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How to Stand Out with Small Business Certification

Posted: 30 Aug 2019 03:00 PM PDT

There are more than 40 million independent workers in the U.S. today, and that means a competitive market for the attention and eyeballs of your desired clients.  Becoming an effective networker, honing your social media presence, and developing a comprehensive marketing strategy are all important aspects to building a business, but aren't always enough to differentiate you from competitors and larger companies.

Today's customers want more than low prices – they want to know the businesses they engage with are aligned with their own personal values. One way to stand out from the crowd and tap into client values is to pursue a certification. Certifications can help attract clients who want to support a small business or value the particular focus of your certification.

For instance, more than 8 in 10 Americans say it's very or extremely important that companies implement programs that improve the environment. Being able to point to a specific environmentally-focused certification can help you stand apart. Certifications can also give you access to set-aside contracts as well as specialized funding and scholarships. Here are six small business certifications to consider.

1. Green America Certified Business

Green America's Certification for Green Businesses certifies businesses that adopt principles, polices, and practices that improve the quality of life for their customers, employees, communities, and the planet. You're probably familiar with Green Businesses such as organic food and drink company Clif Bar, plant-based product company Seventh generation, and beverage company Honest Tea.

Once certified, you can add the Green America Certified Business Seal to your products or marketing for your services. This recognizable seal can influence purchasing decisions of environmentally-conscious consumers who place a high value in products or businesses that have made the commitment to go green. Certification is a straightforward process that is designed to be affordable and take only 20-40 minutes to complete.

2. Women Owned Small Business (WOSB) and Women's Business Enterprise (WBE)

Women Owned Small Business (WOSB) and Women's Business Enterprise (WBE) are two certifications for women-owned businesses that are offered through the U.S. Small Business Administration.

WSOB gives small businesses exclusive access to federal contracts, helping to provide a more level playing field for women who own their own company. In order to qualify for this certification, a business must be 51% owned and primarily managed by one or more women. WSOB certified businesses also gain access to networking opportunities, exclusive training and mentorship programs, and leads for bids and proposals.

WBE gives small businesses access to both government and private sector contracts. Similar to the WSOB requirements, a woman must hold the highest position at the company and be active in daily management to qualify for WBE certification. WBE also provides access to new contracts, educational programs, and networking opportunities.

3. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification can be a good match for small businesses that operates out of a home or office where structural or interior updates can be made. The goal of LEED is to encourage green building to maximize occupant health and productivity, use fewer resources, reduce waste and negative environmental impacts, and decrease life cycle costs.

LEED operates off of a ranking system that assigns points based on the construction, design, operation, and maintenance of your building. A building can be awarded a Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum certification based on the number of points it qualifies for. Buildings that are LEED certified enhance your company's profile as a green energy leader.

In addition to demonstrating a commitment to environmental sustainability, becoming LEED certified can help your business reduce monthly bills by making changes such as installing fixtures that reduce excess water use or solar panels that increase renewable energy.

4. Minority Business Enterprise (MBE)

If your business is at least 51% minority-owned, operated, and controlled, you may be eligible for the Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) Certification. This certification provides access to private sector and corporate contracts, specialized loans, educational programs, and networking opportunities.

An MBE certification can be a great way to help your business grow. Access to loans can give your business the boost it needs to get started. Attending networking events is a great way to market your business, showcase your services to a new audience, and land new contracts. By taking part in educational workshops and mentorship opportunities, you can build a strong system of support as your business evolves.

5. Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)

Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) certifications provide access to prime federal government contracts and subcontracts through set-asides. Set-asides are contracts that the federal government has specifically set aside for small business that meet a certain set of requirements. Each year, federal agencies are required to withhold a percentage of their contracts for veteran-owned small businesses to apply to, helping ensure that these businesses get a fair share of work in the federal market.

The VSOB and SDVOSB certifications can be a bit confusing to navigate, simply because there's not one part of the government or third party that manages them. To get started, a business must become certified as a veteran-owned business through VetBiz Registry, a veteran business database. After becoming certified, your business can register with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veteran's First Contracting Program and obtain access to set-aside contracts with the VA. In order to become eligible for other government contracts, you can also register with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) and the General Services Administration (GSA).

6. B Corporation

A B Corporation is a company that balances purpose with profit. Certified B Corps must meet certain standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. Becoming a B Corp shows that your business is committed to certain social and environmental principles.

Companies must go through a rigorous review process and complete an assessment of their sustainability practices before certification and offers the chance for companies to review their own sustainability practices to ensure their supply chains and business practices are up to par with the program requirements. Companies are reassessed every three years in order to maintain their B Corp status.

B Corps include many well-known companies like brewery New Belgium Brewing Co, popular ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's and outdoor apparel company Patagonia. B Corp certification can be a great strategy to attract new clients and potential investors as consumers are willing to pay more to support companies devoted to sustainability. Assessment for becoming a B Corp looks at how the operations and business model of your company impacts your workers, community, environment, and customers.

Bottom line

Committing to obtaining and renewing a certification each year requires a certain amount of work and dedication, but the many benefits you can gain as a small business owner are often worth the effort. After becoming certified, be sure to update your marketing and promotional materials to advertise your new status, and take full advantage of everything the certification has to offer – apply for open contracts, sign up for a mentoring program, and attend educational events. If you're looking for a way to differentiate your business or attract a certain subset of clients, pursuing a certification may be just the solution you need. 

How to Improve the Success of Your Small Business

Posted: 30 Aug 2019 12:00 PM PDT

There are many things that could potentially go wrong, and you have to plan ahead very efficiently if you want to avoid most of the common roadblocks. Most importantly, you'll need to come to terms with the idea that not every belief you might have about the way you should be running your business will match reality. Sometimes, data will contradict your gut instinct, and it's a good idea to listen to what it has to say.

Try to promote it naturally

Paid promotion is important in any case, but you should also not underestimate the power of word of mouth. You can do a lot for your business by just making sure that people are motivated to talk about it and exchange reports about their experiences with it. This can be done in various ways, and it's a good idea to explore them in full if you want to maximize the success of your business on the market without having to invest that much on its promotion.

Focused marketing

And when it comes to paid promotion, you should try to handle it in a focused, directed manner. There are various ways to spend money on promoting your business, and some of them will produce better results than others.

When you're still a small business, you will need to focus on the things that have the biggest potential to impact your operations at the smallest possible cost. Finding the right balance in this regard is not going to be easy, but it will make a huge difference in the long run. It will allow you to spend less money on marketing, while at the same time providing you with better results.

Improved customer service

Many amateur business owners tend to underestimate the importance of providing adequate customer service. And yet, if you ask most people, it turns out that the thing they care about most in any given business is not so much the quality of their main product, but rather the experience they get after purchasing it.

Problems can come up with anything, and it's important that you provide your customers with an adequate venue to express their concerns and get assistance. And the better you do this, the more it will improve your success on the market. Many people tend to drop their relationships with businesses completely simply because they're disappointed by the quality of service they've received.

Streamline your hiring process

Even if your company is small, you should still consider your hiring process and how it can be improved. There's always something that can be done on that front, and if you're not actively hiring new employees now, you could at least prepare yourself for the problems you'll have to deal with on that front later on. For the most part, you should ensure that your hiring process is as streamlined as possible.

In other words, you should rarely have to stop and think about the next step – it should be a systematic process that you simply follow. Sure, sometimes things will come up along the way that will require your specific attention. But other than that, hiring a new employee should not require the invention of any new methodologies on the spot. There are many tools that can help you with that too, so you should explore them in detail.

Use modern tech to its full potential

Speaking of tools, modern technology can be very useful for improving the success of your business, while also cutting down on the amount of effort required to run it. From a professional logo maker to spreadsheet tools and advanced systems for communication, you can do a lot to keep your company running at top efficiency with minimal effort. Many of these solutions also don't cost much to deploy and integrate into your organization, so you can gain a lot from studying them in detail early on.

Make sure that you take the time to familiarize yourself with any such tools that you decide to adopt in your workflow though. Working with something without a proper understanding of its requirements can be a recipe for disaster in some cases, especially when it comes to tools that are more tightly integrated into the workflow of your company. Before allowing anything to become a part of your organization, you should study and test it extensively yourself to be sure that it matches the criteria of your working style in every way possible.

Cut corners in the right places

Being efficient as a small business owner partly comes down to knowing where you can cut down on your expenses, and doing it efficiently. Not every corner in your company is worth cutting. Quite on the contrary, doing this wrong can have some disastrous consequences on your prospects in the long run. But you should learn to recognize viable opportunities for saving money, because many of those will definitely exist in your work.

It might not be much, looking at each point individually. But that's not the point – all of these ideas can stack up quickly, and before you know it, you'll be saving huge chunks of cash without seeing any significant difference in the way your company works. Before you get there though, you'll have to take a lot of time to study how the market works, especially the one surrounding your own particular business.

Balance work and life well

No matter how dedicated you may be to your business, you should not make your entire life revolve around it. Even workaholics need a break from time to time, and you should not underestimate the importance of relaxing properly. If you don't, the stress will quickly eat you up, and you won't even know how it all happened. Many people end up succumbing to the pressure of the huge amounts of stress that can build up over time, and this is completely preventable too.

Of course, try not to swing too far in the opposite direction either. If your company is running well, you should maintain the momentum, instead of deciding that you can just kick back, relax, and enjoy the rest of your life. Sooner or later it's going to catch up to you, and it won't be pleasant.

Listen to feedback – but not all of it

Your customers will often have comments about your business. Many of them will be viable, but some should not be allowed to make it further into the organization. That's because people themselves don't always know what they want in a company, and even worse, they don't know what it takes to actually run a business in the first place. So you'll often hear suggestions that sound completely outrageous to you, but you can bet that they seemed perfectly reasonable in the head of whoever submitted them.

Developing a good filter for feedback is one of the key skills a good business leader should have. It takes time to get there though, and you're going to make some mistakes along the way. But as long as you're persistent, you should eventually find yourself in a state where you know whether someone is worth listening to or not. And this will allow you to save a lot of time and effort in general.

Reflect on your successes and failures

There will be ups and downs in the life of your business, just like with anything else in your life. And it's important to not only take them in stride, but to also reflect on them and learn something from each such event. Both a success and a failure can teach you something that you didn't know before, and what separates good leaders from the rest is their ability to extract valuable information from the major events in their lives.

It's a good idea to keep track of what happens in some written way, such as a notebook. This will allow you to come back to those moments and revisit them much more easily. It will also give you an objective overview of how you've progressed over time. You might start to notice some patterns to. For example, you might notice more mistakes than successes in the beginning, only for things to reverse in more recent months. And that's a good sign that you're going the right way.

Keeping a small business successful is a combination of dedication, being informed, and knowing how to learn from everything that happens in your life. There will be many obstacles along the way, but as long as you're prepared to overcome them, and have the right attitude for that, you're going to see lots of success eventually. Make sure that you take note of it and extract something valuable from it as well though, because otherwise all your work will have been for nothing. Even if your company is doing well, if you haven't learned anything, that's going to be a problem in the long run.

Could AI Help Managers Predict Personnel Conflicts Before a Hire?

Posted: 30 Aug 2019 07:00 AM PDT

It admittedly sounds a little like Big Brother, that a robot can tell significant things about your personality, merely by looking into your eyes. And not all that deeply, mind you.

It seems absurd. Yet, that is the hiring territory that we are fast approaching – although we may not be sitting across from androids in interviews anytime soon. The use of artificial intelligence in making HR decisions is, while fraught with peril, not without its promising aspects. In an era when it is increasingly difficult for businesses to unearth the best job candidates, we may yet see the day when technology makes it possible to separate good from bad in the blink of an eye.

Hiring of the future

Despite caveats about security and privacy, relying on AI would appear to be a method far superior to digging through a pile of resumes or asking ice-breaking questions like, "What's the last book you read?"

Hiring good people – people who are talented, agreeable and work well with their coworkers – goes a long way toward nipping workplace conflicts in the bud. However, selecting high-potential candidates isn't the only means by which AI can help craft a happier workplace environment. AI-based tools can reduce stress by cutting down on the tedious, repetitive tasks that so often come personnel administration. Need to mediate a workplace conflict or identify an employee who is mailing it in? There's a chipper robot available to help you on your way. 

Granted, we are a far way from these tech-savvy, AI-powered tools being implemented. Slowly but surely, however, it is beginning to seep into the business world.

AI in the business world

Studies have shown that 56% of employers have a favorable view of AI and related technology, such as robotics. Only 20% of those surveyed viewed at such technological developments in a negative light. (And for the record, employees were slightly less sanguine about it – 49% viewed it positively, 24% negatively.)

For all that, 52% of the organizations reported in another survey that they were unlikely to adopt AI in human resources within the next five years – 36% because they believe their company is too small, 28% because senior leadership did not see a need. 

The University of South Australia, working in concert with the University of Stuttgart, Flinders University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany, recently conducted ground-breaking research about AI's ability to discern personality traits courtesy of eye movements. It did so by fitting 42 on-campus participants with glasses capable of tracking every wink, blink and squint as they went about their everyday tasks. After compiling a trove of data, those in charge of the study discovered that they could accurately assess four of the five primary personality characteristics of each subject – neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Openness was the only trait that they found themselves unable to quantify in set microexpressions. 

Physiognomy (the study of facial expressions) actually dates back to the days of Aristotle, but this latest study took things in an entirely different direction, a direction that obviously has implications for businesses everywhere – and implications that pertain to such things as customer care, career guidance and yes, recruitment.

In an increasingly competitive atmosphere, interpersonal skills count for a lot, and they are impossible to determine courtesy of a quick glance over a resume scan or a 20-minute interview. An AI personality prediction, whenever it becomes available, will become a game-changer for HR departments in every industry. Such tools could offer the means to unearth employees that not only have talent, but are natural, collaborative communicators. Such choices would vastly improve the chances that an employer is able to establish and maintain a harmonious workplace. 

In the meantime, until such technology emerges, it is possible to lean on algorithms to do less-impressive but still-important tasks such as sifting through resumes and determining from a video interview whether a candidate is worth bringing in for an in-person chat. Josh Bersin, an independent analyst and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, reported on a client who was able to improve his hiring success rate by over 30% courtesy of tech centered along those lines.

Yet Bersin also concluded that too often businesses remain rooted in the old methods -- that hiring managers make up their minds 60 seconds after meeting a candidate and often base their decisions on little more than a handshake or a nice tie. As a result, he says, businesses get their hires wrong between 30 and 40 percent of the time. The failure rate is perhaps an unsurprising conclusion, given the methods. 

However, such mistakes are costly in terms of a company's bottom line -- one estimate is that it will take up to 20 percent of a mid-range employee's annual salary to find a replacement for a turned-over employee -- and in terms of a company's culture. 

The promising news is that AI-based conflict-resolution technology already exists. It is called cogSolv, and can discern the way different people view their surroundings, simulate their reaction to negative stimuli and provide the best possible resolution. More than anything, though, it helps HR professionals nips issues in the bud and prevent little problems from becoming massive, position-ending concerns.

HR, hiring and AI today

Today, HR professionals have access to coaching apps that offer tips about how colleagues can work through conflict. Also on the edge of popularity are relationship bots; tools that can determine whether two people will get along or not – and figure out whether collaboration will ever be possible by (again) reading facial expressions, as well as vocal cues. Such cues are also crucial to an AI solution developed by IBM, which is capable of decoding the stress in an employee's voice on a phone call and urge him or her to take a break.

Not to be discounted, either, is the manner in which AI can ease the every day burden on HR professionals, and thus eliminate a workplace stressor. Chatbots can field common, repetitive questions, and automation allows employees to access information about insurance and other benefits. That in turn frees up HR staffers for more far-reaching tasks.

One of the potential uses of AI – tracking employees' computer usage – underscores one of technology's possible pitfalls: How will management make use of all this information? Is it not possible that there will be an invasion of privacy, or worse?

The other caveat, as mentioned at the top of this piece, is security. Is it not also possible that AI will open another avenue for hackers? Perhaps.

All that said, though, tech would appear to offer some promising possibilities for conflict-management, ones that HR professionals would be remiss to ignore. It would behoove us to keep an eye on the technology coming down the line – or else we might find ourselves struggling to find the insights that an AI could find in the literal blink of an eye. 

The 5 Principles My NASA and U.S. Navy Careers Taught Me About Leading a Startup

Posted: 30 Aug 2019 06:00 AM PDT

From birth until my deployment to Iraq, I wanted nothing to do with entrepreneurship (or at least the version of "entrepreneurship" as I perceived it). I was convinced since the age of 6 that I would become an astronaut, or so I thought.

After decades of intense research and working my tail off as a senior human spaceflight engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center, I made it to the final round of astronaut candidate interviews in 2012. But, no cigar. While I will always be grateful that I made it that far in the selection process, I concluded that the process is outdated and full of inequities.

The astronaut selection process is nothing more than the recruiting component of a human resources process that hasn't evolved in four decades. If any mature business or organization fails to evolve in their recruiting process, that business will become irrelevant. So why is this allowed in the selection of such a visible U.S. government employee? Simply put, it shouldn't.

While working at NASA, I also had the honor to serve our great nation as a naval officer. I've served 20+ years of both active duty and reserve combined. My service has included time on ships, with intelligence units, naval research, special operations, personnel recovery, base operations, and expeditionary warfare to name the "big ones." Throughout my naval career, I would temporarily leave for various deployments, including a 15-month deployment to Iraq and a 13-month deployment to Afghanistan. Life-altering experiences during my Iraq deployment derailed my life's course, and my Afghanistan deployment convinced me that my life's purpose was indeed much bigger than being an astronaut, but I had no idea what that yet was.

After a lot of soul searching, I concluded that my purpose would reveal itself after I connected three dots. Dot No. 1 is my passion to crush outdated and broken processes that hold people back from growing and achieving. Dot No. 2 is that I want to help kids achieve more regardless of the ZIP code they are born into, and dot No. 3 is my passion to affiliate with groups who exude military-like qualities, including teamwork, higher purpose and being mission-oriented.

After extensive research, speaking with other veteran entrepreneurs, and other athletes, I had my "aha" moment:  Student athletes represent the cohort of kids in society who start life's hustle early, and exhibit cooperation, passion and tenacity. And so my journey to build Athlete Foundry began.

Since launching Athlete Foundry, I have become a human punching bag (figuratively, of course). I've lived through nearly every startup challenge there is, but I am better for it, and with the exception of what I have put my family through, I would not change one single thing!

As I reflect on my entrepreneurial journey, there are five principles I identified that my NASA and U. S. Navy careers equipped me with that helped me power through my days leading a tech startup.

Principle No. 1: Always lead from the front, ethically, morally and sincerely. 

"Play the midfield."

Do not compromise any of these tenants, ever, period.  Don't play the game of "I'll walk along the edge, push the boundaries as far as I can, and, on occasion, step over the line briefly when no one is looking." 

The world is full of people inside and outside of tech, inside and outside the C-suite, that do not have a moral compass, nor have they been taught how and why to "hold the line" when it comes to these tenants. It is hard, but deviating from these tenets must be non-negotiable. And while employees in an organization should abide by these tenants, too, it must start with, be transparently communicated, and be visible with the leader to set the tone and establish the culture for the company.

Principle No. 2:  Always have a servant mindset. 

"The joy in others lies our own."

Except for a very small group of individuals in history (such as Mother Theresa), even the most humble people feel a sense of pride and personal accomplishment in their work, the tasks they complete, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that; after all, that's being human.

However, I strongly believe that if we do things with the aim of serving others, it amplifies our influence and, therefore, magnifies our impact. This principle applies to your team, customers, friends, family, even strangers you run into in the coffee shop.

Principle No. 3: Don't be afraid to redefine yourself.

"Decide, commit, act, and crush it."

Regardless of your profession, don't let others (or yourself) use that to define your future potential. I'm not saying that you can (or should) abandon a career as a human spaceflight engineer to become an entrepreneur, leave the U.S.  Marine Corps Special Forces Operations to become a movie producer, or retire from the National Football League to become an inspirational speaker, best-selling author and executive coach. Transitions are hard, especially when you swing your ship's rudder in the opposite direction from the course you were sailing for decades. 

I have found that a sound transition recipe requires three elements:

  1. Your commitment to pursue a problem worth solving
  2. A systems mindset to break the problem down to the first principles
  3. A wicked team and broad network of subject matter experts

Principle No. 4: Have an attitude.

"Don't be an a**hole."

Let me be clear, I'm absolutely not saying to be arrogant, cocky or rude. (The world has enough jerks). What I am saying is to be bold, courageous and committed to achieving your vision.

Despite the roadblocks, the scarce resources, stay on target. There will be countless naysayers who feel they have a right to share unsolicited criticism or who will tell you that you will fail. I love these people because I turn their negative energy into fuel that accelerates my internal fire.

Principle No. 5: Have a plan, then make course corrections.

"Hope is not a plan."

What differentiates amateurs from professionals is how they plan and adjust. Consummate professionals start with the end in mind and build a reverse plan that unveils a roadmap to achieve the desired end. That is easier said than done. 

No plan is perfect, but every plan's framework should have an appropriate level of detail so you can answer the questions of what your end goal is, what the milestones along the way will be, who is doing what, how you and your team are doing it, what going "off course" looks like, what the risks are, and what the risk mitigations are.

In addition to a solid framework, the content should cover (or consider at the very least) all appropriate angles to ensure you don't overlook an unintended consequence. Do a 360 around your plan to appreciate the first- and second-order effects, spanning the team, customer, infrastructure, logistics, finance, security, investors, etc.

It's important to embrace the fact that no plan is bulletproof and that it must possess appropriate flexibility. What does "appropriate" mean?  This is the art and science of what is found at the nexus of leadership, planning and being mission-driven. "Appropriate" is based on the leader's experience, confidence, and judgment to read the tea leaves, forecast multiple outcomes, and make calculated risk decisions that are always surgically focused on achieving the mission.
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