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Attention Minorities: Business Ownership Has Its Advantages!

Here is a short background on MBE certifications. An "MBE certification" is the certification you obtain that verifies that your business is 51% or more owned, controlled, and operated by one or more minorities. "MBE" stands for "Minority Business Enterprise", and can be used to refer to a minority owned business, whether or not that business has a formal certification.

This article focuses on some techniques you can use to maximize the opportunities available to your MBE certified business by using multiple certifications in combination with each other.

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.

It is worth noting that you are not necessarily required to have an MBE certification to do business with large corporations or the government. However, some of these entities may require or encourage you to get an MBE certification if you want to get on their radar as a small business. The primary reason for considering an MBE certification is to increase your chances of getting the government or these large corporations as clients.

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 have the type of product or service that state government agencies would be interested in buying, then you definitely consider obtaining the MBE certification in your state, if available.

A very effective strategy for growing your business immensely may be to obtain MBE certifications in multiple states. It is a common misconception that you can only obtain a MBE state certification in the state in which your business resides. That is not true. You can get a state MBE certification in multiple states to increase your chances of getting work from those state governments.

There is no doubt some extra work involved in applying for an MBE certification in multiple states. So I wouldn't recommend that you spend the effort submitting the various applications unless you are serious about trying to sell to government agencies in the respective state.

Another strategy to consider for increasing your sales is to use the various types of certifications in combination. In other words, you can obtain a state MBE certification for increasing your chances to sell to state government agencies, use your self-certified federal MBE certification to help get federal government contracts, and obtain a national certification to help get more contracts from large corporations.

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.

With these MBE certifications, you increase your chances of gaining business from those "deep pockets". If you do want to have those deep pockets your clients, you should consider those certifications that give you a serious competitive advantage because of their mandatory requirements. Why not use any competitive advantage you can get your hands on?

Article Source: http://articlebarracks.com

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 Starter Kit at www.mbecert.com.

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