I must admit I did feel that awards were very clique orientated and it was more who you know/what you do for them than judging on merits but I am very delighted to say that last week that my opinion was very much unproven.
I had the delight of attending the Trend Magazine Life with Style awards at the Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeen, This was courtesy of Chris Tonner of Beetroot Restaurants .
Chris approached me earlier this year to compose his entry for this years awards. I must admit I was very sceptical about doing this due to my aforementioned opinion of awards. However we had a meeting and discussed a plan of action. This, as it turned out, was a great way for me to get an insight into my clients business plans for the future and where they had come from to date. Now I'm not going to divulge what turned out to be an award winning plan of action but will let you know that the planning and execution of that plan were to be key to achieving success in the category we entered in.
I, as I always do, put my heart and soul into doing my very best for Chris and the team at Beetroot Restaurants and halfway through writing the entry had a brainwave as to how we could put the icing on the cake of the amazing story they have to tell. We needed a video! After if a picture paints a thousand words how many does a video paint!
I contacted my trusted photographer Andi Ramsay of Developing Perceptions as we had previously discussed his recent decision to expand his services into the field of videography. He was sure that we could produce something that would knock the socks off the judges and really seal the deal for the entry - using a belt and braces approach to support the written entry I was producing.
So needless to say we set upon strategising and planning a video and finally putting it into production. Andi was very kind to allow me to work with him on the filming in an art direction role and this was a great experience for me and allowed me a unique insight into the behind the scenes of a promotional film.
The resulting film you can see here (remember and put your volume on as there is a voice over to it) and I'm sure you will agree that the results are fantastic. The biggest surprise to me apart from the amazing results was the price! It really is not as expensive as what you may imagine to get a video done for your company and Andis price came in leaps and bounds below the prices of some of the more high profile video production companies locally with absolutely no compromise on quality.
So we had all parts of our entry complete and entered before the deadline back in March, the wait was on.
Chris got notification that we had reached the final of the category and I was absolutely delighted. He had entered previously and not made it this far. I was surprised and delighted when he went on to invite me to the dinner in June.
June came round quicker than I could imagine and last Thursday was spent with my stomach in knots of nerves before attending the very glitzy and glam affair at the Marcliffe. I had secretly decided that I would do a live twitter feed from the room that night to keep my brain occupied. So dinner was served and was amazing. They quality and service far surpassed expectations and with 400+ in the room the staff were amazing. It was then time to get business underway. Phone in hand I began tweeting the results as they were announced. This turned out to be a mammoth task but with the exception of one tiny mistake I did it! We were fourth category up and had a Highly commended in front of us which went to a very deserving Paula McEwan. The winner announcement was greeted with screams of delight from our whole table. It was real, everything that we had worked hard for had come to fruition. I was over the moon as was Chris and co.
The winners on the night for every category deserved to win on their own merits and seemed to be awarded on that basis not who/what they know/did. Congratulations to all the deserving winners and highly commended businesses too.
So I went home reflecting on the unexpected win and the even more unexpected change in my opinion of awards. So if you have achieved something with your business put yourself forward for awards, recognition is worth having especially if given on merit as these awards were. And if you want a hand doing your entry give me a shout and we can discuss it!
I also would like to take this opportunity to formally thank Chris for the opportunity to assist him in this success and also to Andi for his input in the form of the aforementioned video.
(Here's the award Chris took home last week )
