Comments on: Perfection

By: Ann Hawkins

Ann Hawkins — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:01:50 +0000

Just had another thought on this and that’s about consistency. As you say Emma, its important that your customers should know what to expect.
One of the reasons that MacDonald’s, or any good franchised product or service works, is that everyone knows what to expect. However, if one branch of MacDonalds started to buy in more expensive ingredients in an attempt to exceed customer expectations, the results on their profitability would be disastrous.
Its a good idea for businesses to strive for perfection, but only if their prices truly reflect this level of service. If not, they must work within their margins or they’ll soon end up with cash flow problems!

By: Ken Seymour

Ken Seymour — Fri, 21 May 2010 20:14:24 +0000

Interesting post, due to work, I am a bit of perfectionist – self confessed, but then computers need to be right. There is a place for perfectionism (is that a word)? But good reminder that we don’t need to carry that over into everything otherwise things may not get completed.

Oh did I metion the speeling mistook in your post the speel chequer miffed.

By: Gary Dickenson

Gary Dickenson — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:01:37 +0000

Interesting post Emma. I freely admit that I seek perfection for our reputation and what we deliver. However the perfection is mostly based on what has been promised in our proposal and thus the client expectation.

One phrase I find useful is ‘Under promising and over delivery’. As a business that gains most of its clients via referral we live and die by our reputation so delivering ‘perfection’ or indeed over delivering is very important.

So perfection is both a variable bar and subjective.

By: Katherine Connolly

Katherine Connolly — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:16:00 +0000

Interesting thoughts on perfection there Emma – I like how you relate it back to customers’ needs and expectations. Maybe the only perfection any of us actually strive for is in our own eyes and we either live up to it or we don’t, without really involving the customer. As you rightly say, the customer wants consistency and he/she should have that from each and every one of us in business, regardless of how close to perfection we come in our own eyes!

By: Ann Hawkins

Ann Hawkins — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:24:28 +0000

Great post Emma. Perfectionism is a trait that often trips business owners up. As well as being a great way to fritter away profits it is also a good reason to procrastinate. My watchword in most business situations is “you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going” and improvements can be made along the way but only up to the point where they are useful to the business.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the best but if it just comes down to ego or a fear of criticism then its not useful.