Staring at the award’s entry form, all you can see is a lot of words urging, beseeching and demanding you answer succinctly, articulately and above all, cleverly, so you stand out.

The words swim in front of your eyes, and you throw your hands up in the air, shoving the entry into the too-hard basket.  You know what you do is brilliant and needed in the market, but writing award entries, pfft, not your jam.

Fair enough. Not everyone has the gift of the gab or the writing skills to communicate clearly all that is audaciously good about what you do. You are good at other things. Yet, the process of writing an award submission is far more rewarding than just putting some facts and figures in a document. Business awards are a tool to tell the story about your business journey – what makes you tick, what you do, who you do it for, and what wins you are celebrating. When you knuckle down through the process and come out the other end, you will have renewed energy and love for what you do.

Award questions are designed to get you thinking about your business. Any award that is easy to enter is not worth it, because if the process is not pushing you to be better, do better, and forces you to reflect on where you have been and where you are going, it is really just an ego trip.

How to answer an awards questionnaire

To help you navigate the awards process, here are a few tips on how to answer the more common questions asked in most business awards. These are the questions that people get stumped on as they pull their hair out, wondering what the judges want from them.

Tells us about your business

• Assume the judges know nothing about your business and will never look at your website
• This is where you tell the story of your business – its history, the reason it exists, your target audience, how many people on your team, point of difference/unique selling points, growth stats and what you sell.
• What type of business – solo, company, franchise, family

Tell us about you

• It pays to invest in a good bio, as most business awards ask for information about the person behind the business. You want to share your business background, professional skills and experience, why you are passionate about what you do.

Describe your business achievements

• This is not the time to be humble and modest. Go to town sharing:
  • Awards
  • Financial achievements – growth and profitability
  • Media and publicity wins you have had, including articles published, podcasts you have been on
  • Collaborations and partnerships
  • Innovative practices – new tech you have embraced, process put in place. An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (goods or services), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations.
  • Business expansion
  • Increase in staff
  • Increase in turnover and/or profit
  • Industry recognition
  • External acknowledgement e.g. Top 10 list
  • Business adaptations to current trends and or technologies.

Describe your sustainability & environmental initiatives & accomplishments

• This is where you show your love for the planet and how your business is doing its bit to minimise its carbon footprint. Think things like:
• Energy efficiency – light bulbs, power usage
• Water conservation
• Circular economy practices
• How you produce your goods and services – waste disposal, use of equipment
• How you select suppliers/contractors to work with based on your initiatives
• How do you communicate this to your people?

Describe the products and/or services your business provides.

In this question, you want to explore

• How do you service your market?
• Where does your product/service come from?
• What your business philosophy is
• Where are you located and what are your hours of operation?
• Who is your target market?
• How do you get your products/services in front of people – bricks/mortar, online, hybrid

How do you promote your business?

This is all about how you market and promote your business. The judges want to see you have a plan for business promotion (even if it is not written out). They want to see you know where you are going, you understand your audience and know how to get in front of them. Here you want to talk about how you engage with your audience through:

• Online presence, including your website features
• Advertising e.g. newspapers, magazines, television, radio
• Media and publicity actions
• Branding
• Direct client contact
• Sponsorship
• Donations
• Loyalty schemes
• Special promotions e.g. competitions, giveaways, product placements, launches
• Newsletters

This is a good place to share stats and data on your business growth – share a campaign you have done and how it impacted your business. Stats and data looks like:

• Google analytics
• Maralytics data
• Social media insights
• Customer feedback
• Engagement
• Financial growth/revenue

Tell us about your customer service

Kick off the response with what your customer service philosophy is and how you demonstrated that with every interaction.

Judges want to see:

• Evidence of quality services – have a few case studies up your sleeve to demonstrate what this looks like in real life.’
• Your understanding of customer needs
• How you manage complaints and negative feedback – have examples to showcase this
• How you reward your team for a job well done
• How do you measure your team’s performance when dealing with customers?
• How you cultivate customer loyalty
• If you have a product business, how do you WOW your customers?

You can also include in this question your approach to inclusion and diversity.

• Accessibility to your office or shop front
• Your attitude to social inclusion – why it is important to your business and how you demonstrate it

How do you give back to the community?

This question, and questions about diversity and inclusion, are more prevalent in award programs. Be prepared, you will be asked. If you are a small business, it is hard to fit community work in, but look at it from the lens of YOUR community. Do you –

• Donate your time to a NFP or give products for fundraisers (document these actions)
• Monetary donations to charities
• Membership of professional associations
• Giving work experience or bringing on interns
• Corporate citizenship – support of local community, traineeships, apprenticeships, local suppliers purchases
• Is there a group you specifically align with, and why

Where do you see your business in the future?

Judges want to know you have a plan for growth and expansion or longevity. You can demonstrate this by sharing:

• Excerpts from your business plan
• What your short term goals are
• Your plans for future growth

Why are you a leader in your space, or why do you deserve to win?

Almost everyone cringes over this question – it feels like big noting, and we live in a culture that is not sure if it is okay to pat yourself on the back.  This is your chance to summarise what it is in your entry, highlighting your strengths, skills, service to the community and the solution you provide to the market.

Every award is different – criteria, questions and submission processes – but these questions are general themes through most business awards. You could get a head start now by working on one of these questions a day. Set aside 30-60 minutes and braindump into a document or spreadsheet. If you have entered awards before, go back and cut and paste your responses into a spreadsheet (making it easy to repurpose for the next award) and update as required.

With every response, if you make a claim, back it up with proof – stats, data, figures, testimonials, reviews, case studies, examples.  Always go back to the questions to ensure you have answered it, and validate your statements.  Have the document proofread, and then click SUBMIT.  And good luck. You are a winner already, because you did what lots of people talk about, but never took action – you put yourself up for scrutiny and judgement.

The key to winning awards is … have a go, learn from the experience and just start writing.

After all, you have to be in it to win it.

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