Episode 5

This is part 2 of our incredible episode with Heather Cox (@certifymyco on Instagram)!

In part 2, we talk more about how her company helps facilitate diversity certifications for businesses and works with Fortune 1000 companies to ensure diversity in their supply chain. Topics covered include certification requirements, reporting diversity spend, and the difference between Supplier Diversity and Diversity and Inclusion. Heather emphasizes the importance of honesty in skills when it comes to credibility.
Listen in to part 2 and check out part 1 in our last episode if you haven't yet!

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Transcript

Hello, I am Dana Haley with Rich People's Business podcast. Welcome.

Welcome my co-host Reginald Ballard and we here with the beautiful, lovely Heather Cox again.

It was so nice. We had to do it twice. Never enough time with this lady. When I'm around her, she's a wealth of knowledge. So we just wanted to keep sharing and, Miss Heather, she please share your company name.

So it is certify my company and I am the president and co-founder. And what does your company do? We facilitate diversity certifications for business owners? And we also work with the Fortune 1000 to ensure everybody in your supply chain that should be certified.

So you like lebron James, you a facilitator, facilitate.

She does it and she does it like a champ.

So wait, so I've known you for so long. Tell me how you, what your business started out doing and, and how did it evolve?

Well, we really started out just doing women owned businesses and then someone said, oh, can you do minority? Yeah, sure. Can you do LGBT? Yeah, sure. Because it's a lot of the same information. It's just the demographic we're certifying is different. But the process itself, whether it be the private sector or even state certifications for the most part is the same process.

It's just a matter of who you want to. I always ask our clients initially, who are you currently doing business with and who do you want to do business with? And what are your hopes and dreams for the certification? Because that will help us determine which is the best certification for that or certification for them.

Yes. And she keeps you certified because year after year you have to renew your certifications and when you do, you have to go into the portals of the company that you have registered and you have to go into the portal and reload your new certification because it is something that you must renew every year. And so she does that as well.

She is amazing that you have to really school me on that because I go in there and, and fill out the wrong thing and get denied and you don't see anybody get denied because they can't because they didn't fill it out. Right.

It's a black owned business and you write that you're a white owned business will get denied.

And there are a lot of reasons actually, a, a good percentage of companies that apply do get denied.

And it's usually not because they're not eligible most often. It's because their documentation is inaccurate or incomplete. So I'll give you some examples and we do a little quiz and the two of you. Ok. So you know, the, the the eligibility requirements are that you have to be 51% ownership operator and controller of the company ownership is pretty obvious check or no check. Do you own the company?

The next operation does the same demographic, let's say it's women, right? Does, do the women work in the company on a day to day basis? And do they have the highest ranking title for the governing documents? Now, a corporation, the governing documents are the bylaws. Ok. In the majority of templated bylaws, what is the highest ranking title in a corporation?

President?

CEO CEO, the CEO president more the major.

I don't care if you paid your attorney $6 an hour or $600 an hour, they use the same template and the majority of it is president. So people will go in there and they're like, I'm, I'm CEO but my husband's only president. Well, you just got denied because the time you're not the highest ranking title, right? Oh, got you. Those are exactly the type of things that we check for with our clients because it happens all the time.

Or if they LLC they're like, oh, you know, all the managing members, well, of all the managing members are not all female and you're trying to get women certified, you're not getting certified, right. That is why people get denied.

So 51% you have to be right.

So, what that looks like is, let's say you and I own a company and, and we're 51% female and 49% male. Well, we're gonna get, you know, I have to make sure that I ultimately control the company as a female. So if there's any unanimous consent requirements or, you know, unanimous, I think will be denied certification.

So you have to be careful. The other thing is they will come to your location and they will do a site visit to, to verify the information that you have put on that document is correct.

And can you speak to what your company does? Right? Or are you just on paperwork that you own the company? Can you talk about your sales process? Can you talk about what you do? Who you sell to?

Yes. And with that being said, you have to make sure that you are sitting in that, that chair.

Oh, yeah, you better have the biggest office.

You have to sit in that office.

You gotta sit in that chair.

And I think the thing though, I think the biggest thing too is to also know that they can come to your location and deny you there too.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not just a, you know, like I have a fun interview. It's actually a very important part of the process and I've seen people get denied because they mess up or they say something wrong about the company. So you have to make sure that you are, it is a very important part of the process for that reason. Can you get multiple certifications?

Absolutely. And I highly recommend it because let's say, for example, like she just said, she has women, she has ethnic minority and she's getting disability. So why would you think like, oh, why should I get multiple certifications? Right. So let's say for, you know, you have now multiple touch points for all these but also companies will report their diversities back. Ok? And you can't double dip. So she they can't be like, can't count, cannot count her twice on the same

report. But let's say they're like, wow, we did really well on our minority owned certification this year, but we're really low on our women now they can move her to the bucket. That's more beneficial to them. So any way that they can move you and they seem more beneficial. Plus now you can go to the Minority conference and the women and the disability conference and you said that many more face to face opportunity, right?

To have those conversations because they say it takes eight times.

Oh no, that number has risen. They used to say eight and it was 14. I want to say it's like 20 something now.

So for you to be to for you to be deemed a valid trustworthy company, you have to be seen 14 times. By the time, by the time this airs, it might be 25. But you want to keep seeing your client, you want to be in their, in, in their face because they want to make sure that you are a viable company that it's not gonna go away.

And then you get to see your, your clients. This is a whole world. This supplier diversity world is its own, it's its own world. And you have to navigate this world to grow. Networking is by far how you grow. And one of the things that I wanted to ask because I get asked this question a lot.

Will they come to my house to do a site visit?

Some will, some will say, you know what, we're gonna meet them, the Starbucks down the street. Now, there are a few organizations that do virtual for obvious reasons over the last three years, no one was going to anybody's house. Right. So there are some, there are definitely in person site visits that are coming back, but it doesn't matter if your office is in your car, your house or a six story office building. They don't care where you work, they want to know.

Do you have a legitimate business and that you are working in that, that business 100% of the day.

Yes. Yeah. Right.

For the most part, you can definitely bootstrap your company.

A lot of people are like, you know, they're trying to start a company, they have another job. But what cannot happen is, let's say, for example, you know, like I'm, we're both, we're running the company and we, I'm 51% owner and I'm trying to get a woman on certification. You work 100% of the time and I work 40% of the time that that's not gonna fly.

Well, let me ask you this, can a business survive or thrive without being certified?

I'm sure they can. But look, business owners always need to find different ways to make an impact, different ways to scale their business. Ok? So if you happen to get lucky and you can like, you know, you go and grow, that's fine, but not everybody can do that and you need to have again different ways to your point before you

were talking about you know, having changing things up and make sure you letting them know. So you definitely can, but why not give yourself every opportunity to succeed?

Right. Right. Right. And then that's another an opportunity for another touch point, another time for them to interact with you to see your logo on your sign at the bottom of your signature, on your on your email. They, you just wanna create that dynamic of communication and validity.

Even if you're already doing business with a company, let's say, and you and you now are getting certified and she just said it's a great option to say, hey, we've been doing business together for 10 years. I want to let you know, I'm now certified and I'd love to also be able to work in this part of the business or offer this service or good to your business.

So it is beneficial to be certified downside and it gives you a place to go.

It gives you kind of a home AAA for a formal place to go and build a foundation where you can utilize that on a regular basis. You meet people and they not only have this trade show where you can go booth to booth and meet the supplier, diversity manager, but they also have training. They also have, you know, and you could probably speak to this, you speak on panels, on panels, things that get you prepared.

I remember one time I went to this, this small little trade show where they had companies there and I followed behind this, this lady and every booth, she would go to whatever, you know, if it was Toyota, she did something for the car industry. She went to, you know, the next booth was health care. I was and I followed behind her like for three different booths. And I'm thinking you gotta pick one, pick one lane and stay in that lane until you mastered that lane until you've mastered it.

And, but you want to make sure you're consistent and people can't. And people believe that you are that you are a viable business. I can't say that enough because your story cannot wane, you have to be somebody that they believe in and that they can see grow has the potential to do that, right?

And I think the pitch competitions are such a great opportunity. People are always afraid to get up on stage and, and speak in front of people. But so I know the the we we been conference right before the pandemic, I participated in the pitch competition. It started out, there was 200 of us and then this round two was 20 of us. And then the round would be four people, right?

So I went there and I want to see all the competition, of course. So I sat in the audience the entire day and the row in front of me was women owned businesses. The row behind me was a bunch of corporations representatives. And time after time I would hear them say, oh my gosh, that was such a cool business. Oh my goodness. We can really use her for something, whether it be partnering with them, with the other women owned businesses or the corporations say that's a great option.

We can offer that to our employees or we can sell that whatever it is now. And so now round two was 20 people that made, I mean, but it was in front of 1000 people was at the luncheon of the conference. Now, 1000 other people heard me and my company name and Heather Cox president and co-founder to certify my company right over and over. They heard that. So whether I did great or not, it didn't matter in the end of the day.

What mattered is that my name got out there in front of a lot of people was another selling tool.

It was a great marketing marketing tool for you. That's very true. And I think the thing that most people really fail to understand is that when they go to these conferences, they really need to have collateral pieces. Now we're getting, we're getting a little bit more savvy with technology QR codes and things like that. But, but something that they can walk away from, if they really like you, sometimes they will ask, you know, I know I walk up to the boots all the time and they're

ready to give you here, go to this, go to this link and register. But if you already registered, I, I want to reiterate that if you already registered or you have a QR code that they can take with them, to view your catalog or to view your services at a later date, please bring that, have that have that ready when you walk up and just be very personable. You know, people sometimes think that they have to, you know, have been in business a long time and that they, they have to be this Fortune

500 themselves or, you know, but you can be a startup. People believe in startups and people want to work with startups. I know you said something a little bit earlier. You said that corporations who are going to these conferences and giving the opportunities. You said that they report the spend. Can you give us a little insight on where that spin gets reported and why it, why it's important for those corporations?

So some of them are reporting to private magazines or different lists there or some of times they're reporting to their clients, right? So, and then sometimes there's companies who report to the state, you know, the state of California has the, the California Public Utilities clearing house and they have to report every utility in California has to report their diversity spend that goes to the Greenlining Institute which then listed publicly at the end of the year. How well

does everybody do? Now, other companies do it simply for, they want to say we support diverse businesses as part of their, their good business that they do. And so that's just something they're gonna put out there. There's actually an organization called the Billion Dollar Round Team. It's made up of 26 I think it's 26 companies that spend $1 billion with A B with certified diverse businesses. Now, they only, they only recognize five certifications but that a billion dollars.

But that's another, that's another benefit to be a lot of money.

Yes and only certified businesses they deal with so they can only report the certified businesses and being.

And I will tell you this being in that circle, you find out the supplier diversity circle, you find out who is honing in on making an impact for the year, right? You know what their initiatives are and you, you really wanna work and focus on those companies, not, not solely, but you really want to focus on those companies that have initiatives where you can serve and help with those initiatives.

So being in the being in the circle really does help you navigate that better. And when you go to the conferences, you can see who the corporate sponsors are. And a lot of times the corporate sponsors want you to know I'm here and I am, I am in support of everybody that goes to the to those conferences really are, but those corporate sponsors are really paying to show in a big way that they are there.

So, so you can come and certify with them or get certified and come do business with them. And so I think that's really important when you go into the portal, just give us a little bit of, you know, we have because it, it's very, it's very intimidating. So again, I can Google target and I can target supplier diversity and I can go into target's portal.

What would I see and just a general overview in many of these portals, what will I see what the portal is, is your resume to do business with that company?

Ok. So if you want to put your general information kind of a about where your revenues were, what you do, you do really well. Right. Again, how are you gonna rock their world? How are you gonna, you know, help their hopes and dreams come true? Right. So that is what you want to be able to demonstrate. You need to upload your capability statement. Have your N A I CS code now, not everybody needs an N A I CS code. What that is the North American industry classification system?

It comes from the S IC which I don't even know what S AC stands for actually, but is the, is the next that as much I don't think older, but even N A I CS is not as detailed. There's nothing that says supply diversity consulting. So we have like other management consulting is ours, right? It is a self selected code. OK? And you have to determine which is your primary code. Really? Government organizations focus on it more.

A lot of times the proversity managers are like, I don't even know what they, they start, I feel like they start to get away from it, to get away from it.

So it is it a code stamp to your business?

It kind of tells you what industry you're in, right? So, but there's a new one called Un SPS C don't ask me what that acronym is. I just like spew out the letters, right? But that's a much more detailed, it will say like supplier diversity consulting or it will say staff, temporary, staffing, medical, like that is much more detailed. Again, it's the next round, I guess you could say, but for any kind of government work you want to do, you do have to know those codes but those are the

information you're putting into their portal so that when they're looking on the back end, ok? We need someone who does, you know temporary medical staffing, they can search for it and your keywords are probably the most crucial. OK? But think about it because you drink your own kool aid, OK?

You need to know what is somebody gonna search for? That's not in your industry. OK? So if you're putting all the lingo of your industry, they may not find you. OK? Think about who if they never, if you ask your, you were looking for my business, what would you?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and if, if like the young people now you know that's trying to start a business, they you know, apply the same thing as you do with tiktok when you put out your

No, no, no, but you know how you can find yourself how you can find it, it work a lot like that.

It, it, it helps you be searchable within the those within those portals. or that particular portal and you have to understand too that companies are changing their software every year sometimes.

So you think, oh, I'm registered in that portal and the change provider, you have to redo it doesn't transfer for over and, and even if you're doing business with a company, you still should be in their portal because that's how you grow.

It's word of mouth. But it's also people will go to the portal. Somebody refers to my company, oh, set marketing. They will go to the portal and look for set marketing to see what else we do. So it's important that we stay within those portals and keep it updated and you want to make it look very sharp and pristine, no misspellings. It, it's, it's like anything they're judging you because that and a lot of times that's the first time that they're having an experience with you.

The first impression is the, is the main thing. It's like when you wake up in the morning, you have to make your bed because that's the first thing you do. The first

it sets the stage for, for what your day is gonna be like and how they're going to interact with you when doing business. If they're gonna believe in you, if they're not gonna believe in you. So it's really, really important.

But also to that point, do not say you can do something, you cannot do it because now they don't believe you for anything else.

You don't be A B the best for that to lebron. Hey, if you don't hit 40 then you a I, I poked the bear. He talked but he couldn't back it up.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. You want to hit all your shots. You wanna, you wanna hit all your shots?

Everything back up. What you say?

Yes. And let me say this because I think all is good information. One of the things I didn't really understand and I think you could probably shed a little light on this too is outside of supplier diversity. There are other certifications that, that you can also get, that can or you can acquire that can also help your business. Can you touch on some of those?

Well, there's five main private sector supplies. Yes, we bank is the Women's Business Enterprise, National Account Council, N MS C C, the National Minority Supplier Development Council. They certify ethnic minorities. N G L C C is the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. They certify LGBT owned businesses. Then there's N V B DC, the National Veterans Business Development Council.

The other one is NOVO, which is the National Veteran Owned Business Association. They both do veterans and service disabled veterans and then there's disability in which certifies disability owned business enterprises. Now, there's other ones that are synergistic to diversity certifications like eight A or, you know, W OS B, which is the women owned small business through the S B A.

There's also, people throw in hub Zone all the time, although it's not really a diversity certification. and so it's just important to know that there's other options based on. Again, who's your target client? If you want to do business with a big box retailer, they probably don't care if you're hub zone certified, right? But they do care if your diversity certified that you want to do business with Big Pharma, they are for sure gonna carry your hub Zone certified.

Ok. So it's important again to determine you can spend your whole life in your whole bank account getting certified, it's not the most strategic option, right? So let's figure out what's the best options for you.

So it's expensive to get certified.

You know, if you don't have the time or money to do it once, you don't have the time or money to do it twice.

So it can be a good sound, certify my company.

It also, it also, you know, it does take time. So I always people say like, oh, well, you know how much money do you have to spend? I always tell people how much is your time. What do you charge for the hour? What is your hourly billable rate for you? Ok. Multiply that I, so we actually pulled our single owner clients and I said, how long do you think it would have taken you to do this application without certifying my company?

And the average was about 26 hours. I had then asked them, how long did you actually have to spend on it? Because you invested in certify my company. The average is between two and three hours. Ok. So that's almost 24 hours. So you take your billable rate multiply it by 24. Ok. It's less than our rate.

And you can say, ok, so that's, as I said, it's more than a rate that you're saving money.

But also what is your time worth? I know, I, you know, we've talked about, right. I have five kids. I have a business. I do not have time to do things that I am not the expert at. Ok. Yeah, people are like, close your own website. I like, ok, first of all, it'll look like I built my own. Second of all, it will end up costing me tens of thousands of dollars more.

Right. It's important to know what you're good at and outsource that because yes, it can be very cost intensive if you don't do it the right way and pick the right certification the first time, the first time.

Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense to get

26 hours. That's a drive from California to Texas so long. Yeah.

Exactly. Yes. And I think, and I think it takes so long because you'll go, you'll go and you'll send everything in. Well, not only that, but then you think that everything is right and it's not right. It's, and it's, it's very tedious, especially the very first time that you do it. But, yeah, the certification process is not, is not a party, it's not a party.

You have to be dedicated to the process. And so I think a lot of people leave money on the table not being certified again. I will state that when I went to my first event, it was a local event. When I went to my local event, I walked in and I had made 35,000, 8 months later, I finished the year at 100 and 35,000 or so. So it really did take my business to the next level, right?

And I just remember really being able to share what I, what I was doing and really have people explain to me walking in the first time what supplier diversity was and how they utilized it with their company. A lot of these companies do have contracts in place. Yeah, that was the thing that I feel like I learned very early on is that they, they have those relationships in place and some sometimes their procurement is very centralized.

So everything goes through procurement. Then there are some that they, you know, everybody is able to do their own spin from different departments. So tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, that really depends on the companies you're doing business with. So that's again a great question to find out we also determine. But that, that's why your supplier diversity manager can be such a huge advocate for you because they are gonna know how their company runs and they're gonna know. So they have to go to this department, to this department and the good supply diversity managers come to the conferences knowing what their company is buying the next 6, 12, 18, 24

months. And so they can say, ok, we're actually already in a contract for the next three years for that. So follow up with me in 18 months because we might be starting to look for a new vendor at that point in time, other ones. OK, so good and bad about everything. But so it's just a matter of understanding what your supply diversity manager can do for you and what you can do for them. A huge another huge component people miss out on is thinking it's a one sided relationship.

There's no such thing, right? So if someone says, hey, Heather, do you do D E ID E I consulting? I do not, we do supplier diversity consulting, but you know, I know a great supplier who can I know a great company? That is excellent at it. Let me make an introduction. I get nothing out of that introduction necessarily. But now that person knows that I am a resource for that and they trust me.

Now, I'm a trusted resource for that D E I begs a different question.

Can you get it, touch it a little bit on the D E s, please?

The easiest way to understand it is D E I is your, your employees. That's your hr department, right? Who works for me?

Diverse?

You wanna share what it stands for and the diversity, equity and inclusion, right?

And that's your workforce for the most part, that's what it is. It's, it's a little bit more of a gray area now, but for the most part, D E I is your workforce, it sits under, under the hr department. Supplier. Diversity is procurement. It's what the company buys.

That's what I was, I was stuck on procurement. I'm like I was gonna say, what, what is I, I, I, I'm speaking for people that don't know, they know. So if I was watching this, who is procurement, I would have came back. Ok.

Is the buying of goods and services? There you go.

Thank you. Thank you. You wanna throw words out there when we wanna explain it to the people.

She's explained it very eloquently to me. So would you Reggie, would you know how to certify your business if you walked in today with what you, what you've learned?

You, I'll call her. That's it.

And how can I reach you if I want to call that an excellent question, Reggie.

You can go to certify my company dot com. We are also at certify my co across all the socials.

Very good, very, very, very good.

That's how I do that. I mean, so

you just touch the button.

So my company dot com, Heather help me Heather, Heather the hands of the exploits.

Exactly. The one and only. Thank you so much for joining us Rich People's Business Podcast.

I am Dana Haley and I'm Reginald Ballard and our special guest here, Heather Cox.

And you can find us at Facebook, you can find us on tiktok, you find us on Twitter and Instagram.

Yes. And before I go, I like to ask our guests first. Tell me your, tell me your why for money or for love or for career. What was your why?

Money or love again? Originally, it was because I needed the job to feed my family. But I will say buy, why now is my goal as I have two daughters and I want them to see that there's no stopping that like just because right. So my goal is to always make the business world more closely resemble the real world.

And this is one way every time I help certify a company, every time we see them get a big contract, I feel like we're one step closer to that one company at a time.

Yeah. Thank you guys for joining us.