Three Awards, Zero Wins, And Why I’m Still Proud

In the last 3 weeks, me and my businesses have been up for three different awards… and we lost all three. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t sting, because it did. You dress up, you bring your team out, you’ve spent hours writing submissions, you’re sat at a big round table with your stomach flipping every time they pause before announcing the winner, and then your name doesn’t get called. In that moment it’s a punch to the gut, and it’s very easy to slip into, “What’s the point?” territory.

But when I actually sat down and thought about it, I realised I wasn’t upset because the awards are unfair, or fixed, or pointless. I was gutted because the awards are that good. The standard is that high. The competition is that strong. And weirdly, that’s something I’m really proud of.

Take the West Cheshire and North Wales Chamber of Commerce Awards. That’s not some small local pat-on-the-back night. That room is full of serious operators doing big things across the region. I put both The Chester Townhouse and Hotel Wrexham in for that category, and only Townhouse made the shortlist. Which is really interesting as I know how much both businesses do for their community and charities. In Chester, however we’re doing lots of work around homelessness, community, and charity – especially through our partnership with Soul Kitchen. That is probably the factor that got us our shortlist.

We ended up losing to Platts Agriculture, a fantastic local farming business, with Nightingale House and other big names also being shortlisted. Let’s be real: those organisations are huge compared to us. Platts have been around for years, they’re embedded in the community, and they do incredible work.

Nightingale House? Another great business. To sit on a shortlist alongside businesses like that, as a relatively small independent hotel, is actually wild when you stop and look at it properly. That’s what strong awards do: they throw you onto a stage next to people in totally different sizes and sectors and effectively say, “You’re in the same conversation.”

Then I was personally up for an awards at the Livercool Awards, for Visitor Economy and Hospitality Personality of the Year. That category was stacked. Big names, strong brands, some seriously impressive CVs, and people who have been grafting in this industry for years. I didn’t win, and yes, my heart sank for a minute because you can’t help but think of all the things you have done this year for your industry (like write a whole book). But again, when you step back, you realise you’ve just been judged alongside people you massively respect, and the conclusion wasn’t “what are you doing here?” but “you belong in this mix too.” That’s not nothing.

To top it off, at the Wrexham Business Awards, Hotel Wrexham was up for Up and Coming and lost to an accountancy business. On paper, it’s easy to laugh and say, “We lost to accountants, really?” but that’s the wrong way of looking at it. Those awards brought together the best of the new kids on the block in Wrexham. Every single finalist had a story: risk, investment, long nights, and all the unknowns that come with starting something from scratch. We’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into getting Hotel Wrexham going, so of course it hurt when our name didn’t come out of the envelope. But again, the loss only felt so sharp because the room, the process, and the recognition actually meant something.

Here’s the important bit. I’m not writing this as someone who just turns up to awards, claps politely, and disappears until next year. I also sit on the other side as an organiser, running events like the Chester Hospitality Awards, Liverpool Hospitality Awards and Cheshire East Hospitality Awards. I’ve seen the submission spreadsheets, the late-night judging discussions, the debates over two brilliant entries where you’re basically splitting hairs. I’ve seen judges argue passionately to get someone on a shortlist because they genuinely believe that business deserves a spotlight. So when I say that being shortlisted is not some fluffy consolation prize, I mean it. People have absolutely no idea how many good entries hit the cutting-room floor. There are businesses doing great stuff that never make it to the final list simply because there are only so many slots. If your name makes the shortlist, it’s because you got through that mess of hard choices and tough calls.

That’s why I’m almost more convinced than ever that we need to stop treating “just being shortlisted” like a pity line. If you get that email or phone call saying you’ve made finalist, that is an achievement. It means someone read your story, compared it to others, and said, “This one deserves to be in the room.” It means the hours you spent writing about your team, your guests, your community projects, your numbers, and your challenges were worth it, because someone listened.

And let’s talk about that process for a second. Writing award submissions forces you to stop and actually look at what you’ve done. Day to day, you’re stuck in rotas, staffing issues, bills, leaky roofs, broken boilers and guests who want early check-ins at 9am. You don’t sit around thinking, “Wow, we’ve done a lot this year,” because you’re already too busy firefighting the next thing. Awards make you press pause and list it out: the charity work, the new ideas, the refurb you somehow pulled off on a shoestring, the training you invested in, the young people you’ve given a chance to, the partnerships you’ve built. Even if you never win a trophy, you walk away with a better sense of who you are as a business and how far you’ve actually come.

For me, this week has reinforced something I already knew from being on both sides: the real power of awards is in the platform they create. They put independents next to giants. They put little start-ups next to decades-old institutions. They put people who feel invisible on a stage where their name gets read out and their story gets heard. They create rooms where you’d never meet half the people you end up talking to at the bar. You leave with ideas, contacts, and sometimes that quiet sense of, “We’re not as small or insignificant as we think we are.”

So if you’ve been nominated, shortlisted, or even just thought about entering something and talked yourself out of it because “we’ll never win,” this is your nudge. Don’t downplay it. Don’t brush it off. If your name is on a shortlist anywhere this season – Chamber, Livercool, Wrexham, CHAs, whatever – you have every right to be proud. Someone took time out of their day to put you forward. Judges sat round a table and actively discussed you. You earned a place in that room.

And if you walk away empty-handed? Be gutted for a bit. That’s human. Then zoom out. Look at who you were standing alongside. Look at the work you had to do just to justify entering. Look at the fact that your little corner of hospitality, your team, your values, your projects, your late nights and early mornings, are now on the radar of people who had never heard of you six months ago.

Trophies are nice. Photos with logos in the background are nice. But the deeper win is knowing you are building something that’s worth talking about, that holds its own when it’s laid next to much bigger, shinier operations.

But we walked into three serious rooms, sat at three serious tables, and knew we absolutely deserved to be there. For me, that’s not a failure story. That’s proof we’re on the right path.