Okay, let’s be honest, we have all gone to a networking event when it happens! You get a lame, cheap, flimsy business card. Worse, it is a stock design. It looks cheap, wait a minute, it is cheap.
What does that say about the business owner, that just gave it to you? Rightly, or wrongly, you have made a judgement or decision about them and chances are you are not feeling confident about working with this person.
In terms of what you do, or give out to customers, or print, or produce, make sure that you do quality well.
I say it is better to wait to afford quality marketing materials or videos, or the paper stock you use for your proposals better be of good quality.
Quality speaks volumes about how you do business.
Studies show that quality on all levels, from the quality of your product, service, your marketing material or even your website can have a bearing on customer satisfaction.
If a company produces quality products/services, customers will rank that company higher in surveys than companies that fail to deliver good quality goods and services.
I mean think about it.
It is lunch time, you are on the road seeing clients in an area of town you aren’t too familiar with and so you pop into a spot you have never gone to. You walk in, your tummy is growling, but you look around and the place is a dumpy, it isn’t clean, the décor seems old and what is the feeling you have? Yup, just as I thought, you are probably seeing this dumpy place and thinking, “I don’t know if I trust the food”…how can the food be good if the place looks not so hot?
Lesson number one about producing great results is to do quality stuff, print quality stuff, produce quality stuff.
Remember people buy experience; make sure the experience fires on all cylinders and delivers every step of the way!
Quality can impact your team. Everyone can get behind doing great work, raise the standard, make the experience special, be memorable.
Think of Starbucks; they really focus on design and quality. The focus is on experience. Even their mission statement states, “Nurturing the human spirit, one cup, one person, one neighbourhood at a time”!
What does it take to nurture the human spirit?
It means the décor is pleasing, the food looks fresh and tasty, the baristas are well trained and service oriented, that the garbage bins are not overflowing, the bathrooms are clean, the coffee is top-quality!
The displays for gifts look enticing, the vibe inside is cool!
Starbucks does quality darn well!
I am reminded too about the hotel experience, that Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited, experiences while away on business.
He checks in and he is greeted by a friendly person at the front desk, and the front desk people have been trained to ask certain questions of each guest. One of these questions is where are you from, what newspaper do you like?
They welcome him and ask what time he wants a wake-up call and to have the chamber people make his room ready and bed turned down, ready for him to get a good night’s sleep.
Now at dinner as he is having coffee and dessert the waiter asks him what his favourite coffee blend is…
Sure enough at day’s end, he goes to his room. The bed is turned down, towels fresh, mints on the pillow; he soon retires for the night.
Now, when he gets up to his wake-up call, all of sudden he hears a newspaper landing at his door, the in-room coffee turns on automatically (set by the chamber people) and he notices it’s his favourite coffee. Then he gets the paper and it is the hometown paper he reads…and he asks himself, “how did they know this?”
As he settles into a new day, he remembers what the front desk asked and then at night what the waiter asked…and the experience at this hotel was beyond anything he had seen before.
Why is this?
It is because ownership took time to make the stay an experience! Quality, in the design of the customer experience. From what questions were asked, to the little gestures at the hotel, that said you matter to us! Our customers matter.
Sure, the décor must be right, the pillows soft, the bed perfect, the meals high quality, but to have a super successful business, it’s in the details.
Do details well; think of the impact of quality. Think of every aspect of the business and the customer interaction.
Even if you have a home-based business, make sure you answer the phones nicely, ensure you have a professional outgoing voicemail, make sure your workspace is clean, organized, so you can work better, and make sure your suppliers are doing quality stuff as well, as they can make or break you!
I’d go so far as working on the décor at home. I’d love seeing your logo painted on the wall as a mural. Your logo, the look and design of your space should lift you up and empower you. Put pride into your place.
When you walk with pride and joy and you have a nice vibe in the office, this feeling will transcend out.
Your customers will feel your feelings.
A success-filled business is about design. Pay attention to what you want to design.
Pay attention to the inside of the business, the décor, the quality and the vibe that you want to create. When you create it, create it with the customer in mind.
From how you package your goods, to a simple thing like building on customer relationships, or training your staff to execute quality, ensure that the business you have designed is designed to do great work for your customers, community and the environment.
Think the business through from a design and quality perspective and look at your business as a set of parts that come together to deliver great experiences for your customers.
My ask of you is this. This new year ahead, look at the various aspect of the business and think about how you can design it differently so that your customer benefits. Look at the quality of what you do on every level, so that your customer may write about you in their next business bestseller book!
The bottom line is that success doesn’t just happen, it happens by design!
