Artist Management Services is Finalist in Global Small Business Awards

We are delighted to announce that we have finished as runners-up at IKON 2020, a global small business award. 


To be recognised on the international stage is a fantastic achievement, and even though we didn't walk away with the top prize, we feel very proud to have made it to the final, where every candidate showed themselves to be worthy of the win. 

IKON 2020 is an annual conference held in California and hosted by Keap, a software company aimed at improving and growing small and medium-sized businesses. It is estimated that the company currently has around 200,000 users. This year's conference differed from years gone by in that much of the presentations needed to be held virtually, due to the ongoing restrictions caused by COVID-19. 


After an extensive application and interviewing process, our CEO, Ben Marshall, was delighted to find that his business had made it to the final, which involved delivering a keynote presentation to the thousands of conference delegates via Zoom. 


The presentation was extremely well received and garnered positive comments from attendees who remarked upon the usability of the content, as well as how impressive the business was as a whole. The other finalists delivered similarly superb presentations, leaving the delegates with a difficult decision as to who to vote for. 


“It was fantastic to reach the final and to present at IKON 2020," said Ben. "It only seems like yesterday that I was an attendee at the conference myself, five years ago now! We may not have won, but it was a hugely rewarding experience and validated how far I think we’ve come as a business. And it was such an honour to be asked to be a guest speaker at next year’s event.”


Well accustomed to presenting in front of large audiences, Ben also remarked on the strangeness of delivering virtually, knowing the majority of the audience were over 5000 miles away. 


"Time difference meant that our presentation was not until around 1am GMT! Presenting in the early hours of the morning was definitely a new experience for me - not to mention speaking to thousands of people from the comfort of my office, on my own! Incredibly strange... but a really enjoyable experience too!"


Having used Keap products for a number of years now, it made the opportunity to apply for this year's award seem too good to miss for the Artist Management team. Having grown from a two-man team to the functioning, successful company that it is today, marketing director, Nathan Brough was confident that AMS demonstrated all the attributes that the judges would be looking for:


"We've come a long way and IKON 2020 was a good excuse to spend some time reflecting on that journey. Keap is all about growth and maximising resources - we've certainly done that, so it felt like a no-brainer to put ourselves up for this award. I'm disappointed not to have won it, but the other candidates were very impressive too. I feel like we got a lot out of the experience."


From all of us at Artist Management Services, we would like to thank Keap and all the conference delegates at IKON 2020 for their support, questions and votes this year. We are looking forward to being involved in next year's event and going forward into the future. 


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