Customers and prospects may demand that your organization possess certifications that you don’t need—often at a great expense to you. A perfect example is PCI for organizations that handle credit and debit card information.

A part of your customers becoming PCI compliant is that they ensure their service providers (including you) are PCI validated. Often, they require you to have the designation—even if you don’t do payment transactions for them.

To earn and retain important, possibly lucrative, business, you have two choices:

An attractive solution for you is to educate your customer about how you don’t need to be certified. However, this may not work if one of your competitors is already certified. The customer will leave you and hire your competitor unless you can significantly differentiate yourself from your competitors in other ways.

Be aware that it can take a significant about of time for you to achieve some certifications.

Even when a customer requires you to have certifications you really don’t need, if you want their business, remember that “the customer is always right.”

Be proactive—earn designations now so you can keep up with, and perhaps surpass, your competitors.