This week I discuss the most important business quality in my opinion… and that is Consistency. Check it out!
VIDEO SUMMARY
Consistency. This is a topic I do not feel businesses spend enough time talking about. Most businesses ask themselves, “how can I stretch my resources to make the best product possible?” That is the wrong question. It would be better to ask the question, “with my available resources, what is the most consistent product I can deliver.” If you stretch yourself all the time, it is unsustainable and you end up with quality problems. So it is helpful to focus on the idea of how to deliver a consistent product.
What do I mean by consistency? It is a very simple definition: Delivering the same product or service over and over again for decades. There is a whole industry based around manufacturing standards on how to produce something exactly the same every time. Here we get into things like ISO 9000 standards, quality management, and Six Sigma. I am not going to get into those specifics in this video, because I want to focus at a high level, on explaining how consistency makes your business money.
The reason consistency is important deals with how markets work. Markets are made up of people. When you sell your product into the market, you are asking the buyer to make a change and make your product a part of their life. They go through the struggle to change their lives because your product benefits them somehow. So if someone goes through the effort to make room in their lives for your product, they are going to expect the ability to be a repeat customer, and receive the same value proposition when they come back and buy your product a second time. What you are selling is a value proposition, that you want your customers to purchase over and over again.
If you cannot provide your product or service consistently, you are going to make your customers either confused or angry. We have all experienced this. Let’s say you have a favorite restaurant, but one night the service is great and another night the service is horrible. Pretty soon you will likely stop going to the restaurant, because it is so inconsistent. Let’s say you have a favorite shampoo, and one day you get to the store to find out they changed the shampoo formula completely. You get frustrated with that, because you had made that shampoo purchase a regular part of your life, and this business changed it. Let’s say you use a software program, and the software company puts out a new update that completely changes how the program works. Suddenly you cannot find where anything is and you cannot do your work. We have all experienced these things and we know how frustrating they are.
Now whenever you talk about consistency, you get an opposing viewpoint from many business people who say “what about innovation? Who wants to produce the same product over and over when you can innovate?” I do not want to get into an argument between consistency and innovation because I think it is a false argument. I think you can provide a consistent value proposition while still keeping up with technology and innovating. But you have to be very careful, because your customers rely on you providing the same value proposition.
Let me use another example to show you what happens if you do not keep your value proposition consistent. Imagine the market is a freeway. People are going about their lives, zooming along this freeway. And you start your business at the side of the freeway. You put up a sign displaying your value proposition. And you hope that people will pull off the freeway and stop at your business. Well it takes time to move the market. What happens is at the beginning, you will get a few people who will pull off the freeway and stop at your business. And then every year, hopefully that number grows and grows, until you have a thriving, successful business. This takes time. So you want this value proposition to stay consistent every single year. Every time you change your value proposition, you have to start over from the beginning.
And I am going to share the problem most business owners face. Business owners get bored. Try producing the same product for ten years, and see if you don’t get bored. And if you get bored… tough. You have made a commitment to your customers to be consistent. So the trick here is to be very thoughtful at the beginning of the process. You should only be creating products that you will be okay producing over and over again for the rest of your life. That is the thought process you should start with. And if you can do this, you will benefit. You only have to look at any successful chain restaurant. They have figured out how to deliver a consistent product no matter what city you are in. And that is why consumers spend so much money at chain restaurants. Customers choose consistency.
I really think Consistency is an important concept for every business to think about. Leave a comment down below letting me know what you think! If you find these videos helpful, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Neither Zach De Gregorio or Wolves and Finance Inc. shall be liable for any damages related to information in this video. It is recommended you contact a CPA in your area for business advice.