You deserve to be recognised for what you’ve achieved – don’t you?
Business awards have been around for decades, yet despite thousands of award opportunities open to businesses of all shapes and sizes each year they remain underutilised by many as part of their business strategy and marketing plans. In the meantime, those embracing awards are reaping the benefits, using awards to drive success and increase the value of their companies.
As I have said many times before, approached correctly, awards are a powerful tool to drive business growth, build teams and lead to greater success in both business and life.
If you started your business with a clear purpose and believe it to be a good one, then it’s only right that you consider business awards. Awards that bear testimony to your achievements, the commitment of your team, the loyalty of your customers and suppliers. You deserve to be recognised for what you’ve achieved – don’t you?
Yet, according to research over 40% of businesses have not even considered entering business awards. If you are one of these, you should, as the benefits to fast-track your business and reputation far exceed the modest effort required. If in doubt, then please read my article ‘So, you want to win an award?’ it could be lifechanging for both you and your business.
Many of the reasons why businesses don’t enter awards are very easily overcome, with just a little commitment and expert guidance. Fear is one aspect:
Fear, of entering the wrong awards
Fear, of it being too time consuming
Fear, of failure
Fear, of the whole process
As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar commented F.E.A.R. is ” False Expectations Appearing Real”. Reflecting that all too often what we worry about rarely manifests itself in the way we expect. He went on to add that fear has two outcomes “Forget Everything And Run” or “Face Everything And Rise” – the choice is clearly ours.
Outside of this, there are factors that prevent some of those who would like to enter awards from moving forward.
Don’t know how.
Can’t find the right awards to enter or find the eligibility criteria and difference between awards confusing.
They intend to, but leave it too late and run out of time to fully develop their awards entry.
They like the idea of awards, but don’t fully understand how to maximise the opportunity, or how awards fit into their overall business plans.
I am often approached by companies who would like to enter awards but need to understand what the best approach is, what are the right awards to enter and how they can maximise the benefits surrounding awards success. Plus, how the whole process can add value to their business. All of which can be easily covered to establish the best way forward.
One great thing about awards is that they keep coming around. So, if you can’t enter a specific award this year or are not quite ready to do take part in awards, there is always next year.
This puts time on your side, which you can use to great effect, to plan well in advance of any deadline, gather stronger evidence, get your team more involved (the opportunity for team building is significant) and take things at a pace that can almost eliminate any disruption to already busy schedules - making the whole process of entering awards both enjoyable and highly rewarding at many levels.
If you haven’t considered business awards, I would recommend you do. The financial returns and value-added benefits that award winners enjoy such as enhanced reputation, differentiation, free publicity, increased trust, higher profile and better staff moral are real and enjoyed by the many companies that I have the pleasure of working with as their specialist awards writer and advisor.
Image courtesy of Kate Mangostar on Freepik - thanks Kate.
