Along with editing The Customer Service Blog, I also do some educational work, and also run my own marketing company. A few years ago I visited a school
in Yorkshire where I live. The purpose of my visit was to discuss
the possibility of doing marketing work for the school as this is
something that my company is very experienced at. It became obvious early
on in the meeting that I was wasting my time.
The school's business manager told me that
all their marketing and publicity work was done by a well-known company that I had heard of before. I asked her how much they paid for their school prospectus and magazine, and it turned
out that they were paying literally double what I would charge them to produce
publications of the same (or higher) quality.
To put it bluntly, they were being
ripped-off by the big well-known agency.
I asked the manager
if she would consider giving me a chance to produce the publications for them,
and I showed her samples of work I had done with other schools that were just
as good - but far cheaper.
She was very reluctant to give me
the opportunity. The sticking point was that the agency they were using at the
moment had (her words) "helped them to win" several national school marketing
awards.
So I went away and looked up
information about the awards that the school had won. And guess what? They were
the type of award that you can win easily if you put a bit of money into
advertising with the award organisers, and if you sponsor some of the tables at
the awards ceremony.
The whole thing was a total con!
I'm not sure if the school realised
this and were just going along with it ... OR ... if their marketing agency had hoodwinked them into thinking they had 'won' an award, when really the agency were just
using some of their massive profit margin to curry favour with the award
organisers. Either way, these awards had really been 'bought' - not won.
After over three decades working in
marketing, there is something that I do know for certain. The vast majority of annual 'awards' that are handed out in the world of business, have some
kind of money incentive, sponsorship, advertising, or other 'back-hander' linked to them.
I even know of one very famous music
award in the UK where a lot of money secretly gets passed on by record
companies to get their artists onto the shortlist. I can't name the award here
through fear of being sued for libel. But if you happen to be a reader in the
UK then I guarantee you will have heard of this particular music award. I know this is true because I have a friend who works in the music industry who was offered
the chance to be on the shortlist if enough money was handed over. (Secretly, of course).
So whenever it comes to this time of
year and I see an array of people on social media boasting about 'winning' awards, I take it all with a huge pinch of salt. The entire business
awards industry is a complete 'con trick' designed to raise money for the award organisers. "Hashtag brownenvelopes" if you know what I mean!
With this in mind, I have recently noticed a plethora of people in dinner jackets and cocktail
dresses clutching awards and bragging about how successful they are. And I just think to myself: "you are a
complete fraud and you know you are a fraud." It's just a shame that many of
their customers will be taken-in by this dishonest sham.