How to put together a winning british hairdressing business awards entry

Michael Van Clarke has won 12 of HJ's British Hairdressing Business Awards in the past four years, making him and his salon the most decorated company in the Awards' history and the perfect person to give advice on putting together an entry. Here are Michael's top tips for putting together an entry worthy of winning one of the prestigious prizes.

1. Give yourself at least two months to start to think about your entry and aim to finish at least a week before the deadline. It is those refining moments that will make the difference between a winning entry and being runner-up at best.
2. Involve as many members of your team as possible. It is a great team building exercise and everyone can do something. For example some people are good at ideas, some people are good at statistics, some people are good with images or layout and some people can just help at the end in terms of printing and putting documents together.
3. Choose a category that aligns with the nature of your business so that it feels real.
4. Read the questions properly and make sure you know what the judges are going to be looking for.
5. Now take yourself out of the normal environment and put together a skeleton of ideas that broadly answer the question. You will need to collect evidence to support your claims
6. Once you have a skeleton structure get the team together and brainstorm about what works and what doesn't. We printed out the initial drafts and put them on the staff room wall and asked people to scribble ideas all over them.
7. Re-work the entry until you have something that you are happy with.
8. Don't forget to make sure your entry is engaging and entertaining. The judges are reading dozens of these so they don't want it to feel like something they have to slog through. It needs to be appealing visually.