SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

NWBOC President Janet Harris-Lange Discusses Certification: Wednesday's Woman

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Apr 29, 2009, 01:55 PM ET

Last month I began the discussion about why you might consider becoming certified as a women-owned business. The National Women Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC) is one of the main organizations that can make the designation a reality, and late last week I had the pleasure of interviewing its president, Janet Harris-Lange.

Harris-Lange, who once served as president of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), has been running NWBOC for the past decade. She, herself, comes from two generations of entrepreneurs. "Family table talk was accounts receivable and payable every night. My father loved the challenge of taking something from nothing," she said. Even so, Harris-Lange began her career teaching Spanish and French. Five years later she switched gears to run a manufacturing business -- her lawyer husband was also an inventor and came up with numerous household gadgets -- and then eventually began her own event planning organization before being tapped by NWBOC.

"We were the first national certifiers of women-owned companies," Harris-Lange explained. "There were 700 public and private sector people who put the process in place, the application, standards and procedures -- all the governing rules of certification."

More recently, NWBOC, which has certified thousands of women-owned business, has been flooded with applications. "Applications are up 114% over last year," Harris-Lange said. "The number of women knowing they need every tool in the toolbox has been quite astounding."

What's accounting for that spike is, of course, the recession, Harris-Lange said. "They always say there's an increase in women-owned companies when the economy is down because there are so many job layoffs for men," she said. "But we also have women who are calling us who have been in business for 15 or 20 years and just never got to it, but realize now that more and more people are asking for certification, and they need to be on-board with it."

In this Q&A, Harris-Lange clearly details what you have to do to get on-board, how NWBOC's e-procurement marketplace can help grow your business, and the agency's newest networking initiative, a.k.a. the Biddies.

SBR: How did you get involved with NWOBC?
JHL: I had been working with NAWBO and had been a national president. One of the officers told me there was a change in leadership at NWBOC from the original president and asked if I'd be interested in leading it. Frankly, I didn't know a thing about certification. But I certainly knew women-owned companies and understood what made them tick.

SBR: One step back -- how did you get involved with NAWBO?
JHL: I read about it in the paper one day. I was in the West Palm Beach [Florida] area, and there was a chapter in Miami. I called to find out if there was a chapter in my area. There wasn't, but they said there was another woman from West Palm who came down for the meetings. So I started going with her. The next thing I knew, I said, "This is ridiculous. Can't we start our own chapter in our area?" So we started the chapter in West Palm. We got very involved in that, and then I started rising with it. I kept working my way up until I became national president.

SBR: What is a woman-owned business?
JHL: A woman has to be the head of the company -- president or CEO. She has to be active in daily management, own and control at least 51% or more of the company, and she has to be in that position for at least six months. A [male-run] company can't make the decision to say, "OK, we'll put the stock in my wife's name, make her the president, and we'll apply for certification tomorrow." She has to prove that she has time in that position and in that ownership.

SBR: How do you prove that?
JHL: Our site visit is very telling. You see her interact with employees. You get the whole lay of the land. We talk with all the owners, and separate the males from the females during interviews. We compare their answers and make sure she really understands the guts of the business -- that she knows who her customers are, is the one seeking them out, paying the bills, and that kind of thing.

SBR: Why would a woman-owned business want to be certified?
JHL: I'm not saying it's for everyone. You have to think about your vision for your company, where you want to go, and who you see as your customer. But it can give you a competitive edge because it's like having the Good Housekeeping Stamp of Approval. You've proved yourself, and that can put you over the edge to winning something. If you are making a special kind of bakery good, and you just have local customers, but then suddenly you have an interest from Safeway or Costco to put it in all of their stores, then you [realize you] need certification because you're going on a whole other scale, and this is going to help them meet their needs for certification. Otherwise those companies stand in jeopardy of losing the contract if they give it to someone who hasn't gone through the certification process.

SBR: Is certification costly?
JHL: The application fee is $350. We have a group of committee members that have attorneys, CPAs, and site visitors, so all of these people need to be reimbursed at a very nominal fee. Sometimes these accountants and attorneys spend hours and hours on these applications. Our annual renewal is $200 if gross sales are $2 million or under, and $300 if they're over $2 million. Those fees have been in place for several years; they haven't increased.

SBR: Is the initial certification process as daunting as some might think?
JHL: Some people say, "I should give you my first born; you're asking for everything else but." We developed an application kit to make it easier. You have to purchase it. The application itself is very easy, but the last few pages contain all the documents you need to include. If you're incorporated, it'll be things like bylaws, articles of incorporation filed by the state, annual reports to the state, and a birth certificate because a woman has to be a U.S. citizen or a legal resident. Things like three years of financial statements, three years of tax returns, professional or occupational licences, and rents, leases or deeds if they own the property. It's very comprehensive.

SBR: How long does the entire process take?
JHL: If we receive the information and the reviewing committee doesn't have to keep saying, "Now we need this," usually within four to six weeks. We actually just had a company we turned around in a week. Everything clicked.

SBR: Once you're certified, you're set? What else do you have to do?
JHL: I see women who get certified that first year and think that business is going to fly out the door. But you still need to market your company. We give you a logo to use on your stationary and business cards. We give you a sample press release. Always use whatever you can to enhance your company -- take advantage of the opportunities we have, but you're at the helm, and we can't do the business for you. Some people might say, "Oh, we didn't get any business this year, so I'm not going to renew," and that's so foolish because they'd have to start the entire process over again, even if they lapse one day over a year. Certification is important for service companies as well as product companies, like if you're training employees across the U.S. for some major corporation.

SBR: How is your certification different or better than the one offered by the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC)?
JHL: They came after us, but our programs are basically the same. We're accepted by the same kinds of companies and have the same kinds of requirements. But we're not aligned totally. Our board is very women-business-owner-driven. We're also a very centralized organization. Basically you have a choice. It's like you have more than one variety of soda in America. Our whole main purpose is, let's help these companies grow their businesses.

That's also why several years ago we started an e-procurement marketplace. We started it for our certifieds only. Buyers can go in, view information, and send RFPs. They can have the women respond, and they can print out all the reporting documents to show they reached out to women-owned companies. They can also just contact the women offline if they choose. Then a couple of years ago we decided to open it to all women-owned companies. Even though our certifieds get a national listing at no charge because they've gone through our process, other women-owned companies are listed in there [at four levels of pricing, ranging from free to $300]. They don't have to have a certification.

SBR: Any advice for a business that might consider certification?
JHL: If you're a new company and thinking about certification in the future, look at the application and what you're going to need. As you're doing the documentation for the first time -- whether you're filing an occupational license, doing a tax return, or doing a quarterly report -- make a copy of it and put it in a file. Then when it comes time for certification, you'll have copies of the documents there and can put it all together in 30 minutes. If you've been in business a little while then, yes, it'll take some time to fish through things.

Some of the women who have gone through this process have thanked us for making them do it. They said, "We didn't want to do it, but you found things that we didn't even realize weren't quite in order or up to date." Our people are really good at helping them get their documentation in order. Many times they've said, "We can use that tool now. We keep a copy of our application kit, and we can go into it if we're going to a bank for a loan or designed a marketing plan." It summarizes everything in one notebook, and they're very thankful for that.

SBR: Tell me about the Biddies networking groups.
JHL: The Biddies is in its infancy stage, but we have tremendous interest across the country. It started locally. Some of the certifieds called me and asked, "Can we just get together to share stuff?" So we've been getting together for coffee, and found out [networking] is tremendous. It's very casual. It's all about putting people together, letting them network with each other over coffee with no formal meeting, no formal structure. Just sharing ideas and information.

SBR: How many groups have formed?
JHL: I have probably 30 groups that are springing up across the country right now. More say they want to do it but are waiting for more people to become certified in their area.

SBR: This is all in-person networking. Any plans for a technology component?
JHL: One of our certifieds has been working with us to do a little more on that, and it's in our budget to work on this year. It's on the agenda.

SBR: One last question. Having run your own businesses, what's it like to work for someone else?
JHL: I still have my own thing on the side, so I don't feel like I've left entrepreneuriship at all. I love working with woman-owned companies. It's rewarding. When they call and say, "Because of my certification I just landed a $3 million contract," it's awe-inspiring. If what you're doing is making a little difference in helping them get to the next level, then what more could you ask for?

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Recent Wednesday's Woman articles:

• Traditional Gender Roles Fading To Black?
• $10K Grants For 5 Socially Conscious Entrepreneurs
• Ketra Oberlander: Wednesday's Woman Of Possibilities
• Woman-Owned Business Certification Considerations
• Tax Expert Barbara Weltman
• Archives

The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest.

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