Quality Will Always Out
Quality Will Always Out
This saying gripped me as soon as I heard it. I was travelling back from our first business trip to Texas with my wife, and had been thinking a lot about the business going forward. I was asking myself the question we all need to ask once in a while – how we can improve? My dilemma was that a lot of our items for sale were sticking around for longer than was healthy. I’d been shown the facts and figures that if something hadn’t sold within two months of first listing it for sale, it is unlikely to sell at all. I wondered whether it was the price, were things too expensive? Could it even be the economic climate right now? Both of these were good thoughts, but neither felt right in my heart. I was convinced it had to be something else.
Texas
I was watching a programme on the plane to kill some of the time. In this programme there was a dealer who would travel around the USA buying old furniture, refurbishing it, and then selling it on for a very very good profit – exactly what we do in our business! I was hooked. Every time he purchased something, he would say this quote that stuck with me – ‘quality will always out’. I’d watch him pass by things that he knew would secure him a very good profit eventually for something battered and bruised sitting in a corner looking extremely tired. These things that drew his eye were things that had, at one point in their lives, been of very high quality. They had since fallen out of favour and become neglected.
Realising Potential
This dealer spotted the potential in these bits and was willing to say no to what seemed to be a good deal on other things, to say yes to these. No sooner had he got the furniture back to his depot, it was sold. And at that moment it clicked in my mind why we were seeing so many things sticking in our business. And it was one of two things 1) we only bought on the basis of the possible profit involved, never factoring in time to sell and 2) how will it make us look on our website.
Quality WILL always out
When I heard this saying, it all fell into place. Quality will always out! I realised we’d sacrificed our quality in place of our own selfish ambition of ‘having the most vintage instruments for sale in the UK’. Ambition is good, but we can often allow our unredeemed ambition to force us to make silly decisions, and it could end up costing us thousands of pounds. Maybe you don’t sell stock like I do, but you deliver a service to many. Is your service one of quality, or is it one of ‘it’ll do’? On returning to the UK, we decided to cut our losses on many things and instead chose to build a culture of excellence and quality. The results have since come in. Thank God for in-flight entertainment!
“Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him.” – Daniel 6:3
I love this passage in the Bible. Regardless of your religious views, I wholeheartedly believe that a spirit, or culture, of excellence sets you apart and opens up doors that an ‘it’ll do’ spirit will not. After making mistakes in this area, I am now fully committed to doing whatever I do with excellence. If I, or the company I work in, cannot do something excellently, we will not do it. I’d rather be known as a person or company who does fewer things well, than one who does lots of things average. Craig Groeschel, an American pastor and leadership coach says that the “…best organisations do a few things, and they do them well”.
As we set a new culture in business, let’s be business men and women who carry this culture of excellence and quality, and commit to saying no to the multitude of good things that can pump up our ego, in order to say yes to the few great things that will carry us into realising the amazing potential God has put over all of our lives!
Practical take-away’s for us all today:
- Do I recognise unredeemed ambition in my heart as I read this? I’d encourage you to read a small chapter of Proverbs every day for the next month (31 short chapters for 31 days). This is a bitesize, manageable chunk of wisdom for everyone, and will help redeem that ambition inside of you.
- Is there anything in my business right now that is not of quality? Make the hard decision to let go of it today. It might be a hard, painful process, but it’ll be worth it!
