All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
This is Veterans Radio.
Welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fausone.
I'm the officer of the deck today.
We've got some great programs for you.
I think you'll find very interesting.
We always want to remind you you can find more about Veterans Radio at its Facebook site
or at the web.
VeteransRadio.org is our new URL, VeteransRadio.org.
Where we're on the web 24-7, you can find a lot of our podcasts there as well.
We post new ones every Tuesday, so you can get a new story, a new interview, something
you didn't know before by going to VeteransRadio.org.
And before we get started, we want to thank our sponsors.
First up, we want to thank National Veteran Business Development Council, NVBDC.org.
It was established to certify both service disabled and veteran owned businesses.
You'll find out how they can help your business by going to NVBDC.org.
We want to thank Legal Help for Veterans.
Legal Help for Veterans fights for veterans disability rights all across the nation.
I am Jim Fossone and this is Veterans Radio's spotlight on the National Veteran Business
Development Council, well known as NVBDC.org.
And we're honored today to have with us its founder and CEO, Keith King.
Welcome back, Keith, to VeteransRadio.
Well, thank you, Jim.
It's always a pleasure to be with you.
Well as our regular listeners know, NVBDC is the nation's leading third party authority
for certification of veteran owned businesses, really of all sizes.
And we're kind of talking today because it's about 10 years that this nonprofit that got
started back in 2013 has been certifying companies.
I think that's a great place to start, Keith.
Give us a little, hey, what's going on after this decade of certifying veteran owned businesses?
Well, you know, we never, you know, we talk to obviously a lot of businesses and small
or any business that's been in, up and operating for a few years.
The 10th year always seemed to be one of those, you know, anniversaries that you should pause
and say, hey, I know we made it 10 years, but we actually have been certifying our veteran
owned businesses for 10 years now.
And, you know, people have said, well, we've done it 10 years, you know.
And that's one of these things that really what we're trying to do is put out some of
the information I think is surprising to not only our veterans, but to our corporate members.
And I know one of them is we went back into our files and we have actually certified over
3,000 veterans.
So, you know, we're there, we're pounding and we continue to grow.
Well, that level of certification has certainly also turned into a lot of contracts for sort
of certified veteran owned businesses.
And I know the billion dollar roundtable did some analysis and there's some other analysis
of how big the market is for certified veteran owned businesses.
And as I said, NVBDC is the gold standard for this.
Give us some sense of how big the market is.
Well, I'll start with the one that probably is the closest to my heart in the sense of
they did, they being the BDR, did a impact study.
And in that impact study, what they do among all the other information they gather is they
have each of their members report the contract amount of what we call the spend per category
women, minorities, veterans.
And when they came out and said, well, the members of the billion dollar roundtable reported
that they have spent 4.3 billion with our veteran owned businesses.
And we went, well, that's even bigger than I could dream.
And that's not over the 10 year period we're talking about, right?
That's an annual spend.
Yes, that was last year, 23.
And now that we're working with them even closer with all of these things, one of the
side, if you will, you know, the guys who love the numbers.
We in this impact study said, does anybody know how much money is in the supplier diversity
market, if you will, as a whole?
And they actually said, yeah, it was $122 billion market.
And as you know, Jim, I keep talking about, I want a bigger piece of this pie.
Yep, yep, that's what our veteran business owners want, absolutely.
Well, at $122 billion, I think I'm finally getting people's attention.
Well, I would hope so.
And that's, that's a, is that a corporate spend or is that a government spend or a combination?
Either, strictly the 30 now 32 at the time was 26, 27 corporations that spent that much
with our veterans.
And I know in the opening, you mentioned, you know, that we certify, you know, small,
medium, and large.
And we have a corporation now that is over 2 billion veteran owned.
You know, we had one that was at a 900 million a year, had 1800 employees in five countries.
So that was one of the, one of the issues, I think, right from the beginning that our
corporate members really drove home, really helped us.
They said, don't ever get caught up in the small business.
You know, everybody loves a small business, but if you're sitting here talking to, you
know, some of the largest corporations in the world, we need to make sure that if we're
hiring somebody as a supplier, that they can, in fact, meet our demands, you know, and do
it the whatever they need to do to have the ability to, you know, expand and, and meet
our goals.
And that's how we got to the point we are.
Well, and it's important because the government had had some programs not very successful
in ways of certifying, and, and they were for small business, veteran owned businesses,
and you kind of could grow out of them, which wasn't really good for the, anybody in the
sequence, but that's sort of the problem with a government run program.
And last time we talked, the Congress was moving certification out of the hands of
the VA and over to the SBA, but that really hasn't gotten up and running very well, Hesit.
Well, I hesitate only because.
Okay, I can say it, Hesit.
Well, that's okay.
I know what they're going to do.
You know, can't fire me.
You know, what, what they did is they had, and I know we discussed that, that originally
the plan was that the SBA was not going to, in essence, raid the VA, that they were going
to go and build, you know, the whole new team, build a whole new program.
That was a lie.
And unfortunately in that form, they brought, and that's been a lot of time with these guys.
They basically brought the key executives of the VA running the CVE or their verification
program to the SBA.
And I was like, well, what happened to, you're not going to be allowed.
Well, I guess, you know, depending on your point of view, if you cry and wind it up,
maybe somebody else say, yeah, okay, go ahead and hire them.
Yeah, they just took the easy way out rather than creating, and this is what the beauty
of NVBDC is.
It's really a rigorous certification process.
You really got to prove yourself up.
And then there's some comfort to the corporate America that this certification was rigorous
enough to withstand scrutiny, isn't it?
Yeah.
And again, I always try to acknowledge the National Women's Group called ReBank and the
National Minority Group who were truly our mentors.
I joke about it.
They said, yeah, we'll take pity on you.
Come on, we'll teach you.
But they did.
And, you know, that was like a 15-month process for us to take, learn what the rules are,
learn why they do what they do, then write up the SOP and write up, you know, the whole
program, design it, and then implement it.
And that's what we did basically 10 years ago in April.
So, you know, it was just a few weeks ago, we'd have been actually spied on 10 years.
So we're always acknowledging and always thinking those groups for teaching us in for
the corporations for accepting us because I get these calls more often than that of,
you know, somebody will ask me a question and I'll jump into it and they'll go, no,
that's enough.
Okay, we believe you.
Okay.
Well, and that's really important and that's why you should celebrate 10 years of success
because when you have that kind of rigorous standard and people say, well, that's a gold
standard, we don't have to look any farther, you get opportunities to do things and partner
with other groups that have similar reputations.
And you have one of those going on at the moment with the International Trade Association.
Tell me what that's about.
Well, what we have been talking to them about is really how many, if you will, expats, how
many patriots do we have all over the world?
And a lot of the guys who got out of the military in Germany is probably one of the
ones, England definitely, Philippines, Guam, there are a lot of Americans living overseas
running what they call a veteran owned business.
And our whole, you know, position is really, how do you know they're veterans?
So you know, the ITA said, you know, the knowledge and I think that's one of the things that
we've been really proud of is when you see the knowledge and you actually jump into what
our veterans, well, soldiers, if you will, are being taught today, you know, I make the
comment all the time, where do you think cybersecurity came from?
You know, I mean, this is all military technologies, right?
And so we have some very highly trained, very sophisticated people, you know, running businesses
all over the world.
And the ITA said, first off, we would love to know if they're really veterans.
And secondly, you know, we'd love to work with you and see how many other people we
have here, stateside, who would like, you know, to start looking at doing, you know,
international trade.
And they have, man, these guys got some incredible programs.
And so, you know, what we said is what was, start putting programs together, put webinars
together, put meetings together.
We're involved with the UN weekly program.
You know, besides the ones I've told you about, another group called Betsco Global.
So between the ITA and Betsco Global and the UN, we are definitely, you know, building
it and trying to make sure that whatever we do, in the sense of going international,
we've got the main, the key players who will help us.
So.
Well, one of the things I want to do before we get into two other, three other areas I
want to talk about is I want to say to veteran owned business owners who are listening, if
you think certification is something that you ought to go on and do, go to NVBDC.org.
They will help you through this process.
It is important that you realize it'll be rigorous.
You'll have to provide a lot of information.
But that's exactly what you want coming out the other end so that when you have work opportunities,
bid opportunities with corporate America, they know you're the real deal.
So go to NVBDC.org.
That's the easiest way to get started and reach out because it'll help you get going.
Yeah, one of the things that I think you've done, I appreciate it because we have a certification
team now in really that are outstanding.
That would just simply say, okay, what do you need?
How can we help you?
No, actually, like you said, they'll, you know, basically hold your hand and walk you
through it because the thing is, is what we want to be able to do and credit us to help
veterans.
So, you know, our attitude isn't like, eh, what's the matter with you?
You can't do it yourself.
I don't know.
No, call us.
We'll help you.
You know, and that's the idea that when we just got a, what I call a success letter,
the gentleman was kind enough.
I was saying that because of his certification with us in the last year, he's got $200,000
worth of new business.
And not a curiosity, you know, because the way we're structured, anyone who's under
a million dollars in revenue only pays $350 to get certified.
And I know you know, I lose money on anti-health, but it wasn't the smartest decision I ever
made, but hey, so the reason I'm bringing it up is I was joking with him.
I said, wait a minute.
You gave me $350, you know, in exchange, you got $200,000 back.
Yeah.
The essence of ROI.
What the hell?
You know, ROI is that, you know, I said, listen, I'll give you 350 today.
If you give me $200,000 next year, you know.
Well, that's one of the things that's unique about the certification and how NVBDC operates,
and that is it's not just about giving you a stamp at the end of the analysis.
There's an ongoing effort to network, connect, help veteran-owned businesses, get those opportunities.
And in fact, you've got a couple of, you know, kind of annual events coming up one in August
of this year and one in October of this year.
Tell us about your events and why you do them.
Well, we do them just basically, like you said, for the very purpose that we, when we've
started this, one of the commitments that the corporations made to us was that they
would, with their own supplier events, begin to invite our certified veterans to attend.
And secondly, they would attend our events, if long as we are guaranteeing that we'll
have some of our certified veterans show up.
And the number of corporations as well as the names of these corporations is sometimes
startling because, you know, you'll walk into a room with 50, 60, 80, 100 of our corporations
and you're looking at, you know, the top 20 corporations in the world.
And they're actually wanting to talk to you.
And these are the corporate members.
These are the buyers of who want certified veteran owned businesses.
And I know some of the names are like Apple and Ford and, you know, every big name you
can think of, as well as much more, I guess I'd call it locals, regional companies.
Well, and it is, you know, we have all the high tech guys, Apple and Amazon, what I
call the A team.
And then we have, you know, the automotive teams and, you know, we have a lot of the
financials, the banks, the insurance companies.
You know, it's really quite impressive.
Well, if you go to the website and click on corporate members, if you're trying to talk
yourself into going through this process, just go look at the corporate members that
scroll across the bottom.
You can express Kellogg's American family insurance, Altira, I'm on the A team, as you
can tell by the scroll.
It's really an impressive group in that hundred or plus corporate members who support what
NVBDC is doing.
Well, thank you.
Because again, one of the things that we have focused on is the idea that, look, when
we first were working with this whole thing together, that's why the 10th has been so
important to us, is when we sit down with these corporations and said, here's why our
veterans should be supported.
They said to us, point blank, create a certification program that meets our standard and will help
you.
Well, they have.
And, you know, that's the kind of message I like to get out because I don't think a
lot of the veterans who, I understand the skepticism, but when the skepticism, you know, gets being
on what I call, you know, real, I mean, like you said, all I do is look at my website and
see these names.
You don't think I'm putting these names up there.
Yeah, you know, if you didn't have authorization, they'd be all over you.
Because they're biggest names in corporate America.
Before we run out of time, because this happens to you and I all the time when we chat, we
got too much to talk about in too little time, there's a program that I'm particularly interested
in that I think veteran radio listeners would be because we've been talking about military
recruiting over the last year and the problems they're in.
And it's easy to talk about the problem.
It's nice to talk to somebody who's doing something about the problem.
And that brings me to wanting to talk about NVBDC getting involved with junior ROTC.
Tell us why and tell us about it.
The purpose was we were sitting around brainstorming about, hey, we're working very, very hard.
To reach the veterans, you know, out of Afghanistan and Pershingoff.
But we have a whole other population that is going to be the leaders of this country
in someday.
And what can we do to help them and make sure that if we can help give them some financial
support to go to college, stay in college, how can we make this work?
And one of my board members said he would love to be the director of the program and
that he had the heart.
He had the knowledge how to put a program like this together.
All he needed was money.
And time.
Well, you know, and then it was like, oh my God.
But thankfully the program we put together, we never hit anybody really hard in the sense
of the money.
But it was give us enough to offer, you know, the juniors are primarily the seniors in high
school who are going to college.
You know, a nice little scholarship that we can give them, you know, every year that they're
in the program every year or four years in college.
And that's what we did.
That's what we've launched.
What we've done is we built what we call state manager portfolio where we have literally
gone around the country looking for veterans who may have a heart or an interest in helping
these young next time, you know, leaders of our military.
And we have been very surprised and very pleased of the quality of the people who have said,
we love this man.
No one's doing this, you know, jump in.
So we have our 50 state managers.
We've already, I've been teasing my guys.
I'm getting hands cramps from writing checks.
But yeah, you know, when I guess, you know, gentlemen, I put that way in a sense of when
you believe.
And, you know, we had an opportunity to say, let's see what we can do.
And thankfully, my board said, well, you know, we're not afraid to fail, which is, you know,
it's always a big deal.
Let's just do the best we can.
And that program is now in its fourth going into its fifth year.
Yeah, it's just an amazing program.
Again, I'd encourage veterans, even if you're not a veteran owned business, you don't need
certification.
Maybe you want to help out NVBDC by looking at their junior ROTC program in the 50 states.
It's a scholarship program.
I'm sure you can donate to it.
Go to NVBDC.org.
And there's actually a specific site, NVBDCJROC.org, to get you right into this scholarship program.
And you know, we can talk about, hey, there's a problem in getting people interested in military
service, but you're something you can do as a listener to get involved.
Keith, this is a great program.
As always, we appreciate the time that you give us here and the support that you give
us here on Veterans Radio.
Congratulations on a decade of fine work.
And let's look forward to another decade of fine work.
Well, you know, from your lips to God's ear, I hope I'm here another decade.
But yeah, this has been a life, if you will.
You know, you wake up one morning, you got this idea, and everybody tells you, oh, you're
crazy, what are you doing?
But 10 years later, I'm going, we're still here.
And you're not so crazy anymore, right?
Well, not as much as I was, apparently.
So thank you again, my friend.
You're welcome.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fausone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans, and you can reach us at
800-693-4800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by visiting us at veteransradio.org.
That's veteransradio.org.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for
Veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
The number again, 1-800-693-4800.
We again want to thank our national sponsors, the National Veterans Business Development
Council, NVBDC.org, VA Ann Arbor Health Care System, the Vietnam Veterans of America,
Charles S. Kettles Chapter, Ann Arbor, Michigan, VFWGraph, O'Hara Post 423 in Ann Arbor, and
the American Legion Press Corn Post 46 also in Ann Arbor.
We appreciate all your support.
You can go to veteransradio.net, click on the sponsor level, and continue to support
keeping Veterans Radio on the air.
And until next time, you are dismissed.