Award Application Preparation made easy!

Regional and International Awards market is blooming, with traditional legends and disruptive players broadening the portfolio. Often winners for these awards are selected based on award applications/nominations received from participating organizations, or the award committees doing independent assessment, or even both.

Winning a business award is nothing less than an Academy Award or a Grammy, and the preparation for being able to kiss the trophy starts at a very early stage. It is also a shot in the arm for your marketing efforts, if you win one!

This guide will be helpful for professionals who prepare award applications for their organizations. Even though it depends on distinctive criteria, frameworks and definite assessment methods, preparation of award applications follow certain commonality.

Here are few checkpoints to keep in mind, before you start drafting the best application!

1.??????Focus on a theme, supporting elements and build stories around it.

Create a storyboard with a common theme (probably your organization’s mission), the purpose it’s been serving and other elements attached to it. Before taking it to type the words, I would strongly recommend to jot down points that can be interconnected so as to create the big picture in your mind. For those who follow mind-mapping , it is definitely a tool that comes handy.

2.?????Gather all ingredients, before you cook the platter.

Once you have the story board ready, gather all information, statistics, the development and other associated updates. This will help you to skip the hurdles quicker once you start drafting the application. With limited information at desk and keep going around for info will loose your focus and effort would seem daunting. Also, do a bit of research on the awards committee, the contenders, previous winners for you to get a grip on where to focus more.

3.?????Form a team, explain the purpose.

If you are solely given the responsibility to develop the application, you may seek the guidance from the project sponsor (Often from Senior Management) on raking in a team for collection of information, brainstorming and peer review of application. If you are leading the process, let others push the inputs to you for you to carve a good sculpture out of it.

4.?????Let numbers do the talking.

An incredible award application takes the jury through a story that narrates progress through numbers. It is a good idea to include statistics and to provide the performance over years. Providing so much of description would often distract from the point you are trying to prove. Remember! Often jury members are industry top organization leaders, imagine them reading through a super long essay.

5.?????No beating around the bush. Nothing over the mountain, nor deep under the sea.

Make the points clear for the jury to understand. Processes and practices specific to your organization could be something new to them. Also never go too detail to explain the whole process, or vaguely expand something that goes above the head. Never give a thought for jury members to feel like picking up a fiction instead of your glorious story filled with words, but nothing in essence.

?6.?????Turning your weakness to strengths

Award applications doesn’t mean that it’s all glory! Trying to prove that you are a super natural organization would raise the eyebrows for many. You should try making such one if there is a category called ‘Super Company of the Year”!

While highlighting your lows, it requires to be balanced with your strategy on how your weakness is going to be transformed as your strength in a while.

7.?????Keep up with the times. Modernity and Legacy will be a good combo.

Jury may (most probably) look at the advancement curve of your organization. It is good to have legacy systems, but ascending onto the technology and digital bandwagon is not a fancy anymore. This portion of your strategy is a must include in your application.

?8.?????Surprisingly there is no award for reaching word-limit!

It is not required to stuff up your application because word limit count was high. Keep it to the point, use bullet points instead of long sentences.

9.?????Do a peer review before you finalize the draft.

Reviewing the draft before submission is definitely a do-not-skip step, since further fillers corrections and additions can be done at this stage to perfect your application.

"You need not fabricate a story to win an award. Awards are won by the ones who are ready to take challenges. Not the ones who demonstrate them as flawless"

Preparation of Award application is an art, which if taken up diligently and worked upon rigorously will give the muscles to become a business book author in future (why not!). ?For those, who wish to hone their skills further, I would recommend the book “Business Excellence Awards – Strategies for Winning” written by Mr. Sunil Thawani.