Enter to Win, published on 5 November, is the debut book from Awards and Honours Strategist Rachel Hargrave
Every year, credible businesses lose awards they were fully qualified to win. Not because they weren’t good enough, but because nobody ever taught them how to enter properly. Awards and Honours Strategist Rachel Hargrave has written a book to change that. Her debut, Enter to Win: Award-Winning Strategies for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs, is published by Purple Star Books on 5 November 2026.
Rachel, founder of Rachel Hargrave Unlimited, has spent more than fifteen years helping business owners and entrepreneurs win business awards and secure UK Honours, including the King’s Awards for Enterprise. Her debut book distils that experience into 22 chapters across five parts. It covers choosing the right awards for your stage, spotting a credible award, writing an entry a judge remembers, presenting to a panel, and turning one win into years of recognition. Real client stories show weak answers rewritten into winning ones, and one chapter asks whether AI can help write an entry, and where it quietly gives you away.
The book is organised around the questions business owners actually ask. Early chapters make the case for entering at all, including the hidden cost of staying silent while competitors collect the recognition, and tackle the objections that hold owners back. Later chapters help readers match awards to their stage and ambition, weigh cost, effort and reward, answer the question a judge has actually asked, tell a story backed by evidence, and avoid the common mistakes that sink an entry. The closing parts cover gathering evidence and keeping a running brag sheet, preparing for a judging panel and an awards ceremony, what to do when you are shortlisted but do not win, how to use judges’ feedback, and how to turn a single win into a repeatable process that keeps delivering.
Awards can be a cost-effective route to independent credibility, but they can also be a minefield of wasted time and fees. The book shows owners how to spot a credible award versus a pay-to-play scheme, and which ones are worth the effort.
Enter to Win is written for owners of small and medium-sized businesses, founders and the marketing professionals who support them, whether they are entering their first regional award or building towards a King’s Award for Enterprise. Rachel has helped clients win regional, national and international awards across sectors from manufacturing and fire safety consultancy to professional services and hospitality.
“An award is third-party proof, and that is worth far more than anything you can say about yourself. But only if you choose the right ones and enter them properly, and most business owners are never shown how,” says Rachel. “This book is the step-by-step guide I wish every client had before they started.”
Tammy Reynolds, Founder of Britannia Hair & Scalp and The Little Hairstyle Club, says of the book: “She reframes awards not just as vanity projects, but as powerful tools for credibility, expert positioning, and objective third-party endorsement (which helps any business stand out in a crowded market).”
Business coach Trusha Lakhani, Founder and CEO of Great Business Matters, says of the book: “She does not rush anybody’s story, and she will not hand it to someone who will.”
A FREE companion workbook, built around the templates and trackers used throughout the book, is available to download at rachelhargrave.co.uk.
