You must NEVER put your prices up (apparently)

By Awards Intelligence

I had an interview with BBC Radio Scotland yesterday about the benefits of winning business awards ahead of the build up to the Scottish Business Awards ceremony tomorrow.

The interviewer was slightly obsessive about one benefit I cited (if anyone can be ‘slightly’ obsessive about something).

I said that winning awards gives companies the option to increase their prices because people are often willing to pay a premium for the best.

The interviewer latched on to this big time and repeatedly said that raising prices was not in the customer’s best interests.

Two points here:

Firstly, companies need to make a fair profit to survive and raising prices enables them to plough money back in to improving their product or service, for the benefit of their customers.

Secondly, the interviewer asked me “why would a business want to win an award” so my answer quite naturally related to the benefits to businesses. To imply that making or increasing profits is a bad thing is just plain wrong in my opinion, and I suspect most people would agree with me other than those extreme left wingers of course. Successful businesses fuel the economy.

Anyway have a listen and see what you think.

Here’s quick summary of other benefits of winning awards which I mention in the interview:

Winning awards will:

·         raise your profile through positive PR

·         enhance your reputation

·         instil trust, a key ingredient for business success

The financial benefits of winning awards are perhaps less well known. For example, a study by the University of Leicester compared the financial performance of 120 ‘award winning’ companies across Europe over 11 years with ‘non-award winning’ companies that were a similar size and from the same industries.  The ‘award winning’ companies experienced average sales growth 77% higher than the ‘non-award winning’ companies.  A separate study based on experience in the US also found that award winning companies outperformed in terms of sales growth.

So there is no doubt in my mind that winning awards has a significant positive effect on the bottom line.

Here’s that link to the interview again.

Best regards

Mark

P.S. Congratulations to all the winners of the National Business Awards last night, especially our clients. Make sure you milk it for all its worth.

 

Posted in Awards, Business