Silver Anvil Judge’s Tips – Ken Jacobs, Principal, Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching
The most important thing you can do to increase your chance of winning? Prepare a compelling two-page document. This is where a judge thinks "Not a chance," or "I think we may have a contender here!" (And it’s exciting when the latter happens.) Provide every required section. Make sure that your objectives are truly objectives. This section is about “What” you wanted to ultimately achieve, in measurable terms. Double check that you haven’t blended strategies or tactics into this section.Your strategies should be about “How” you chose to achieve the objectives you just listed. What choices did you make? Tactics? That’s easy. They’re what you did. Just make sure it’s evident how they emanated from the strategies.Finally, make sure your results are directly tied to the objectives. I’ll admit that sometimes I read the Objectives and skip directly to Results, to see if they’re in alignment. If they’re not, I read the other sections with far less enthusiasm.Make this part about outcomes, not outputs. I’m less interested in how much media coverage you got, and far more in the results of that coverage. Do you have evidence you changed attitudes or had an impact in the marketplace? If you can prove you made even small shifts in these areas, and you did as well or better as you’d projected in your Objectives, you’ve won me over as a judge.