Awards - bull or benefit?

As the former owner of a major PR agency, I passionately believe that you must have a corporate differentiator to set you above the rest. A good award, well marketed, can be that differentiator.

I recently participated in an exceptional presentation by Rob Brown, the UK’s leading authority on Business Relationships, during which he reminded me of two inalienable facts, these are, 1) In the land of the bland the one-eyed deer is King and, 2) 95% of what you do is also being done by your competitors. Both support the claim that you have to focus on the unique, be innovative and do anything that makes you different (and preferably better) than your industry peers.

Entering Awards can be considered by the ill informed as crass and I have heard all the arguments against doing it; they only receive a few entries, you win in your turn, your face has to fit, they only want you to buy tables at the event and who believes it’s worth anything anyway, and these are all true in part, but the real value starts when you have the trophy in your hands. The real value comes from how you use it, who you tell and the mileage you can accrue during your year as winner.

Who wouldn’t want to be one of The Times ‘100 Best Businesses to Work for’ and 9 out of the top 50 are all Recruiters. Just think what impact that would have on your own ability to attract staff.

I will resist listing the awards I and my businesses have won over the years but winning them has definitely won me business, tipped the balance in my favour or simply been something to be ribbed about when talking to peers. I would recommend every recruiter have a crack at local, national, sector and community type awards – give it to a high flyer on the team as a secondary duty (see my blog on Secondary Duties – coming soon) and write a marketing strategy for using them to maximum effect .

And don’t just win it – work it.

Gareth

I was thrilled when REC won the CBI ‘Trade Association of the Year’, it was well deserved and clearly the marketing team had done tremendously well to realise their turn but it has been mighty quiet since. Come on gang, you only have a few months left, make it work for you! Make sure that people know that there are nearly 1,000 trade associations out there – to be a member of the best should mean something to them; after all they complain enough when it comes to renewing.