Innovation Awards for Rural Businesses

[admin]

Have you heard about the 'Innovation Awards for Rural Businesses', organised by Teagasc, Farmers Journal & DARD

I know that there are a number of excellent rural tourism businesses which are active on this site and would make ideal candidates for this award. Entry is open to farmers and rural entrepreneurs with well thought out business ideas or with new innovative businesses that have commenced trading in the last 5 years. I would encourage you to check on the details available from the web-site below; this is a great opportunity for your business to get free promotion of your business (North & South). Plus! There is total prize money of €40,000 available

Application forms and full information is available on the Teagasc website! The closing date is the 12th December, so please getting your applications together soon and remember where you heard about this opportunity 1st

[ODD]

We thought you might be interested to know that following on from John's posting we decided to take his idea on board and put Out Doors and Dirty (ODD) forward for consideration in the Rural Tourism category of the JFC Innovation Awards for Rural Business 2009.
We had to submit a three year business plan and attend an interview, and make a ten minute presentation in front of the three judges, then answer lots of questions, which was very scary, having never done anything like that before!

There were three categories for entries, including rural tourism/services, and over 50 of the 90 entries were in this category, so we never seriously expected to be included in the awards and the prizes, especially since we were only open 18months at the entry deadline.

Last week we were visited by a Farmers Journal photographer and were then featured as part of the article on the awards, plus we were invited to the awards dinner in Mullingar on Tuesday to receive our scroll.

Of course, you enter these things to promote your business, but it is also a great boost to know that your ideas and efforts have been recognised, and it also gives your customer confidence in your product and in you as a business.

There were no entries in any category from Cavan apart from our own, and no entries for the rural tourism category from any of the north west region counties. (maybe because we dont get the visitor numbers of other regions?)

The winners in the rural tourism/services sector were from Letterkenny, they opened a farm shop which looks very impressive. The overall winners were three farmers from Co Down who are developing a premium beef brand, from sourcing calves with the right genes, right the way to the packaged cuts.

Anyway, we're really pleased with our commendation, and we're glad now that we had a go!
For info on ODD's new great value activity packages for 2009 visit www.odd.ie or call us on 049 9523 877 for a demo dvd.

[Geraldine O'Reilly]

Well done Out Doors and Dirty and all the team involved in the business. I was always impressed with Jan’s business skills. To get recognition like this gives one the enthusiasm to keep going and make the business bigger and better. Keep up the good work and have a busy season ahead

[kierans]

Well done Janet on ODD's commendation. Sometimes the application process can be quite daunting and it is hard to quantify the value of awards - they are good for PR and are generally valued by visitors. Must get out to see your place on my next visit.
Kieran

[ODD]

Many thanks Geraldine and Kieran for your messages.

Kieran suggests it can be hard to quantify the value of an award, but I would assure him that the benefit of good PR, however acquired, has become tangible these days.

At the time of entering, we saw the 'Innovation' title of this competition as the valuable part, offering as we do experiences not available elsewhere - it added weight to ODD's claims of being 'unique and original'.

Since then the economy has nosedived. Commerce is all about trust, and this recession is all about what happens when trust (or confidence) goes out the window.
Therefore anything that reassures your customer that your business has been judged by others as being worthy of recognition is invaluable in establishing and retaining trust.

We are looking for every opportunity to both attract customers and win their confidence. ODD's experiences and activity weekend breaks are featuring as prizes in competitions for Denny and Supervalu/Sundowner apples over the next few weeks, and are to be shown on TV3's Something for the Weekend series next month.
Being connected with such respected brands should be equally valuable PR for ODD.

At a time when most forms of advertising are not really worth paying for, PR is what wins business for you.

Easter is nearly here, and hopefully tourism enterprises will see an increase in holidays at home business.

[kierans]

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Hi Janet,
I think i should have prefixed the last post with sometimes as I really do support entering awards and as you have demonstrated they are paying off. Your ongoing commitment to pr is a good example to other SMEs. Well done on your TV3 piece - look forward to seeing it.
Kieran