You might ask yourself whether producing a quality product is worth the trouble, when the option exists to put out a lot of lower-quality material. It might seem like quality production is not worth the time, when you see other individuals going for quantity over quality, and looking like they’re succeeding. What you need to take into account is that quality material has the sharp benefit of expanding on itself. This key point provides multiple reasons as to why quality material is beneficial to produce.
1. Quality material produced causes others to want to spread it around for you.
Creating a piano song that has key notes that appeal to almost anyone that hears it will send that small creation quickly through Internet music regions. Writing an article with a memorable phrase or keyword like “Tribes”, which Seth Godin has coined with his new book and recent postings, will cause numerous individuals to comment on the creation and its ground-breaking use of old words in a new way. Writing a computer program that does what the competitors programs do, and adding extra layers in to assist the user, will result in this better product being spoken about almost exclusively as “the one” that does the job.
2. Quality production will keep you from wasting your time.
What happens when you continue to produce a reasonable amount of quality material, as opposed to an abundance of average material, is that you begin to turn down offers that don’t match your shown capability. You will turn down items that you would have accepted in the past, because they are average in comparison to what you have been producing. Others will take notice and begin to only bring you offers or provide you opportunities to produce at the high level you had been up to that point. The value of your time may double, or even increase further, due to average production not being allowed, and average material not even being considered.
3. You will be able to keep up with demand.
Someone that is producing a large quantity of average material may soon not be able to keep up the pace that they had started with. Since the basis of their value is the quantity that they produce, they have no choice but to try to maintain a certain amount or give up the whole process. Someone that has others only expecting high-quality material from them can afford to not release it for a much longer period. The company Speedo, which created the Olympic swimming suit shown here, could set a much longer-term deadline to produce top-end material, which was then seen by a majority of the connected world. People will wait when they know a high-value item is arriving, but are likely to find a new producer if a quantity-based individual slows down production. A high-quality item producer has more control of his release schedule.
A person might have 20 different pencils to write with, but if they are looking to write something and see their signature fountain pen, the pencils will continue to have to wait to be used. Producing material that is the “fountain pen” of the category will quickly result in benefits.
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Great article Armen! I absolutely believe in this myself and get to regularly practice it to the best of my abilities with my graphics business and my blog site. Unfortunately, I don’t always see the same thing in business with all the companies I deal with and its exactly as you’ve said considering quantity or quality.
It’s very enjoyable to say NO to things that aren’t the best in quality.
Twitter: mike_king
BTW: Armen, what’s the name of the plugin you use for your sidebar tag cloud? I’ve seen that a few times and would love to switch my site to use it as well.
Twitter: mike_king
Thank you for that Mike. The refreshing feeling gained from saying “no” to items that lack reasonable value is worth it every time. Also, that plug-in is named Cumulus and is able to be acquired at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cumulus/
I think I repeatedly rotate it more than my viewers.
While I agree theoretically and personally, if you work “for the man” then I have found that many times that they are MORE THAN HAPPY to have large quantities of low-quality work. Or worse ….they do not recognize quality work and hail the superficial as quality.
CubeWarrior: That sure is the case, and it isn’t that motivational for the worker that might want to make a change. Seth Godin referred to this in his book “Tribes”, in that the old style of having a manager chipping away at motivation is starting to fade away, as companies that let workers flourish are taking over the market. Managers can only expect to promote an unreasonable work ethic for so long before a higher-quality and faster-paced company model puts them out of business.
hi,
got inspired by the volume of profitable information u got here.
keep it up
clement
Thanks for that Clement. I would like to comment on the effect of a positive statement such as the one you have made here. It is much larger than would be assumed, because the person accepting a comment such as that sees it as representing the sentiments of other individuals who did not desire to comment at the time.
Another great article here. Keep up the good work.
Yes! I definitely support people who think quality is important. When it comes right down to it, it’s the experience that really matters to your customer. This is an excellent post and I think the ideas are ones everyone should try to adhere to.
Thanks for that Corey. An analogy that comes to mind is about when one is purchasing an item. A person that purchases a cheaper version of a desk lamp is not actually saving money because of the cost of the problems that result from not having a higher-quality desk lamp, as well as from knowing that a better product exists, but was not purchased.
@Armen
I’ve definitely done that before, haha. We just recently had to make a major decision and I was like “Go for professional. It’s already expensive, so just spend the money.” I’m really glad we went with that direction.
It would be hard to find an individual that regretted going for the better item, if it was an option on the table. I can’t think of one example of this. However, even with the very high percentage of examples where opting for the more expensive item came out more positively, our minds still feel the risk when the next decision comes around and the choice comes up again.
I agree that quality is key. However, as an iphone owner I have mixed feelings about referring to it as a quality product. Its a great device as far as functions and style go, but its also the most unreliable and buggy cell phone I have ever earned.
Perhaps perceived quality is best : )
Hallyu Tech: It sure might not be up to par with some phones that are rising up as far as market usage. Your point about perceived quality is quite valid, as one can enjoy an older game that they see as having higher quality than new games that are released. As long as the item is perceived to have an intrinsic value by the user, there is no market survey that can take away from his interest in using the product.
I believe that what ever you are building, quality is a must. Building something of quality, will last for the long term and give you my self worth.
While it seems that lower quality products attract more traffic, but if you really think about it, you may not want that type of customer who is out for the lower or cheapest price.
While it is nice to make money, I believe that is a secondary when you are building for the long term.
Squeaky: That is a good point about the type of customers that lower-quality products can attract. One can end up with customers that are more concerned about a deal than the product they are purchasing, and they would probably have more genuine complaints, since lower-quality products tend to have more problems during usage.
Hi Armen, great article and fully agree on the importance of quality (I can tell that it is the focus of the content on this blog as well!)
That’s something I am single-mindedly focusing for my articles too – I ensure that they really provide value to my readers and are not just written to jack-up the post-count or to keep up with the post demand. That being said, I think one thing that helps with quality production is to be loose and free while in the midst of brainstorming by oneself (not sharing with the world), then ultimately start filtering on quality when it come to showcasing to the world.
Celes: Thank you for that, and it is quite visible that you are going for quality in your articles. Your point about getting ideas on one’s own, and then filtering/organizing them for presentation to others, is one that is great to use regularly. We benefit much from disconnecting for a period of time, followed by a reconnection to the environment we are looking to change.