How to Become a Certified Woman-Owned Business
Becoming certified as a Women Business Enterprise can help your company pursue new business opportunities.
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So, you're a woman and you run a business. In the pool of privately-held small businesses in this country, being a women business owner actually has many advantages. Most public corporations as well as local, state, and federal government purchasing agencies have programs for allotting a certain percentage of business to women-owned companies. Getting certified as a Women Business Enterprise (WBE) can make the difference between landing that business or not. However, the certification process is not without its challenges, and often times owners get discouraged during the process because they lack the proper guidance or misunderstand how the process works. The following is what you need to know should you decide that certification is to your benefit.
How to Become a Certified Women-Owned Business: Make Sure You Meet the Criteria
Before embarking on the certification process, it is important for business owners to understand that it is a major time investment. The requirements for submitting an application are very stringent and must be met completely. "A lot of people want to scream when they are going through it, but they always end up happy that they got certified," says Janet Harris-Lange, president of The National Women Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC), which was the first private national certifier of women business enterprises when it formed in 1995.
The most essential requirement for achieving certification as a women-owned enterprise is majority control. That means a woman must own 51 percent of the business to qualify for certification. However, ownership is just a small part of the equation. The term ownership goes beyond numbers in this case. A woman must also hold the highest position at the company and be active in daily management and the strategic direction of the company. "Ownership is a very easy thing to do on paper, but if the woman is not the visionary and holds the office manager position, for example, that's the kind of thing that will halt a certification," says Harris-Lange. So before moving forward, make sure that you have several ways of proving that you are leading the company, from doing the hiring and firing to any planning documents.
In addition to being a majority owner, a woman must also be a U.S. citizen, and it is recommended that she be in business for at least six months. If you meet these three main requirements as a business owner, you can begin the process of putting together your application.
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How to Become a Certified Women-Owned Business: Get Organized
There is a long list of documents that you will need to get together for your application. This is probably the most arduous part of the certification process, and if you're not organized or haven't kept track of important business documents, getting everything together can be even more time consuming and challenging. "A lot of people joke that we ask for everything but their first born," says Harris-Lange.
You don't have to be going through the application process before you get organized. If you think that getting certified is something that you will eventually want to do, it is wise to start putting aside the necessary documents and paperwork as early as possible. "The best time to start organizing your materials is as you do things for the first time," says Harris-Lange. When you are a young business, you are more likely to have documents such as your incorporation papers and copies of any leases easily accessible.
Nancy Mobley, CEO of Insight Performance, a Dedham, Massachusetts-based human resources consulting firm and certified woman-owned business, says it's a good idea to start the certification process early. Mobley went through the certification process after five years in business and she remembers that it took a while, not only to locate all the necessary documents, but also just to make copies of everything. "I pretty much had to copy my controller's filing cabinet," says Mobley.
The Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), a Washington, D.C.-based national non-profit that also provides an avenue for women-owned enterprises to get certified, has a list of required documentation on their Website. Often women don't know anything about the certification process until they have decided to apply, and it can feel very overwhelming looking at the list for the first time. Just being familiar with what's required can make the process a lot less stressful.
You may also want to enlist someone to help you out as you begin to get organized. "Most women are too busy leading their company and don't have time to do a lot of the administrative work associated with the application process," says Harris-Lange. In that case, working with a trusted employee or even a business partner or other company executive may be the best way for you to tackle the process. However, if you are a small company and don't have available personnel to spare, there are other resources to assist you through the process.
The National Women Business Owner's Council put together a certification kit, meant to serve as a guided tour of all aspects of the application process and provide a built-in organizational method for the application materials, that it sells on its Website for $39.95. Harris-Lange found that the organization was getting numerous calls from women who were unclear about what was being asked for. The NWBOC is always available to field those questions, however, Harris-Lange says those who have purchased the kit end up getting most of their questions answered from the information provided.
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How to Become a Certified Women-Owned Business: Where to Get Certified
In addition to private third-party certifiers like the WBENC and NWBOC -- both of which provide national certification -- several state and local agencies offer programs for certification. Deciding what level of certification you should get really depends on what kind of business and customers you are targeting, says Harris-Lange. For example, you may be looking to do business with the local hospital in your city, so the scope of your services would not require that you have a national certification. In that case, it would be best to go through your local city agency to apply for certification. For companies that are interested in doing contract work for a government agency, it is important to contact individual agencies to obtain their certification requirements. While the rules vary state to state, many state agencies require that women-owned businesses obtain certification through their program because they maintain their own regulations.
However, some companies find that they only need to obtain a national certification. National certification is most beneficial for businesses that are looking to do work in the private sector, and are not planning to land government contracts. Harris-Lange says one type of certification is not more advantageous in terms of getting business than another, and in many cases the business owner will opt to get certified on multiple levels if they don't want to limit themselves on the type of work they can bid on. "Look at what your vision is for your company," says Harris-Lange, "and then make the determination based on who your customer base is and the scope of your services."
Amanda Steinberg, founder of Soapbxx, a Philadelphia-based web consultancy, is in the process of becoming a certified women-owned enterprise through the city of Philadelphia. Steinberg determined that applying on the city level was best suited for her company. She started the application process after hearing about an RFP put out by the Mayor's Office of Sustainability in Philadelphia that she wanted to compete for. "Anyone can apply to do work for the city of Philadelphia, but there are quotas for how much work the city has to give to minority and women-owned businesses," says Steinberg. "I realized that if we could present ourselves as a certified women-owned business, we would be well-positioned to win these type of projects in the future." Once Steinberg receives her certification, she plans to work more extensively on social sector projects on the local level, and she believes the certification will be a strategically smart move when it comes to those pursuits.
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