I have been trying to think what would be of most interest to readers of this blog. I have personal interests in trading internationally, pitching for investment, customer service, marketing and business awards.
Since I have a book coming out in May I thought it would be about the right time to speak about business awards or business competitions.
I thought many years ago that business awards were for large organisations, I always admired companies that had won awards but never thought that I would be one of them. That all changed when my competitor won a customer service award. Customer service is what my company excelled at and I knew we did a better job than our competitor.
Long story short, I started to look into business awards and competitions, there are so many of them. I cherry picked the ones that appealed to me and entered!
For years I hadn’t considered that you had to take action to be considered for an award, just by entering I have vastly increased my chances from 0% just by submitting. In just a few years I had entered 16 business awards, we had won 12 and was a finalist in 3 others. You could do it as well! I admit I got a bit carried away. You only really need 1 win to make a huge impact on your company.
So why should you bother about business awards?
“Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.” – Euripides
The research also demonstrated an increasing appetite for entering awards despite the economic climate. This fact was reinforced by 76% of respondents who agreed with the statement “awards are important for generating business or improving the value of a brand”.
When you think about it – awards can help you even more in times of recession or an economic downturn. This is when the value of the tool itself becomes very clear and people turn to who they think they can trust.
Remember winning an award is the greatest marketing tool from every angle.
Main benefits of winning an award:
1. Publicity, PR and brand awareness
2. It attracts new customers
3. Helps to retain current clients
4. Increases staff performance & satisfaction
5. It Feels Good and will give you renewed motivation
There are many other benefits of winning awards that may not make themselves immediately obvious, I hope I can share in one of my future blogs, how entering and winning awards changed my business forever.
Louise Prunty – Entrepreneur
Author of How to become an award winning business
Director of Beauty Innovator
Founder of Caledonian Therapy Academy
Founder of MYscara & Glam Lash brands
Glasgow for Business Week 