You fire up your computer, ready for another busy day. Watching your inbox fill with spam emails, requests for meetings and calendar reminders of jobs you keep putting off, but an email catches your eyes. The subject line makes you sit up.
Subject: Congratulations – You’re a Global Business Superstar Winner!
You squint at the words. Surely, you’d remember entering an award. It says in Arial 12-point font that your business is a global winner for Most Innovative Use of Spreadsheet Macros in a Regional Logistics Operation 2026 – Oceania.
You’re blown away. Wow! Someone out there really gets you. Except you’re fairly sure no one has ever spontaneously celebrated a spreadsheet macro before.
The email is slick. Professional logo. Tagline: Global recognition = global trust. It has all the gravitas of the Oscars, but there’s a faint scratching in the back of your mind that knows something isn’t quite right.
For a moment, you believe it. You’ve worked damn hard. Being recognised for your hard work is satisfying. Your ego laps up the glory. But the problem with ego is it tells you what you want to hear, not what’s true. Vanity business awards count on this.
I know. I know. I bang on about this all the time. I privately message people who brag about ‘winning’ these types of awards. Some people take it well. Others unfriend me thinking I’m jealous or upset that they didn’t get me to do their award. No one likes to be told they’ve been had.
Vanity business awards vs awards you have to work for
The reason I keep banging on about vanity business awards is because they undermine the very thing awards are supposed to celebrate; genuine excellence, a rigorous process, transparent judging and putting in the effort.
They cheapen the work by turning recognition into a transaction. They make it harder for people doing the real grind to be seen for what they’ve earned, not what they’ve paid for. They prey on something painfully human. Our desire to be acknowledged. Our need to feel like the effort, loneliness, and sheer will it takes to keep a business alive actually means something.
Remember the Skyhook’s song – Ego Is Not a Dirty Word. Ego is what drives us to create, compete, to want to be seen. But when it takes the wheel, it’s also what makes us click ‘accept’ on awards we never entered or pay hundreds for a ‘winner’s plaque’ or magazine feature written by someone who has never spoken to you or had a judge even glimpse at the non-existent entry that delved into every aspect of your business.
A cocktail that hits the spot
Vanity business awards are a clever cocktail of psychology, ego, and marketing…they understand our egos are there to be exploited. How do they do this? See if any of these rings a bell for you:
- The use of flattery and noble words like recognised, excellence, and outstanding achievement, words that scream they see your brilliance. That’s intoxicating because in business, you don’t get a lot of applause.
- The legitimacy aura – when a website looks professional and serious, with phrases like independent judging panel and rigorous selection process but never show the judges or explain the process, it is catnip to the ego. These days, most people don’t dig deep enough, if they bother to check, because people want it to be true. How easy is it to mock up a website; only need to go check out scamwatch.com.au to see all the people who’ve fallen for a slick website.
- Scarcity creates a false sense of urgency: with words like limited sport and securing your place. Remember those seminars we all flocked to in the early 2000 and the NLP they used to get us to rush to the back of the room for that incredible $50k opportunity to change our lives? Strategies like these trigger the same FOMO response that makes us buy items we don’t need.
- Benjamin Button effect – while you think they are giving you credibility, vanity business awards are relying on you to make them look credible. The more people who proudly post the badge, the more others think it must be legitimate. It’s genius you buy in, share it, and become their marketing material.
- Allure of the easy win – legit awards take work, time, gathering data and proof. They aren’t easy to do, and they shouldn’t be. Award should take effort. They push you to reflect, articulate, and prove your impact. Fake awards skip all that and give you a dopamine hit in one click. Vanity awards are Maccas for your ego.
- Our desire to be seen – with promises of getting you in front of 1000s of people for a few grand, it feels like a shortcut to credibility and visibility, but their exposure packages are all about feathering their bottom line.
For every legitimate award that asks for data, impact metrics, and actual effort in crafting entries, there are ten more vanity business awards waiting to hand you a certificate in exchange for your credit-card number. When you chase awards for validation instead of credibility, you hand over control of your reputation to the highest bidder or marketing package that lures you in with promise of visibility and exposure.
Hold up a mirror to the process
But if you’re not convinced by my many years of award writing, then test the ‘award’ provider before committing any money or any of your brand real estate and integrity before promoting your win.
- Ask them for names and bios of judges, and check those people are real and relevant in your industry.
- Request case studies with verifiable outcomes from past winners; did winning deliver new business, publication, growth?
- Check small print: see if they require you to buy extra promotion packages, plaques, etc., to fully claim the award. Then wait for the upsell.
- Search for independent mentions outside their own network, in respected media, industry publications, or your peers’ feedback, not just paid media releases republished for backlinks on distribution sites.
- Review their methodology – did you send any info on these criteria to validate your win? If not, ask yourself who really knows your business well enough to answer those judging questions?
Price of an easy win
There’s a cost to validating wins like this. You can pay the fee, post the logo, and collect a few likes – nothing like dozens of people posting about how awesome you are. But credibility is a long game, and it doesn’t survive shortcuts. When someone you really want to impress catches a whiff of vanity business awards on your profile, it undermines the real wins you’ve worked your guts out for. If you’re genuinely doing great work, trust that it’s worth waiting for the earned recognition.
The next time an email like this pops up in your inbox, take a breath. Let your ego bask in the flattery for a second, then, delete it. Ego isn’t a dirty word but letting it guide your integrity and what you stand for isn’t good business strategy.
To check if the award you want to enter isn’t a vanity business award, HERE’s some insights into what makes the process legit,