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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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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Why Get Diversity Certified?

The short answer for most SDMWVLGBTQBE (Small Disadvantaged or Disabled, Minority, Women, Veteran, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered or Queer Business Enterprise) owners is that a client, or potential client, suggested it to them. We get calls from many of these owners wondering what a diversity certification is and how it can help them. Basically, the certificate…

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Supplier Diversity and Politics

There has always been a relationship between politics and supplier diversity. Supplier diversity is rooted in 1960’s political activities and implemented by our executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Our second blog article, we discussed supplier diversity history and how it began with the civil rights movement. From an executive point of view, Presidents…

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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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Federal Certification Changes

The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is moving forward with the proposed changes to their Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) and Economically Disadvantaged Woman Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) programs.  Back in March we wrote about the slow progress of these changes initially announced in 2015. In May, the SBA shared the official timeline for…

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