Entering business awards – how an award entry writer can make you more successful
Entering business awards is a no-brainer for so many reasons. For countless businesses, submitting business awards is fundamental to their marketing or business development strategy; winning a business award or even being shortlisted for the categories they’ve entered builds the business’ credibility and reputation. It demonstrates to the outside world their accomplishments and determination, especially how they’ve overcome challenges.
What you might not know is that many successful award winners have a professional award writer to write their award entries for them. Why? Simply because they don’t have the writing skills to write a superb entry, or they’re just too time poor to write it themselves. They choose to work with an expert award entry writer because they know that their award entry will be so much better, be much less stressful to put together, and improve their opportunity for success.
Experienced business award writers are highly skilled at bringing an organisation’s story to life. At Proof Communications our award writers work alongside businesses every day, drafting compelling, interesting award entries that make it clear to the judges why our clients deserve to win. Our clients tell us how much they gain from the experience of entering business awards with support from our award writers.
But what is it that our award entry writers do that gives our clients such a positive experience? After all, over 90% of the award entries that we write are shortlisted for their category, and more than 75% go onto win. What’s the secret to how we bring our clients’ successful business award entries to life?
1. We share your story
The judges assessing your award entry want nothing more to read a great story. They want to understand what you do, why you do it so well, the problems you’ve encountered, and to see that your business, your leadership or your team’s skills are developing professionally.
To get to the heart of your achievements, our award writer will interview you by phone to find out all they need to know about you and your business. The interview is invaluable for us – and also for our clients. The interview gives you the headspace to step back to recognise your achievements and what you’ve overcome; to think about your business’s successes and challenges.
Our award writer will ask you what you want the judges to know about you and your business. 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, despite the odds?
An experienced award writer is adept at asking the right questions. And it’s the insights that their questions reveal that are so powerful when it comes to writing award entries. We’ll take your responses and turn them into compelling, interesting award entry content that shares your story, leaving the judges wanting to know more.
2. We need you to be honest with us
No one enters a business award unless they want to win. And to win, your award entry needs to speak honestly about your business.
The judges assessing your entry have enough experience to see through waffle and bluster. They appreciate straightforward, clear storytelling that is frank and honest. Hence, our award writer expects you to be upfront. Your frankness enables them to write clear, succinct content that presents your story honestly, but in such a way that it’s an interesting read.
We need you to talk about your business successes as well as the adversity you’ve overcome. Ups and downs make for a more interesting and realistic story. Everyone has challenges in business, and an award entry is often a place where you can write honestly about these with no judgement. And if you’ve had fantastic successes, your award entry is your opportunity to share them. Your award writer won’t think you’re boasting; they’ll be thrilled that they’ve got some great content to work with. So, take a deep breath, be honest, be clear and speak confidently about yourself or your business.
3. We write your story from your heart
You don’t need to write anything – that’s our job. But we do ask that before you meet with our award entry writer you spend a few minutes thinking about each of the award entry questions and how you’d like to answer. That’s literally all we ask you to do – read and consider the questions in advance of meeting with our award writer.
Our award entry writers write many successful business award entries each year. We know from our long experience that when an award entry is not successful, it’s because the entrant has given only a cursory glance to the award entry questions before they speak with our award entry writer. And that can seriously affect the quality of the final entry.
Those entries do best are those where the business owner or manager has thought about their responses to the questions before meeting with our award writer.
An interview is not the time to be thinking, ‘Now, what can I say about that?’ The interview is when you share with our award writer the great examples you’ve already thought of that so beautifully answer the questions.
Whilst we don’t want you to feel you have to write anything, you might feel comfortable making a note of all the key points you want to cover off in your award entry. For example, 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 year. Check your calendar or diary to remind yourself of what you’ve been doing – initiatives, plans, training, meetings. And ask your colleagues what stands out in their minds about the business over the previous 12 months.
4. We need evidence for your achievements
You’ll find that our award writer is keen to have facts and figures that illustrate your success. It’s not enough to say that your business is ‘successful’ or ‘innovative’. Judges recognise weasel words a mile off. It’s absolutely crucial to give hard facts and figures to demonstrate your results.
Award entry judges not only want to read about how good you are at what you do but to see convincing proof that supports how you’ve achieved success. Strong evidence can include:
- Easy to understand facts and figures that measure performance. For example, increases in sales, revenue, leads, gross margin, profit, social likes, employee engagement, employee numbers; decreases in complaints, abandoned shopping carts, returns or business costs.
- Introduction of new initiatives and their results. These could be technology, people or systems that improve your business efficiency or customer service. For instance, that you’ve reduced the time to complete business activities, such as responding to customers within 24 hours instead of 48.
- Brief case studies – who the customer was, what problem they had, how you solved it and why it was the best solution.
- Testimonials from happy clients.
We know it’s challenging to remember to keep a note of client testimonials, or the number of leads you had in January compared to June. It’s easy to forget who gave you a glowing review or details of how you overcame a particularly sticky problem for a client. But the best time to get your evidence together is exactly when it happens.
One suggestion is to set up a folder on your system where you can save ‘evidence’ to use in future award entries. The evidence is useful in other ways too; you can leverage it for marketing such as for case studies on your website or posts on LinkedIn.
5. We need you to give yourself enough time
Preparing business award entries frequently takes longer than you think it will. Writing the award entry is often just one part of the process. You may have to compile data or documents to include with your entry whilst our award entry writer is drafting your entry.
Make it easy on yourself by allowing us enough time to do justice to your award entry. This includes times to edit and proofread the final draft. It’s time well invested as presenting a well-written, interesting, typo-free award entry will impress the judges.
Proof Communications’ award writers
Hiring an award writer is the obvious solution if you want to submit a polished, successful award entry and reduce your stress levels. Proof Communications’ award writers are with a track record of successful award entries.
For help in crafting an outstanding, winning business award submission, contact us or ring us on 02 8036 5532 or 0448 566 377.