How do I organise a national business competition?

How do I go about organising a competition?

Hi there,

Firstly, a “business competition” is quite vague and before you begin, you should make sure your idea is both differentiating and plausible.

Organising a competition can be very challenging but here are some basic steps (the order is not as important but this is how I did it)

  1. Form an idea and construct a rough plan of how the competition will run - analyse the factors you need to consider and refine your idea
  2. Gather friends and sell them the idea so they work with you to organise this. Competitions cannot be run alone. You need a strong and driven management team to delegate tasks to.
  3. Redevelop the initial plan into a comprehensive timeline with the team and start delegating roles and creating the right resources needed.
  4. Find Sponsors for prizes and to cover any costs (by presenting your idea to relevant companies/universities/organisations) and Create a website/social media platform
  5. Marketing - this is probably the hardest part of any event. There are many ways to do this but here are some of the methods I used to reach out to high school students. 1. Facebook - facebook is the most popular platform used by New Zealanders and if many people (organisers and their friends) create a page and share the event, you’ll be able to reach a wide web of students in New Zealand (this works quite well as NZ is small and basically everyone is interconnected through mutual friends). 2. Contact relevant teachers/leaders of organisations/companies etc to help you - these people have direct contact with a wide range of the target market, and hey could also share the competition on their social media, marketing, email lists, newsletters etc.
  6. Run the competition and stick to the rules (as student organisers, you have an important responsibility to act professionally or the competition will lose its legitmacy)

Good luck! Hope that was helpful!