We all like winning, right?
When I was in second grade, my crayon drawing won in my school’s Arbor Day art contest. I won $100, pretty much winning the lottery when you’re nine. That definitely whet my appetite for entering competitions.
Fast forward to adulthood, and I still get a thrill in being part of competitions — both as a participant, and even more as a host. Since 2018 I’ve co-hosted the High Five Grant for Moms, the world’s only international competition for mom-owned companies. I love seeing other women win, especially mothers in business.
Here’s how my company recently won a vote-based award — with tips for future High Five Grant finalists on how they can win the voting portion of our competition.
How We Won the “Fan Favorite” Award and $1,000 Check
This is Crystalee, cofounder of The Mama Ladder and founder of Comma Copywriters, and I’m going to share the detailed, behind-the-scenes rundown on how we won. It was not by accident or luck, but a very real effort by a team of people.
When I received word that my company, Comma Copywriters, was one of 36 finalists out of 200 entries in the RevRoad 2020 Entrepreneur Competition, I was excited! It would be my second pitch of my company looking for a cash grant prize. Without a lot of pitch competition experience, I didn’t know if we had a shot in the pitch portion of the contest, so instead I set my sights on getting the “Fan Favorite” Award and the $1,000 check reward, which was determined by votes.
If you’re in the situation where you need to get votes, you need to get your head right. Be open to asking others for help, and know that most people are very happy to see your success.
It’s actually quite remarkable how many people you’ve interacted with in the course of your life when you really think about it. Most people will be happy to help you. You just need to be willing to ask, as many times as it’s needed.
First, I dedicated time every day to asking for help and decided I would not be outworked. Here’s how I used that time.
1. Texted all 1,000+ contacts in my phone. I started at the As and went all the way to the Zs. While this process took me a week and probably 10 hours of time, it was actually kind of fun because these are all people I know. People I have experiences with and care about. It was nice to have an excuse to reach out to them and think about them, even for a few seconds.
For example, flight attendants I used to fly with. Old roommates from college. Friends from high school. The husbands of friends from high school. Clients. Old neighbors. New neighbors.
I would add in the first name to make it personal, but copy/paste the same text. Sometimes I’d stop to add a personal message too. It was fun to reconnect with people I hadn’t talked to in years but it takes so much time.
A week into the voting, with one more week to go, I realized I could work smarter. I put on my marketing hat and changed my approach.
2. Emailed 100 friends of influence and asked them to share with their audience. For years I’ve been building a community of mom entrepreneurs and I know many of them have their own communities. So I made a long list of friends and business owners I trust and asked them for their help.
I specifically asked them to share with their communities, and provided them with “swipe copy” they could edit or use and a few image options to pair with it:
My friend is the founder of Comma Copywriters and it's a really cool woman-owned company. I invite you to VOTE for Comma in this business competition. It only takes about 10 seconds.
SWIPE UP TO VOTE HERE: vote.revroad.com
3. Hired an assistant for the week to help with outreach. For ethical reasons, I would never, ever buy votes, but I realized I could buy hours of support. I hired a Social Media Outreach Assistant for the week and gave her the goal of reaching out to 5,000 followers of my Instagram communities. I’d worked for years to build these platforms, and now was the payoff. (See Comma Copywriters, The Mama Ladder, MamaSpringBreak, and High Five Grant.)
I pre-wrote messages and had her share in my name, as my proxy. Here’s the bonus tip: I also provided her with thank you messaging, and what to do for those who already voted for Comma. (“Oops, I was going too fast. I knew you voted. Thank you so much for that!”)
4. I asked everyone I talked to during the voting window. I mean everyone. When I went hiking and ran into one other hiker, I asked her to vote. She did, near the top of the mountain. When I signed up for an Airbnb place, I asked the hostess to vote for Comma. She did. When my kids’ teacher emailed me, I asked her too. When people reached out to me to volunteer in political campaigns, I asked them. When the guy we hired to fix our roof came to inspect it, I asked him too. Whenever anyone emailed me, I asked them to vote.
Yes, I was obsessed. But I think that’s required for a short sprint effort like this. You must be relentlessly focused and unapologetically open to asking for help. I can’t count how many times I personally asked people to vote in text, email, social media, or real life, but over the course of two weeks, it was in the thousands. Here are places I asked people:
Facebook groups
Emails
Client list
Team challenge
Sales team challenge - part of training to text 20 people
Social media posts
Blog posts
Video, lives
5. Make it a team effort. I made specific requests for my team members, like, “Will you please text 10 family members or friends by Friday?” and this helped them be involved too. I told them I would be using the money for our upcoming retreat (true!) and that their help meant a lot to me.
6. I kept focus on what I wanted. While I had no visibility into how the voting was going (I had no idea how many votes I had or where we stacked up against others), I told myself every day: WE WILL WIN THE FAN FAVORITE. I never let any doubt creep in my mind. No room or time for that. Just stay focused on the target. I did get momentarily nervous when they sent out an email three days before and said “anyone has a shot at it.”
But I couldn’t imagine any other founder being as obsessive about it as I was. I was absolutely determined to WIN and would not let anyone else outwork me. Nope. Not happening.
Part of the reason I was so determined is that I’d already hosted four entrepreneur competitions for moms in the High Five Grant for Moms over the past two years. As the host, this was my chance to see how it feels for our finalist. I also wanted to give this competition a full all-out approach, holding nothing back, so I could report on it in a blog post like this!
My tips for winning a vote-based business competition:
ASK YOUR CIRCLE. Think back over your life, or at least back to high school, and write out a list of all the groups you’ve been part of. This could be church, extracurriculars, hobbies, jobs, extended family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. Reach out to them all.
GET HELP! This is not a solo sport. Be specific: Will you please reach out to 10 people for me this week? Will you please share in your social media?
THANK EVERYONE. Be grateful, grateful, grateful for the support you do get. This is a time of celebration and gratitude and you can help others in your life feel they are part of your victory — you literally cannot win without their support!
Here’s what happened at the competition
During the two weeks that the voting was open, I hustled like I’ve never hustled before. I had moments of wondering if it would be worth it, but stayed focused on what I wanted.
At the same time, I was preparing for the pitch portion of the contest. I was really nervous and woke up at 4:30 a.m. to put finishing touches on my presentation. I only had a few minutes to tell my company story, and that’s tricky! I did the best I could, and got a bit thrown off for one of the judge’s questions.
During the pitching portion, the vote was still open (they would announce the winner at 1 p.m.), and I was glad my assistant was still working on getting those votes while I was trying to be present and focused.
I found out I did not make it to the finals for the pitch contest, but I hung on to hope that we’d still get the Fan Favorite.
Finally, it was time for the announcement of winners. “Fan Favorite” was up first. AND IT WAS COMMA!
When they announced my name and company and I got to accept a giant $1,000 vanity check, it made all those hours of effort worth it. I’d visualized that moment so many times, and it came true!
It turned out we had the most votes in the history of the “Fan Favorite” competition — and four times more votes than anyone else! We ended out with 1,043 votes, and I’m so grateful for everyone in my life who supported me. It was one of the most rewarding days I’ve had in business. (We took off our masks for a moment to take this picture. You can see me beaming on the far right, so glad that hard work paid off.)
Why it’s worth your time to enter business competitions
Since time is precious and limited as a mom in business, I recommend being selective in which competitions and grants you apply for — but do GO FOR IT! Being part of this competition did so much for ME and my company. Here are a few outcomes:
With an added boost of confidence in our growth plan, I've added new writers to our team.
I was asked to speak to 300 people in for a university's Entrepreneur Lecture Series. (Already done! It was fun.)
We had more than a dozen inquiries from other businesses at the competition, and we're getting close to closing new clients (literal ROI for being involved).
My business account got a $1,000 boost, and I have a cool check in my home office that makes me smile.
My team all shared in the win and it was a morale booster for us to be an “award-winning company.”
I cannot guarantee your results, but I have seen results from hundreds of women who feel more confidence and clarity on where they're taking their business because they applied for the High Five Grant, and now you can vote for your favorite in the Fall 2020 competition!
