How a 10-minute award application is great for business

 Seriously – who doesn’t love a little pat on the back?  

Earlier this year, I was nominated for the Most Influential Brand for the Motivating Mum National Business Awards. And having belonged to this amazing network for many years, I was a tad chuffed that I was in the running.

I jumped at the chance to enter. It seriously took me around 10 minutes to write my application (plus a few more as I checked it over a thousand times!).

And if you haven’t heard – I won!

At the start, I was in shock. I wasn’t sure what it meant.

My head was swimming, ‘Yay, I won! But what now?’. If you’ve been wondering if entering awards is worth it, here’s my story about what winning an award has meant to me.  

A quick bit of advice on award applications

When you’re entering awards, it’s ALWAYS in writing. It’s not like you ring up and answer questions directly with the judges who can hear your enthusiasm and personality. You usually need to submit your application online.

It’s vital that you’re able to communicate what you do in writing. It takes a whole lot more than merely writing words down to make your business sound amazing.

You MUST inject your personality into your answers to make them appealing. Your application will be read by a human. Write to them. Don’t bore them with facts that sound mundane, bringing down the tone of your business.

Portray your business in its best light – be honest and be YOURSELF.

What winning an award has done for my business

1.    Built credibility

With the online world thriving on content marketing and social media, it’s getting harder to find uniqueness in my service offering. It seems that everywhere you look, someone is offering social media support.

Although I’m super confident in my content marketing (as I’ve nailed my branding and stick to it), I know new clients will ‘stalk’ me for a little while before having faith in my abilities.

I can proudly display my ‘Winner’ badge of honour on my social media, email signatures and websites.

This quickly points out that I’m the best at what I do – well, according to a panel of judges that is!

2.    Generated content

It took me a week before I realised I should tell the world that I won an award. Weird hey?

You’d think I was ready to shout it from the rooftops straight away. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Maybe I still felt like an imposter when I didn’t need to.

But then I got over myself and was excited to share my news. I created social media posts to share my win and used all my social platforms to spread the word. And they’re posts that I can reshare to spread the word about Motivating Mum too. It’s a win for my business, and for this amazing network.

3.    Made my business newsworthy

Friends in my networks were quick to share my award win posts with their networks. I received loads of praise and recognition for my business. It did give me happy chills.

My little business had a lovely write up in the local Leader newspaper too, spreading the word about what I do in our local community.

4.    Positions me as an expert in my field

I’ve been lucky enough to feature in Motherhood Melbourne and had my blogs published on the Soar Collective and Flying Solo. They’ve been happy to have an award-winning ‘Most Influential Brand’ recipient writing blogs for them.

Enter as many awards as you can

‘If at first, you don’t succeed, suck it up and try again’.  

Never go into an award with the mindset of ‘I’ll never win this’. You just might – I did! If you miss out on one award, enter another. And try entering the same award the following year.

If you can, ask the judges for feedback and use this to write killer award submissions.

If you’ve got any award entering advice, I’d love for you to share it below.

Good luck.