“I believe that I finally have something that might be worthy of an entry into any relevant industry awards or competitions. But do you think it is it worth the effort?” PN, Warwickshire
A very interesting question and one that is close to my heart. Or at least it once was…because I really don’t bother now. I have been a winner and a loser, or at least a loser inasmuch as I didn’t win, if you get the subtle difference. No? Well let’s put it this way….I entered but whilst I reached the finals I didn’t receive any sort of visit by judges so I don’t actually regard my failure as having been properly judged. And if it wasn’t properly judged, how could they possibly know if my entry was good enough?
Now having said that and in the vein of all good hypocrites everywhere I swore thereafter that I would never enter again. However, my staff persuaded me that we should enter our star apprentice into a category they had that year. He was a good lad and I agreed that he was worthy of some recognition. And strike me down, he won it…and I went up on the stage with the lad to collect his trophy, all smiles and chuffed to bits that he won and of course, I soaked up the reflected glory.
Suffice it to say I haven’t bothered since: been there, done that I suppose.
So should you enter? Let’s put it this way…we are all seduced by the local eatery that has a ‘Restaurant of the Year’ rosette stuck to the front door, even if we know that the award was made on the strength of the amount of advertising they run each month in the rag making the award…and still we go along, believing or perhaps hoping that there is some merit in it.
And if you have something, a new product, or exceptional trading year or whatever it is that you believe is worthy enough to go through the rigmarole of entering an awards scheme, then by all means do so. If you win you’ll leap around and whoop and crack a bottle or two and it will give you and your team a nice warm glow and it might even nudge one or two customers over the line.
But I have to say that if you lose, then you have to be prepared to walk away and put it down to bad luck, because you will never find out why you didn’t win, or who made the decision to fail you; you will never find out the judging criteria, about how they decided that your competitor’s product or company was better than yours; and you will therefore never know what you have to do to be better, how you can improve and not just to win the competition either.
You will simply have to take it on the chin, because whinging about it will get you absolutely nowhere and it will simply be seen, rightly or wrongly, as a large bunch of sour grapes.
*Danny Williams is managing director of Chelmsford based Pioneer Trading and has been involved with all aspects of the windows and doors industry for 30 years. His activities include manufacturing, retailing and commercial installation.
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