BRAND BOOSTER TOP TIPS
Tip number THREE…enter awards
By now I hope you have the STORY of your business and a fab PHOTO to make you stand out. You’re ready to fight the customers off if needs be, as the hordes come racing to your door, but WAIT! How will they know it’s not just you, let’s be honest, making it up? I mean really, you say you’re the best. Of course you do. But does anyone else? Well we’ll come to the power of testimonials another time, but there’s one thing that can get you industry recognition, customers and the media beating a path to your door faster than pretty much anything- and that’s WINNING AN AWARD!
Do you need to win?
Actually, you don’t even need to win the flipping award. Just being nominated is terrific, and actually, who is going to ask/care if you nominated yourself? Some awards I’ve seen recently even encourage self referral! Asking others to do things for us can all too often be a sure fire way of nothing happening when everyone’s pushed to the limit in such a tough climate.
You get another bite of the cherry if you are shortlisted, a third if you win- what good value is that? Get that press release out- and often, the awards’ PR people will even do the job for you! Whichever, cut and paste the blurb onto your website, into your annual report, re-use the entry text in your e-newsletter or for future awards, add bits to your own press releases and to the bottom of your email signature… there are plenty of ways to make your effort worth its weight in PR gold!
Awards are totally topical for Keep your Fork. Recently I had two fabulous clients, Georgia Hall of Underground Fitness/ Bounce Busters and Christina Trindade of Entrepreneurs Ladder/Working Woman shortlisted at a national awards ceremony. In the whole of the UK only nine women have made it to the finals from all the hundreds of entries. Two are my clients and the presenter is last year’s overall winner- also a client! They made the front page of last Thursday’s Sheffield Telegraph and full story page 7, plus on Radio Sheffield’s Toby Foster breakfast show.
Find out more about Georgia’s extraordinary story here.

Which awards?
Well hopefully you’ve got someone like me looking out for you, and you’re keeping a beady eye out yourself. Mumpreneur awards, local awards, Star award, business awards, trade awards- and on. I keep a list. Sitting in the hairdressers recently I was flicking through a glossy mag when I noticed an award perfect for one of my amazing clients, then a national dinner she also deserved to be nominated for.
Last year I spotted the Extraordinary Women of the Year Awards in an e-newsletter I get. I looked it up, saw one category perfectly described lawyer and social entrepreneur Nikki Sharpe who I was working with on raising the profile of Youth Can Achieve and suggested her trustees nominate her. They did and she not only won her category, personal achievement, she won the whole flippin’ UK title “Extraordinary Woman of the Year 2010”. Six months later I nominated her for Sheffield’s Best Investor in Children- and she was again a finalist and then won that award at a glittering ceremony in our lovely City Hall back in November. Another trustee nominated her for Yorkshire Women of Achievement in Education and again she was short listed. What a year for Nikki. What a year for Youth Can Achieve. Whether she carried a fancy trophy off or not, what matters for Nikki is she gains exposure for her cause. She has been on TV several times, on radio stations many times, is sought out as an expert, is googled and invited to speak nationally because of the award, perhaps it has even influenced grant applications? She is certainly getting the ear of all the biggest children’s charities in the country as she mobilises them to lobby government for a National Children’s Day- oh, and she’s just been elected Sheffield’s very first black woman councilor ever- in Walkley.
And if you do win?
Tell your clients, tell the press, tell local radio, maybe TV? Tell your industry magazines, tell your potential clients… tell EVERYONE! Winning an award can bring you more customers, industry recognition, media attention, plus motivation, renewed enthusiasm and much more. Most of them are now fairly quick and easy. Enlist help if you need to, but please, get the recognition you deserve.
Hope you’ve found this has inspired you. Give me a shout if you need to boost your brand, lovely people.
Until next time…
Faye