Trophies2Go Blog

Looking for ideas of what to do at your next staff party?  Below I'm going to share what activities we did at ours, hopefully inspiring you to host an event for your organization.

Monday night was Trophies2Go's  party celebrating our 100, 000th order and it was a blast.  Here’s a recap of our night....

Trophies2Go staff shows off the new t-shirts!

Our new Trophies2Go t-shirts were unveiled.  Back in June, we had a staff t-shirt contest, with Laurie's design being chosen as the overall winner.  Check out how great we look in our new shirts!  The back says "We Deliver Smiles" which is what we strive to do each day!

The venue for our party was Uptown Glassworks in Renton, WA, near our Awards Factory.  Each of us  got to make something special out of glass – a pumpkin, ball, small plate, etc.  Glass blowers Tom & Kyle created our pieces with a little 'blowing' help from us.  What a fun experience with a beautiful memento to bring home afterwards!

Mika watches her glass creation being made.

For food, we got takeout Stan’s BBQ in Issaquah and it was a hit with our group.  Food is always a good thing.

For a mixer, we divided our group into two teams – 'Team Trophy' vs.' Team Ribbon'.  Then each team picked a player to compete in a round of ‘Minute to Win It’.  After 6 rounds, Team Trophy Cup was the ultimate winner!  It was hilarious – lots of laughs.

We also celebrated one of our own during the evening.  Margene has worked for Trophies2Go for the past 10 years, and Jeff honored her with a 10-year Service Award.  It was nice to see our company practice what we preach – recognizing our own staff for hard work and years of dedication.

Team Trophy shows off their prizes for winning 'Minute to Win It".

Overall, the evening was a successful event and I’m looking forward to the next one.  I love my co-workers and the fun they bring to our work!

Cheers, Jessica

Kids love participation trophies! They've earned them!

If, as the team parent, you have chosen participation trophies for your child’s sports team, you may find that not all parents agree.  Another parent may say to you, “When I was a kid, I had to EARN my trophies. They weren’t just handed to us at the end of the season.” So why do we give our children trophies for participating in sports?

Celebration Trophies

Show your team they did a great job and put in an effort worthy of a celebration!  Participation trophies are celebration trophies.  We should not be giving trophies for showing up and breathing and staying upright.  We should be rewarding and celebrating the accomplishments of each player.  Even if they didn't score the most goals, did they learn new skills?  Or improve their sportsmanship?  Or focus more on teamwork?  Award them with a Celebration Trophy.

Recognition: Kids care about recognition. They want validation from their coach and parents for a job well done.  They deserve kuddos even if they didn't win every game of the season or out-perform the rest of the league. Over the course of a season, each child on the team has done something that they feel proud of.  They've improved their game. Awarding them a trophy gives them the praise that they deserve, and is a tangible item to remind them of that accomplishment.  The best way to do this is to have the coach present the trophy to each player individually.  He or she should take the time to prepare some words of praise for each player, being specific on what new skills they learned or how their game has improved or how valuable they were to the team.

Commitment: Most of all, participation trophies are a way to reinforce commitment. If a child signs up to play a sport and stays with it until the end of the season, that accomplishment deserves recognition. He or she made a commitment to join the team and stuck it out until the end. This is a life skill.  In the future, they won't get a trophy for showing up everyday for a job.  No one would expect that.  But rewarding commitment at a young age will reinforce the importance of sticking with a task or job until completed in the future.

The children on your team have accomplished the goals of trying something new, learning about a new sport, working together, making new friends, and more. If you feel like this is your definition of success, then your players deserve meaningful recognition.

Participation trophies are a symbol of this accomplishment – and they’ll love them now and for years to come!

Cheers! Jessica

You’ve developed your formal recognition program, determined your award recipient, chosen the appropriate corporate awards and decided on the text and logo to engrave on them.  After all that hard work just how long will it take to get your awards?  At Trophies2Go, we pride ourselves on how quickly we can get your awards to you. Sometimes you have plenty of advanced notice to get your awards in time for a presentation ceremony.  Sometimes you have very little.  We’ll work with you in either case and do our best to meet your time requirements.

Most of our awards, including this beautiful acrylic, have a 3 day production time.

6 Things To Consider

Production Time:  Our production time varies with the season and the specific product.  Normally it is between 2-7 business days.  Currently it is 3 days.  Some items have a slightly longer production time, which is indicated in that product’s description on our site.  Production time includes the time it takes us to get any materials from our suppliers, the time it takes us to engrave and assemble your order, and the time it takes to get it ready for shipping.

Service Level Guaranteed Arrival Dates:  In most cases we ship via UPS.  We add the production time described above to the UPS shipping time to come up with your Service Level Guaranteed Arrival Dates.  When you place your order on our website, you'll be presented with several Service Level options.  Each option will give you a different Guaranteed Arrival Date and associated cost.  Choose the Service Level that provides the arrival date you need for your order.

We are confident in our ability to uphold our delivery date guarantee. However, there are some exceptions. For example, if you request a proof of your engraving before we do the actual engraving, we cannot control how quickly you respond to the proof we send you.  We’ll do our best to still get your order to you by the guarantee date if you’ll do your best to respond to us quickly.  Other situations where we cannot guarantee delivery dates are APO/FPO orders, international orders, phone, mail or fax orders or orders that require additional information or changes after they are placed.

Got plenty of time?  If your order is over $100 and you can give us some extra time, we’ll give you FREE shipping (contiguous US only).  This is called Emerald Level of Service and it adds 5 day to the production time.  It pays to plan ahead!

No time to spare?  We do have the ability to overnight orders.  This is called Platinum  Service Level.  However we still need the production time to get your award ready for you.  We also offer a Platinum Plus Service Level option.  In this case, if we have your awards in stock we may be able to expedite our production time.  To see if this is an option for your order, give us a call at 877-926-4700.

The cost of shipping is dependent on the weight and size of your order, and the shipping address.  We have a great Shipping Options & Cost Calculator on our website.  It gives estimated prices and arrival dates for the various Service Levels.  To use this calculator follow these steps:

Go the product page(s) for the item(s) you would like to purchase. Enter the quantity and hit the "BUY" button.

Enter your engraving information, or leave this section blank for now (you can enter engraving information again later from your shopping cart) and click the "ADD TO CART" button.

From the shopping cart, click on the link "Shipping Options and Cost Calculator". Enter your city, state, and zip code. This will show you the service level guaranteed arrival dates with costs.

You will also see the same Service Level options with prices and guaranteed delivery dates when you reach the Shipping section of our Check-Out process.

At Trophies2Go, we understand that in most cases awards are built around a recognition event.  Our production schedule and service levels will help you to choose an arrival date for your awards so that you can rest assured that they will be there in time for presentation at your event.

Thank you for trusting us with your recognition needs!

Blessings, Anne

Ever consider having your fantasy football trophy travel from winner to winner each year?  Well this league takes their traveling trophy to the extreme!  Check out our customer Khadir's Fantasy Football Trophy story.  This gave Anne and I a really good laugh!  I hope you enjoy it and get ideas for your league.  Thanks for sharing Khadir!

Khadir's Story:

Hello Anne,

"I saw the note about sharing our trophy story with you and so I decided to take you up on the offer since we love Trophies2Go.  I run a fantasy football league and about five years ago, I decided that our champion needed a trophy and that each year the champion's name should be engraved.  But for a little added flavor, I thought one of the "responsibilities" of being league champion should be to take a humorous picture with our trophy and share it with the league before turning the trophy over to the next winner.  We have had some great "pictures" over the years and it seems our league loves to take things over the top."

Joel in his "old man" attire with the Fantasy Football Trophy.

"2006 - Our League Winner Joel decided that he was going to wear his "old man uniform" and take a picture with the young ladies at Hooters. (picture right)"

"2007 - I (Khadir) won the league in 2007 and decided to step things up by making a short video showing all the fun the trophy and I had together. Here's the link "(And it's hilarious - from Jessica)

"2008 -  Our league winner Malaki also decided to make a youtube video stating how the trophy doesn't travel too well and the winner of the trophy is actually cursed. True fact, in our league the winner of each year has always failed to make the playoffs the following year. Here is the video."

Guy, the champion, stuck it to Joel, who hates the Texas Longhorns. Joel's daughters  are also pictured in Longhorn attire.

"2009 - Guy was our winner, and his picture was actually the most "over the top" picture of all.  One of our members (Joel) is an avid hater of the Texas Longhorns football team while most of the league members are actually UT graduates.  After being frustrated by all of the continual griping about the Longhorns, Guy gets his revenge by flying across the country while Joel is out of town and taking a picture with the trophy and Joel's daughters dressed out in Longhorn paraphernalia. (picture right)"

"Thank you for all of your excellent service and the great trophies!"
Khadir R

Thanks again Khadir! We love your sense of humor and the creativity in your league!  What a fun group.

If you want to share the story of your trophy, we'd love to feature you on our blog and Facebook page.  Just email me at [email protected] or Anne at [email protected] and then either of us will take it from there!

Cheers! Jessica

On Tuesday, Jessica shared some thoughts about Informal vs Formal recognition.  So you know that Formal Recognition Programs can help a company reach its goals AND create a loyal and fulfilled employees. Well-communicated and consistent formal recognition is a great incentive for your employees to meet their position objectives.  But what type of formal recognition is best for YOUR company?  Here are some types of recognition we see.  Keep them in mind when planning your recognition program.

Service Awards

Service Awards acknowledge length of service with your company and can help to increase employee longevity.

Traditionally awards are presented for 1,5, 10, 20 years of service.  However in some industries or companies with high turnover positions it may make more sense to provide employee recognition at the 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 year mark.

Sales Awards

Recognize the achievement of goals and attainment of quotas with Sales Awards.

Individual awards may be for attainment, year-to-year growth in a territory, most new accounts, biggest competitive win-back.

Names like President’s Award or Million Dollar Club add prestige to the achievement.

For a national or international organization, recognize your Top Distributor, Regional Leader or Greatest Store Sales.

Sales awards can be monthly, quarterly, annually or some combination.

Non-Sales Performance-Based Awards

Consider awards or gifts for each employee based on reaching identified Key Performance Indicators.

These can be unique for each individual or for a team.

Reward those who perform above and beyond, or provide inspiration and motivation to the rest of the team.

Customer Service Awards

We all know that it takes great customer service to grow a business.  Recognize those who provide that service with special awards for Best Customer Satisfaction Rating based on your internal measurements, or a Customer Service Award to a representative who receives great feedback from your customers.

You can even ask your customers to nominate their favorite customer service reps for an award.

Employee-of-the-Month

Or Employee of the Quarter or Employee of the Year.

Define and document what it takes to earn these distinctions.  They can be objective or subjective, you decide.

Think about having a perpetual plaque in a central location where each month the winner’s name and picture is posted.  Provide some type of take-away award for the that employee as well.

Other Types Of Awards

Safety Awards

On-time Product Launch

Leadership Achievements

Corporate Honors

Community Recognition

Teamwork Award

Peer-to-Peer Award

Spending the time up front defining what you want to recognize and how you want to do it will make the program easier to communicate and implement.  If you feel that you’d like to have someone help you with this process, contact Jeff Anderson, our president.  He’s a Certified Recognition Professional and would be happy to help. You can reach him at [email protected].

Best of luck to you in your Recognition Programs!

Blessings, Anne