Are business awards a waste of time? No! Awards are a positive accolade. Anything that works out positively for your business, whether you’re a winner, a runner up or if you just submitted an application and tried, is never a waste of time.

If you win …

Congratulations you’ve now received an honour that can be promoted for the rest of your business and career life.

It’s a story that can be PR’d during the event, in the immediate days afterwards and over the course of the coming year – are the award’s owners running them again? Yes? Perfect – get in touch with them and say you’re available for an interview on how best to pitch. Or ‘a year in the life of a gold medal winner’ type of story. 

Maintain your business growth curve …

Not only is a win fantastic for both your personal reputation, it’s a fantastic boost for the business as a whole. It shows that you’re a forward thinking, progressive company and promoting the award will attract high-end team members which in today’s marketplace is essential to continuing on your intended growth curve.

 You may also find other companies wanting to trade with you to align their business identity with yours. You can use this to your advantage by negotiating special rates and potentially bringing them closer to your shared success with a collaboration.

If you’re a runner up … 

You’ve gone through the same process as everyone else and you’ve been pipped to the top post but silver and bronze are still a massive achievement to be immensely proud of. You’re carrying them around forever across the entire country.

We know from experience that the actual process of applying causes many businesses to really look over their branding, website, work flow and how everything is presented to ensure that it’s quick and simple for the judges to digest. The benefit of this? It’s now easier for your end customers to digest and interpret too.

We all know that in the busy times of the year, marketing materials can be left or quickly re-jigged to still operate and become out of date in their design and messaging so the awards process also helps to shape things up for the better.

We’ve also had teams applying for awards in the past that have focused on topics such as HR and the application process has actually made them realise that their systems were outdated or the processes for onboarding new members of the team were just not working.

If you’re savvy, you’ll also be able to benefit from the PR stories in the lead-up to the event, during and post-event news releases. Work closely with the event’s PR team and let them know that you’re available for positive comments on the event and the award’s as a whole and you may find yourself winning some extra PR from the whole process.

Of course, being a runner-up still means that you can PR that in your business blogs, LinkedIn profiles and local PR stories. 

Benefits of the actual award’s process …

Many people have invested money, time and effort into their staff’s presenting skills which will be transferable across to other aspects of the business – preparing for your next all-important pitch? Perfect, you know exactly how to speak with confidence and devise a presentation that absolutely hits the mark.

Most award systems these days also run events in the lead up for networking. Business flourish when they meet other high-attaining businesses so make sure that you make time in your diary to attend the various events on offer and get your business cards ready. Even better, do your research beforehand and try to find out who’s going so that you can plan your evening goals of who to speak to and connect with. Can you offer the awards people a discount code for your product for all attendees or submit something fro a goodie bag? There are always ways to maximise every event and opportunity and you really need to devote time to think about these and action them. 

Either way, you can see how aside from the actual act of winning, being involved in an award is a process and vast opportunity in its own right. Take all the learnings that you’ve found from the awards system and use them to get fierce about applying to the next one.