How to become an award winning company

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louiseprunty

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Purchasing products from award winning companies always made me feel as if I’d made the right choice. This was simply because it gave the company credibility and made me more confident in the people I was buying from.

Let me ask you a question at this point. If you had a choice of purchasing the same or similar product from both an award winning company and someone else with no other influencing factors, which would you choose?

I remember trying to make a decision between 2 insurance providers, eventually choosing one insurance provider over another because they’d won an award in that particular year, unlike the other company. This may not have been the only factor involved in choosing who to buy from, but looking back it was certainly too large a reason to ignore! 'They have won an award they must be good', I thought.

And yet in the early years of running my own business, the thought of entering awards simply hadn’t occurred to me. After all, wasn’t this something only larger companies did?

Surely Awards bodies wouldn’t be interested in me as much smaller companies wouldn’t enter into the equation. Or would they?

Wouldn’t you have to work and establish yourself for a number of years before others would be impressed enough to give you an award? Or maybe I just didn’t realise this wasn’t the case.

Then, one day a business acquaintance asked for my opinion on the new flyers she’d had designed for her own business. She was a woman with drive and ambition like I had; we didn’t look at all similar but were very similar in what we wanted from our businesses. Wanting to help as much as possible I said I’d be happy to look at the flyers.

We stood in a softly lit hallway at my work. She took the flyer carefully from her pocket and unfolded it, she turned it towards me and I looked at it.

In the top right hand corner was an impressive logo stating the company was an award winner. To be totally honest I was completely amazed. “How did you manage to win that”, I said. Thinking back it didn't come out the way I had wanted and she did have that certain look on her face, was I asking a question or being cheeky? I sometimes don’t process thoughts before they come flying out of my mouth; something I get from my mother!

Her business wasn’t long established; it was in very small premises and she was the main person who worked there with one part time employee. As far as I could tell her business was ok but nothing that special, but maybe I was wrong. You need to be special to win a business award, right?

She replied, “I just went ahead and entered the competition and won” She was then shortlisted and went on to win the acclaim of others from the business world.

I was so impressed, I had been putting of progressing with our business relationship but this put any niggling fears I had to rest. I gave this person a license to run training in her area under our own company name and didn’t look at any further applicants. It just seemed to be the right thing to do, as here was someone who had attracted the attention of her peers through her dynamism and belief! Awards bodies were indeed interested in smaller set ups, and actually when you think about it quality over quantity will always be appealing to those looking for business excellence.

It brought home to me the need to begin research of awards on the Internet. I believed my own company had been performing better in every area than my competitors and yes - I wanted to win an award. I had worked very hard in my business and winning an award would be great for business morale and great for business itself.

After all, what better marketing tool could you wish for than an endorsement from many other influential business people?

I was so motivated and excited about the possibility of winning we just needed to take action and for the first time began to believe it was actually attainable.

It would also make me work harder at my own business to try and prove the point. I’d taken the first step and wouldn’t be going back.

In the next two years 2009, and 2010, my company won eight awards and were finalists in a further two competitions. From 2011 to 2012 we had added a further 4 awards to our cabinet. The awards ranged from smaller titled events such as ‘Mumpreneur’ Awards to national awards such as The Wow! Awards and Britain’s Best Business Gold Award.

At the time of writing this I have shortlisted which awards I want to enter for 2013. Which awards will you enter this year?

I hope you find my future posts on this topic helpful in entering awards you want to enter.
 
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Hey, I am just coming across this now and this really is a great post & definately gave me an aim for this year! I thought the exact same as you about award only being given to large salons & companies, I own a newly refurbished home salon and use all genuine products & carry out the service as best I can and do hours & hours of research on everything for my business, an award would be not only brilliant to have hanging up in the salon but great to be recognised for all the hard work. Where did you find all of the awarding companies & competitions when you did your search? I have search so much for competitions but can't seem to find any nearby! Thanks! :green:
 
Hi, Just seen your reply. I am glad you are interested in awards they really are a great way of boosting business. I found out about them through many months of research, most of the companies are listed in my book. Good luck with entering awards, feel free to contact me if you need any tips xx
 

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