What winning Silver for Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the SME Awards taught me about being in the room

In 2026 I was named Silver Winner for Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the SME Awards, which felt slightly surreal because Hi This Is Bry had only properly launched the previous August. I was still relatively early into building the business in its current form, so I had gone into the awards feeling genuinely happy just to be recognised and had absolutely no expectation that I should be winning Gold.

Silver therefore felt like an enormous result to me, because I was being recognised alongside people who had been building businesses for considerably longer than I had. By that point I had already started receiving other award recognition, but this was also the first awards event I had actually managed to attend, which made the experience feel completely different from receiving an email or seeing my name appear on a shortlist online.

I think awards can look very glamorous from the outside, but the practical side of attending them is something I had not really seen people discuss much. Getting invited somewhere does not necessarily mean attending is straightforward, particularly if travelling independently or being in large crowded environments is difficult for you.

Why had I not attended an awards event before?

Part of it was simply money, because when I first started being shortlisted for awards I could not necessarily justify the cost of attending every event attached to them. Starting a business without outside funding meant there were much more immediate places for my money to go, so an awards ceremony was a nice opportunity without automatically being a realistic one.

There was another practical issue for me too, because I am autistic and I cannot drive, while travelling somewhere unfamiliar alone is something I find extremely difficult. Large events can also be overwhelming because there are crowds, lots of noise and the general pressure of being somewhere completely outside my normal working environment, so simply receiving an invitation does not remove all of the things that make attending difficult.

My partner offered to drive us to the SME Awards, which meant I could actually go without spending the whole day worrying about how I was going to get there and back by myself. His support during the event mattered too because my anxiety can become very intense in busy environments, particularly when there is a lot happening around me at once.

That support meant I got to experience something I otherwise might have missed, while also making the whole day feel much more manageable.

See also: What rebuilding my business taught me about sustainability as a neurodivergent founder

Can you be good at business and still struggle with business events?

Absolutely, because running Hi This Is Bry remotely and attending a large awards event require completely different things from me.

I am very comfortable working with clients because my attention goes straight onto their business, what they need help with and what I can do to support them. I can spend hours talking about branding, websites, content or business strategy because I know why I am there, while encouraging somebody and working through their ideas is something I genuinely enjoy.

Put me into a large room full of people where I am expected to mingle, hear conversations from every direction and work out when I am supposed to introduce myself, and my brain has a lot more information to process.

That does not mean I cannot enjoy the event, because I actually did enjoy the SME Awards, but enjoying something and finding it easy are very different things. I had my partner there, I knew I had a safe way to travel home afterwards and I could manage the parts I found difficult without pretending they were not difficult.

I think this is worth talking about because there is still an image of entrepreneurship where being successful apparently means loving conferences, networking events and rooms full of strangers. Plenty of people build excellent businesses while finding those environments difficult, and I work with business owners who feel exactly the same way.

See also: What being featured on Greatest Hits Radio meant to me as a neurodivergent business owner

Why did actually being in the room matter?

The most valuable part of attending was getting to meet people I would probably never have encountered sitting behind my laptop, because the room was full of brilliant business owners who had been building things for years.

I was still very new by comparison, so I mostly felt grateful that something I had built so recently had given me a reason to be there at all. Winning Silver mattered, but so did sitting in the same room as people with completely different businesses and much longer histories, because it reminded me how many different versions of success can exist at the same event.

The connections were useful too, and my partner somehow managed to come away having made a few contacts himself despite not technically being the one nominated for anything. I am apparently capable of bringing somebody as emotional support and accidentally letting him network on the side.

What I remember most positively, though, is probably much less glamorous than the awards themselves, because I enjoyed the drive there and back with my partner and having the whole thing become something nice we had done together. I am quite happy running my business remotely most of the time, so I do not need every milestone to turn me into somebody who suddenly wants to spend three evenings a week networking.

I wanted to experience the event, meet people and enjoy the recognition, then I was also very happy getting back in the car with the person I came with.

Do you have to win Gold for an award to be valuable?

I really do not think so, because “Silver Winner, Young Entrepreneur of the Year” is still independent recognition that somebody judged the work I had done as worthy of an award.

I knew Hi This Is Bry was young, so I was not sitting there expecting to beat every business owner who had been working for years. Being recognised at all felt significant, particularly when the business was still proving itself and I was building up the evidence that people could use when deciding whether to trust me.

This is something I think businesses can get wrong about awards because there can be such a focus on winning outright that people overlook how useful other recognised positions can still be. Being shortlisted, highly commended or receiving Silver gives you credible external evidence, as long as the award itself is legitimate and relevant to what you do, what matters afterwards is whether anybody can actually find that evidence.

What should you actually do after winning an award?

I think businesses waste awards when they upload the badge somewhere, announce the result once and then largely forget it happened.

If you have received meaningful recognition, make it available as readable text in the places where somebody is already deciding whether they trust you. Put the award on your About page where appropriate, mention it naturally in relevant service pages and make sure somebody scanning your website can understand what you actually won rather than relying entirely on a badge image.

Images are useful visually, but somebody should not have to inspect a graphic to discover that you were named Silver Winner for Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

LinkedIn and social media give you another opportunity to use the recognition, but I would go further than repeatedly posting the same announcement. Talk about what entering taught you, explain something useful from the experience, discuss what happened at the event or turn the process into several pieces of content that each have their own reason for existing.

This blog is quite literally an example of doing that, because I could simply tell you that I won Silver, but there is far more useful material in what happened around it.

Awards can become part of the authority around your business when people are able to encounter them naturally across your website and wider content. This is something I also consider through my Complete Brand & Visibility Package, which includes planning how businesses can use their expertise, recognition and other evidence to strengthen their visibility and credibility.

Why does scannable text matter?

When I say scannable text, I mean information written clearly on the page so somebody can understand it quickly without having to interpret a logo, certificate or photograph.

If you have won an award, actually write the award name and result somewhere useful. A potential customer may be scanning your About page in a few seconds while deciding whether they want to work with you, so “Silver Winner, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, SME Awards 2026” immediately communicates more than an unfamiliar badge sitting in the corner of the page.

It also gives search systems clearer information about the recognition connected to your business, which matters as the way people research companies continues changing across traditional search and AI based results.

I want the important information around Hi This Is Bry to exist as proper text wherever it makes sense, because awards, press features and other authority signals are much more useful when both people and search systems can easily understand what they refer to.

That same principle applies to other credibility evidence too, including press coverage, testimonials and professional achievements, because visibility is partly about making sure the useful information already surrounding your business is actually visible.

Can one award lead to more opportunities?

My experience has been that recognition tends to accumulate, because every legitimate award or feature gives you another piece of evidence when you put yourself forward for the next opportunity.

The SME Awards did not magically create every award or press feature that came afterwards, and I would never reduce later recognition to one result, but building a visible track record certainly made Hi This Is Bry easier to understand as an established business.

That is why I now think much more strategically about awards, because the application is only one part of the opportunity. You enter because you have genuine evidence that fits the category, then if you are recognised you make sure that result becomes part of the wider credibility around the business.

Over time, those signals start supporting one another, particularly when somebody researching you can find awards, client work, useful content and independent features that all tell a consistent story about what you actually do.

What did the SME Awards give me beyond the trophy?

Connections were probably the biggest practical benefit of physically attending, because I got to be around business owners I would never have met through my normal working day.

I also came away with a much nicer memory than I expected, because despite the crowds, noise and anxiety, I had somebody with me who understood that those things were difficult and helped make the experience possible.

For me, that is probably a more realistic version of business success than suddenly becoming somebody who adores large professional events. I can enjoy an awards night, recognise that being in the room creates opportunities and still accept that these environments require much more energy from me than sitting with a client and talking through their business.

The goal does not need to be making every business environment effortless, because sometimes having the right support is what makes an opportunity accessible enough to take.

FAQs

Is being a Silver award winner still valuable for a business? Yes, because Silver is still independent recognition from the organisation judging the award, and it can provide another credible reason for customers to trust your business. The value becomes much stronger when you clearly communicate what you won rather than mentioning it once and forgetting about it.

Should businesses put award wins on their website? Relevant awards should be included as clear readable text somewhere appropriate on the website, because potential customers need to understand what the recognition actually means. You can still use badges and certificates visually, but they should support the written information rather than replace it.

What should you post after winning a business award? The announcement is only the beginning, because you can also create content around what you learned, the judging process, the event itself and any useful lessons another business owner could take from the experience. This helps the recognition continue building authority rather than disappearing after one social post.

Do you need to attend an awards ceremony for the award to be useful? No, because the recognition still exists whether you attend the event or not, and travel, cost or accessibility can make attendance unrealistic for some business owners. Attending can create additional opportunities to meet people, but nobody should treat physical attendance as the thing that makes the award legitimate.

What winning Silver at the SME Awards meant to me

Winning Silver for Young Entrepreneur of the Year mattered partly because Hi This Is Bry was still so new, and I had entered knowing that simply being recognised alongside more established business owners would already feel like an achievement.

Actually attending made the experience much more memorable, because I finally got to be in one of those rooms I had previously only seen through photographs and social posts, while having my partner there meant I could deal with the parts of the event that I find genuinely difficult.

I came away with new connections, an award I could use as independent evidence around the business and a nice memory with somebody who has been incredibly supportive while I have built all of this, which was more than enough for me.

For other businesses, I think the practical lesson is to stop treating recognition as something that only matters if you finish first, then stop treating the result as finished once the event is over. Put it into readable text on your website, add it to LinkedIn, talk about what you learned and turn the experience into useful content, because credibility becomes much more valuable when people can actually find it.

If you want to look at how clearly your own business communicates its authority and recognition, my free Business Visibility Playbook helps you assess your branding, website, social media and wider credibility, so you can see what somebody actually finds when they research you.