FAQ

Manufacturers with significant physical presence/operations in Wisconsin.

It should be roughly 10-15 pages.

Your company is not required to be headquartered in Wisconsin. Your company is only required to have significant presence/operations in Wisconsin.

Companies are based on company-wide employee count, including parent company and all subsidiaries, in and out of Wisconsin. Breakdown is typically as follows: Small (1-99 employees), Medium (100-249 employees), Large (250-499 employees),  and Mega (500+). Size categories will be adjusted based on final nominees. If you have any questions as to which category is appropriate for your company, contact the MOTY Coordinator at 800-362-7301 prior to submitting your application. Total employee count will be verified. MOTY sponsors reserve the right to modify the category selected based on these findings.

No

You do not have to wait to experience tremendous growth or overcome adversity to submit an application. Many winners in the program’s history have simply been well-run, solid performing manufacturers.

Nothing, there is no entry fee.

The application should be no longer than 20 pages, including supporting materials. The key is to tell your story concisely and convincingly, while not overburdening judges with extraneous information.

You’ll want to address each area detailed in the Required Application Information section in the application form. The amount of detail you write on any one area will depend on the strengths of the manufacturing company.

Yes. Judges may find it easier to understand the material if graphs and photos are included to help illustrate your story. For instance, you may want to include graphs to depict company financial history.

No. However, you are encouraged to include photos or product spec sheets of your key product(s) to help the judges understand what your company manufactures. It is not necessary to include product samples, detailed product specifications, or entire product catalogs.

Yes. Information that demonstrates your leadership in the industry, including articles and awards, should be included.

Yes. It is important that the judges understand that a company is financially sound. Submission of lengthy financial reports is not necessary, but concisely demonstrating growth or financial stability is extremely relevant from the judges perspective in the overall review and selection of winners.  Applications that do not include this information will not be considered for an award. Financial information will be kept confidential and judges are asked to sign confidentiality agreements prior to review of the material.

We suggest submitting the following pieces of information for the past financial year and YTD: Balance Statement, and Revenue and Expenses. Since a company will be placed in a category based on the demographics of its parent company, please send the financial information for the parent company in its entirety.

If you have a parent company that is private and complete financial information is not available, please provide at minimum the company wide employee count and parent company’s annual revenue in addition to the above explained financials for your respective division, subsidiary, unit, etc. An explanation of your organization’s relationship with the parent company is required.

A summary of items in a chart or graph format is extremely helpful to the judges. For example, you may want to include graphs to illustrate the company’s revenue and expenses for FY of 2023 vs YTD in 2024. Proprietary detailed financial information will be kept confidential.

Yes

We pride ourselves on the integrity of the program. The judges are independent of Baker Tilly, Michael Best, and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. With no judges from the sponsoring companies then there is no chance of that information benefiting one of the sponsoring companies.

All judges are required to sign a confidentiality agreement. With that said, there are only four judges per size category. So no matter what size category you fall into there will only be 4 judges who see your submission.

We’re also careful about placing judges in categories where they would not a conflict of interest.

All submissions are now electronic. Paper copies are no longer in existence after judging like they once were that would then require us to shred them. The submissions are provided to the judges through a secure website login for viewing. This login is temporary and is changed once judging is complete.

After years of receiving confidential financials there has never been a question of the integrity of our program.

Financial information is a requirement in all submissions. It’s important that the judges understand that a company is financially sound. The submission of lengthy financial reports is not necessary, but concisely demonstrating growth and profitability is extremely relevant from the judges perspective in the overall review and selection of winners.

We suggest submitting the following pieces of information for the past three years: Income Statement, Balance Statement, Cash Flow Statement. At minimum, we ask that you include the following information for the past three years: annual sales revenue, net income or EBITDA percentage, debt to equity ratio and current ration.

A summary of items in a chart or graph format is extremely helpful to the judges as well.

The outside auditor is welcome to submit a letter of recommendation for the judges to review and consider, either with the application, or separately. If they do decide to submit a letter, ask them to focus on the growth and stability of your company. We see this component as being more marketing than technical. They need to “sell” your company just like you’re doing with your application. A letter from your outside auditor is not required.

You can suggest a manufacturer by navigating to the ‘Nominate’ tab from the homepage of this website and filling out an online form which includes the company name, contact with email address, and a brief description of why this company should apply. Following your nomination, we will contact the manufacturer to let them know they’ve been recommended and allow them to decide if they will apply. If so, they will need to submit the actual application in order to be considered.

No. Award winners are determined by an independent panel of judges from industry, government, education, and the business media. Quite often the judges are past MOTY winners. The sponsoring organizations do not judge the applications, and each judge is required to review the listing of nominees prior to seeing the actual submission to check for any business conflicts. If there are any with a particular company, they will be precluded from judging that company and viewing their submission materials.

According to past judges, it has had no impact on their decisions if the application came from a second party or the company itself. It is most important to submit complete information.

No. Winners are announced at the black-tie banquet on Feb. 20, 2025. All nominees and nominators will receive invitations to the celebration, but none will know who has won until the event.

Yes. Banquet attendees dress in formal attire (tuxedos for the men and evening gowns of varying length for the women). If you’d like to see photos of previous MOTY award banquets, you may do so here.

Anywhere from 300 to 400 nominees, nominators, key employees, and other industry executives typically attend the award banquet. Tables seat 10 people.

$175 per person for early bird pricing, or $200 for standard pricing. The President, CEO, owner, or other designated representative of each nominated company will receive one complementary registration for the banquet. There is not a discount for purchasing an entire table.