Are competitions like the SBBC Awards worthwhile to enter?
Yes, definitely.
Sure, it’s a little time consuming at the start. You’ll likely have to spend an hour or two putting your application together but in the grand scheme of things it’s absolutely worth it. It was unfortunate timing for us, because we suddenly had all this momentum from winning the award but COVID hit and we had to cancel all our spring programs. But our summer programs did so well when we got up and running again and part of the reason for that was winning the award.
What impacts has COVID-19 had on your business?
When the pandemic was declared, we immediately had to cancel our spring break camps. In fact, we were halfway through them. We just assumed right away that nothing in spring will happen. That was pretty hard for us to accept because spring is our busiest season and we were riding high.
We asked ourselves – what can we do to position ourselves for a great summer? We added a new sport to our business, Disc Golf. We were able to offer both Ultimate Frisbee and Disc Golf in the summer and both sold out. Now, it’s just another part of our business we didn’t have pre-COVID but we’re going to continue offering it.
During summer, we reduced numbers at our camps to keep everyone safe and it was a huge success. We ran the camps from Monday to Friday with campers learning a new skill every day. We teach them the etiquette, they learn throws and hopefully come away with a new skill at the end!
If someone was considering participating in the awards this year, what advice would you offer?
There are so many benefits beyond winning the SBBC Awards. We met some really cool entrepreneurs and I think the introspective process of writing your application, thinking about your pitch, gathering votes – it’s all really valuable for your business. I know for us, it made us sit down and think about what our value proposition is, who is our audience etc. and all of those questions are so valuable. Regardless of if you win, you’ll come away knowing so much more about your business.