Welcome to the fourth article in our Small Business, Big Dreams Challenge series. This series is a snapshot of where former winners of the challenge are now, including updates on how the prize money helped fuel — and fund their business goals.

In our first piece, we talked to Xenia Marcinko, executive producer of The Magus Films and 3rd place winner of the BankUnited Challenge, year two. In the second, Drs. Angie Mason and Tyre Patterson discussed with us how winning 2nd place in the second year of the challenge changed their business lives. (Hint: It involved a treadmill.) For the third story, we learned how Ivelices Linares Thomas used the prize money to purchase the technology necessary to shape the future of her business, HR & Beyond.

For this piece, we caught up with Lisa Collum. Her Florida-based business, Top Score Writing, needed an infusion of marketing to gain some out-of-state traction. Here’s how winning the prize money from the contest helped her do that. 

Contestant: Lisa Collum

Contest: Year 1, 1st Place

Lisa: A friend of mine sent it to me through Facebook Messenger. I remember seeing the link and being intrigued. I’m that girl who started her business on her living room floor, so I’m always looking for ways to share my business and put what I’m selling out there as much as possible. I went with it, not knowing what to expect. It was the first year, so there wasn’t any way to find out about the process since it had never been done before. I figured I would try it and see what happened.

I could win money! I needed that to expand my business. I started my company in Florida, and when I entered, I had most of the Florida schools in my portfolio. I had started thinking about branching out to other states. I had a few in Georgia and Arizona, and I thought if I got the prize money, I would put it towards marketing, specifically with social media ads. 

When I won, it was a big confidence booster. I knew I was successful and had a good business, but I’m not a big corporation like Scholastic. I was still just Lisa. I have a home office. This validated me as a business and helped validate me to the outside world. I think small businesses are always trying to fit in with big businesses. To win the competition was to be able to say I was legit. 

I think one of the biggest things is that I’m in education, and that means something to everyone. It pulls on everyone’s heart. Also, I had a plan and a record of data showing that my program works. I didn’t just have a fun product, it was going to change lives. And I planned to use the money to expand that help to more students. That’s what I think stood out -- the impact my curriculum has. 

Winning was a steppingstone to where I am now, which is nationwide in all 50 states. In the last four years, I have quadrupled our income. I’ve hired three more full-time employees, and we’ve expanded our digital product and our entire online platform. What allowed me to do that was taking that $10,000 prize money and putting it into marketing with Facebook ads and social media. With that, I reached a handful of other states, which became another steppingstone to where I am now. Some might think $10,000 won’t do much, but because of that one little move, everything has expanded from there. 

The biggest thing is to make your story part of your pitch. Your story and mission are a big part of why people want to invest – tell your story and have something specific you want to use the money for. I think the judges want to give money to a company when they know it’s not going towards vacations, and that it will impact someone.

I’d also say this puts us out of our comfort zone especially for women and small business owners. We’re always questioning ourselves. Whether you win or not, competitions like this are something we all need to do and experience. It helps with exposure, confidence, and building our businesses. I encourage all women to go for it. 

In honor of National Women’s Small Business month in October, BankUnited’s Small Business Big Dreams: Women in Business contest offers women business owners the opportunity to earn up to $15,000 to put towards furthering their business goals. Learn more about how and when to enter here.