Should we win a business award? The question nobody dares to ask

There are a lot of awards. Really, a lot. Best Employer. Most Innovative SME. Most Sustainable Company. Fastest-Growing Start-up. Friendliest Customer Service. There's even an award for the best-dressed director of the year.

A fair share of those awards is marketing for the organisation handing them out. They make money from entry fees and sponsorship. Plus gala evenings and mentions in their magazine. The winner, then, is less the best in their field. It becomes whoever has the thickest dossier or the biggest network on the jury. That's not cynical, that's honest.

What's more, an award entry takes time. Writing supporting documents and gathering data. Preparing presentations and scheduling jury interviews. Reckon on two to four months of serious effort for a solid entry. If you don't win, you never earn that energy back.

And then there's the risk of losing. You've given it everything, your team has become invested, and then a competitor stands on the stage. That's demoralising. Not just for the length of the evening, but for weeks afterwards. "Why did we do this again?" is not a pleasant question to have to answer.

Finally: not every award lands with your audience. An award nobody outside your sector has heard of brings you little. Clients and candidates respond to names they know. An award from an unknown platform won't make you a known name either.

There are plenty of awards not worth the investment. Entering because it looks professional, or because the competition is entering too, is not a strategy. It's tagging along.

Now the other side. Because good awards (credible, widely recognised, hard to win) really do deliver. Three concrete benefits we've experienced ourselves.

Recruitment. People want to work for winners. "FD Gazelle winner" on your careers page attracts a different kind of candidate. Someone looking for ambition who wants to belong to a growing company. After our win, we saw an immediate rise in applications. More and better profiles: people who already knew us, who understood why they wanted to be at Live Impact. An award is the best recruitment budget you never planned for.

Client trust. A business award is external validation. Not you saying you're good, but an independent third party confirming it on objective criteria. That's different from a nice quote on your website. In a sector where everyone promises a lot and proves little. Clients look for certainty. A recognised award gives them that, before you've even had the first meeting.

Team pride. Perhaps the most underrated return of all. Winning gives your people a moment of genuine recognition. All the work and the challenges: that counts. The overtime too. An award is a mirror that says: you're doing well. That motivates longer than an away day or a fine speech from the director. Seriously.

Three returns that together prove one thing: the right award is not a cost. It's an investment in your brand and your people. And in your growth. The art lies in choosing the right award, and then using it well.

You can't back every horse at once. So how do you choose the award worth your time?

Look first at the credibility of the organiser: who sits on the jury, on what criteria are winners selected, and how transparent is the methodology? An award from a national newspaper or an industry body with thirty years of reputation carries more weight. An award from a platform founded just two years ago does not.

The list of past winners tells you a lot. Does your audience recognise those names? An award is only worth something if the people you want to reach see something in it too. If the winners' list means nothing to them, it means little for you.

The investment deserves an honest assessment. How much time does the entry realistically take? Factor in entry fees and any jury presentations, plus the awards evening itself. Weigh that against what a win could bring you in recruitment, sales and PR. If the sums don't add up, don't put your energy into it.

Choose deliberately, and choose one. Better one entry you work out properly than five dossiers you hand in half-baked. A jury sees the difference. And so does your team.

The FD Gazelle is an award from Het Financieel Dagblad for the fastest-growing companies in the Netherlands. The criteria are objective: revenue growth over three years, verified by an external accountant. No lobbying or jury sympathy. And no hefty entry fees. Growth or no growth.

That made the choice simple for us. We were growing. We had the figures. And we won.

But what did it bring us? More than we expected. The recognition itself is one thing: a lovely evening and a trophy. Plus a photo for LinkedIn. The real value lay in what we did afterwards. On our website and in our proposals. And in every introductory meeting. "Live Impact is an FD Gazelle winner" is a sentence that does something in a conversation. Not because we're showing off, but because it's an objective fact that builds trust with new clients all by itself.

Internally, the impact was greater than expected. The team celebrated it, really. Not for a quarter of an hour, but fully and with pleasure. Because it confirmed that things are going well and the direction is right. That we were making the right choices. That kind of recognition you can't buy. You earn it.

And recruitment: in the months after the announcement we clearly saw more applications. Better profiles too. People who already knew us, who understood where we're heading and wanted to be part of it.

The biggest lesson: an award is not a finish line. It's a starting point. Only if you put it to work (internally and externally, consistently and visibly) does it deliver its full value. An award that disappears from your communications after two weeks is a missed opportunity.

Winning is step one. Step two is just as important: what do you do with it?

Too many companies win an award. They put the logo on their website and then carry on. After three months it's forgotten. By themselves, and by their audience.

Adapt your communications, everywhere. Add the award logo to your website and your email signature. Plus your proposals and your LinkedIn company page. Don't be modest. You've earned it, and people need to see it.

Your team deserves to hear the news first. Share it internally before it goes public. They contributed to it, they deserve to be the first to know. An internal announcement and a celebration: a moment of genuine recognition. That strengthens your culture and engagement more than you'd think.

In sales conversations, an award works best as a fact, not as a sales pitch. "We're an FD Gazelle winner: our growth has been objectively proven." Clients like to buy from growing, recognised companies. It gives them certainty at the moment they're hesitating.

Extend the lifespan of the award. Write an article about it. Share it on social media. Work it into your recruitment materials and your company presentations. Into your proposition too. An award has a shelf life of several years, if you keep working with it.

A good business award works as a boost for your entire organisation. It motivates your people and gives you direction. Use it that way. Want to think about how to celebrate your award with your own awards ceremony? For your team or your sector. We're happy to think that through with you too.

Whether you want to win an award or create a moment of your own: we'll help you on your way.

We know how to make something that sticks. From corporate events and kick-offs to award ceremonies and incentive trips: we put your story on stage. Just as we told our own story, with the FD Gazelle as proof that it works.

We also help you think about how to deploy an award strategically. Winning is one thing. Making something of it: that's the work. And that work we know.

Call us on 085 401 40 14 or send an email to hello@live-impact.nl.

Seriously fun.