Business View Magazine | November 2020

42 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2020 on the line at any given time. “This is something that we’ve done in response to the COVID pandemic. We’ve always done networking events and we’ve always travelled to these diverse business conferences. But, since everything has gone virtual, we wanted to do something. We did a survey of our veteran’s businesses and we asked them, ‘What’s the most important thing we can be doing for you during this time?’ They weren’t asking for handouts; they didn’t want lending programs; they didn’t want training on how to develop a virtual workforce. All they really wanted was the opportunity to connect with customers so they could continue to provide value and do business with these corporations that say they want to do business with them. So, this program is an excellent way for us to put these certified firms in front of numerous prospective customers every other Monday. We’ve been doing it since the beginning of June, and it’s going to keep going on indefinitely. “We also have another program – a corporate engagement hour, which is kind of the same thing in reverse. We have five of our corporations where they say, ‘If you’d like to business with us, here are some upcoming opportunities available; here’s how you can learn more about potentially becoming a supplier in our network.’” “It’s estimated that there are three million veteran-owned businesses in the country,” Pavelek adds. “The latest SBA figures are about 2.4 million, but it’s really hard to track, because not every veteran-owned business identifies as such. But no matter who your customers are, there’s an advantage to being a veteran, because 95 percent of Americans on our survey identified that they like vets and they want to support veteran-owned companies. Two thirds of respondents said they would be more inclined to purchase from a business that identified as veteran-owned. So, no matter who your customers are, letting them know that you’re a veteran is a good thing.”