Excelling in sales and customer service is essential for success in business, and the Fifth Annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, which were presented last night at the Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, recognized organizations and individuals for their recent achievements in these disciplines. 

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service is the world's leading sales awards, customer service awards, and call center awards program. The awards were presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world's leading business awards shows including the prestigious American Business Awards. 

Winners of multiple Stevie Awards this year include Bulldog Solutions, CIGNA Government Services, Marsh U.S. Consumer, Overstock.com, Rosetta Stone, salesforce.com, Canada's SMART Technologies, and SuiteAmerica Corporate Housing. Other notable Stevie Award winners include Apple, L.L. Bean, the United Kingdom's T-Mobile, and Zappos.com. A complete list of all honorees by category is available at www.stevieawards.com/sales. 

Finalists and Stevie Award winners in the competition were determined by more than 125 judges over a three-month period.

Winners in the Second Annual People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service, as determined by more than 177,000 public votes, were also awarded at the event to organizations including Archipelago Learning, Macy's, Marriott Vacation Club, PetRays, and India's TATA Motors Ltd.

The event, attended by more than 200 executives from the U.S.A. and several other nations, benefited Camfed (www.camfed.org), which supports the education of girls and women in Africa.

More than 800 entries from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted to this year's competition, an increase of more than 60% over 2010. There were 25 categories for customer service professionals, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; as well as 40 categories for sales professionals, ranging from Global Sales Leader of the Year to Sales Training Program of the Year to Sales Department of the Year. New this year were categories to recognize new products and services and solution providers. 

The Business TalkRadio Network will broadcast the awards presentations from 8:00 pm ET on Thursday, February 24 across the U.S.A. The broadcast may be heard worldwide on their web simulcast, at http://www.businesstalkradio.net. 

About The Stevie® Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.stevieawards.com.

Sponsors of the 5th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include American Support, the Business TalkRadio Network, Competence Call Center, Infogroup, the Sales Management Association, and ValueSelling Associates.

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Today we conducted a live webinar entitled "How to Enter The American Business Awards," and a video of that recording is now available.

Now in their ninth year, The American Business Awards are the leading business awards program in the U.S.A, with category groups including management awards, marketing awards, PR awards, HR awards, IT awards, web site awards, video awards, and more. The entry deadline is March 31.

The hour-long video covers

• What the ABAs are, and their history
• The schedule for the 2011 ABAs
• How to review and select categories
• How to prepare and submit entries
• How the judging process works
• Best practices
• What’s new & different in 2011

If you plan to enter The 2011 American Business Awards we recommend highly that you first get and review the online entry kit, but this video offers a lot of helpful detail about the process of the awards program.

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As the U.S. economy rebounds, employees and executives are working harder than ever before. In order to shine a spotlight on the organizations, individuals and teams that strive for excellence in the workplace each day, the Stevie® Awards today officially issued the call for entries for its Ninth Annual American Business Awards.  (I say "officially" because entries have been coming in since October.)

The American Business Awards are the only all-encompassing awards program that honors outstanding performances in the American workplace. All organizations operating in the U.S. are eligible to submit nominations -- public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. The entry deadline is March 31 and late entries will be accepted through April 27 with a late fee. The 2011 awards will honor work since the beginning of 2010, and the awards will be announced on June 20 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Entry details are available at http://www.stevieawards.com/aba/.

Nominations are accepted in various category groups including management awards, public relations awards, marketing awards, new product awards, HR awards, IT awards, web site awards, and more. New categories in 2011 include Executive of the Year - Health Products & Services and Best New Product or Service of the Year - Health Products & Services, and more than 40 new Marketing Campaign of the Year categories.

"The American Business Awards offer individuals and organizations the recognition they deserve for achievements in the workplace," said Michael Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards. "Each year our judges recognize organizations large and small, from the world's most famous companies to mom-and-pop startups, and I think 2011 is going to offer many stories of remarkable and inspiring achievement."

The 2011 American Business Awards will include the third edition of the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products(SM), in which the general public can vote for their favorite new products and services of the year. Each new product or service nominated in The American Business Awards will automatically be included in people's choice voting. Voting opens in May and winners of the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products will be honored at the June awards dinner in New York.

The Eighth Annual American Business Awards were presented last June to a diverse group of organizations including Accenture, adidas, Apple Inc., Boost Mobile, Ford Motor Company, Hilton Hotels, Nu Skin Enterprises, the Rubicon Project and The Timberland Company among others. For a list of winners and finalists of the 2010 awards visit: http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/awards/403_2183_20410.cfm.  

To request an entry kit for The 2011 American Business Awards, visit http://www.stevieawards.com/aba/.

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Stevie Awards president Michael Gallagher interviewed Wendi Goldsmith, founder and president of The Bioengineering Group on January 27 in a webinar presented by the School of Management at George Mason University. Check out the video on YouTube.

Wendi is a multiple Stevie Award winner for Executive of the Year, Company of the Year, and more.  She talked about how and why she started the business, the obstacles she overcame, how she learned to become both an entrepreneur and a manager, and the lessons she would share with would-be business creators and managers.