Wading through the certification process is time consuming, but it often makes you review your documentation to see what is correct and in place and what needs to be updated. There are so many advantages to being a certified Woman Business Enterprise (WBE) – it’s definitely worth the time.

In July, I attended the Minority Business Council Expo in Little Rock. Many of the largest businesses in Arkansas had booths there. Those wonderful, nurturing diversity sponsors were there to help give advice about contacts within their organizations that could use our services. We’ve already had a call from a department in one of those large companies asking for quotes.

While the State of Arkansas still continues to express the opinion that including women in the diversity spend statistics for their purchases would dilute the opportunities for other minorities, the major corporations of the state seem to be stepping up to the plate and encouraging WBEs to show them what we can do.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I sold our gift basket business in Dallas and started a new business in Hot Springs. We started “Clever-Gifts”, a promotional products company and launched a search to find new customers. Knowing that site visits were difficult for the Council, I joined the certification committee and attended the training session before we moved. Now, I’ve been able to make new friends in Arkansas, by traveling the state and doing site visits to help increase our numbers. This summer, I’ve done three new site visits and one re-certification. It’s so thrilling to meet new business owners and exchange information that helps us all.

In a recent conversation, a corporate member asked me for help in encouraging a WBE who was procrastinating about getting certified. I hope to convince her to complete the process and get the business this company is anxious to give her – the advantages are obvious when pointed out.

We all would love to spend more time together, I know, so that we could experience the comradery and electricity that is always present at the functions in North Texas when all the WBEs get to mentor each other. I hope as our numbers grow, we’ll be able to create some opportunities to learn from each other. It was always comforting to me to find out that everyone else felt as swamped as I did. Often, we received “permission” from each other to make changes in our businesses that we weren’t sure we even deserved. I’ll never forget the tears of a WBE who knew she needed to fire her only employee, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. We patted her on the back and told her it was always hard to let someone go, but that was part of being the owner and leader of the business.

Now that we have our own regional newsletter, I hope we’ll form a closer team that can work together to change the attitude at the capitol and improve our communication about business opportunities.