with us. We speak perfect English and we have an English system. But, um, the Hispanics that are coming lately to the States, they are professionals. I got doctors and lawyers and people that already had a career back in Venezuela, in Colombia, in Ecuador, in different places. And now they come here, they don't know the language. So they're now doing Uber and Amazon and cleaning houses and taking care of kids.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Because they don't know they could have a platform to serve over sixty seven million Latinos in the U.S. We have such a huge buying power in America. And if you don't understand the market, it's hard for them to trust you. So today, we, we, we're building Latinos entrepreneurs in the country. What, in their language, build the American dream in Spanish. I'm, I'm an advocate for that. We're gonna learn English, but we could do it in Spanish too.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  You have helped so many people achieve financial independence as part of your organization, and the ripple effect, helping so many of, helping their clients. What's your biggest challenge now?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  So my biggest challenge today, sometimes people come to us and they think like, "Okay, can we do something different?" Can, uh, you know, they want to recreate the system, and it's like, it already works. Just plug in and produce, right? But also continue to bring the message. One of the challenges I've been facing lately is people that had nothing two years ago, and now they get a hundred thousand dollars a month, and they could get, you know, lazy. They think they got it, they made it. And for me, it's more about the mission, continue to help the next person that still hasn't made a dollar in our agency, right? So that's one of the challenges. When you get to this level and you have people making money, people want to stop working.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  And for me, it's like, I want to work harder every single day. Like, I'm just getting started, my husband too. So that's one of the challenges.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Your passion is obvious. What do you like best about what you're doing?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  I love, I love to see the smile and the entrepreneurial side. When I get someone that's been fighting for years, like I was, and my husband, and they finally make it. They finally making money and they could buy the things, take care of their families. But then the other side of the clients, when I, when I help that family have that financial education, and at the same time know that if something happens tomorrow, just like that other family, they could have the support of a company that's going to continue that legacy, right? So I love that. If I could do that all day, every day, you don't even have to pay me to do it. I'll do it. I just continue to do that for families in America.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  That is awesome. Do you only work with folks who are new to the financial services industry? Or can existing financial advisors or insurance agents become a part of your organization?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  I love to work with everyone and here's what I say. Some people in my industry want to work with people that never had a license. And I get that. I prefer people that have a license and I'm going to tell you why. Because they're not going to have what I have to offer. They just don't have that right now. I have, I get people that were knocking on doors, calling friends and family. Very low compensation, no way to build an agency. And they come here to my, my system, what we already created. And they plug in and play and they're already running a multimillion dollar business. So I want people that have the experience, that haven't had the mentor, you know, the mentor of the systems to come and plug in. But I also want the new people that want to get into this industry because they've been, they just tired.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Like there's a lot of people in other industry in selling, knocking on doors, doing so many things. Working so hard when you could come and plug in in a place that's already working. So both are welcome.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  And we know your time's incredibly valuable. We greatly appreciate you spending some with us. For our folks who are watching or listening, where is the best place for them to go to learn more about you and the organization?

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So I'm an Instagram girl. So Dignadeleonmorris. It's where you're going to find me everywhere on social media with my name. D I G N A D E L E O N Morris, M O R R I S. I did put something together for your audience because I love what you guys are doing for entrepreneurs. And I put a package that I'm going to give for free. And it's Digna D Morris. So D I G N A D like David Morris, M O R R I S forward slash Charpeneur. And they're going to get a gift from me. I'm going to break down how we help people make money in our industry. And how they could just learn from what I've done and my, my failures and successes.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  And then just take whatever is good for you and leave the rest, right? So that's a gift for your audience and I, I am so grateful to be here today. And hopefully I know someone listening, they might not be Hispanics, but they know someone. They married to someone, they have a cousin, they have someone. Uh, send them my way. I want to help them and that's what I do all day, every day.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  We greatly appreciate it. That's dignitymorris.com/sharkpreneur. This has been Seth Green with Digna. Digna, thank you again for joining us.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  You're very welcome.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks, everybody, for watching or listening. We will talk to you or see you next time.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Why do so many businesses struggle while others seem to explode overnight? Do you wish you had the secret to this type of exponential growth? Now, I've scaled more than 20 businesses to over $100 million, and it's not just luck. In my new book with Mark Tim, Mentor to Millions, you'll learn the repeatable framework I use in all my business ventures for massive success. Order at kevinmentor.com and get over $1,000 in bonuses. Head to kevinmentor.com.