Next Wednesday, December 12, is the second early-bird entry deadline for The 2013 American Business Awards, the top business awards competition in the U.S.A. All individuals and organizations in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. (Take advantage of discounted entries fees for entries submitted by December 12, request your entry kit here.)

The American Business Awards honor organizations and individuals in a wide variety of categories, types of business award categories include:

• App awards,
• Company / organization awards,
• Customer service awards,
• HR awards,
• IT awards,
• Management awards,
• Marketing awards,
• New product awards,
• PR awards, and
• Website awards.

Don't worry if you can't make next week's second early-bird deadline, March 27, 2013 is the entry deadline and April 24, 2013 is the last day that late entries will be accepted with payment of a late fee.

Nominations should cite achievements during our eligibility period: January 2012 through April 24, 2013, the last day that late entries will be accepted. There is no eligibility timeframe for web site entries - it does not matter when the web sites were first published.

Two helpful resources to make your submission process easier include the publication of past winners' entries for your review and  7 tips on submitting winning entries to help you make the most out of your entries.

If you have any questions about the 2013 ABAs, please email us at help@stevieawards.com or call us at + 1 703-547-8389.

The second early-bird entry deadline for The 2013 American Business Awards, the premier business awards competition in the U.S.A., is quickly approaching on December 12. Take advantage of discounted entries fees for entries submitted by December 12, request your entry kit here.

The American Business Awards honor organizations and individuals in a wide variety of categories, types of business awards categories include: app awards, company / organization awards, customer service awards, HR awards, IT awards, management awards, marketing awards, new product awards, PR awards, and website awards. See the full list of business award categories.

If you can't make the December 12, 2012 early-bird entry deadline, March 27, 2013 is the entry deadline and April 24, 2013 is the last day that late entries will be accepted with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced on May 8, 2013. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA. 

2012 Gold ABA winners include Bloomberg Law (Best New Product or Service - Business-to-Business Services), Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group (Communications Department of the Year), Fazoli's Italian Restaurants (Human Resources Department of the Year), Ford Motor Company (Company of the Year - Automotive & Transport Equipment), HubSpot (Website of the Year - Computer Software), iolo technologies (Marketing Department of the Year), Northwestern Mutual (Best House Organ/Publication - Print), SquareTrade (Customer Service Department of the Year - Financial Services), and Vemma Nutrition Company (Best App of the Year - Lifestyle), among others. You can see the complete list of Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie® Award winners here.

Have questions? Don't hesitate to contact us about how to participate in The 2013 American Business Awards.

We are pleased to share that video clips from the 2012 (9th annual) Stevie® Awards for Women in Business awards dinner are now available to view on YouTube. Recognized as the world's premier business awards for women executives, entrepreneurs, and the organizations they run, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business were celebrated on November 9 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Watch the 2012 Stevie Awards for Women in Business awards presentations here.

More than 345 entrepreneurs, executives, and their guests from around the world attended the November 9th gala. Our Stevie Awards for Women in Business video clips from November 9 showcase business award acceptance speeches made by individuals and organizations from around the world, including:

Leverage a Lawyer LLC, Winner of a 2012 Gold Stevie® Award for New Company of the Year
Founder and CEO, Jessica Eaves Mathews, gracefully accepts the award and starts the evening off by reminding the audience about the powerful impact of women owned businesses.

Deborah Mitchell of Heaven by Deborah Mitchell, Winner of a 2012 Gold Stevie® Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Europe, The Middle East & Africa
All the way from Shifnal, Shropshire, United Kingdom, Deborah thanks the Stevie Awards and her American suppliers for contributing to her success.

MAC Presents, Winner of a 2012 Gold Stevie® Award for Small Budget Marketing Campaign of the Year
MAC Presents of New York, NY, USA, humbly accepts the Gold Stevie Award and expresses gratitude for their strong partnerships.

Christiane Schulz of Ketchum Pleon, Winner of a 2012 Gold Stevie® Award for Maverick of the Year - Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations
Christiane thanks her company and family for supporting her throughout her business endeavors.

Kim Petersen of DHL Global Forwarding, Winner of a 2012 Gold Stevie® Award for Female Employee of the Year – All Other Industries
Giving the final speech of the night, Kim thanks her company, her team, and her family for all of their support.

Want more resources from the Stevie Awards for Women in Business celebration? Watch all acceptance speeches, listen to the live recording, view photos from the event, and download the awards dinner program book.

Today is the first early-bird deadline for The 2013 American Business Awards, the premier business awards competition in the U.S.A. (Entry fees are discounted by as much as 25% for entries submitted this week. If you haven't yet done so, you can request your entry kit here.)

The American Business Awards honor organizations and individuals in a wide variety of categories, types of business awards categories include: app awards, company / organization awards, customer service awards, HR awards, IT awards, management awards, marketing awards, new product awards, PR awards, and website awards. See the full list of business awards categories.

If you can't make today's deadline, December 12, 2012 is the second early-bird entry deadline. March 27, 2013 is the entry deadline and April 24, 2013 is the last day that late entries will be accepted with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced on May 8, 2013. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA. 

If you have questions regarding the submission process, we have several resources including past winners' entries for your review, and  7 tips on submitting winning entries to help you make the most out of your entries.

Need help? Don't hesitate to contact us with your questions about how to participate in The 2013 American Business Awards.

Tomorrow, Friday, November 16, is the first early-bird deadline for The 2013 American Business Awards, the premier business awards competition in the U.S.A. (Entry fees are discounted by as much as 25% for entries submitted this week, request your entry kit here.)

All individuals and organizations in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. The ABAs feature categories to recognize achievement in every facet of worklife, including:

• App awards,
• Company / organization awards,
• Customer service awards,
• HR awards,
• IT awards,
• Management awards,
• Marketing awards,
• New product awards,
• PR awards, and
• Website awards.

See the full list of business awards categories.

If you can't make tomorrow's deadline, December 12, 2012 is the second early-bird entry deadline. March 27, 2013 is the entry deadline and April 24, 2013 is the last day that late entries will be accepted with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced on May 8, 2013. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA. 

Nominations should cite achievements during our eligibility period: January 2012 through April 24, 2013, the last day that late entries will be accepted. There is no eligibility timeframe for web site entries - it does not matter when the web sites were first published.

Don't hesitate to contact us with your questions about how to participate in The 2013 American Business Awards.

Chris Robinson, Managing Director of Boost Marketing, a UK-based international business awards entry consultancy, uses research to argue that simply entering the Stevie® Awards, the world's premier business awards program, can provide such substantial benefits that literally everyone who goes to the trouble of putting together a well-researched award submission is a winner. Here Chris discusses his findings.

If I were to ask you: “Who benefits the most from entering the Stevie Awards?” you would be justified in answering: “The winners, of course.” You might even think it a ridiculous question.

Is it a ridiculous question, though?  In my job at Boost Marketing, I help companies enter awards, and I often hear the line: “I only want to enter if I’m going to win.” I find this a frustrating sentiment, because it is based on a flawed assumption: that the only people who benefit from The Stevie Awards are the winners.

Crafting a strong award submission requires a substantial amount of research, evidence gathering, and writing. Furthermore, attending an awards presentation consumes even more time and budget. So how can you possibly justify all this when there is a significant likelihood you may not actually win?

An obvious answer is that even a small chance of winning a prestigious award is a chance worth taking. But this again assumes that only winners benefit. So are there other benefits—benefits you can enjoy even if you fail to win?

To answer this question, my company surveyed some awards finalists before the winners were announced (to ensure people were still open-minded). We were delighted that, when prompted, 70% of them could name specific benefits that they experienced by simply entering the awards.

The benefits people listed were extremely varied, but three of them were clear winners in terms of popularity:

1. The submission process improved evaluation (the measuring of a company or organization’s success to provide evidence in its award entry);
2. It demonstrated the company or organization’s commitment to excellence; and
3. It motivated employees.

Improved Evaluation
The most popular benefit, that of improved evaluation, might seem odd to those who have not recently taken a shot at winning an award. To help illustrate this, I would like to share a story.

One recent Stevie Award winner, whose business had been established for over a decade, had always resisted running a customer survey because she feared the customers would use it as a stick to beat her. Eventually, she ran a survey in order to prove to the awards judges just how customer-focused her business was. When she finally saw the scores and comments, she became quite emotional: The survey showed that her customers had an extraordinary affection for her and her business.

Without that quick and inexpensive survey, the business owner would never have known just how much her customers appreciated her business, nor would her business have won the award without the confirmed approval ratings. In other words, she was a winner before she actually won the Stevie Award.

The simple process of putting your business and its achievements under the microscope for an award submission can be extremely beneficial. Measuring a company’s outstanding achievements can give employees pride in their work, increase internal credibility, and boost confidence and morale. Employees can discover whether their perception of what they do, day in and day out, bears up under scrutiny.

This process requires courage, but it can be worthwhile if used properly. Lessons learned can lead businesses to raise the bar and make further improvements.

Commitment to Excellence
CEOs will often use awards as key performance indicators. I have seen this in a broad range of industries including automotive, banking, insurance, and training.  Is this just an exercise in Public Relations? Well, maybe a little, but the main reason why CEOs tout these awards is because they want their businesses—and the departments in them—to aim for more than just best practice.  They want their employees to focus on being the best.

These days there is a big difference between simply achieving best practice and being the best in an industry.  It’s the difference between being the leader, and being in the pack trying to catch up. CEOs know that a credible award like a Stevie is a true measure of success.

The Positive Effect of Competition
When one department wins an award, other departments see the attention and praise heaped upon their colleagues and want similar recognition. This has an extremely positive effect. 

People also soon realize that you cannot win an award simply by writing a great entry. Judges are too smart for this. It is not good enough just to sound outstanding.  Awards are for those who actually are outstanding. A badly written, badly evidenced award submission prevents the judges from learning just how good a company really is.

Awards are rather like Olympic medals in that they discourage people from settling for best practice and encourage them to raise their game and to leave their competition in the dust.

Motivation
Motivation goes to the very heart of why The Stevie Awards are so important. Look more closely at the crystal pyramid held aloft by the 16” tall, 24-karat gold-plated Stevie Award trophy and you will discover another reason to enter these awards: The pyramid represents the Hierarchy of Needs, developed in the 1960s by psychologist Abraham Maslow, who observed that after basic needs are met, human beings seek the esteem of their peers.

Maslow was referring to individuals, but the principle applies just as well to teams, departments, and whole businesses. This is why The Stevie Awards recognize all of these categories in their business competitions.

Do you need to win an award to gain recognition from your peers? Of course not.  But to have a peer tell you or your team: “I am so impressed by you that I want to enter you into an international awards program,” and to follow that up by writing a glowing award submission, will have a positive effect on the self esteem and motivation of your employees, win or lose.

Conclusion
Whether you are confident about entering one of The Stevie Awards competitions or not, understand that while winning one of these handsome trophies is enormously beneficial, so too is the process that you have to go through just to put together an entry. It will focus and sharpen the awareness of what you are doing right; it will provide a catalyst for continuing improvement and motivation; and it will help satisfy that basic business and human need: appreciation and respect.

The Stevie Awards are now conferring Silver and Bronze Awards in addition to the main Gold Stevie Award, meaning that you are three times more likely to be a winner.

About Chris Robinson:
Chris Robinson is Managing Director of Boost Marketing, the world’s first award-entry consultancy, which now has a team of 15 award-entry consultants based around the world. Since the company was founded in 2006, Boost Marketing consultants have helped over 200 businesses win over 400 awards.

The entry deadline for the 7th annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top business awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals, is today, November 14.  If you miss the deadline, late entries will be accepted through January 15 with payment of a late fee.

All entries are submitted online. You can begin your submission process by requesting your entry kit here. The entry kit contains all of the instructions you need about how to prepare and submit your entries.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 125 sales awards, customer service awards, and call center awards categories honoring sales excellence and best customer service practices for individuals, teams, and departments, plus categories this year for products and service and solution providers. The 2013 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2011.

Three tips to help you make the most out of your entries include:

1. Downloading our 5 Tips for Winning Sales Awards in the 2012-13 Stevie® Awards tipsheet.
   Our tipsheet will provide helpful tips and tools for making the most out of your entries.
2. Reviewing past winners' entries.
   Our past winners' entries serve as great models for submitting entries. A complete list of 2012 honorees is available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.
3. Contacting us!
   We love to answer your last minute questions. Contact us at help@stevieawards.com and we'll help direct you to categories that are right for your organization.

Winners of the competition will be announced at an awards banquet at Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on February 25, 2013.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 14, is the entry deadline for the 2013 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top business awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals. (If you can't make the November 14 entry deadline, entries will still be accepted through January 15, 2013 with payment of a $35 late fee per entry.)

To begin your submission process, you should:

1. Request an entry kit.
The entry kit contains all of the information you'll need to be able to prepare and submit entries to this year's awards.

2. Review the categories.
The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 125 sales awards, customer service awards, and call center awards categories honoring sales excellence and best customer service practices for individuals, teams, and departments, plus categories this year for products and service and solution providers. The 2013 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2011.

Entrants may submit any number of nominations to any number of categories, which include:

• Sales Individual categories such as Senior Sales Executive of the Year and Sales Operations Professional of the Year
• Sales Team categories like Global Sales Team of the Year and Field Sales Team of the Year
• Sales Achievement categories such as Sales Turnaround of the Year and Outbound Marketing Program of the Year
• Sales Department of the Year categories in 13 industry groupings
• Customer Service and Contact Center Individual categories such as Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year and Customer Service Leader of the Year
• Customer Service and Contact Center Team categories like Contact Center of the Year and Customer Service Management Team of the Year
• Customer Service and Contact Center Achievement categories such as e-Commerce Customer Service Award and Award for Innovation in Customer Service
• Customer Service Department categories in 11 industry groupings
• New Product and Service categories like Best New Business Intelligence Solution and Best New Relationship Management Solution
• Solution Provider categories such as Sales Consulting Practice of the Year and Incentive, Rewards, or Recognition Provider of the Year

3. Submit your entries.
Select your categories, write your submissions according to the instructions, and submit your entries. All entries are submitted online. You can begin by registering here.

Winners of the most recent edition of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service included New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (Customer Service or Call Center Training Practice of the Year), Rob Jeppsen, Zions First National Bank (Sales Director of the Year), International Checkout Inc. (Telesales Team of the Year), Office Depot, Inc. (Customer Service Complaints Team of the Year), OppenheimerFunds Inc. (Contact Center of the Year), and SquareTrade Inc (Customer Service Department of the Year - Financial Services), among others. A complete list of 2012 honorees is available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

Winners of the competition will be announced at an awards banquet at Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on February 25, 2013.

Have last minute questions?  Email us at help@stevieawards.com  or call us at + 1 703-547-8389 and we'll get back to you right away.

New York, NY – November 12, 2012 – Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business announced the results of its 2012 competition on Friday, November 9.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition produced by the creators of the prestigious International Business Awards and American Business Awards. The Stevie is widely considered to be the world’s premier business award.

With more than 340 businesswomen and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.  Nations represented at the event include Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A.  The presentations were broadcast live across the U.S.A. by the Business TalkRadio Network.

More than 1,200 nominations from organizations and individuals in 17 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Best New Company of the Year, among others.  More than 250 professionals around the world participated in the judging process to determine the Finalists and then the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

Notable Gold Stevie Award winners from this year’s competition include:

- Kanchan Naikawadi, Director of Indus Health Plus Pvt. Ltd., Maharashtra, India - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Services – Up to 2,500 Employees

- Dr. Akudo Anyanwu Ikemba, Founder and CEO of Friends of the Global Fund Africa, Lagos, Nigeria - Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit – 10 or Less Employees

- Brooke Denihan Barrett, co-CEO of Denihan Hospitality Group, New York, NY - Female Executive of the Year – Business Products – 11 to 2,500 Employees

- Bethany Mayer, Senior VP and General Manager of HP Networking, HP, Palo Alto, CA - Female Executive of the Year – Business Products – More Than 2,500 Employees

- Emer Timmons, President of BT Global Services UK, BT, London, United Kingdom - Female Executive of the Year – Business Services – More Than 2,500 Employees

- Linda Clement-Holmes, Senior Vice President of The Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, OH - Female Executive of the Year– Consumer Products – More Than 2,500 Employees

- Christiane Schulz, Member of the German Executive Board, Global Partner, MD of Ketchum Pleon, Berlin, Germany - Maverick of the Year - Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations

- Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, Mozilla, Mountain View, CA - Lifetime Achievement

- Weili Dai, Co-Founder, Vice President and General Manager of Communications and Consumer Business of Marvell Technology Group Ltd, San Francisco, CA - Technology Innovator of the Year

- LittlePINKBook.com, Atlanta, GA - Website of the Year

- Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Inc., El Segundo, CA - Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Social Media Focused

- Vodafone Istanbul, Turkey - Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing – Consumer Services

The 2012 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include Accenture, Creative Catapult, LLC, eCycle LLC, Friends of the Global Fund Africa, Oncology Rehab Partners, Sentis Pty Ltd, Susan Davis International, and Vaco Los Angeles.

For a complete list of Stevie Award winners and more information, visit www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

Entries for the 2013 edition of the awards will open next May.

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 www.stevieawards.com.

Next Wednesday, November 14, is the entry deadline for the 2013 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top business awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals. (If you can't make the November 14 entry deadline, entries will still be accepted through January 15, 2013 with payment of a $35 late fee per entry.)

All entries are submitted online. Request your entry kit here and it will be emailed to you right away. The entry kit contains all of the instructions you need about how to prepare and submit your entries.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 125 sales awards, customer service awards, and call center awards categories honoring sales excellence and best customer service practices for individuals, teams, and departments, plus categories this year for products and service and solution providers. The 2013 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2011.

Entrants may submit any number of nominations to any number of categories, which include:

• Sales Individual categories such as Senior Sales Executive of the Year and Sales Operations Professional of the Year
• Sales Team categories like Global Sales Team of the Year and Field Sales Team of the Year
• Sales Achievement categories such as Sales Turnaround of the Year and Outbound Marketing Program of the Year
• Sales Department of the Year categories in 13 industry groupings
• Customer Service and Contact Center Individual categories such as Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year and Customer Service Leader of the Year
• Customer Service and Contact Center Team categories like Contact Center of the Year and Customer Service Management Team of the Year
• Customer Service and Contact Center Achievement categories such as e-Commerce Customer Service Award and Award for Innovation in Customer Service
• Customer Service Department categories in 11 industry groupings
• New Product and Service categories like Best New Business Intelligence Solution and Best New Relationship Management Solution
• Solution Provider categories such as Sales Consulting Practice of the Year and Incentive, Rewards, or Recognition Provider of the Year

Winners of the most recent edition of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service included Aprimo, Bombardier Aerospace, Borro Limited, FedEx, Groupon, ING Direct, Salesforce.com, Sales Partnerships, Twitter, Vodafone Turkey, and Volkwagen Group China. A complete list of Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners in the sixth edition of the awards  is available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.   

Don't hesitate to contact us with your questions about how to prepare and submit entries to the 7th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Email us at help@stevieawards.com  or call us at + 1 703-547-8389 and we'll get back to you right away.