Am using this formula in B2 to extract the 2nd and 3rd characters in a
string:

=IF(A2="","",CONCATENATE(MID($A2,2,1),MID($A2,3,1) ))

It correctly displays a "09"

Would like to do a VLOOKUP against the result displayed as "09" (zero
9) and return another value.

How should the table contain the desired matching value?
If I place a 09 in the first column, it's displayed as a 9 and it will
not be found. Changing to TEXT, and pasting as values doesn't work.
If I place "value" before the formula in B2, it will display as a 9,
and increasing the decimal will display as "9.0".

The text string in A1 looks like 609250412-PL.

So how would I configure the first column in the lookup table to
return a value where the source value is the result of a concatenated
formula?

TIA for any ideas.
Pete