Life as a MBE Certified Business and Why you should become one

Compulink Technologies is a certified Minority Owned Small Business we were recognized for being one of the most successful MBEs in the state of New York. That does not make us a billion dollar conglomerate, but it does make us a very successful and profitable small business. Now what is an MBE certification you may ask? It is a certification given by city states and government agencies, that classify you as a minority owned business. That means if you are African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, Indian, or anything non-white, you can be a minority owned business. This certification gives you special access to grants, loans, business opportunities, tax breaks, and other special considerations. There is also certifications for women owned businesses WBEs and veteran owned small businesses as well. If you fall into these categories, you should have the matching certification.

The best things these certifications do, is allow you to do business with the government. So if you are in the business to business world, you may be able to sell your goods and services to the government. Now people don’t think about doing business with the government, because they either think its not profitable, or its too complicated. Well it is definitely a complicated process to do business with the government, and its very hard.  However, by no means is it not profitable. Compulink is a multi-million dollar company, just by selling to the government. The public sector is just like any other business market you can think of. They need common goods and services that any business would need such as IT, Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Staffing, Janitorial Services and Supplies. You name it, they need it.

The MBE certification was a foot in the door for Compulink. We used it to fulfill small IT purchases at first, but overtime, we became a preferred vendor. Eventually when we started to compete for the larger contract, we had an advantage. Agencies knew us and knew we were dependable, and the trusted big contracts to us. We are often in a good position to compete for the large contract, and small purchases are always being sent our way.

Now a certification is not going to be the only key to success. You need to be aggressive and chase opportunities down. You also have to start small at first, nobody just gets a million dollar contract out of no where. You have to build relationships and get discretionary purchase that are small in amounts. After you build a reputation for reliability and performance, you can start to compete for larger contracts. This is by no means a way to become a billionaire, but it can help you build ans sustain a successful business.