Practical Sales Training™ > How To Get Attention > Industry Awards
Industry Awards
Most businesses wait to be recognised. They enter awards someone else runs, hope to win, and then put a badge on their website. But there is a more powerful move available to you.
Run the awards yourself. Create the categories, judge the entries, and present the winners. When you do that, you are no longer a contestant – you are the authority.
That shift changes everything, because whoever sets the standard in a market tends to be seen as the leader of it.
What Are Industry Awards?
Industry Awards are a positioning tool where you create and run your own awards programme for your sector. You decide what the categories are, what good looks like, and who wins.
This is not about vanity. It is about visibility and authority, because when you run the awards, your brand sits at the top of every nomination, every entry form, and every winner announcement. Every entrant promotes you simply by taking part.
The result is a steady stream of attention, credibility, and content – all built around your name and your standards.
Why Do Industry Awards Work?
People follow whoever sets the standard. When you define what excellence looks like in your market, buyers and competitors alike start to see you as the benchmark. That perception is hard to buy and even harder to copy.
There is also a credibility loop. Every company that enters your awards is, in effect, endorsing your authority by asking for your approval. Every winner then shares your badge and your brand with their own audience, so the awards grow your reach without you having to chase it.
Running the awards also generates social proof in a way that feels earned rather than paid for. Judges are trusted. Winners are celebrated. As a result, the organiser sits above all of it.
How Can You Use Industry Awards In Sales?
Set the categories to shape the conversation
The categories you create tell your market what matters. So choose them carefully. Each one is a chance to define quality on your terms and position your own expertise as the standard others are measured against.
Use badges to spread your brand
Give winners and finalists a badge they can display on their website, email footer, and social profiles. Every time they use it, your brand gets in front of their audience. It is word-of-mouth at scale, and it costs you nothing extra.
Publish winners for authority and SEO
A dedicated winners page on your site builds domain authority and gives you a reason to post fresh content every year. Winners will often link back to it too, because they want to show off their recognition.
Turn nominations into sales conversations
Every nomination is a warm introduction to a new prospect. You already have their attention and their goodwill, because they want to win. That makes it much easier to start a conversation about what else you offer.
Offer feedback as a paid service
Entrants who do not win often want to know why. Offering a paid feedback session therefore turns a rejection into a revenue opportunity, and positions you as the expert whose opinion is worth paying for.
Run a ceremony to build community
A simple online ceremony brings your market together under your roof. Even a short virtual event creates connection, content, and coverage – all anchored around your brand as the host. So the ceremony does more than celebrate winners.
When Industry Awards Work Best
They work best in markets where credibility is hard to signal. When buyers struggle to tell good suppliers from bad ones, an awards programme gives them a shortcut – and puts you in charge of that shortcut.
They also work well for businesses that want long-term brand presence without constant ad spend. A yearly awards cycle generates content, coverage, and conversations on a repeating basis, which means you do the work once and it compounds over time.
For consultants, agencies, and niche B2B businesses in particular, running awards can shift the entire perception of a brand – from supplier to sector leader – faster than almost any other tactic. That is why it is worth considering even if you are starting small.
When Industry Awards Become Dangerous
The risk is running awards that feel hollow. If the categories are too vague, the judging is not transparent, or the same names win every year, the credibility evaporates quickly. Your awards are only as valuable as the trust people place in them.
There is also a commitment issue. Starting an awards programme and then abandoning it after one year looks worse than never starting at all. So only launch if you can sustain it, because the second year is where the authority really builds.
Getting the tone wrong is another danger. Awards that feel self-serving or pay-to-win attract cynicism instead of credibility. However, keeping the process fair, the criteria clear, and the focus on the industry rather than on you makes all the difference.
Common Industry Awards Mistakes
Making it all about you
The best awards celebrate the entrants, not the organiser. If every communication focuses on your brand rather than the winners, people will disengage. Put the spotlight on them instead, and the authority comes back to you naturally.
Poor promotion
An awards programme no one knows about helps no one. So build a promotion plan before you launch – not after. Social posts, email campaigns, and direct outreach to potential nominees all need to happen early, because entries drive everything else.
No follow-up plan
The awards ceremony is not the end – it is the start of a sales cycle. So have a clear plan for how you will follow up with entrants, winners, and attendees. Without that, you have built a lot of goodwill and done nothing with it.
Industry Awards – An Example
Favikon is a great example of this principle in action. They rank social media influencers on LinkedIn, which puts them at the centre of a conversation their whole target market cares about. As a result, they gain visibility and authority without running a single advert.
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