Certification is like a hammer—you can use it to crack a nut, drive a nail into a wall or pull one out, etc. “It’s the same tool, but you use it differently for your different needs,” describes Heather Cox, co-founder and president of the Las Vegas, Nevada-based Certify My Company.
And she should know. Fifteen years ago when Heather was pregnant with her first child and living in New Jersey, she saw that corporate America wasn’t mommy-friendly, so began exploring other options. She spoke with women who were working part-time and full-time, including entrepreneurs, about what their working lives were like.
During her conversations with entrepreneurs, certification often came up. One shared that a client wanted her to get Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) certified, but she just couldn’t get it done. “I couldn’t figure out what the issue was, but resourceful is my middle name,” Heather says. “I said, ‘I can do it for you.”
As small business ownership often goes, word-of-mouth is powerful. Once Heather helped her first client get WBE certified in 2009, they told another, who then told another. Within 6 months, Certify My Company had expanded to help with Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) and LGBT Business Enterprise (LGBTBE) certification. “It grew organically from there,” she says.
Soon, corporations who encourage certification for their small and diverse suppliers began turning to Certify My Company. Many offer scholarships to cover application fees as well as certification support and expertise from Heather and her team. “The process is what’s the barrier,” explains Heather. “It should be difficult for entrepreneurs, but not overwhelmingly difficult because they need to spend their time on other things.”
“Entrepreneurs are visionaries and often not good at paperwork,” she continues, comparing it to outsourcing taxes to an expert CPA. “We take the project of certification off their desks so they can focus on things like strategy and business development that need their 100-percent attention.”
In 2013, Heather and Certify My Company moved to Nevada. For the next several years, Heather was still a solopreneur, juggling everything related to her growing business with the help of just a bookkeeper. Then, a major win forced her to build a team, which now consists of six, and focus her attention on strategy, sales and events.
At the time, there was one person she considered a true competitor, who was working with major corporations like Johnson & Johnson and Kaiser Permanente. When this woman decided to retire from her role, she interviewed several companies—at her clients’ request—and chose Certify My Company as her replacement.
This opened the door to major opportunities. Today, Certify My Company works with clients across the United States and even internationally on all certifications, including private sector, federal, state and local. They serve WBEs, MWBEs, LGBTBEs, Disability-Owned Business Enterprises (DOBEs) and Veteran-Owned Business Enterprises (VOBEs), partnering with them to determine which certifications that are right for them based on their unique goals and then to obtain those.
Heather shares two of the things that really set Certify My Company apart in the industry. For one, they have 15 years of expertise in navigating the process. Also, they have a robust cyber security team because they collect such sensitive data. “We know how important it is to keep it safe and we have a whole team in place to do that,” she describes.
About 14 years ago, when Heather was still living in New Jersey, she was recruited by a NAWBO spinoff organization to bring her supplier diversity expertise to their board. That’s how she learned about NAWBO. “I lost track of it for a little bit until the re-launch of NAWBO Institute Certification,” Heather shares. “I reached out because I like to be educated on the differentiators of the various certifying organizations.”
Heather attended NAWBO’s 2023 National Women’s Business Conference in Austin, Texas, where she says she met some amazing people. “It was a good opportunity for me,” she says. “I like that NAWBO has the online Institute with educational components to it. It’s sometimes hard to find the information we need, especially when we don’t know what we don’t know.”
To learn more about NAWBO Institute Certification, Heather’s team went through the WBE certification process for Certify My Company. “I like to be in the know about what’s happening so we can talk to our clients about it,” she says. “One thing we like about NAWBO’s program is it gives us the opportunity to support business owners who aren’t in a box. NAWBO has different criteria.”
Five years ago, Heather made another business move. She noticed people saying they weren’t going to re-certify because they didn’t get anything out of it. There was a gap in what entrepreneurs knew about leveraging their certification and what the certifying organizations and corporations thought the entrepreneurs knew. She partnered with another woman entrepreneur to create Diversity Masterminds. The program features live cohorts and on-demand virtual education that teach the strategy behind certification.
For women business owners who are now thinking about certification, Heather compares it to a gym membership where you can get one and never go, get a personal trainer and really change the trajectory of your outcome or something in-between. “There’s no downside to it, only pros. It gives you a leg up and an opportunity entrance, but what you do with it is entirely up to you.”
Heather often talks certification on podcasts. Listen in here:
Business Equation
RFP Success
Startups and Stilettos
Kara Golden
Broadcast Your Authority
Look for more on Instagram @certifymyco under the “podcast” highlight or follow her on LinkedIn.