04/ 02/ 2008
by Harvey King
Harvey King demonstrates how not to write your next business award acceptance speech
Wow. I can't believe this. What an honor. I wish I had prepared something, but in no way did I expect to win tonight, even though I flew 1,500 miles to be here and spent $135 on that wonderful dinner.
Sure, these awards may not be Oscars, but I consider them the Oscars of our industry, and everyone who works in this industry knows how special it is to win one of these, so thank you. Actually, come to think of it, I guess they're more like the People's Choice Awards. But still, I can't thank you enough.
I'd also like to thank my family for being so supportive throughout the years--even though my parents told me not to go into this business and, come to think of it, still tell their friends that I work for the government.
And let me say this about the other finalists: It's an honor just to be among such a group. I don't know any of you personally and am not familiar with your work, but I know any of you could have won, so I just want to say this award belongs to all of us.
But really, this award belongs to my colleagues back home who aren't here dressed up in a tuxedo and who haven't been sitting in the back of the ballroom for the past three hours. Those folks are the ones who did all the work. All I did was sign the entry form and write the check. They're the ones who actually found the form and spent the time to go through the 500 categories to find one where we had something to enter. I'd also like to thank whoever came up with this category, because it was pretty obscure and, frankly, it was the only one where we had a snowball's chance of winning.
I'd also like to thank our customers, because if it weren't for their desire to work with an award-winning company, I doubt we would have entered this competition.
Wait, can you turn down that music? There's one more really important group I'd like to thank…
I'd like to say a sincere thank-you to a very special group of people--the folks sitting back there at table 172. I appreciate how loudly you cheered when someone from our table won an award. I'd like to thank you because you're the only people in this entire room I've met. Also, thanks to whomever at the table--I think it was you, Sue from Boise--who came up with the idea to scream if one of us won so we'd sound like one of those big corporate tables. Thank you, table 172, you guys are great, and I'm going to add you all as LinkedIn connections.
I know I'm going to kick myself for leaving out someone, but that music is louder than a jet engine taking off, and I can't actually hear what I'm saying. Wow, this is weird. Thank you. Thank you. Wow, my ears are ringing.
This article is from the April/May 2008 issue of MyBusiness.
