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
- Scottish Enterprise Awards
- Welsh Enterprise Awards
- Northern Ireland Enterprise Awards
- Energy & Power Awards
- Finance Awards
- Transport Awards
- Legal Awards

These awards were set up specifically to recognise the SME sector; the feeling being that these businesses were making such a valuable contribution to the wider economy, producing innovative ideas, advancing technology and achieving so many great things, but were often overlooked in many mainstream business awards.

At The Awards People we are always happy to promote those awards events which we feel provide a great opportunity for the kind of successful and ambitious businesses we work with. Upon reading their website we realised that some of the benefits of awards entry which they listed were very familiar to us – exactly the kind of things we are always telling everyone!

In their words:

“Being put forward for an award and winning an award can be great for business. Both nominees and winners can gain some great marketing and promotion for their achievements, it can be great for boosting employee morale and for those who do go on to win businesses can use such a win as a way of attracting great talent. Winning such an accolade offers great credibility for the business often linked with an increase in customer trust and loyalty and in turn improved financial performance.”

Now, we don’t have to tell you we told you so, do we??

If you’d like to find out a little more about the SME News awards then visit their website at https://www.sme-news.co.uk/sme-news-awards/

If you’ve already decided that you would like to enter these awards (or any others) and you would like some support then contact us via https://theawardspeople.co.uk/contact/

Edward Cooper Young Chartered Surveyors

Period: 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 task after meeting with them was to go away and research award opportunities in both their industry and generally across business (locally, regionally and nationally as they have satellite offices in London, Bristol and Sheffield) for an entire 12 month period.

Once this 12 month calendar was agreed the focus moved to crafting award winning award entries!

Process:

With each new client it’s imperative to spend time with them really understanding their business and asking, not just the questions on the first few award / category nomination forms, but wider questions designed to get as much information out as possible, as painlessly as possible!

Following on from that face-to-face time with them it’s then been about writing the first draft, sharing that with our client, taking amends and alterations before submitting a second draft. For long-term clients like ECY we also work with them to start gathering together supplementary information which will be valuable across a number of different award entries, things like;

Client testimonials
Employee testimonials
Service provider testimonials (for instance, training providers who work with the client
Training dashboard screen grabs
Employee photographs
Product / service photographs
Press clippings
Other supporting material

Result:

To date these are the results we have achieved with ECY… and there’s a lot more to come!

Winner:

Leicester Mercury Business Awards
- Employer of the Year

Highly Commended:

Signature Awards
- Promoting Apprentices in the Workplace – Highly Commended

Finalists:

Celebrating Construction East Midlands
- People Development Award
Institute of Directors (IoD) Director of the Year Awards
- Director of the Year – SME
- Director of the Year – Innovation
LABC Building Excellence Awards – Construction Professional of the Year
Leicester Mercury Business Awards
- Apprentice Employer of the Year

Shortlisted Finalists to Be Announced:

Apprenticeships National Awards
- Apprenticeship Employer of the Year
- Rising Star
Barclays Entrepreneur of the Year
- Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year
East Midlands Chamber Awards
- Apprentice of the Year Award
- Commitment to People Development Award
- Outstanding Growth Award
- Small Business of the Year Award
Nachural Awards
- Business Person of the Year
- Entrepreneur of the Year
- SME of the Year
- Promoting Apprentices in the Workplace
SME National Business Awards
- Businessman of the Year
- Employer of the Year

Conclusion:

ECY has been busy fully maximising their award nominations, success to shortlist, finalist status and attendance at award ‘do’s’ across all social media, via targeted press releases and client / employee updates (email, YouTube etc).

Samantha Gamble, Marketing Executive at ECY commented on the results to date saying, “We were genuinely thrilled to win the Leicester Mercury Business Award for Employer of the Year, alongside being Highly Commended at the Signature Awards in the Promoting Apprentices in the Workplace category. Ashley, our Senior Partner, completely acknowledges that the team at ECY are what makes us as successful as we are and will drive the planned growth of the business.”

“To get two successes as soon as we started this journey was awesome and that success has continued with other finalist positions. This month has seen a huge amount of work going into preparing and submitting multiple entries and we’re all very much looking forward to more success that we can share, in our tenth year, with our employees, clients, suppliers, influencers and other stakeholders.”

“It’s an absolute pleasure working with Rachel at The Awards People and I’m really looking forward to that continuing for many months ahead!”

Edward Cooper Young Chartered Surveyors

Focus on the SME News awards

Focus On…

Author: Rachel Hargrave

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Edward Cooper Young Chartered Surveyors