International Stress Awareness Week; how we try to do our bit in the awards industry
Chances are, at some point in your life, you have experienced stress. If you’re lucky, it only visits every now and then – when something particularly challenging crops up, when a major life event happens, when a crucial deadline at work looms…
But, for many, it can be something that’s almost a permanent state. Either way, I think we’d all agree that if we can avoid it as much as possible, then that’s a good thing.
Being involved in the awards industry, we see programmes of all shapes and sizes; some of our clients receive 20 entries, some receive over 2000. Some hold a glittering awards ceremony as a grand finale, others will take a more restrained approach to congratulate their worthy winners. Your turnover for the year might rely solely on the success of your awards season, or it may be more of an ‘additional extra’.
Whatever your scenario, the common theme is that there is ALWAYS the potential for stress to creep in at various points.
At AwardStage, we make it our business to try and smooth out the wrinkles in the forehead, and provide a system – and a team – that minimises the impact of typical stress points. What do I actually mean by that though? I thought a couple of quick illustrations might be helpful, of when – typically (but not always) – stress levels rise for awards managers, and what we do to respond.
Hitting your awards launch date
You know you need to open for entries on time, to ensure entrants have enough opportunity to submit, before you move on to judging….which also needs to happen on time, so you know who your winners are in time for the awards presentation. Eeeek!
How AwardStage helps
All of our fees include ‘assisted implementation’ – that’s a fancy way of saying ‘we will help you get your site up and running’. Whether that’s helping you set up entry forms, or getting your judging rounds live – we can help you as little or as much as you need (and no question is ever silly. Ever.)
Not receiving as many entries as you’d like
Generally, awards managers will have a figure in their head, relating to the number of submitted entries they hope to achieve. It can be nerve racking as your entry deadline approaches, and your entry site seems so…..quiet.
How AwardStage helps
Firstly (and this is more of a general observation), don’t panic too soon. Procrastination is rife, and the vast majority of awards we host will see an influx of entries submitted in the days leading up to your deadline. AwardStage has a few handy features to help here; you may want to use the integrated ‘mass messaging’ function to give your registered entrants a nudge, for example. And when the entries start to flood in, AwardStage technical infrastructure is designed to scale up as required, ensuring they can be submitted without any bumps.
Keeping your judges happy
We talk about this a lot, but that’s because it’s SO key. Judges are busy people, they are – more often than not – doing you a favour by scoring your award entries. As such, it makes sense that you’d make the experience as seamless and, dare we say, enjoyable for them as possible.
So, we love the fact that feedback from judges that have used AwardStage includes…
“Wonderful interface, and great user experience!”
“Very smooth interface, and made it easy to dip in and out during the judging period, accessing the platform when time allowed.”
“This is the smoothest online awards judging that I have ever taken part in.”
Ultimately, if your judges are happy, that’s a huge weight off your mind!
And finally…
If you’re interested in finding out more about how we work to make life easier for awards managers (plus entrants and judges, of course), then please do get in touch with us for a chat. We can look at your current pain points, or areas that you want to smooth out, and see whether AwardStage could take away at least some of the stress. We are here to help!
