I first heard about the #sbs small business Sunday competition through the fabulous Ian from @LawnMasterNotts who I networked with once a month in Retford. To be honest when I first entered, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. But I did my research, looking at what other winners had Tweeted before entering.
Typically after entering the first time, I didn’t win, obviously I was disappointed, sometimes we have inflated opinions of ourselves and our expectations are a little higher than they should be. I entered a few times and then gave up for a while as I realised that the competition is tough. However, I hate giving up on things.
On 15th August 2021 I entered for the umpteenth time. The following Monday evening I found out I had been selected and he retweeted my entry Tweet to all of his followers.
So what is Small Business Sunday?
Small Business Sunday is a weekly competition run by Theo Paphitis every Sunday evening between 5pm and 7.30pm.
To enter the competition you have to put together a social media post with the SBS hash tag , usually with a picture, which tells everyone about your business. You need to do something which stands out to be selected and even though you may think your message is awesome, there’s no guarantee you’ll be selected. Persistence is the key.
When I entered 6 business Tweets were selected which he then re-tweeted to all of his 400,000 followers. As the competition is now on 2 platforms, he chooses 3 from Twitter and 3 from Instagram.
Winners are invited to enter their profile on an #SBS website www.theopaphitissbs.com
Winning opens up many other opportunities, there is an #SBSEvent held annually in Birmingham which is a great place to network. You can also have your photo taken with Theo and collect a certificate. There are some great speakers too, not to mention the awesome goodie bag.
An opportunity available for members of #SBS and the biggest for me was when I won a stand at Spring Fair. Which was one of the scariest but incredible experiences.
So, do I think it’s worth entering #SBS? Absoflipinlutely!!
If you’d like to read about my Spring Fair adventure, please follow the link (if the link isn’t there, it means that I haven’t quite finished writing it).
