Pratt Homes is Barrie’s Award Winning Builder. We have won numerous awards from the Simcoe County Home Builders Association, the Ontario Home Builders Association as well as community voting awards like Best of Barrie and Reader’s Choice.
This year, we started off great by winning an Award of Excellence for Best Website for Yonge Station from the Simcoe County Home Builders Association as well as Barrie’s Best Home Builder from the Barrie Examiner. We’ve also been nominated for a Reader’s Choice Award from the Barrie Advance and Best New Home Sales Office for Yonge Station from the Ontario Home Builders Association. Plus there are many more award ceremonies that we have our sights on. Needless to say, it’s been another great year.
The reason I bring up awards is not to brag (ok, maybe a little bragging) but it’s to discuss why awards matter to a company and customers but more importantly, it’s to discuss when awards can be bad for you.
If your company wins an industry award, it can create a moral boost for your staff when they find out the company they work for has received such a prestigious acclamation. It makes you feel good that you’ve been recognized for your hard work and efforts. You celebrate and scream it from the roof tops.
Customers enjoy seeing that you’re award winning because they understand that you’ve been officially recognized by an industry panel or community members and they align that with confidence and respect for your brand and company. Obviously, the bottom line is it’s up to you to keep your customers happy and not just tote awards and then not provide any value or customer care.
Here’s the main reason I am writing this blog post. Recently, we received an email from Victoria Cooper of the US Trade & Commerce Research Institute with the subject line reading “Pratt Homes Inc. selected for 2014 Canadian Excellence by USTCRI”. Now, obviously we were like “darn straight, we’re totally excellent Canadians”…however, honestly, we were immediately alarmed for two reasons, one I have never even heard of this organization and two, the award category is super vague. Also, many awards require that you be nominated ahead of time.
So, I did some digging and found out this “award” is just a “scam” of sorts. The company (which actually operates under three different titles) buys up old mailing lists, sends out a bunch of emails and hopes that some business owners will be so excited about the news that they won’t research it and will just purchase a package that includes a plaque and a large crystal award. Bullocks I say! Don’t be sucked into this. Awards can be great for your brand image when you’ve earned them, however, if you just go around purchasing fraudulent awards, will you yourself will most likely portray and image of fraudulence and empty value.
Below are some articles highlighting my above points and discuss more on how this is a scam.
https://www.facebook.com/PellandAdvertising/posts/590824567641828
Have an award winning day friends!
Todd Palmer
Marketing Director, Pratt Homes