Nominations and voting have officially closed in the 20th Annual Small Business BC Awards. Thank you to all of this year’s participants – whether you nominated a business, nominated your own business, or showed your support by voting.
Thanks to your energy and enthusiasm, it’s been a record-breaking year for our Awards program. This year, we received 613 nominations across our four categories, representing 84 communities in British Columbia. Nominated businesses received over 74,000 votes.
With nominations and voting closed, we now move on to the next phase of the competition. Ahead of our Top 5 announcement on March 29th, we wanted to share an update on what comes next.
Vote Normalization
We understand that all BC communities are different sizes and that each business has a unique network. To level the playing field, we normalize all votes in the Small Business BC Awards against British Columbia District Population Figures for the community the business is located in. This creates a level playing field, where businesses from smaller communities can compete with businesses located in major cities.
Internal Judging
The 20 businesses with the most votes in our Business Pitch categories (Business Impact, E-commerce Experience, and Best Youth Entrepreneur) proceed forward to the next phase – internal judging. Each of these businesses will be assessed by our internal business experts against the criteria of the category they have entered. Our judges will deliberate and pick their Top 5 in each category.
Top 5 Announcement
We will announce our Top 5s in each category on March 29th. Alongside this important announcement, we’ll be activating ticket sales for our 20th Anniversary Awards Gala on June 2nd.
Top 5 – Pitching
The businesses that have successfully made it to our final phase will be invited to pitch to a panel of business leaders and industry experts either in-person in Vancouver or via Zoom. These Dragons Den-style pitches will take place on Wednesday, April 5th. We will share information on the judges in advance of the pitches.
20th Anniversary Awards Gala – June 2nd
Our entire awards program builds to a thrilling conclusion on Friday, June 2nd at Fairmont Hotel Vancouver with our 20th Anniversary Awards Gala. On the night, we’ll announce our four winners, who will each take home a prize of $10,000.