A few months ago ProVu were nominated along with 25 other companies for the Comms Business Distributor of the Year Award. ProVu have never really been involved in anything like this before and there was a ripple of excitement around the office when we were nominated. We decided that we should ask our customers if they would be kind enough to vote for us to give us the best shot of being short listed for the award. Unlike most of the awards at this event the winner is decided by a readers vote and not by a panel of judges.
I have to say I was extremely sceptical about our chances of winning. If you do not know, ProVu are a niche distribution house specialising in VoIP and although we are successful and growing we are a relatively small company compared to some of the fellow entrants for the award. Because of our size I felt it was an extremely long shot for us to be able to out gun the competition on customer votes.
To our surprise and delight a few weeks ago we found out we had been short listed into the finals along with 4 other distributors. There was much talk in the office about what are chances were and who was going to get to go to the awards to see Jimmy Carr! I was working out the best way of leveraging any PR we could make out of being short listed. I think at one point I said to the team; we have only a few weeks to make the most out of this news as when someone else wins it will be very old news.
So on Thursday evening last week, Ian Godfrey (ProVu Founder and Sales Director) and I were sat in the ball room of the Lancaster Hotel in London for the awards. Much to the disappointment of some of the team we had pulled rank and decided we were going. For both of us it was our first time at the awards, I was a little surprised at the scale of the event, there was a lot of people in the room and it looked just like the type of awards ceremony you see on the TV, with big screens, auto cues, a camera crew etc etc. We had a great meal, Jimmy Carr did a great set and then we won, for those sat on our table they can probably verify that it was a bit of a surprise. The rest of the night was a bit of a blur, but we managed to get the trophy back to the office the next day and raise a glass with the team.
I have spent the weekend mulling over how we could have possibly won and I have come to a rather pleasing conclusion and that is we must care very much about our customers and in return they care enough about us to make this award happen for us, which makes me very happy indeed.
I did not get the chance to make a speech when we picked up our awards and so I have chosen this blog post as the vehicle for my thanks, so:
To the ProVu Team I would say a huge thanks for all your commitment, dedication and hard work and if this award teaches us one thing it is to remember our business is all about the customers, because without them we would be nowhere. So please keep it up.
To our customers I would just like to say – Thank you, we are very grateful.
Darren
