Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Matt Pavlik and he is with the National Veteran Owned Business Association called Nwaba Welcome Mat.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:00:35] Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:35] Lee Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about Nouveau, but how are you serving folks?

Matthew Pevelek: [00:00:41] Well, the most important thing that we do is connect better known businesses to opportunities with corporate America. Large corporations and the Fortune 1000 have had programs for years to be inclusive of minority and women business enterprises, and Novoa was created specifically to help those corporations bring veterans into that same program. And so we work to certify those businesses are owned by vets and help them to be competitive for corporate contracts.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So you’re kind of a matchmaker in that you’re letting these enterprise level companies know, hey, these people exist and you help these people. The smaller, midsized business owners that are veteran owned get certified to prove that they are who they say they are and then kind of match them with enterprise opportunities.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:01:26] Yeah, exactly. We kind of like to say we’re the match.com, if you will, of of this world. So we there are people that work within corporate America that are supplier diversity professionals. And their job is to find and help develop qualified, diverse vendors and then connect them to the buyers that buy the products and services that they sell. And so we have a tremendous relationship with the folks that represent these corporations and get to know them. And then we’re able to make those introductions to those companies that are trying to sell those products and services to those potential corporate customers. And so it is it’s a wonderful program, and it’s great to see that the corporate community has embraced veterans in every way imaginable as equal in terms of being a diverse business demographic.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] Now, these corporates, these large enterprises aren’t doing this totally altruistically, right? There’s some benefit for them to have some spend percentage for these diverse communities.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:02:28] Yeah, it’s definitely the right thing to do just to help empower diverse communities for sure. But it also is something that makes tremendous business sense. I know the Hackett Group did a study a couple of years ago that found for every $1.1 Billion that a corporation invested in supplier diversity returned at least one and one half million dollars in increased shareholder value. So there’s tremendous benefit to making sure that diverse communities know your company, they know your brand, and they understand that. And one of the best ways to do that is to empower diverse entrepreneurs to become successful suppliers to your company, because diverse suppliers hire more people that are diverse to work for their companies. So women hire women at a higher rate. And we know statistically that veteran owned companies hire 30% more veterans as employees than non veteran owned companies. So there’s a lot of advantage to making sure that you empower these communities to the corporate community that makes good business sense while you’re also doing something that’s really tremendous from a corporate citizenship perspective.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:28] Now, from when a veteran leaves the service and then goes in as a civilian, is there some sort of help to help them pursue an entrepreneurial path if they are so inclined? Or is that also part of your mission? Like how to? I would imagine because of their background, they are really good number one employees if they choose to go that path, but also really good entrepreneurs, if they choose to go that path based on their, you know, what they’ve been able to achieve in the military.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:03:56] Yeah, there’s actually a lot of different programs that are out there. So through a lot of grant funding through the US Small Business Administration, there’s all kinds of programs around the country. The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans, there’s the Boots to Business Program, there’s the Boots, the contracts program that we work with. There’s a national network of veteran business outreach centers. There’s 34 of them now. I think they’re going to be increasing that number. So those are dedicated small business resource centers exclusively for veteran clients as well. And in addition, there’s other private sector programs. So one of our partner organizations is a group called Bunker Labs. They have a national network of startup incubators to help veteran businesses get started. So our most important mission is making those connections with the corporate customers. Not every veteran entrepreneur is going to want to try to sell to corporate America. Just as a point of comparison, there are 8 million women owned businesses nationwide, but there’s only about 16,000 certified women’s business enterprises that are actively pursuing corporate contracts. So clearly, it’s not going to be something that’s a great fit for every entrepreneur. And that’s why we work with these other organizations that help every veteran who wants to become a business owner in their post-military lives, that they can get the access to the things that they need and partner with the organizations specifically for those businesses that can benefit from a. We do that helps us connect with those companies, too. And so it’s a great way for us to introduce this because that’s one of the areas that we see as the biggest opportunity for growth for the veteran business community is truly understanding this corporate opportunity that’s out there, because most vets really don’t get that yet. We’re working on that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:35] Right. And that’s one of those things where I would imagine that, like you said, the numbers are so minimal in terms of who have taken the leap to be certified. Because it isn’t it’s not just you go online and click three boxes and you’re certified like there are some vetting here that’s done and there is there is a hassle factor to get certified. It’s not so overwhelming that you shouldn’t consider it, but it is a little outside of what they do every day. But it’s one of those things that if you can pursue this and you really open yourself up to these corporate or enterprise level opportunities, it can change the trajectory of your business.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:06:16] Absolutely. And what’s a corporation gets a supplier that they really appreciate working with that helps them solve their problems. Then they’re going to continue to work with that supplier in many times and say, if you’ve proven yourself once, how about this? And they’ll continue to give you additional work and being a certified supplier, then that corporation can take credit for that in terms of their diversity and inclusion spending. And that’s just icing on the cake for them because that further reinforces them wanting to work with your company and to help them with that repeat business. So it’s never going to hurt your company and into your earlier point about the process of getting certified. It is a rigorous process. I don’t want to give anybody the impression that it’s just a self certification or a rubber stamp type of thing. You’re going to have to share an awful lot of information about your company because unfortunately, there are people that will misrepresent things and the corporate customer is not going to be able to report any spending in their annual reports or anything like that with your company as a diverse supplier, if you haven’t been third party certified and it is a rigorous process and I know a very good friend of mine who used to be the president of the National Women’s Council, she told me that 25 years ago when they started this, that every guy that had an honor system or a niece was a woman on business until they started to look carefully. So you do have to provide quite a bit of documentation and there’s a fee that has to be paid.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:07:41] But thankfully right now we have grant funding from Lowe’s, the National Home Improvement Retailer. So no veterans have to pay us to get certified right now. Normally they do. There is a fee and it can range from starting at $350. But thankfully, we don’t have to charge the veterans that fee because Lowe’s has decided to cover that cost for the next several hundred veterans at least to get certified, which we’re very grateful for. And our board recently passed a measure to make sure that our certification is good for three years. And so it’s one of those things that with other certifications, you have to renew it every year and you have to pay every year. So 4 hours, at least it’s free for now and it’s good for three years, something you don’t have to worry about. But ultimately, even if you’re renewing your women owned or minority owned certification for your corporate customers, this is a really valuable corporate service or a customer service to that corporate customer. So I really encourage businesses that are looking for these opportunities and do want to do business with these Fortune 500 companies. If you’re eligible, get your company certified. It is never going to be to a disadvantage and it really opens up doors to new opportunities and will be tremendous for the possibility of repeat long term business with these customers. Because once they once they get the usual suspects, they’d like to go back to the people they know. And contract renewal time comes and you build that trust and relationship and that certification really does help with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:03] And then these opportunities, you don’t have to national be necessarily a national organization. If you’re in a local market, there’s still opportunities in your local market as a certified veteran owned business, right? This isn’t something that, oh, I have to be a global company in order to benefit. There could be opportunities in your community.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:09:24] Absolutely. So I was down in your neck of the woods in Atlanta for the Veterans Entrepreneurship Forum in, I believe, April or May. And I met with a company called Clean Sleep, and they have this service where they they with ozone and ultra violet light and steam, they can sterilize mattresses and get them clean odor, free COVID, free and dry and ready to sleep on in 15 minutes. And so they’re trying to sell the service to the VA hospitals. And we were at the Doubletree Hotel or the Americas Hotel down there in Atlanta. And they said I said, who else could you sell the service to? I’m like, Oh, the hotels. And so I could talk to the manager of the hotel. I said, You could do that. Or I know the person who’s the national supplier diversity director for Hilton, which owns this particular location as well as all the others. And if they say that they want to do this because people are traveling again, your your service can help. Customers feel more safe and could be a competitive advantage for our hotels across the country. Maybe they’ll buy the service right away. And unlike the government, that’s going to take a while to get around to doing that years.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:10:29] In fact, if there’s something they don’t buy, especially already. So corporate America can buy it right now and you can have that connection to that person that will introduce you to those buyers. And if it’s something they see a real benefit with, let’s start it here in the Atlanta market where you’re located. And if we see potential, we can invest in your company to get the more capability to expand this in other areas. And so if there’s a way that you can be on being a diverse supplier opens you up to having that access to that supplier diversity person that’s going to help you navigate and find who that buyer is and advocate for you. And so it could be something that starts at the local level that turns out to be much, much more significant. Or it could just stay at that level. If you do parking lot snow removal services or you do lawn and lawn care services or window cleaning services, you never know. It could be something that you don’t have to be a massive national outfit to be eligible for, and you’re very much right about that.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] And then like you said, that once you kind of are plugged in there and you know the right people and have a champion, a lot of times those organizations are going to give you the roadmap to be successful. They want you to be successful because they have a good supplier on their hands that they don’t want to screw up. So they want to encourage you to have more opportunity and kind of give you the the playbook to really leverage their account.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:11:51] That’s exactly right. And so for the business owners that are out there, you know, the benefit of having a great employee and sometimes the the disadvantage of having a person, that’s not necessarily an ideal fit. So for when a corporation and a person who’s in charge of buying products and services to make sure that they’re able to do what they do. And so when you have a great supplier that you can count on all the time, it’s just like having a tremendous employee that you don’t want to lose them. And so you’ve become a critically valued member of their team once you become a good supplier that they can count on.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:26] So now when you’re running this organization and you’re working with both enterprise and corporate level people, but but also the entrepreneur who may be obviously isn’t as savvy and as knowledgeable, how do you kind of thread that needle? Are you spending a lot of your time educating the small to midsize business owner of Hey, this is how you leverage this opportunity or you having to network and kind of meet as many corporates as possible in order to, you know, it’s a chicken and the egg thing.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:12:56] Yeah, definitely. And in both directions for sure. So with the corporate side of things, thankfully the women business community is 25 years old this year and the national minority community is 50 years old this year. And so the idea of educating diverse suppliers and helping them be competitive and navigating corporate buying ecosystems, it’s been around for five decades now, so we don’t have to do a whole lot of educating on the corporate side. Advocating to make sure vets are part of it is something we have been doing aggressively since 2007. But thankfully the corporate world has really embraced veterans. And so in 2009, I did the research to see how many companies on the Fortune 500 had any mention of veterans, and it was 94 companies. Now, almost all of the Fortune 1000 have veterans mentioned as a diverse business demographic. Veterans are part of the National Business Inclusion Consortium, which is NOVA, represents better on that body, which is the entity that represents all of the diverse business demographics on a national scale. So we kind of have a unified voice. So in many ways the corporate side of it is really moving along very well. The challenge is the veterans side. So we have a lot of programs that help develop veteran businesses to be more competitive and be more successful. But the greatest challenge is getting them just to understand that there’s an opportunity out there, because as people are transitioning out of the military, they go through the transition assistance program and there are things. But there’s this notion that the government owes you a contract because the federal law requires the government to spend 3% with disabled veteran owned companies. And so a lot of vets really do look at the federal marketplace as like the end all, be all.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:14:40] And they don’t quite understand that there’s this much, much greater opportunity with literally a thousand companies on the Fortune 1000 that want to include them and give them an opportunity to compete and a special advantage compared to non-diverse companies. And so that’s our struggle, is helping vets understand that the government isn’t the only option. We always encourage them if they really want to do that and they think they compete for government contracts, do it. It’s a lucrative marketplace and it can be tremendously beneficial. And I know plenty of vets that have been very successful in that area, but to not consider the corporate world is very myopic and you should always diversify. Fire your prospective customers. And there’s a lot of advantages to the corporate world that you’re not going to see in the public sector world, specifically with that loyalty. The government isn’t necessarily bound or doesn’t necessarily have the same type of relationships with its suppliers because it’s an open, competitive marketplace where the bids all have to be bid out. It’s all public corporate contracts. They can’t keep that close to the vest. And so when they have a good supplier they like, they kind of keep that to themselves. And you certainly can’t access exactly what they’re buying, what they’re paying for, and all those things like you can with public contracts. So there’s a lot of advantage to the private sector world that that’s where it’s slowly changing. And then we’re very grateful for the folks at the US Small Business Administration and specifically the Office of Veterans Business Development. They really understand the critical role that the government can play in helping veterans understand this marketplace outside of the government, and they’re really making great strides in helping with that. And so we’re very grateful.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:11] Right. It’s something to remember when you’re a small business person. Time is money and the government moves at the speed of government and business moves at the speed of business. And that tends to be a lot faster. And they can make decisions. I mean, still, it takes a minute, but it’s a lot faster in business usually than it is when you’re working with the government.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:16:32] Absolutely. Shareholders can, if you can demonstrate that you can provide legitimate value cost savings, increased safety, increased productivity or efficiency, if there’s some way that you can help them impact shareholder value in a positive way, corporations can buy it very quickly and they can do that because it’s going to have tremendous impact right away. The government tends to buy what it buys when it buys it. And so even if you have something that they say, this is a great idea, we love it when Congress approves our next budget three years from now. We might include a line item for that and maybe buy it then. So very little discretionary funding for things that the government doesn’t buy. So it can be very beneficial for those that understand it and have been successful in that marketplace, but especially for people just getting started. You’re way, way more likely to be successful in private sector contracting than with the government side for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:25] So now in your work and educating the veterans about these kind of opportunities, is that kind of the biggest need right now is just getting the word out for more and more veteran owned businesses to just be aware that Novoa is there to help them get certified if they would like to, but to educate them on all of the benefits of being certified, especially now you’ve removed the cost barrier, you’ve removed the time barrier in terms of now the certification is for three years. This seems like a no brainer for any veteran owned business.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:17:58] Yeah, in many ways I think that every veteran should at least explore it and consider it. But the point that I made earlier about the the women owned businesses and how most of them aren’t going to sell to corporate America, I don’t want vets to be under the impression that they have to get certified, because if you’re just trying to sell haircuts and pizzas on Main Street, getting certified to this standard is not necessary because it is rigorous and it’s an investment. If you want to do it, we’ll never turn a better in a way that wants to say, my company is certified by Nevada and some people really take pride in that and they want to have that certification. But it’s not critical. It’s not necessary. And so even if it’s free, we don’t want to tell every vet you have to go get certified by us because there’s money that could be used for some other company that can actually benefit from it. And so we don’t want people to say, well, I got this certification and really didn’t do anything for me. Well, if it’s not going to be a corporate customer that’s able to use it to report their spending with you, it isn’t necessary. And there’s other entities that will give you some validation. And for a lot of customers, if you just, you know, Shakey Jake’s barbershop in downtown Atlanta, then saying that you’re a marine Corps vet and that’s it, that’s that’s pretty much all you need. However, if you’re trying to get some significant contracts with Home Depot or Coca-Cola or something there in Atlanta and, you know, being a diverse supplier can be an advantage. That’s really a tremendous opportunity for that. And so we really do want to make sure that the veterans that can benefit understand it and all of them at least understand that there’s an opportunity out there to consider whether or not it’s right for their company.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:35] Now, before we wrap, do you have any advice for other association leaders that are kind of have an association like yours that is kind of a marketplace where you have a constituent that are the enterprise level folks and you have the small to midsize business folks who can both benefit. And then part of your mission is to kind of connect them together. There are some do’s and don’ts you can share for other association leaders.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:20:01] I would say the best thing you could do is listen to your people, listen to your stakeholders. And so one of the things that was really eye opening for me when we when the pandemic first set in and all of the companies were being closed in a lot of the. Stuff was beginning to shut down. There was a lot of confusion and there was a lot of interest on the corporate side of saying, what can we do to help small businesses? Because they did want to genuinely help. And people were coming up with grants and loans and money, ideas and things like that and trying to figure it out. So we sent out a survey to both communities asking what can what are we? What should we be doing? What can we do for you? Most importantly, for the veteran businesses, the theme was resounding. It’s like these corporations say they want to buy from our businesses. Just give us an opportunity to compete. Just do what you’ve always been doing. Let us keep the lights on. Let us keep our employees coming to work. And so give us an opportunity to compete for business. And so we created this Marching Forward Mondays program. So every Monday at two Eastern, we do a showcase where veteran businesses get to pitch their value proposition to our corporate allies. And it has led to direct business opportunities for a lot of folks.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:21:16] And so from the corporate side, that’s one of the things that we have to work with Lowe’s is they said, how can we do something that’s going to be meaningful and impactful? And to Lowe’s credit, they didn’t just give the money to us. They gave money to the minority and women and other diverse business communities. I don’t know exactly which communities all received funding, but I know that it went out to at least five or six different diverse business communities, including Nova, because that’s one of the things they wanted to do. Instead of giving a loan or grant to a handful of small businesses, they could give almost the entire diverse business community. Every one of them gets a little something. And so one less thing to worry about is maintaining your diversity certification. We’ll at least cover the cost for that for you. So and there’s already so much to deal with, but all of that came as a result of us communicating directly with our stakeholder communities and understanding what we could be doing better to serve them and how we could be the conduit to make those connections. And so the advice would be communication is key and and do it as often as you can and and take it as seriously as you can and what you hear back deliver on what those expectations are.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:25] Right. And this is one of those things that just because you’re certified, it’s not like an ATM machine that now you’re going to make money just because you went through that. You have to be good at what you do. You have to really be able to deliver the results in order to really leverage the most out of the certification.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:22:42] Yeah, it’s always a value add. It’s no no corporation or government for that matter. No customer is going to buy something from you based solely on who you are. It’s something that you have to demonstrate legitimate value. Corporations buy value, not status. But when you do provide value to them and they decide they’re going to work with your company and you happen to be a certified diverse supplier, that’s a tremendous value add. That really is something that they value as a nice customer service. They can then use that because they genuinely want to be inclusive of diverse businesses. And when you provide them that certificate as a customer service to them, then that’s helping them achieve another mission that they had. But the first and foremost is is keeping the the machine running, if you will, and keeping the supply chain as efficient as possible. So you’ve got to be provide value first. And then the certification thing is just a nice value add after the fact. And it really needs to be viewed as a customer service to really important customers of yours.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:44] Well, if somebody out there is a veteran owned business and wants to learn more about Nwaba or they are, you know, a large organization that wants to learn more about nouveau, but what is the website and the best way to connect with you or somebody on your team?

Matthew Pevelek: [00:23:57] Oh it’s great. So Nwaba dot org and everything is pretty straightforward. If you’re a corporate ally just click on Connect with US from a corporate perspective. And if you’re a veteran and you’re interested in getting certified, you can click on the VP certification information, everything that’s going to be required of you, the documents that you’ll have to submit, and everything that’s necessary for you to understand that is all laid out in the FAQs. And we have a very rigorous pre qualification process because we don’t want anybody to get started and get into the process that doesn’t know what they’re they’re jumping into and making sure that it’s truly right for them. And so all of that is very easy. Navigable on our home page there dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:37] Well, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you it’s one more time into Novoa dot org and a b.o.b a dot org. Matt Pavlik, thank you so much again for sharing your story.

Matthew Pevelek: [00:24:54] Thank you, lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:55] All right. This Lee Kantor, we will see all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.