Specialized Marketing Services, Inc. Founder/CEO Gloria Robbins Selected as 2009 Awardee for AT&T's National Women of Color Business (WOCB) Growth Initiative.

SMS to Gain ISO 9001/TL 9000 Certification by March 2010

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Specialized Marketing Services, Inc. (SMS), a full-service direct response marketing company, was recently selected as one of eight companies, from a national pool of applicants, to participate in AT&T's Inaugural National Women of Color Business Growth Initiative.

The program, unveiled at the Women's Business Enterprise National Council's (WBENC) Women in Business conference: "The Bridge to Quality" in San Francisco, was created as a direct result of AT&T's sponsorship of the Center of Women's Business Research study, as well as the Center's Washington, D.C. National Symposium, "Accelerating the Growth of Businesses Owned by Women of Color".

The growth initiative program provides awardees with training and workshops in such areas as global supply management and corporate sustainability, as well as resources for executive graduate scholarship programs, mentoring sessions and networking events. The key to the initiative is step-by-step guidance to achieve full ISO 9001/TL 9000 certification within a 10-month period. ISO 9001 Quality Management is one of the certifications from the International Organization for Standardization that certifies that a corporation demonstrates regular compliance with continual enhancement of customer satisfaction and achieves continual improvement of the company's performance. TL 9000 Quality Management, developed by the QuEST Forum, includes ISO 9001 quality standard specifications plus includes supply chain management requirements for the worldwide telecommunications industry.

Robbins states, "It is truly an honor to be among the few Women of Color companies selected by AT&T to participate in this prestigious program and we appreciate the level of responsibility that comes along with the selection. As a company, we have been focused on providing our clients with superior service for the last 20 plus years and we are extremely excited about how the ISO 9001 and TL 9000 certifications will help us to continue to increase our customers' satisfaction and grow our company."

SMS took the first step in the certification process by having eight members of its management team complete the TL 9000 Familiarization - Basic Quality - Problem Solving, Customer Satisfaction, and Continual Improvement training course which focuses on understanding the certification process and lays the groundwork for the entire process.

Specialized Marketing Services, Inc. (SMS) is a full-service direct response marketing and fulfillment company that provides cross-channel, integrated direct response-based sales and marketing solutions across traditional, interactive and fulfillment platforms. Celebrating more than 20 years of visionary management and expertise, they offer clients industry-leading and award-winning initiatives, which deliver exceptional ROI, stronger brand equity, greater market share, and accountable results. Their clients range in size from small and mid-sized companies to large multi-national corporations in varied industries including High-Tech, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Food and Beverage and Consumer Electronics.

Specialized Marketing Services is a woman-owned business with full Women and Minority Business Enterprise (WMBE) certification. Additional information is available at www.teamsms.com or call 800-998-8600.