The Untold Insider's Guide to Making Certification Work

When I started Eriksen Translations in 1986, it was because I wanted to expand my freelance business and offer my clients more comprehensive translation services in more languages. It never occurred to me that being a woman was a differentiating factor between me and my competition. In the past several years, however, I’ve come to see the great value in being certified, both with the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and with New York City and the State of New York.

Eriksen Translations first became certified with WBENC in 2001 because a major financial services company with whom we had just landed a big language-services contract requested it. While I went through with the certification process to keep my client happy, it wasn’t immediately clear to me what the benefits of being a certified woman-owned business could be.

What I’ve learned is that certification is a very useful tool that is good for women- and minority-owned businesses and their clients; but making certification pay off requires work. It’s not a task to check off a list, it’s only the first step in what can be a very effective outreach strategy.

Pay Attention to Details
The first thing a business needs to do is make sure all of the paperwork in the certification process is filled out accurately. In particular, make sure to use the correct commodity codes, whether it’s NAICS (North American Industry Classification System), SIC (Standard Industrial Classification), or the custom codes that various agencies may use. It sounds so simple, but procurement systems are completely automated, and if the correct codes are not used, the companies and agencies the business registers with won’t notify them about opportunities that fit their company. Instructions and questions can seem designed to drive you crazy, but it’s important that they are followed exactly.

Register with Corporate and Government Databases
After a company becomes certified, they should also let clients and potential clients know. Sending out a press release and sharing the news through social media outlets are both important, but registering with corporate supplier diversity programs and government vendor databases is mandatory (for resources on where to register your certified business, see “Important Links for Certification and Registration”). Make no mistake, this is a time-consuming process.

Each registration has unique questions that need to be answered thoroughly in order to improve the chances of being notified when an opportunity arises. We have a marketing coordinator who spends the bulk of her time updating our supplier-diversity and vendor registrations and building relationships with supplier-diversity departments.

If a company has limited resources, they should be strategic about which companies they register with. Certified companies should start with the companies they already work with and then move on to those that are likely next targets. Don’t try to register with everyone all at once because the return on investment is low. Also, keep in mind that when certification expires or some of the business’s information changes, a company must update their registration with each company, which can be very time-consuming.

While there are fewer city and state government databases with which to register, a business should make sure they are registered with all the databases that apply to their business. The New York City Department of Small Business Services, which oversees the city certification process, has a team of vendor-service representatives to help certified businesses find opportunities to bid on, access other services, and maximize the benefits of certification.

The state of New York has its own process, which is administered by the Division of Minority and Women Business Development. Perseverance is the key with all of these certifications and registrations. Each one is a multiple-step process and requires you to be proactive.

Actively Network
Registering a company in supplier-diversity programs is still not enough. Like any other marketing strategy, networking and meeting contacts is essential. As a resource, the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization (WPEO) not only administers the WBENC certification in the tri-state area, but they also frequently host educational and networking programs that bring women business enterprises (WBEs) and corporate supplier-diversity representatives together. In our business, we’ve found the “Done Deals Challenge” to be particularly helpful. While we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve won prizes for the large number of deals we’ve reported for the last four years, the real value of the Challenge for us is the opportunity to put ourselves in front of people we want to do business with.

After participating in networking events, we follow up to let supplier-diversity managers know that we’re interested in doing business in a meaningful way. We send supplier diversity managers that we meet reports of the work we’ve done with their organization and find out how we can do more. They appreciate that we’re providing them with substantive information they can use.

Do Good Work
This one should go without saying, but it’s really the key to making supplier-diversity initiatives work. Certification is a foot in the door. We’ve been able to penetrate companies that we only did a little business with thanks to supplier-diversity managers advocating on our behalf, but what ultimately gets us the big contracts is the fact that we provide our clients with real value. Being a woman-owned business is just a bonus.