Entering business awards – how to be successful

Entering business awards is a great strategy for growing your profile or that of your business and your team. Being shortlisted for the categories that you’ve entered, and winning, builds credibility. It’s a great plus to add to your corporate CV. Business award success is wonderful for team bonding, too. Our clients tell us how much they gain from the experience of entering business awards. Before we begin writing their business award entries, we interview them to find out all we need to know about them and their business. We use this information to write their successful award entries. The interview process forces our clients to think hard about their business’s successes and challenges. It gives them room to step back to recognise their achievements and what they have overcome. It is these insights that are so powerful when it comes to writing award entries. Our award writers take our clients’ information and turn it into compelling, interesting award entries that share our clients’ stories, leaving the judges wanting to know more. If entering business awards is on your agenda, here is advice from our award entry writers on what to consider when writing your entries.

1. Share your story

The judges assessing your award entries want to see that your business is making progress. They also want to know that you and your team are developing professionally. So don’t be shy: share your challenges and your successes. Take a little time to think about what you want the judges to know about you and your business. Think back over the past 12 months. What have you achieved? What didn’t you achieve despite your best efforts? What was your most uplifting experience? What was the most demoralising? How did you keep going? Don’t be too modest. But don’t be arrogant or exaggerate either. It won’t go down well.

2. Be honest

Don’t embellish your story for the sake of it. The judges have enough experience to see through the waffle and bluster. They appreciate straightforward, clear storytelling that is frank and honest.

3. Write from the heart

This is your story; no one else’s. Therefore, write openly about what’s gone well; and what’s not gone so well for you and your team. Write in the first person – that is, use ‘I’ and ‘we’. It makes your award entry more personal.

4. Have fun

Yes, writing an award entry is time-consuming. But if you’ve made the commitment to enter, give it your best shot. Enjoy the writing process. Think of it as an opportunity to get everything off your chest!

5. Make a note of everything you want to cover off

Before you start writing, make a note of all the key points you want to cover off in your award entry. Business award entries ask participants about experiences over the previous 12 months. It’s easy to forget exactly what we’ve done in the previous 12 months. Check your calendar or diary to remind yourself of what you’ve been doing over the past year – initiatives, plans, training, meetings. And ask your colleagues what stands out in their minds about the business over the previous year.

6. Give evidence for your achievements

Making a note of all that you want to cover off will help to remind you that you need hard evidence for your claims of success. It won’t wash with the judges if you say that you were ‘successful’ or ‘innovative’. They recognise weasel words a mile off. You need to give hard facts and figures to demonstrate your results. This could be percentage increases in revenue, gross margin, leads, inquiries or social likes, for example. And it could be decreases in the number of complaints, errors, returns or abandoned shopping carts, for instance.

7. Give yourself enough time

As we’ve mentioned, writing business award entries is time-consuming. You don’t have to do it all in one go, however. Firstly, you have to write responses to the questions. And then there’s the editing of the responses. Editing can be more challenging – and time-consuming – than writing. And don’t forget you need time to proofread the entry before you submit it. Make it easy on yourself by allowing enough time to do justice to your award entry. It’s time well invested as presenting a typo-free award entry will impress the judges.

Get help from professional business award writers

Winning business awards is about making sure you are running a strong business. Proving this is all to do with writing business award entries that make a massive impact. If you are looking for extra help in crafting an outstanding, winning business awards submission, contact us or ring us on 02 8036 5532 or 0448 566 377.