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Welcome back to Local Market Monopoly, where we turn your small business into a local legend hosted by local legend himself, hosted by your friend Clarence Fisher. And today we're going to talk about, we're going to uncover the secrets to winning local business awards. Imagine being the most talked about business in your area. You're like, Clarence, I already am. I know that, but imagine having the awards to prove your excellence. You're like, Clarence, I already do. Okay, well, this podcast episode just isn't for you, okay? Okay, Smartypants, for those of us who do not have all of the business awards, we're going to share the system to make sure that you come out on top. All right, so let's dive into how to make this a reality. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher uncovering the tools, tactics, and strategies the most successful small businesses use to dominate their local market and own the block.

Okay, we're back. Now. First of all, off top, why would you even care about the business awards? I know when I very first started out, I didn't care about business awards. I'm too busy working. Let that show Bodhi stuff happen for other people. I've got work to do. And that was such a crazy attitude to have. Come to find out they're called trust triggers, right? It's the same reason that on your website you have very prominent clients or customers that you have. Well, if you're a service business, you've got very prominent clients possibly listed. You've got also the softwares or vendors that you have. If they're really big vendors like we do Google AdWords, Facebook, we use WordPress, stuff like that, it can go on our website. Those are called trust triggers. And the business award is a huge trust trigger, especially in your local market.

If you think about the Chamber, whatever your Chamber of Commerce is, if you win Business of the Year, or you can win Business Person of the Year, there's all types of different categories. This makes a difference when it's displayed not only on your website, but also on the front door of your business. So when people walk in and they see that, that is a trust trigger. And then also you've got plaques and you've got all this stuff that shows up. I mean, it's the same thing as the Fastest Growing 500, right? The Inc 500 that everybody wants to be on, or The Inc 100 or any of those lists, those get displayed and they send you, I mean, you have to pay to play a bit on those, but they... Let me back up. Let me back up. Okay. When you win on those, I know on The Inc, I mean you pay for the banners and all the stuff that comes along with that you're going to display in your office.

And we've run press releases and what we call them authority news releases for several businesses that have won those awards. And you definitely want to do that when you win a local award. So I guess why would you go down this road? And the number one reason is just enhanced credibility, more credibility, more prestige. It serves as a third-party endorsement of the quality and the excellence of your business. When people see that, it can significantly boost your credibility in the eyes of your ideal customer, client, or patient. Another reason is increased visibility and brand awareness. When you win the award, oftentimes it comes with public opportunities, and this is going to include local media coverage. The people that are giving the award away lots of time have hookups with local media. So you're going to be included in that. You're going to be included in the press releases, the promotions of that award in the channel that is owned by that organization.

So back, if we're talking about the Chamber of Commerce, you're going to be included in all of those promotions. If you win an award that is specifically about your industry, then you're going to get be included into all of those. So this increases your marketing and your promotional opportunities. You of course, are going to use this in all of your marketing, by the way, in all of your, like I said, your website, the front door of your business, all of your brochures, you want to make sure your business cards, your email signature, all of that becomes another, gives you another to promote and market that you've won this thing. And so it becomes a big deal. Actually, I don't know what the conversion rate is. I wish I knew the exact number of how much it boosts your conversions to have these trust triggers on there, especially an award.

I need to find that out. I imagine it would be kind of hard to have hard numbers on that, but you definitely get a boost from having it. Speaking of boost, it also boosts the team morale. Can you imagine your team has been working very, very hard all year, and you bring home this award, like you're telling your team that we're applying for this award and you win. Then that boosts your team morale, and it also looks pretty attractive to people who are looking to work for you or work for this business. If you're one of the fastest growing businesses, it's pretty attractive. If you're one of the best businesses to work for, that's pretty attractive for new people. If again, and I'm probably going to say the chamber a lot here, but even on the local level, it is attractive for people to work for companies that are winning awards.

You also have increased network opportunities. So if you're going to the award ceremony, everybody who is, everybody who is in your local market is going to be at this event that's being provided by the organization. And so this gives you other networking opportunities. And as I can't remember which episode it was that we share that, but you can, by networking with other businesses, it gives you other opportunities to create cross-sales or upsells or even bundles from other businesses that are relatable to yours, not necessarily in competition to yours, but compliment yours. And you can meet these other businesses there. And then, especially if you're winning, everybody wants to, everybody wants to be connected with a winner, and that differentiates you also from your competitors. They're going to be benchmarking themselves to you. And if you are trying to raise money for your business, then that helps as well. So the overall thing is like your credibility boost that happens with these awards is huge. And so a big question becomes how do you win these awards? And it can be really as simple as just a applying.

The biggest thing that you have to do is, I mean, you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket, is what it basically comes down to. So do some research and all of the awards that are relevant to your specific company, your specific niche, your business. So this could be industry specific awards. This could be a community award. I mean, if your business is really big on community service and stuff like that, then some type of community award would be big for you. Or they could be some type of award that's focused on a certain aspect, like customer service. There are awards for innovation. There's awards for sustainability. Now, how sustainable is your business? The Chamber of Commerce, industry associations, all of these people have different types of awards with different categories. So do the research. It really comes down to what do you want to be famous for?
Have you thought about that? What do we want to be famous for? I have a buddy who has a staffing company and HR company, and they won, I don't know how many years in a row, but is as best place in the nation to work for. Now, that's huge for a staffing company. That's huge for an HR company to be the best place, one of the best places in the country to work for. So do your research, identify awards that are going to be relevant to you, and then you got to dig in there and you got to understand the criteria of eligibility. So once you've identified the potential awards, you got to be really careful and look at what's the criteria for you to be eligible. This is going to help you understand what the judges are looking for. Once you have that, you're good.

So we know where we're going. We know what they're looking for. Now let's get the application prepared. Now, you're going to campaign a bit, right? So your nomination has to be a bit compelling. You want to highlight your business's strengths, highlight your business's achievements, and really the impact that you've had on the local community. You want to tailor the nomination to align with whatever the award criteria is that you've already researched. And a big, big, big part of this, I'm telling you, is going to be the impact that you put that you have and your business have on the local community. And then you're going to gather some supporting materials that basically support what you say when you're saying, Hey, we're the bomb. Then you're going to have to get some supporting material that you are the bomb. Okay? Now, this can include a lot of stuff.

So this can be business plans, it could be customer testimonials. I myself, for our clients, have submitted testimonials for them on behalf to the award committee. These could be press clippings. Like I said, if you're running any press releases or authority type marketing releases, you can include those. Some awards. You may want to print out a financial statement and put a big circle around this is how much revenue that we've accrued or evidence of community involvement, how do you pictures and maybe programs that you are on to prove that you have been involved in the community. Now that you have that, you want to get endorsements. And this is what I was saying is don't be shy about this. I've done this for our clients. I've done this for people I or who are vendors of mine, get endorsements from your customers, get endorsements from your business partners, get endorsements from community leaders.

All of these can strengthen your application. So it's really pretty simple though. You're writing why we should be nominated, and a lot of times the award that you're applying for, they have the fields that you just fill out right there on the computer. This is why we should be nominated. Here are the supporting materials, and then here are the recommendations. You can send an email out to your customers, your clients, your patients, your vendors, and ask them to send you an endorsement. And then you can upload that, and then you just submit your application, whatever the guidelines are, just make sure you follow what's happening. And here's the deal. Some of these awards require a fee, and so you pay the fee. And really, a lot of times that fee is discouraging to a lot of business owners. They think, I don't want to pay to be considered for this award, so they're not in there, and the pool is a bit smaller.

So you can win this award. So pay the fee right now while your application is under review. This is the time when you start campaigning like the president and you start networking. All right? Continue to promote your business, continue to network within the community. Let people know that you're running for this award. This increases your visibility, especially in a local market where everybody knows everybody, especially if you're in business. If you're in business, we all know each other. So when you say, Hey, we're up for this, then it gets around too, and I'm sure it's not supposed to, but it gets around somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who is on the award committee just saying it is what it is, right? Okay. And so promote, promote, promote, promote. If you want to win and then attend the award ceremony, get suited and booted, as we say, get really clean.

If you're shortlisted, attend the award ceremony, it's going to be a great opportunity again for you to be networking and gain visibility. What I want you to do is we always talk about the backstage pass is to take pictures. This would be awesome to do even as the awards, as the nominees are being decided upon. Part of your promotion is give your social channels a backstage pass on what's going on. What are you guys doing to support your nomination? Continue to show the things that you are doing that validate your nomination. And then when you're at the gala or the award ceremony, post pictures of that as well to your people, and then leverage the outcome. If you win, you want to publicize that bad boy with press releases, social media, all of your marketing channels, like we said before, make a big deal about it.

But here's the thing that a lot of people don't do, is even if you don't win, you were nominated, you were shortlisted. Use that as a marketing tool. You see this in the movies all the time. Oscar nominated actor, Oscar nominated actress, Emmy Award, Emmy nominated, right? So they put that in the credits. The person didn't win, but they were shortlisted. So that even boosts the credibility that you have an Oscar nominated actor or Grammy nomination, right? So if you were nominated, I'm like, Hey, best, what is it? Business of the year, nominee your business, okay? Use that and then get feedback and then improve for the next year, whether you win or not, try to get feedback from the judges. What were you looking for? Did I need to send pancakes to your office? No. What were you looking for? And this can provide you with some insights so that you can improve for next year, and then do it until you win, because you will win.

Okay? So just follow these steps. Super duper easy steps in order to win. The big points are create a compelling story because a business with a story stands out if you're, you have a restaurant, it's not really about, Hey, you got a bakery? We just baked cookies. But what about your grandma's recipe? That's how it turned into the business that you are today because of your grandma's recipe. Tell the story that you have. Highlight your community involvement and your community impact. What's a local cause that you are so passionate about that you plan events about, that you collaborate about, and lean on your networking and your relationships, right? And you will win. Okay? And let me know because I want to shout you out too. So that's it for this week. If you haven't done so, go to local market monopoly.com and sign up for the absolutely free newsletter where every week we share an actionable tip for you to own your block. Speaking of, own Your Block. Go do it. Go do it. Get to it. I'll see you next week.

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