It’s An Honour, Ma’am The Honours System in the UK really is the pinnacle of acknowledgement and achievement. The Honours System recognises people who have either made a significant contribution in public life or who have committed themselves to serving and helping Britain. In short, it’s all about making life better for other people or…
And Now For Something Completely Different! We’re used to getting all sorts of calls about all sorts of different awards here at The Awards People. Many of the awards we’ve heard of – as you would expect, however, one call intrigued us no end. When Olasubomi Aina MBE called us she wanted to know if…
Why The Awards People Love the Director of the Year (IoD) Awards At The Awards People we believe that any award which is important to you (or important to those who are important to you) is a good award to enter. Frequently, however, we’re asked by clients to recommend ‘a good award’ as they know…
The Awards People say a huge ‘Congratulations!’ to their Signature finalists 7th February saw this year’s Signature Awards take place at the ICC Birmingham and, as usual, it was a real night to remember. These awards are a true celebration of the Best in Business. The event shines a spotlight on those who provide cutting…
Let’s talk about Fizz… Regular viewers of The Awards People’s vlogs will know that we always treat our guests to three quick fire questions at the end of our chat. These relate to their celebrations upon winning awards: do they high five or bear hug; do they go onto the stage alone or with the…
Recognising the strengths of the family in business This week’s ‘Focus On’ awards category is that of Family Businesses. Occasionally we hear businesses say that they don’t intend to consider Family Awards as they believe that they are only for very small companies and perhaps don’t reflect their own particular breadth of activities or scale…
Lesser-entered Awards – Diversity and Inclusion At The Awards People we don’t simply go for the ‘low hanging fruit’ option. There are many reasons for entering an award and for choosing a particular category. Picking one based solely on the fact that it is undersubscribed is not something we’d condone in itself. That said, if…
Huge Congratulations to Farhana and Shahid Sheikh OBE By now our regular blog readers will start to recognise some awards events, maybe even specific categories, which have become real favourites of the Leicestershire (and national) business community. This week we turn our attention to an award which we have never yet mentioned, but one which…
Matching Buzz Words with Awards Buzz As this month marks the beginning of a new decade (yikes!) you‘ve probably already put some thought into future plans and aspirations. When you’re reviewing your plan and setting it in stone within your business strategy, we highly recommend that you have a think about what your ‘buzz words’…
The Innovation Awards There’s an awards event just around the corner which we at are super excited about firstly, because it has a very unique format but also because it’s all about one of our favourite topics – Innovation! A few weeks ago we had the lovely Angela Padfield from Reach PLC come to chat…
And now, the end is near… This will be the last blog from us peeps here at The Awards People for 2019 (huge applause or tears of disappointment? Not too sure what we’re hearing there…). So, in Frank Sinatra style we’re having a jolly good think about how we have been ‘Doing it Our Way’…
The 12 Days of Christmas We are all familiar with the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ which itemises a long list of gifts which the singer received from his (or her) ‘true love’ each day from the 25th December up until Three Kings Day on the 6th January. There are a whole raft of…
The Real Value of an Awards Plan The very beginning of the process for many of our new clients is an Awards Plan. It’s not for everyone as seasoned awards entrants will already be very familiar with the awards calendar and then others will, of course, have already decided exactly which awards they want to…
When I grow up can I be a Start-up? Earlier this week we were asked a question by a client, a question which is actually posed on a fairly regular basis; “When is a Start-up considered to be too young to enter for a Start-up award?” In order to answer the question, we should look…
Worried about your competitor’s competitive edge? “Our competitors win the same award year after year and we all wonder why. Especially since they’re nowhere near as good as us!” OK, we may not have it verbatim but this is the kind of thing we hear on a very regular basis when we speak to people…
Sustainability – getting it right An award category which we see with increasing regularity is that of ‘Sustainability’. It’s one of those categories which we love; the ones which don’t simply concentrate on a particular industry or activity, but instead look at a positive characteristic of the business and the culture which drives it. Sadly…
Your very own return on investment Here at The Awards People we often speak about the personal aspects of winning awards. The excitement, the pride, the joy of being independently judged to be the best! We love it when our clients are celebrating and feeling victorious, happy and delighted! It’s very much at the heart…
Less-entered Awards – A Canny Choice A Canny Choice! In the world of awards there are always going to be categories that are more popular than others – for example businessman of the year, business woman of the year, business person of the year, entrepreneur of the year, SME of the year, company of the…
Focus on the SME News awards Focus On… This week at The Awards People HQ we took a look at the SME News UK Enterprise Awards. This awards programme was started in 2017, joining the publication’s other regional and industry-targeted awards, namely; Midlands Enterprise Awards Southern Enterprise Awards Greater London Enterprise Awards Northern Enterprise Awards…
The Awards People out and about – and loving what we are hearing! Out and About! Last week The Awards People were briefly released into the great outdoors as we attended two fabulous Business events – one being the Leicester Business Expo at Leicester City Football Ground and the other being the Midlands Business Expo…
Why awards should be part of your sales pack Selling a business can be a lot like selling your home – essentially you need to ‘dress’ it to present it at its very best. It may not be quite as easy as baking some bread and putting on a fresh pot of coffee, but in…
Hot-desking Arrangements May Not be the Key to Employer of the Year Employee engagement is a topic which often comes up in the world of awards. Companies who wish to show their prowess when it comes to looking after their employees can look to specific awards events and categories to gain recognition for their workplace…
Award dressing – a guest blog from Katy Wheatley This week’s blog post comes to us from the fabulous Katy Wheatley. Katy recently joined us on The Sofa of Success, and we loved her practical approach to dressing for special occasions such as awards ceremonies – great advice which she kindly shared with us, whist…
When Awards Are Doubly Divine… Here at The Awards People we feel quite confident that our readers now know of the many fabulous reasons why entering Business Awards is a ‘must do’. However, just in case you’ve been concentrating on other things (how dare you?!?) here is a very quick reminder as to why Business…
The Awards People’s Definition of ‘Award Winning’ is Exceptional and Trustworthy According to Wikipedia, an award is; “Something given to a person, a group of people – like a sports team – or an organisation in recognition of their excellence in a certain field” The Oxford Dictionary has the definition as; “A prize or other mark of recognition given…
Business Award Entries – Why Wouldn’t You? It’s the beginning of the month so at The Awards People we thought we’d keep things fresh yet focussed for our first September blog. Here, therefore, is a ‘no holds barred’ summary of why you might just be crazy if you aren’t yet entering business awards… Aside from…
A Celebration Not a Chore! This week’s blog post is somewhat light-hearted in nature, perhaps even a little tongue-in-cheek. It has come about from the fact that, when attending business events and networking socials, we have people continuously telling us that they’d LOVE to enter awards but are simply PUT OFF BY THE MASSIVE AMOUNT…
Could Your Business Be The Best Workplace? Noticing the looming deadline for The World’s Best Places to Work Awards 2019, we thought it might be good to explore the kind of criteria which would be considered within an award such as this. Ok, so it’s worth mentioning that businesses put themselves forward as ‘Best Places…
The Right Environment for Awards With pictures of UK extreme weather conditions all over the news and daily reports of the global climate crisis, it’s now more difficult than ever to ignore the fact that significant environmental action is required. As individuals we’re encouraged to make whatever contribution we can to the overall solution but…
A great opportunity? Judge for yourself! So you may already have had awards success and are searching for the next challenge or you may still have reservations about whether you want to actually nominate yourself. Whatever your reason for deciding not to complete an award entry for you or your own business, why not consider…
No Shame in Award Writing Whilst we were representing The Awards People at a recent regional exhibition last month we got the chance to speak to lots and lots of lovely businesses and the fabulous people behind them. We had interesting conversations with companies who have had good awards experiences, with individuals who were disappointed…
Employee engagement isn’t a new ‘thing’ Employee engagement – an incentive and a by-product of award entry Employee engagement is a subject we have looked at on a number of occasions within The Awards People blog page. It is a topic which features highly in many clients’ reasons for entering awards in the first place…
What Does ‘Award Winning’ Actually Mean? The Oxford Dictionary definition of award-winning is; ‘Having won a prize in recognition of quality’ From our point of view here at The Awards People we’re very pleased to see the word ‘quality’ included in the definition, but to us award winning means so much more than just the…
Revealed! The Winning Award Template! OK, so we may have been a little bit naughty with the title of this blog. The truth is we couldn’t show you an actual ‘winning award template’ because no such thing exists (and if anyone tries to tell you it does, then they are very much mistaken – or…
Achieve and Believe! As we speak to various businesses on our travels, we become accustomed to hearing them say that they are reluctant to enter awards because they just don’t feel like they stand a chance of winning. Cast aside self-doubt Now, regular TAP blog readers (and vlog viewers) will know that we have already…
Finding the time to shine For those of you out there who utilise the services of Business Coach or Mentor, you will most probably be very familiar with the phrase ‘Working ON your business rather than IN your business’. Essentially this is a goal for many SME business owners and managers; an ideal situation where…
Sharing is caring part 2 Last week we presented the first of our ‘awards-secret summaries’; a selection of the Top Tips we have shared within our weekly emails. Since we are very big fans of completeness, we thought it might be good to bring the list up to a Top 10 so we are pleased…
Sharing is caring Those of you who receive our weekly Top Tip emails will know how we like to break down the entire awards entry process into stress-free snippets of sound advice. (Those of you who don’t as yet receive our weekly Top Tips emails should arrange to get onto our mailing list as soon…
Many companies strive to be innovative. Some even pursue awards which specifically recognise this feature, but how exactly can businesses encourage innovation within the workplace and amongst employees; or is it just something which needs to happen organically rather than being forced? It’s true to say that there are many industries which attract the more…
We appreciate that our readers will be at very different stages within the awards process (or, indeed, not yet convinced that the process is for them at all) and we, therefore, thought it might be useful to put together – as much as we can – an idea of what a typical ‘awards journey’ may…
Today we turn our attention to the subject of jargon. For the purposes of clarity (after all that is what we always seek here at The Awards People) let us begin with the Oxford Dictionary definition; jar·gon noun Special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult…
This week it was announced that BAFTA has bent its own eligibility rules in allowing the BBC TV series ‘Killing Eve’ to be nominated for a number of their awards this year. This has come as quite a surprise to some as in past years the academy has stuck rigidly to the rule that TV…
At the Awards People we’re big fans of word clouds. We love the way that you can express lots of things in just one glance and we’d love to have one here to represent the feelings our clients and colleagues express when speaking of their involvement with awards. Sadly word clouds don’t make for particularly…
It’s that very exciting time of the year again; we can hardly contain our excitement at The Awards People HQ. The Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2020 is now officially open! The dates The Award opened on 1st May 2019 and will close for entries on 10th September 2019. We cannot stress highly enough that…
Being Leicestershire based, we’re always pleased to see good things being reported about our city and, wider, the East Midlands region. We genuinely love it here! With hundreds of acres of beautiful countryside and a vibrant, diverse community within the city, it really does have so much to offer, but it sadly seldom receives the…
“Aren’t there just awards for everything nowadays?” Well, it’s true that there are many different awards out there, capturing the very best of what’s going on in every sector and industry, but wouldn’t it be much worse if we were to limit what could be awarded and, in doing so, alienate those businesses and individuals…
Word of the day We noticed with great interest the other day that the Oxford English Dictionary ‘Word of the Day’ was ‘Blatherskite’. You may think it was perhaps just a quiet day at The Awards People HQ but no, we are always interested by the subject of language and the wonderful things which can…
So, at The Awards People we get contacted with all sorts of questions relating to awards (no surprise there) but just recently we’ve been asked by a few of our clients about re-entering the same awards they won the previous year. The main dilemma is ‘Is it a good thing or bad thing to try…
Winner, winner! So, you’re in a room full of people you know from various places; some you’ve read about in business magazines, some you’ve maybe briefly met at local events – and some you’ve simply heard amazing things about. There may even be a few people in your immediate vicinity whom you have admired from…
Friends, it’s time to consider entering the IoD Director of the Year Awards and, no, you don’t have to be a member in order to put your cap in the ring! These highly prestigious awards which garner incredible media attention both regionally and nationally are firm favourites with us. They run regionally in the first…
You have no doubt noticed by now that we often tend to talk (and write) about the additional benefits to be had by entering, and winning, awards. This week we wanted to explore yet another amazing – and very real – reward which comes from awards success: the uplift in visibility and increase in new…
At The Awards People we understand fully that the hectic world of business does not often allow for the indulgence of ‘me time’ and that the completion of an award entry is not something which is easy to fit in amongst the essential day-to-day activities (after all, that’s one of the reasons our award writing…
At The Awards People we are asked for our Top Tips more often than we are asked for anything else so since we are very nice people and do as we are asked (well… sometimes!), here’s our countdown of the top 5 things frequent winners do well. Business award champions will: – Plan Those who…
Mention a ‘Team Building Day’ to your employees and prepare to meet with a plethora of reactions varying from the quietest “yippee!” in history (yes, the sarcasm isn’t lost on you) to a deluge of excuses for none attendance, comparable only to those received by fierce PE teachers on ‘Dodgeball Day’. Those of us who…
At The Awards People we are not totally immune to the romantic images which bombard us at this time of year. In fact we are great believers in the power of passion and desire. Steady on, we hear you say but of course, in our case we are speaking about the passion which our clients…
Most of us understand the importance of making any piece of writing interesting if you want to keep your audience engaged. Unsurprisingly this is also true when it comes to constructing an award entry – not only in terms of presenting yourself in the very best way possible, but also in order to ensure that…
This week, as an antidote to the Brexit information overload we have all been exposed to, we thought we would construct a blog post which required little in the way of serious reading. Looking over our notes from the last six months of vlog filming from the ‘sofa of success’ we could see a number…
Quite often when we speak to new clients about industry-specific awards we sense a certain degree of reluctance to enter. Upon further investigation (because sometimes we just can’t help ourselves when it comes to getting all the details…) the hesitation comes from a belief that either the same people will win year after year or…
Regular TAP blog readers will know that we offer up oodles of advice on how to make your award entry stand out (and succeed) and we like to try to keep everyone up-to-date with what the awards calendar looks like for the whole year ahead. In addition – and on an increasingly regular basis –…
You may have heard how public speaking is the number one fear over death. This is an apocryphal tale that I don’t have the word count to go in to, but it’s true … Glossophobia (the fear of public speaking) is something that affects many, many people and some worse than others; but if you…
This year we have touched on many of the individual aspects of award entry. To end the year – and to make sure that we are all totally award-entry ready for the shiny new year to come – we thought it might be nice to remind you of a few of the key things to…
At The Awards People we are often asked about awards relating to innovation. It is a category which arises across a whole range of award events (including the much-coveted Queens award which we spoke about in last week’s blog) but one which is, on occasion, not entirely understood. In the past we have covered the…
With so many awards to choose from – and many, many prestigious ones contained within that mix – what do we consider to be the absolute pinnacle of award success? The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise Well, for us it’s got to be The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. We have been following companies for years…
Most of our posts focus on what winning awards mean for those who actually enter themselves (or, indeed, are nominated by others). This week we thought it might be worthwhile looking at things from a client’s perspective – i.e. what difference does it make to your target market if you are award-winning or not? Now,…
This week we thought it might be nice to focus on a specific sector and what they have to gain in entering awards. At The Awards People we work with a number of charities and that seemed like a jolly good place to start. Of course, as we have said on many occasions in the…
Here at The Awards People we love awards – obviously! Regular readers will know that we believe that there are significant business advantages to be had in taking part in the awards process, not just the winning bit (although admittedly that’s often the part that’s most fun). There are a plethora of different awards events…
This week we thought we would have a short break from us peeps at The Awards People bestowing the virtues of award entry, and instead look back to some great advice we have received from an award-winning business we spoke with recently on the Sofa of Success. (For those not familiar with this now infamous…
Award entry (and of course award winning) is a serious subject but here at The Awards People we also like to have a bit of fun amongst all the hard work, so we thought we’d take a look at a not-so-serious award event which made us giggle. The Stella Awards took place every year in…
This is a very subjective question and therefore has no standard answer. But that would make for a very short blog, so we will instead offer our advice on how to approach the sometimes-overwhelming choice of awards available out there. At The Awards People we always start with an Awards Plan, considering all regional, national…
In order to answer this question, we must first consider who the judges actually are. That’s not to say we need a list of actual names covering the entire page – after all, with thousands of awards in the space of a year and a number of people involved with each that could be a…
This week we thought it might be nice to hear from two clients who have tasted success and who have seen the benefits – both financially and in raising their profiles – in their own words. The first to share his story is Shahid Sheikh OBE, Managing Director of Clifton Packaging Group. No stranger to…
Up to now you may have been simply ‘getting on with business’ and making your company look like the one you dreamed of when you first had the idea to do your own thing. But with all the systems in place, clients being kept happy and the day to day stuff running smoothly (at least…
We know that some of our readers will already be familiar with the awards diary for the year ahead, but for those who are only just in the early stages of considering an entry, we thought it would be useful to have a quick look at a selection of the great award opportunities we have…
Dos and Don’ts of successful business award entry This week we thought it might be nice to focus on some of the key things we think are pretty important when it comes to business award entry but also, and arguably more importantly, the things which are essential to avoid at all costs. The list below…
Last week we shared our Top 5 reasons for entering awards – a task which we found particularly difficult as there are obviously just so many reasons why you should do it. This week we thought it would be good to bring that list to life by sharing some first-hand experiences from The Awards People…
Here at The Awards People HQ we could almost fill a book with reasons why our clients should enter awards (and we may do in the future…). For some, the driving factors are unique; part of a personal development plan or business strategy, but for most it is simply a result of significant success and…
At The Awards People we complete award-winning award entries for our clients (obviously!) but we do also help companies and individuals who are keen to submit their own entry or at least provide the bulk of the information to simply be ‘polished’ by us before it is despatched to the award judges. We are happy…
OK audience, despite the fact that we’ve been spreading the word about why entering awards is great for business, we do still detect some ‘doubting Thomas’s’ out there! We, therefore, thought it might be worth giving a few additional gentle nudges in the direction of the application form in this week’s blog. In the spirit…
Corporate social responsibility is a term with which we are all becoming more and more familiar; indeed, it is frequently mentioned in our chats with great businesspeople on our ‘sofa of success’ and, as you might imagine, our charity colleagues are particularly pleased. Many large corporations have been early adopters of the practice, but a…
Last week we looked at the importance of photographs and making sure your chosen image sends out the right kind of signal. We love a good photograph here at The Awards People, but we must say that our ‘area of expertise’, if you will, is words. The written word plays such a large role in…
A recent visitor to our ‘sofa of success’ gave us some great tips on the importance of sending a great photograph with your award application and we thought it would be good (and hopefully also useful) to share his thoughts with you. Up to now we have focussed on some of the more ‘academic’ aspects…
As a little departure from the general topic of ‘the joy to be gained from entering and winning awards’, we thought we’d take a look at some high-profile and high-achieving award winners throughout recent history. Now, we realise we have no detail on the nature of the entry process they endured, or indeed on the…
At The Awards People, we are (as you would expect) always encouraging people to put themselves or their businesses forward for awards. To check every now and again that we’re not just being incredibly biased, we speak to contacts outside of our inner circle to get their take on the whole subject. Very recently we…
Within our blog posts we generally focus on the many reasons why entering awards is great for individuals and businesses of all sizes. This week we thought we’d turn it on its head a little and mention just how great it is to be able to meet and work with the absolutely amazing people who…
At TAP we offer a research service to clients which not only looks at the awards taking place over the next 12-18-months but which also considers the suitability of both topic and category. Now, when we say suitability we generally mean whether your business activities or achievements match what we know to be the requirements…
At The Awards People we’re often heard telling people to ‘be themselves’ and to be aware that part of what customers/clients are buying is their personality and confidence. Raw passion and enthusiasm are both great qualities of a successful business person and should never be underestimated but (yes, isn’t there always a ‘but’!) we do…
Most businesses understand the importance of (and potential to be gained from) networking. Many of us devote a not-unsubstantial amount of time to attending events where we can meet and chat to other business owners and stakeholders and spread the word about what we do and the kind of clients we’re looking to do business…
Imagine the scenario. Your business has had an amazing year, you found out about some imminent awards which match your activities very well and you have submitted what you believe is a really strong contender of an entry. There’s been a whole load of time and energy gone into your submission and now you’ve just…
Whilst filming some Vlogs for The Awards People last week the team and I were in awe at some of the amazing comments coming from our guests, most of whom were there to speak about how winning awards had made a massive and extremely positive impact on their businesses. One of the most overwhelming things…
In our last post we spoke about one of the more surprising aspects of winning awards – that being the very positive effect it had on employees within the business. On the flip side of this we’ve also heard great accounts of how award success has changed the reactions of those on the outside, most…
Phew! What a first few weeks! Not only have we been writing our own website, video (did you watch it on our homepage?), press pack, setting up bank accounts, merchant banking, email addresses, social media links and the like – we’ve also been writing award entries and enjoying seeing our clients’ latest successes!
The Director of the Year awards for the East Midlands was recently announced and saw two of our clients (JC Metalworks and Clifton Packaging) either win their categories or be Highly Commended. Shahid Sheikh, OBE, Managing Director of Clifton Packaging will now travel down to London for the national finals and what a day that…
We are also writing a series of ‘How To’ tips and hints crib notes plus our first webinar. Keep your eyes peeled and don’t forget to sign up to our regular e-newsletter. We are always keen to get your feedback to on what we put out there so don’t be shy! If it’s working for…
Edward Cooper Young Chartered SurveyorsPeriod: Current and ongoing Website: www.ecycs.co.uk Subject: Celebrating 10 years in business and using that achievement to raise their profile and further enhance their reputation through entering, and winning, a series of prestigious business and industry awards Our Task Was: We were referred into ECY by another client of ours and our first… read more
Clifton Packaging www.cliftonpackaging.co.uk A Journey of Success We have had the honour and the privilege of working with Shahid Sheikh OBE and Lauren Canning… read more
JC Metalworks www.jcmetalworks.com Wow! What a year for JC Metalworks. Having never entered an award in their 30 year plus history, JC Metalworks are now; o The Leicester… read more
Alex’s Wish www.alexswish.co.uk Using Awards to Raise Their Profile across the Leicestershire Business Community Alex’s Wish had actually already looked at the Leicester Mercury… read more
SHB Solicitors www.shbsolicitors.co.uk If ever there was a modest firm of solicitors this is it! SHB Solicitors have been around for over 100 years but have only recently started… read more
The Director-e is a start-up business. In fact when we entered them for their first award they were pre-start up– which just goes to show what can be done when there is a strong… read more
