"And the winner is..."

It wasn’t just the money that put a grin on the face of Michael Welch when he stood on stage this summer and accepted his £10,000 cheque after being named Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

It was a serious stamp of approval for the 24-year-old’s independent tyre-fitting company, Black Circles, and one that he reckons has had a significant effect on the bottom line in just a few weeks.

 “Winning the award gives you an immediate stamp of credibility, and the paying customer more security. One of the main barriers to competing with big businesses like Kwik Fit has been taken down, and we’ve already won a couple of contracts and increased sales as a result of people hearing about us through the award. It’s exposure that we would not have been able to afford to pay for. As long as we can deliver what the award promises, we will continue to shout about it.”

Entering and winning the Shell LiveWIRE awards has clearly had business benefits for Welch – around 80% of LiveWIRE winners over the past 30 years have gained new business as a result – but what of the other hundreds of awards available for growing businesses to enter? Is the process worth the time, the effort and the high entry fees for the more commercial schemes? And how do you choose the most appropriate award for your business to go for?

A QUESTION OF CHOICE

Local, regional, national and international schemes reward every possible aspect of business, from sustainability and ethical practice to simply showing stratospheric rises in turnover, not to mention the dozens of vertical sector awards for every imaginable industry.

Inevitably, in such a crowded arena, some are taken more seriously than others. The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are arguably the most prestigious because of their royal connection. Research among previous winners has found that more than half the 172 companies felt they had gained from increased recognition in the UK and abroad.

“Even if the winners are small companies, once they have appeared in the national press as winners, it’s a seal of approval for customers and potential customers,” says Queen’s Awards advisory committee member David Moore.

 Moore adds that going through the process of entering awards can also be extremely useful for a company even if it doesn’t win: “I would say it is a good use of management time because it forces you to look at the business as an awards assessor would,” he says. “Even if you apply but do not win you can get detailed feedback on your strengths and weaknesses, which is valuable business information. Quite a lot of unsuccessful applicants do apply again and are successful.”

Ernst & Young’s national leader for emerging growth markets, Les Clifford, also points out that shortlisted companies and winners can really benefit from the networking opportunities of awards:

“Entrepreneurs often feel they are fighting a battle and there are not many people around them with whom they can share their experiences. Being brought together in a network of likeminded people is very valuable,” he says.

HOW THE BUSINESS BENEFITS

For many successful companies, the key to winning awards - and reaping the maximum benefit – has been tying entries into business objectives. These will vary according to the stage your company is at.

At multiple award winning luxury chocolate manufacturer Green & Blacks, marketing director Mark Palmer is also keen on very careful targeting of which awards to enter.

“I wouldn’t want to enter too many – you need to be selective. It depends on your business objectives at the time. We are changing our emphasis from organic awards to highlight the company as a serious brand to support our growth plan. Winning an award for our packaging would do more for our business in the supermarkets now than another organic award.”

At Shell LiveWIRE winner Black Circles, Welch agrees “You do need to make sure the awards you enter will help your business. We entered the Shell award because we needed the PR, but we don’t want to cheapen the brand by entering every award under the sun. Awards from our own industry are the next step so we have more peer recognition and respect.”

Award winning also has a tremendous internal halo-effect on a company, boosting morale for employees and bosses alike. At experience provider Red Letter Days, founder and joint managing director Rachel Elnaugh found that being a Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year finalist and an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year has helped raise the business in the lucrative corporate market, and has also been of personal benefit.

“Awards really help to leverage the brand, but the personal recognition they give you is also important. Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time motivating staff but when you’re at the top you don’t get a lot of ‘strokes’ yourself. We had been working hard for 14 years before we won an award, and it’s great to have some recognition now.”

AWARDS STRATEGY

There are two possible ways of going for awards: scattergun, which works on the assumption that if you enter enough of the things you’re bound to win something, and a more carefully targeted approach. It’s a personal choice which will depend on the needs of your company, before you consider filling out an application form you need to think carefully about what you want to achieve.

Assess what you want. To be shortlisted or to win a particular award. Know your competitors. Do you want to be known as the best in your field? Are you confident that you can cut it against the very best businesses in all sectors, all sizes? The Orange National Business Awards, for example, have been dubbed ‘the business Oscars’ by chancellor Gordon Brown as they are open to businesses of all sizes, in all industries, who compete against each other in most categories.

Some companies seem to come up constantly in the list of winners. Mobile phone equipment supplier Pama & Co, for instance, was the recipient of a Millennium Award and an Innovation winner at last year’s Queen’s Awards for Enterprise amongst others. The company’s development expert Harry Heaney reckons the awards are “an added sales tool which help to show that Pama is a reputable company and isn’t going to disappear tomorrow. The Queen’s Award has contributed to increased sales in the UK and abroad of 12-15% and the award has helped to open doors with retailers.”

However, Heaney is savvy enough to balance recognition of the business benefits of winning awards with a smidgen of cynicism: “You have to consider what the award you are think- ing about entering is actually for. A lot seem to be awards for awards’ sake. I’m not keen on awards issued within an industry because I think awards judged by someone independent who knows nothing about you carries more weight and means you stand on your own merits.”

A WINNING FORMULA

 So what makes a winner? At the Shell LiveWIRE awards, director for England ‘Bryony Worthington’ says judges of entrepreneurial awards are looking for a real spark that makes the winning entrepreneur and their company “dynamic, with a good brain for strategy, vision, drive, and an ethical sense which means they have integrity and are thinking in a holistic, sustainable way – not a ‘make a million’ attitude.”

When you are choosing which awards to enter, make note of whether the organisers have any special deals with national papers or business magazines, which could give you extremely valuable exposure. As Charlie Osmond, founder of research company FreshMinds notes:

“We enter awards and competitions because we realise that most of these programmes have associated media deals which ensure that if you win – or come close – you are guaranteed press.”

Whatever the deal, make sure you are clear, as soon as you know you are shortlisted, about what to expect so you don’t get disappointed. Similarly, you should be aware before you even submit an entry what your commitment will be. Think about the time it will take to pull a compelling entry together; the location and time it will take to attend any personal presentations required if you get through to later rounds, and how much of your time will be taken up with media activity if you win, not always in areas which will generate direct sales. Before you enter an award you should ask if you have a powerful enough story to tell and whether your responses to the criteria are really worth rewarding.

As Jessica Bridges-Palmer at the Inner City 100 awards says: “There may be a ‘better’ time to win an award but not a bad one: from a pragmatic and strategic point of view, it coincides well with a relaunch or change of look in materials if you want to incorporate your award in your marketing materials.”

Winning the right business award can have a significant and lasting effect on the bottom line. Even the process of entering awards can be an extremely useful exercise, from the free management consultancy from judges to the need to take a cool, hard look at all aspects of your business.

But be selective and treat awards submissions like any other business activity – if it isn’t going to benefit the business, should you really be doing it?