If you want to compete more effectively in your industry than all of your fellow cohorts then there’s one really easy strategy you need to adopt. And although it’s easy to adopt very few businesses do.
It’s simply “do what you say you’d do”. What do I mean by this? I’ll give you an example:-
At the moment we’re struggling with our heating and with winter a few short weeks away it’s time we got it sorted out.
So we called plumber no.1 who said that they would come on the Wednesday at 3:30 pm, and being the organised person I am, on the said Wednesday I texted them at 3:15 to confirm that they would be arriving at 3:30 only to receive a reply saying sorry they couldn’t make that time and in fact they couldn’t make Wednesday at all. They rescheduled for Thursday morning at 10:30 and even then didn’t arrive until 11:30 with a lame excuse about being busy with other customers. Talk about not really making a positive impression with me.
Am I going to recommend this plumber to others struggling with plumbing issues, no not in a million years, even though he got the heating going again in a short order.
So after his visit, we’ve decided to replace the boiler and upgrade the heating system. Now being fairly conventional we’re getting 3 quotes so that we can compare prices and service. This has meant calling other plumbers to get them to come around and do a survey so they can quote.
Plumber No.2 is 45 minutes late arriving and again I’d had to text him to remind him about our appointment at 2:30 (which we’d rushed back for). Not really a good first impression.
Plumber No.3 gives us a 3-hour time slot in which they will arrive and do the survey. Now I don’t know about you but I hate this with a passion. So they’re going to arrive sometime between 1 pm and 4 pm. This means I’m going to be on tenterhooks waiting for the doorbell to ring. I’ll even dread going to the toilet in case I miss the knock at the door. Not really a good first impression. In the end, they just couldn’t be bothered to turn up. How annoyed am I, a whole afternoon wasted. Their chance of ever doing business with me or getting a referral from me, zero.
So out of 3 plumbers not one has given me a good first impression or good service.
So here’s the simple strategy, if you want to beat the competition then arrive when you say you’re going to (no excuses) and do what you said you we’re going to do.
This will raise you into the top 1% of your industry.
How many times have you been let down by unreliable tradespeople or other businesses who promise the world and then fail to deliver? It’s remarkably common, but the good news for those who read my blogs is that you’ll be able to put yourself up there by simply following the mantra of ‘under-promising and over-delivering’. So when you say you’re going to be somewhere at 2 pm, then be there at 1:55, not 2:15. I always work on arriving on time (which for me is 5 minutes early) and traffic is never a good excuse (allow for it). As Penn (from Penn and Teller) says, “to be on time is 5 minutes early, late is on time and 5 minutes late is unforgivable.” This also means simple things, like when you say you’re going to provide a quote by Friday you do, you get the idea.
One way of using your punctuality as a competitive strategy is to offer an ‘on-time guarantee’. We’ve used this many times. Quite simply guarantee that you’ll arrive when you said you would and if you’re ever late you’d pay a forfeit. A few years ago I wrote one for a painter and decorator which simply said that if he or his team were 15 minutes late getting to your property they’d pay you £30. This worked a treat and they’ve only paid out once in 5 years and that was due to a breakdown. The important point here is that if you’ve got to get off to work and your worried about being stuck waiting for the decorator, then which one would you choose, the one who guarantees to be on time (and backs it up with a written statement) or the one that says yep we’ll be on time (but doesn’t guarantee it).
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