A great business does not always win the award. The business that writes the great entry does.
Every year, judges read dozens of submissions from companies doing remarkable work, and the ones that rise to the top are not necessarily the biggest or the best funded. They are the ones that tell a clear, evidenced story against the exact criteria they are being judged on.
This guide walks you through how to write a winning awards entry for the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards (BBEA), the UK’s largest and most prestigious business awards programme. Whether you are entering for the first time or sharpening a submission you have drafted before, the principles below will help you turn a good business into a winning entry.
Why entering business awards is worth your time
Recognition is not a vanity exercise. A well-judged award is independent proof that your business delivers, and that proof does real commercial work: it builds trust with prospective customers, reassures investors and lenders, lifts staff morale, and opens doors to press and partnerships.
It also helps you stand out in a genuinely crowded field. Small and medium-sized firms make up over 99% of the UK’s 5.5 million private-sector businesses, according to the Department for Business and Trade’s business population estimates. With so many companies competing for the same attention, an independent, credible award is one of the clearest ways to signal that yours is different. The scale and dynamism of that community is set out in detail by the Federation of Small Businesses, and it is exactly why a national platform like the BBEA carries weight.
There is an internal benefit too. The process of writing an entry forces you to step back, gather your data and articulate what makes your business special. Many leaders tell us the discipline of entering sharpened their own understanding of their performance, and gave their teams a moment of pride and recognition regardless of the result. In short, the time you spend on a strong entry is rarely wasted. Even as a finalist, you gain a credibility marker and a story worth telling.
Step 1: Choose the right category
The single most common reason strong businesses lose is entering the wrong category. Judges score against the specific remit of each award, so a brilliant submission aimed at the wrong category will always underperform a focused one aimed at the right place.
Read every category description before you commit. Look at the full list of 2026 award categories, and ask three questions of each: does my business clearly fit the definition, can I evidence the things this category rewards, and is this where my strongest story lives? It is often better to enter one category you fit perfectly than to spread a diluted version of your story across several.
You can enter more than one category, but only do so when you have a distinct, well-evidenced story for each. A recycled entry is easy for judges to spot.
Step 2: Understand how entries are judged
BBEA categories are scored against weighted criteria, and those weightings tell you exactly where to spend your words. The Small Business of the Year Award, for example, is judged roughly as follows:
- Financial Performance & Growth, 30%
- Employee & Customer Engagement, 25%
- Leadership & Innovation, 25%
- Purpose Beyond Profit, 20%
The lesson is simple: if a third of the marks are for financial growth, a third of your entry should evidence financial growth. Map your word count to the weightings. A beautifully written section on culture will not rescue an entry that skips over the numbers the judges are told to prioritise. Check the weightings on your chosen category page and plan your draft around them before you write a word.
Step 3: Build the anatomy of a winning entry
Strong entries share a recognisable shape. Use this structure as your skeleton, then fill it with evidence specific to your business.
Open with a sharp summary. In two or three sentences, tell the judge who you are, what you have achieved, and why it matters. Lead with your strongest result. Judges read a lot of entries, so earn their attention in the first lines.
Set the context. Briefly explain your market, your starting point and the challenge you faced. Context makes your achievements legible. A 20% growth figure means far more when the judge knows it happened in a shrinking market.
Evidence each criterion in turn. Work through the judging criteria in order, giving each the space its weighting deserves. Use subheadings that mirror the criteria so the judge can score you quickly.
Close with impact and ambition. End on what your results mean for customers, staff and community, and where you are heading next. Judges reward businesses with a credible plan, not just a good past year.
Step 4: Make every claim credible with evidence
This is where most entries are won or lost. Judges are trained to look past adjectives and reward proof. For every claim you make, attach evidence.
- Use hard numbers. Revenue growth, margin improvement, retention rates, NPS scores, jobs created, carbon reduced. Quantify wherever you can.
- Show the trend, not just the headline. “Revenue up 40% over two years” is stronger than a single-year snapshot, because it demonstrates consistency.
- Benchmark against your peers or your own plan. Beating your targets or outperforming your sector is more persuasive than a number in isolation.
- Bring in independent voices. A short customer quote, a client case study or a partner testimonial corroborates your story in a way your own words cannot.
Avoid unsupported superlatives. “World-class” and “market-leading” mean nothing to a judge without the data to back them up. Replace every adjective you can with a fact.
Step 5: Write clearly and answer the question
Judges reward clarity. Write in plain English, keep sentences short, and answer the question that is actually being asked rather than the one you wish had been asked. If a question has several parts, answer every part.
- Respect the word count. Going over signals poor discipline, going far under signals a thin story. Use the space you are given.
- Lead each section with your strongest point. Do not bury your best evidence in a final paragraph.
- Cut jargon and internal acronyms. The judge does not know your industry shorthand, and you should not make them work for it.
- Write for a smart outsider. Assume an intelligent reader who knows nothing about your company, and give them everything they need to score you well.
From weak to winning: three quick rewrites
The fastest way to improve an entry is to turn vague statements into evidenced ones. Here are three common lines and how to fix them.
Weak: “We have grown rapidly and have very happy customers.”
Winning: “Revenue grew 42% over two years, from £3.1m to £4.4m, while our customer retention rose to 94% and our NPS reached 71, up from 58.”
Weak: “We are a market-leading, world-class team.”
Winning: “We grew headcount from 12 to 38 with 96% staff retention, and were ranked in the top 5% of our sector for employee engagement by an independent survey.”
Weak: “We care deeply about sustainability.”
Winning: “We cut operational carbon by 31% in 18 months, removed 1.2 tonnes of plastic from our packaging, and reinvested 5% of profit into community projects reaching 4,000 people.”
Notice the pattern. Each rewrite swaps an adjective for a number, adds a starting point so the judge can see the distance travelled, and where possible brings in independent corroboration. Apply that same test to every sentence in your entry.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Entering the wrong category, or recycling one entry across many.
- Describing what you do instead of what you have achieved. Judges score results, not activity.
- Ignoring the weightings and over-investing in your favourite topic.
- Making claims with no evidence, or leaning on adjectives instead of data.
- Leaving it to the last minute. A rushed entry reads like a rushed entry.
Your pre-submission checklist
Before you hit submit, run through this final check:
- Have I entered the category I fit best, and answered every part of every question?
- Does my word count match the judging weightings?
- Is every important claim backed by a number, a trend or an independent voice?
- Has someone outside my team read it and understood it without explanation?
- Have I proofread for typos, and confirmed the deadline and entry requirements?
For eligibility rules, formats and frequently asked questions, read the BBEA entry FAQ before you submit. Entries for the 2026 awards close at midnight on Friday 3 July, so give yourself time to draft, evidence and review.
What happens after you enter
Once entries close, a panel of senior, independent judges scores every submission against the published criteria. Strong entries are shortlisted as finalists, and category winners are announced at the gala ceremony on 10 November at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
For inspiration, look at the calibre of the 2025 winners and study how their stories combine clear results with genuine ambition. Reading past winners is one of the best ways to calibrate your own entry.
Ready to enter?
A winning entry is a clear story, told against the criteria, and proven with evidence. Choose the right category, map your words to the weightings, replace adjectives with data, and give yourself time to review. Do that, and you give your business the best possible chance of standing on the stage in November.
Start your 2026 entry today, and turn a great year into national recognition.
