An incredible recognition in the business community
The Telstra Business Awards have been around for 23 years and have some amazing alumni that have gone on to do incredible things in the Australian business landscape.
So, when you are a small business like Shift Property Styling (in fact smaller than a small business, a micro business) the concept of entering, let alone becoming a finalist, or a category winner is a massive achievement.
Entering an award like the Telstra Business Awards is quite a daunting process. You know you will be up against some pretty stiff competition. Then there is the time that needs to be invested into filling out the entry form, somewhere in the vicinity of 40 – 50 hours on average.
Interestingly enough, last year (2014) we thought about entering and deciding against it feeling we were not really ready to commit to the process. Fast forward to 2015 and again we thought we should give it a go, and then decided against it. A few days later after a couple of project wins our confidence was back up and we made a cup of tea, sat at the desk and looked at the cursor blinking on the first question in front of us on the computer as we began the process of filling in the form online.
It’s amazing really what a good inward look does for your business. We soon realised we were busy doing a business rather than running a business and the Telstra Business Awards made us realise that while we could create a beautiful home for our clients, but we needed to polish a few areas to increase our efficiency, our business model and our objectives.
This inward look helped us discover a range of topics we needed to cover off on, look at closely, improve, refine or some cases, keep running just as they were.
The awards entry made us realise that our business was stronger than we thought, that we were better than we thought and that our business was on the right track. This award goes a long way in supporting that thought.
We managed to streamline certain work practices, improve the flow of each project and present ourselves in a more confident manner which has contributed to increased projects.
Our industry is still in its infancy here in Tasmania. Half the battle for our industry is getting the word out there that we exist and that we make a real difference in peoples lives. That message is getting easier as we grow more confident in what it is we do and what we offer.
Winning this award will help us spread the word and assist more property stylists develop their business models, secure more work and hopefully convince those considering the industry to make the leap of faith.
Congratulations must go to all the entrants in the Tasmanian awards this year and to the category winners, such a great cross section of Tasmanian success stories have been nominated and recognised.
On behalf of Donielle and myself, thank you to the Telstra Business Awards team, NewsCorp and panel judges for this amazing honour.
