It tends to be a little bit easier for people like promotional products, companies, for instance, to get in on there because they have direct, um, direct access to those contracts. Right? So someone like ourselves at Liberty, we would become what is called a tier two supplier. So. Therefore, let's just say company a is the promotional products company. And let's say she is a black lesbian veteran and she owns a promotional products company and she goes to the government. She's got what, let's see women black and veteran. She's got three diversity classifications that make her look very, very, very sexy. To large corporations and the federal government and state and local as well. And because that means that those diversity dollars are then counted one, two, three times, which is huge for them, for their reporting purposes. So then she says, Oh, by the way, on my contract, I'm going to use Liberty Print Co because they're women-owned and they're get. So then now she has five times the diversity dollars. So she looks off the charts. Marshall Atkinson Yeah. You should have gone to the Marine Corps too. And then you would have hit all three also. Monica Maglaris Yeah, I'm not that brave. Marshall Atkinson So I think one of the things also is not just for diversity dollars is because sometimes, uh, the people in a certain group or tribe or whatever you want to call it. Look for themselves in their vendor chain. Right? We want to find people just like us. So, you know, certified women-owned businesses like to use. Uh, certified women on business because you guys speak the same language you're having the same struggle. And it's probably the same thing for, you know, uh, the, the gay community. Right. So that, you know, the gay and lesbian, chamber of commerce thing. Right. So, uh, so it's like one of these things, where do you, does that ring true to you also? Monica Maglaris It sure does, and a lot of it is part of, I think, any disenfranchised community has a sense of community service. You know, when you get somewhere, you want to help other people up and stuff like that, show them the way forward. And so for me, um, you know, we're certified, uh, by the. National gay and lesbian chamber of commerce. The NGLCC that's the certifying body. Um, our local chapter regional chapter actually is CTGLLC, which is the Connecticut gay and lesbian chamber of commerce. And I served on the board of directors and I was actually the chair of supplier diversity for them. So what I would do is I would go out into our community. And I would say to people, Hey, are you a business owner? If so, let's get you certified. Let's get you competing. You know the biggest thing to really like to explain to people is that you still have to be damn, damn, damn good at your job. You have to hit all of those parameters that they would be looking for in any other company. So you've got to somehow compete at the same level, but then also differentiate yourself
308
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs