We often hear from business owners with category questions, so we wanted to share some info about how things work behind the scenes.
For a lot of the categories on the ballot, approving the nominees are is a quick and easy process – it’s pretty obvious which businesses can be in categories like Pest Management, Florist, and Dermatology Practice, for instance – but a lot of the categories require further investigation – such as Hot Dog, Veteran Owned Business and Local Band.
This means a human is googling every nominee in that category and trying to verify if each restaurant actually has hot dogs on the menu, if the business is actually owned by by a veteran (not every business likes to promote that), and if each band performs in Moore County (and the name is spelled correctly)! If we can’t quickly and easily verify the information, the nomination may not get approved.
Think of it this way: Let’s say there’s an interior/exterior painter who’s been nominated, but they don’t have a website, a Google Business listing or a Facebook page. There’s no easy way for us to verify that the business exists, which means that there’s no easy way for us to contact them about the ballot and keep them up-to-date about the contest. More importantly, there’s no easy way for a potential customer to contact them if they want to call on that business! Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to approve that nomination on the ballot.
Remember, we’re human, and sometimes we make errors and things slip through the cracks. We appreciate you reaching out to us and letting us know if we’ve overlooked something. But in case you were wondering, yes, there IS a pizza restaurant in West End that serves Hibachi. We’ve checked. 😉
• Check out our category glossary if you want to see what kinds of businesses qualify in each category.
• Have more questions? Check out our FAQs here.