Birth Certificate Reveals Opportunity

A story about how Neil Patel discovered the benefits of being certified as a minority-owned business through an unexpected request from his COO.

"Our COO asked me for my birth certificate about 6 months before we did the certification. She's like 'Hey, I need your birth certificate' and I'm like 'Why do you need my birth certificate?' She says 'Oh, we need it for this certification.'

At first, I didn't realize I was a minority. Companies were reaching out saying 'Oh, you're a minority, we reached out to you, we're hoping you'd be a good fit.' I responded 'I'm a minority?' They explained 'Yes, you're a minority in the United States, you'd help us meet our quota. Do you have the certification?'

I was confused because I thought 'I'm not a minority, there's like 1 billion+ of me in this world.' They explained that in America, I'm considered a minority. We went through the process and got the certification. It turned out that many Fortune 500 companies have quotas they need to hit for minority-owned businesses, and this certification helped us win contracts, especially when we had similar pricing and good credentials."