MBE certifications provide you with evidence that your business at least 51% owned, controlled, and operated by a minority. The term MBE is often used to refer generically to any minority business enterprise, but sometimes people also use it to refer to MBE certified entities. So you need to determine which context it is being used.

MBE certifications provide you with evidence that your business at least 51% owned, controlled, and operated by a minority. The term MBE is often used to refer generically to any minority business enterprise, but sometimes people also use it to refer to MBE certified entities. So you need to determine which context it is being used.

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.

Let's look at some examples. If you would like to sell your products or services to a government agency located in your state, then you should consider a state MBE certification. If you would like to sell your products or services to one or more large corporations, then a national certification could prove beneficial.

You may not necessarily be required to have a certification to do business with a government agency or Corporate America, but as a practical matter, some of them will require or encourage you to have a certification so you will increase your chances of getting business from them. That is the main reason these certifications are beneficial: they give you a greater chance of obtaining the government and/or Corporate America as a client.

Many state and local government agencies as well as many corporations receiving government funding are required to award a certain percentage of their contracts to minority owned business. Federal government agencies make attempts to award a certain percentage of their projects to MBE's too, although they are not "required" to do so. Thus, by obtaining that MBE certification, you increase your chances of getting work from the government and Corporate America to help them meet their mandated buying requirements.

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.

But if you have determined that one of your ideal customers does in fact include one of these wealthy clients, then you should definitely pursue the MBE certification targeted to that ideal customer. It cannot hurt, and can only help increase your chances of getting work from that potential customer.