Give Your All

How Bad is it to Give a Little Bit Less Effort?

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“I actually was very satisfied. The products I ordered were all that I expected and more. Everyone was very satisfied with the selections. I got everything I ordered and it came in a timely fashion. I didn't have to wait more than three days to get it and I was not disappointed with how it came. Everything was neatly packaged and in great condition. I must say I am very pleased with your service and want to continue doing business with you. I actually have another order I want to make today.”

Emerald from Rochester, NY
Giving a little bit less effort does not get you just a little bit less in results. Leaving yourself needing 5% improvement may leave you getting 95% lower results.

That’s because almost good enough gets you nowhere. No sales, no goodwill, no customers. The lie of mediocrity is that partial effort gives you partial results. In fact, the results from getting almost everything right are usually far lesser than the results you get once everything is put together perfectly.

If you have the perfect products; the perfect price; the perfect display; but a bad location, your business won’t work well. You can change this sentence to make any one of these pieces bad with all of the others being good and you will see the same thing. Once you fix the one weak link in your chain, everything comes together.

I see this all the time with Africa Imports customers. They need to do maybe 10 things right. Once 8 of these are done, they get worn out and quit if things are not going great for them yet. Because there is still something that is not right in their promotions, they don’t get the sales that they think they need.

The other side of this is that when you are at the top (the best choice in the world for your customers), then a tiny increase in effort and quality can translate into huge gains. What little things can you see in your business that still need to be fixed? You can probably make your business a lot better with just a little effort.