Save the hassle, prep for certification

So, you want to get your business certified, but are you completely ready to pursue certification? Business owners often apply for certification without first reviewing the management structure and other vital aspects of their business, in order to safeguard that all certification requirements are met. The key to certification success is to conduct an in-depth…

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What Does It Mean to Be a Certified Diverse Owned Business

What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 2 (Why Certify) of our book Certify & Sell: Your Guide to Certification & Supplier Diversity. We get frequent calls from semi-panicked business owners whose client has just asked if they’re a certified diverse business. A surprising number of them ask us what that means; many think they…

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Know Your NAICS

North American Industry Classification System Codes, or NAICS Codes (Rhymes with Snakes!), is used by businesses and governments to classify and measure economic activity in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. NAICS is a 6-digit code system that is currently the standard used by federal statistical agencies in classifying establishments (individual business locations). Organizing establishments…

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Deep Dive: SBA 8(a) Program

We’ve received a number of requests for information about the SBA’s (Small Business Administration) 8(a) program recently – so this month we’ll be discussing this business development/contracting program. And that is the first big distinction: 8(a) is NOT a certification. While it does have eligibility and supporting document requirements similar to the diverse certification process;…

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Revisiting What’s Behind a Site Visit

2020 saw certifiers take the site visit virtual, but the purpose of a site visit remains the same. The certifier uses the site visit to verify the information you provided in the certification application and clarify any outstanding issues they might have found when the application was reviewed. Or in other words, they’re ensuring that…

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How Workers with Disabilities can use Technology to Advance Careers

We have a guest author this month, Marcus Lansky; Founder, Abilitator.biz While disabilities may have once held workers back from advancing their careers, starting a business, or obtaining a college degree, technology has made it easier than ever for individuals with physical, mental, intellectual, or communicative disabilities to achieve their personal and professional goals. From…

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Who Certifies?

There are many government and third-party programs offering SDMWVLGBTQBE (Small Disadvantaged or Disabled, Minority, Women, Veteran, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered or Queer Business Enterprise) certification in the United States. Let’s start with federal programs and go on from there. The Small Business Administration (SBA) oversees several programs including the 8(a), Women Owned Small Business (WOSB), Economically…

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Is It Just Us?

We keep wondering how the work from home (WFH) model has impacted other  SDMWVLGBTQBEs (Small Disadvantaged or Disabled, Minority, Women, Veteran, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-gendered or Queer Business Enterprises). It seems overwhelming some days, just how much more work we seem to be doing remotely. And meeting fatigue, OMG! Someone suggested the other day not to…

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Intersectionality … what does that mean?

Intersectionality is a big word we’re hearing around the diverse community these days. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 thesis “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics” to demonstrate that “[b]ecause the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and…

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Taking Care of Business

Once we titled this article, the music started in our heads. Instead of talking about COVID, let’s talk about self-care for diverse business owners. Our crazy, complicated lives just got more so! Maybe this is the world’s way of telling us to simplify … to drop unproductive tasks and concentrate on four important things: Family…

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