Read our first post on business awards here.
Image by Sam Churchill
Once you have identified award opportunities for your business, it’s time to put together applications. And an impressive application depends on two things: numbers and narrative.
Numbers
A judging committee is looking for hard data. Be specific. Don’t write that your company is growing, tell the judges how many people you’ve hired in the past year. Tell them how many customers you have, or how much funding you’ve received.
By quantifying your success, you can put your company’s story in context and give judges a clearer picture of your business.
Narrative
How can you build the story of your business? As with a resume, you have limited space in which to tell your story, and a lot of information to fit into an expected format. Challenge yourself to tell a story with the hard data you’ve collected.
When you choose what information to incorporate and what to leave out, consider the story you want to tell. Presumably, you want to pitch your company through the story of your progress: how you have improved and added value. Show how you started with small-time customers or local media coverage and grew to have greater influence. If you need to trim your entry, cut out the accomplishments that don’t fit into the overall story and keep those that do.
And Don’t Forget the Basics…
Double-check the prerequisites
Often, one awards organization will oversee a variety of award categories. Make sure you apply to the right one! None of your qualifications and impressive stats will matter if your business is too big for the “small business” category or too young for the “emerging company” category. It would be a shame to miss an opportunity just because you didn’t read the fine print.
Meet the deadline
It should be obvious. But we’ve all missed a deadline for one reason or another. Put relevant dates on your calendar, with advance reminders. Don’t ever leave applications until the last minute! Always leave yourself time for questions, revisions and the possibility of a poorly-timed computer crash.
It may be a while before you win any awards, but each application is an opportunity to perfect your messaging. Keep a copy of your award entries — you can often adapt them to future applications and save time and effort.
Good luck!
