Attention Minorities: Business Ownership Has Its Advantages!
MBE Certifications provide specific proof that your business is 51% or more owned, controlled, and operated by one or more minorities. “MBE” stands for Minority Business Enterprise. The term can generically be used to refer to any minority-owned business, whether or not that business has a formal certification.
With those definitions, lets explore some of the ways that you can use multiple levels of MBE certifications to expand your minority-owned business. Your business can obtain an MBE certification at a local government level, state government level, federal government level, and at a national level (for selling to Corporate America). You should obtain one or more of these certifications depending on whom you would like to sell your products and services to.
For example, if you are interested in selling to a state government agency, then consider a state MBE certification, but if you want to sell to various large corporations then you should consider a national certification.
Although not always required to have a certification to do business with a government agency or Corporate America, as a practical matter some of them do require or encourage you to have a certification. You can increase your chances of getting business from them by having an MBE certification.
Why would having these certifications increase your success in obtaining business from the government and Corporate America? Because many state and local government agencies and large corporations that receive government funding are required to award a certain percentage of their contracts to minority owned businesses. Furthermore, while the federal government does not have specific projects set aside just for minorities, they do make efforts to award a specific percentage of their contracts to minorities as well. Thus, with an MBE certification, you can increase your chances of getting work from the government and Corporate America to help them meet their quotas.
If you sell products or services that government agencies in your state would be interested in buying, then you should explore the option of obtaining a MBE certification in your state (if your state offers a MBE certification program).
In fact, one strategy that can be very effective in helping your business obtain even more sales is to obtain MBE certifications in multiple states. Many people are not aware that you can obtain certifications in states other than the one in which you are located. But you absoultely can, and should consider this if you want to sell to state government agencies in more than one state - and get the increased “special advantages” that MBE certifications offer you.
It certainly will take more effort to obtain MBE certifications in different states. Unfortunately, every state has a separate MBE certification process and paperwork. Dont spend your time obtaining a certification unless you have identified one or more state government agencies that you are targeting in a particular state.
In addition, a very effective strategy to consider is to obtain state MBE certifications to aid in selling to state government(s), to use a federal MBE certification to aid in selling to the federal government, and to use a national MBE certification to aid in selling to large corporations. If your business sells a product or service that any or all of these entities would buy, then you may benefit from obtaining these multiple levels of MBE certification.
The bottom line is that you should first carefully consider the ideal customer is for your products and services. You would then need to identify the level of certification that will best increase your chances of obtaining them as your customer. If you are not interested in Corporate America, or government agencies, then it would not likely be worth your time to pursue any of these certifications.
But if you have determined that one of your ideal customers does in fact include one of these wealthy clients, then you should definitely pursue the MBE certification targeted to that ideal customer. It cannot hurt, and can only help increase your chances of getting work from that potential customer.
Denise Gosnell is an attorney, entrepreneur, and world-recognized author on business, technology, and legal topics. To learn more about obtaining and leveraging minority business certifications, make sure you check out Denise’s FREE MBE certification Kit at http://www.mbecert.com.