“Quality is doing it right when no one is looking.” – Henry Ford

Henry Ford’s statement is great advice for new businesses and for businesses which have been in existence for any length of time. The performance of any business must be the best it can be if the business will be successful. We have all seen businesses that perform “just good enough” to get by during each day. Those businesses will not succeed; they will ultimately fail.

When we start a business we are all pumped up with pride and good intentions to perform as well as anyone can. We all plan our business relations so as to make our customers know that we are honest, ethical, and well-intended owners or employees. Our marketing talks about our product or service in glowing terms, and our offerings are as close to what our prospects want, or need, as we can make them.

We want our customers to know that we have the best product or service in our industry and it will be exactly, or better, than the customer needs. We want happy customers who are glad that we found them and marketed to them and who are glad that they became our customers. We want them to know how grateful we are for their business.

Happy, satisfied customers become activists for our businesses and for our offerings. They become our best marketing spokespeople and tell everyone that they know how great we are, recommending that all their acquaintances become our customers. Their recommendations are valid, proven, and sincere. We could not ask for better marketing advocates, and their sincerity is a great customer gathering tool.

Quality should be the main objective in our production, marketing, and customer service. It should be the one word which we seriously value and know that should never be compromised. It should be the main value in our marketing and the best trait of our performance. It will make us successful and, if it is lacking or tainted, will bring failure to our business and our sales.

Look at the other businesses that we know that have reduced the quality in their performance or products. Are they as good as they once were? Are they aware of their compromised offerings, or have they just become sloppy in their manufacturing or marketing? Is their reduced quality intentional, or is it accidental? Quality reflects our ethics, honesty, and trustworthiness. It makes us the business that others want to support.

Henry Ford instructed us that quality is the backbone of a great business, that we should always maintain the quality of every aspect of our business as high as we can. He taught us that we should preserve the quality of whatever we do in our business to the level that is “right” even when no one is watching us.

Gratitude Marketing means that we provide the best offerings that we can for our customers and appreciate their business. It also means that the quality of our customer service, like everything that we do in our business, is maintained at the highest level possible. We must provide better quality in our customer service than anyone else, daring others to join us at that level. Please leave me your comments here, or email me at Jim@SOC4Now.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.