Good, Cheap, Fast: The dilemma of providing ideal service

Just a few days ago I was in a local mechanic’s shop and amidst the shelves stacked high with dusty papers and some foreign-looking objects that were likely common knowledge auto parts, there was a simple sign hung on the window that looked into the garage. It read, “We offer three kinds of service: Good – Cheap – Fast. You can pick any two.” After my initial amusement from envisioning an old crotchety man pleased with himself as he hung this sign in his shop, I realized that is the dilemma every business owner faces when trying to offer a customer ideal service. For a laundry list of reasons, my business is very different from this mechanic’s. But when it comes to customer service, this sign accurately summarizes us both.

If it’s fast and good, it won’t be cheap. “Rush” projects are common in almost every industry. From the mechanic to the Public Relations professional, sometimes some things just cannot wait. Because a rush project can save a client from a terrible inconvenience, loss of potential business or increase their revenue, I certainly accommodate them whenever possible. In fact, one of my main reasons for keeping ahead of my planned projects is to allow for the occasional rush project. Allow me to say what most other business owners think; we keep this open time for rush projects because they’re a great source of unexpected and well-paying work. People are willing to pay more to prevent a bad situation – and thus, the dilemma of rush service. A bad business owner takes advantage of this opportunity to gauge a client in a vulnerable situation (i.e. obscene rush shipping charges or overtime wages), while a good business owner charges just enough more to compensate them for the extra hours of work and the opportunity-cost of pushing their scheduled projects to the side.

If it’s good and cheap, it won’t be fast. For clients who want the highest quality of service at the best price possible, the key is to be flexible with your deadlines and to start well ahead of when you need something done. The best example I can give here is my experience with mass mailings and the postal system. If I have a large enough mailing, I can benefit from pre-sorted postage rates which are half that of a regular stamp. This is a huge cost savings when your list is in the thousands! However, the big caveat here is that you must give yourself ample lead time for the mailing to process and hit mailboxes—I’m talking about a month. The postal service offers this discount rate, but it can take up to 25 business days to be delivered, as opposed to the standard 2-3. If you want something done good and cheap, you must be more flexible on the time frame in which you wish to have it completed. A long lead time (and ample patience) can save you a lot of money in the long run if you can plan ahead for it.

If it’s fast and cheap, it won’t be good. This combination of service is the one that most good business owners would prefer to avoid entirely. When it’s all said and done, neither the customer nor the business will be happy with a final product that was done quickly and cheaply. I know this is one of the rare instances where I might need to step away from a project if I think it will poorly reflect upon me or my business. Certainly I offer every client my best services at the fairest rates; it’s only when I’m stretched beyond reason that it becomes a problem. The two other options above prove why fast and cheap service won’t be the best quality. A business either needs to charge more for a rush project that pushes all other projects to the side or needs more time and flexibility from a client to do the best work on a tight budget.

Can we ever have all three? If you’re talking in extremes, I’d say the answer is no. An award-winning web site design done in three days for under $500 is either a scam or poor business management. In the real world, one of these three factors (time, quality or cost) would need to give. In less extreme examples, I have personally benefited from rush projects, done completely to my standard and for a fair price. The key is relationships. Once you build a good relationship with a business owner or contractor, you can work with them to achieve a good balance of all three.

As for me and the mechanic, I paid well under what the dealership would have charged me, fulfilled my inspection until 2014 and had my car back in just a few hours. So regardless of what that sign hanging in his window said, I think I just might have gotten away with choosing a little bit of all three!

 

A Penny Saved Is More Than A Penny Earned

As far back as the 17^th century, the idiom we now know very well, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” was first quoted. And though the true author of this phrase may be up for debate, the meaning is quite clear. It is just as useful to save the money we have as it is to put our efforts into earning more. For hundreds of years this remained a solid block of financial wisdom and even just a decade ago I would say it still held true. However, given the recent changes in our economy, culture and job market, I’d like to propose a more accurate version on this longstanding proverb that may become the words of wisdom we pass along to future generations.

A penny saved is more than a penny earned.

It’s quite literally what it sounds like. Keeping a hold of the pennies we have is now more cost effective than earning more pennies and in some cases even dimes and dollars. We can do more, live more and enjoy more by cutting back than we can by taking on additional means of income to finance our spending sprees. Spending less is the new way to get rich. But what makes this true? Well, there are several compelling reasons why these little copper and zinc Lincolns are worth more in your piggy bank than they are on an additional paycheck:

We underestimate how quickly pennies can add up. I can never pass up a heads-up penny (and with this economy, I might soon be picking up the “unlucky” tails-up ones too). While this is more to fulfill my childhood good-luck-nostalgia, I laugh at how quickly my coin purse fills up from these pennies from heaven. Sure it’s hardly enough to buy a cup of coffee at the end of the month, but a penny is just the monetary amount we use as an example in this quote. Think bigger – five, ten, twenty or even a hundred dollars put aside in savings can equate to a huge cushion at the end of the year. And if done right, we will have hardly missed this extra cash. Moreover, because we don’t think pennies can ever amount to much, we’re less receptive to small ways to save them. Pack your lunch or morning coffee, commute with a friend or only buy groceries you really need (not just because they’re on sale). A quarter here, a dollar there and you’ll soon find enough spare change to finance that dinner out without taking on more work or putting yourself in debt.

A penny earned is really only a fraction of a penny. If you happen to be in the 10% tax bracket, every taxed dollar you earn is worth only $0.90. But don’t forget to tack on FICA, state and a ton of other taxes I’m too depressed to mention and that little penny begins to look a whole lot smaller. What this means is that you put a lot of energy and effort into earning just a fraction of what you’re time is really worth. By placing your focus on spending less rather than earning more, you’ll gain additional time to do something other than work and enjoy the money you do have to its fullest.

If you can fully immerse yourself in the savings lifestyle, you’ll save exponentially. When I first started my own business I went into extreme savings mode. I cut out all the financial fat that I had been wasting money on for far too long (a big cable TV package, a reserved parking spot, too large of a healthcare plan) and I found hundreds of extra dollars in my monthly budget even though I was making considerably less. Though I have slowly worked my way to a more stable income and comfortable lifestyle, I realized I didn’t really want to add back in those luxuries even when I could afford them again. We still live on a meager weekly grocery bill and I’ve all but lost my excitement for retail therapy, but I truly don’t miss it. The money we don’t spend on these little things we instead put toward travel and eating out – two luxuries that are far more memorable to me than yet another pair of shoes I don’t need. Get into the habit of living a savings lifestyle and you’ll be amazed by how you’ll find fun in the challenge of saving money and lose the love for unnecessary spending.

A penny saved gains more than just dust – it gains interest. Although interest rates aren’t great and you can’t exactly invest just pennies in the stock market, there is still great value in saving and investing your money to whatever degree you can. As mentioned above, a penny earned is worth slightly less than one cent while a penny saved  and invested is worth slightly more. While earning extra pennies, you’re giving up time and energy, but saving pennies requires complete inaction. So don’t think spare change needs to sit in a pink piggy bank somewhere, put it in a savings account where it can earn (even a little bit of) money while you do nothing more than live your life.

The penny itself is worth more than one cent. Back in 2006 this New York Times article shared that it actually costs more than one cent to create a penny – 1.4 cents to be exact – because of the cost of metal and production. As the demand for certain metals continue to rise, who knows the worth of the penny now or how high it will reach before the United States Mint takes these little guys out of circulation altogether. And when that happens? Your quirky pennies that will become a relic to future generations might (might) be worth a lot more someday. This is meant more for humor than it is for financial advisement, but keep this in mind the next time you’re walking on the side walk and spot an orphaned penny – that’s at least 1.4 cents you’ve just gained!

The heads-up side of things: Learning to save your money will always be the best financial advice you can ever receive. I’ve personally found so much value in learning and living this truth because it taught me that time spent doing things I love is far more valuable than time spent earning a few extra dollars. I would much prefer to cut back on my spending and manage my wants for the ability to pursue a passionate career and live simply but happily. And while a penny earned is no longer equal to a penny saved, hearing this proverb still makes us stop and reflect on our spending habits – and for that it’s worth all the pennies in the world!

 

When To Hit Delete: Starting over is NOT the same as giving up

There are some weeks where my Monday blog topic clearly presents itself. It’s an obvious epiphany, life lesson or a piece of business advice I’m thrilled to share. But there are some weeks where finding an inspiring blog topic consumes more time and energy than some of my biggest work projects. Because this blog is more a creative outlet and not my bread and butter, I have to be careful how much I allow something that’s supposed to be an enjoyment stress me out. Well if this blog’s title isn’t indication enough…this week fell more under category #2.

I started off with everything in my advantage. I began writing good and early (I like to pre-write my blog posts no later than the Thursday prior to publishing). I even had a quote that inspired me to write about a particular topic and the ideas flowed easily. By a few paragraphs in, I realized I didn’t like the direction I was headed, but felt I had come too far to turn back. A little unsettled by the fact I didn’t love my work, I kept going. I concluded with my final thought and realized I had invested even more of my time into half-heartedly completing a project I would call “mediocre” at best. I may have been bitter, but I wasn’t going to give up. So I spent yet more time scouring my writing for ways to reorganize and direct it back to my original point – but it couldn’t be done. The editing it would require to become the finished product I wanted it to be would take more time than simply starting over. If there’s something I hate more than failing it’s wasting time – and I had successfully (or unsuccessfully) done both.

I couldn’t bear to hit delete and erase hours’ worth of work, so instead I hit “Save,” opened a new Word doc and began again. The ideas continued to flow, but not too long into writing, I realized I still wasn’t loving the direction I was headed. I read and re-read, outlined paragraph topics and jotted down ideas all in an effort to make a roadmap that would lead me to the final point that so perfectly coordinated with the quote that was the blog’s inspiration. I closed my laptop for the night and refused to confront the issue until two days later.

When I looked at my work again, my feelings hadn’t changed. I was still out-of-love with the words and turned off to the whole topic by this point. So I deleted every one of those 2,243 characters and began again. And then it hit me – I was so stubborn and unwilling to start over because I felt like starting over was the same as giving up. Instead of cutting my losses on a few hours’ worth of work, I was more willing to continue to put even more time into a project that was going to fail anyway. I know I’m not alone in this feeling whether it’s in writing, business or in life. There are times where we feel like we’ve invested so much that we can turn back, that hitting stop and starting over would be the biggest failure. No. Investing even more time into a failing project is the failure. Stopping and never staring again is the failure. But restarting and rebuilding from the ground up is a humbling and rewarding experience.

Writing has always been and will continue to be one of my most favorite hobbies. The only time it really becomes an effort is when I refuse to let the words take me where they please. This is just as applicable to life – when we’re too focused on reaching a specific end point, we lose the ability to wander down a different path and find an even better destination. I would have never thought that the struggles of writing could teach me such a broad life lesson, but I suppose my doubt is what led me to write three versions of this week’s blog in the first place.

In a funny twist of fate, I’ll share with you the original inspiration quote I worked so hard to mold my writing around. It looks like everything I just wrote was everything I wanted to write all along…

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts.” Bertrand Russell

 

You Don’t Need the Best of Everything To Make the Best of Everything

Sometimes I don’t know what to count first. My blessings—or the little moments in life that make me stop and want to count my blessings. It was the second or third time I’ve used this particular cashier at a local shop. It’s the type of job that garners little respect or attention, no matter how frequent the customers or how pleasant the small talk. But this guy has grabbed my attention on more than one occasion for no better reason than he is completely, contagiously, happy. So many visual cues tell me this guy has a lot he could be frustrated about or unhappy with, but instead he bubbles over with such contentment for the life he’s been given that I have yet to walk out of the store without a smile.

After I leave his small glow of happiness, the real work begins to wear on me again. I hear negative comments from all around. People will yell when their phone isn’t working, complain about their job or become sarcastic when someone suggests an idea they don’t like. There’s a time and place for every emotion, but why do we first seem to resort to the negative reaction to a situation? I’m reminded of a phrase I’ve seen displayed in various ways that reads:

The happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything.

It seems that some of the happiest people I have ever met are the ones who have fairly average lives. Some of these people have even dealt with major struggles and setbacks that would leave most of us feeling frustrated and pitiful. Instead, they’ve (knowingly or unknowingly) mastered the art of making the best of everything. These people aren’t naive nor are they complacent, they are simply happy, and what else is more important? If a magic genie came to grant you just one wish, I would say we’d all be smart to wish for happiness. Everything else is really secondary. Unfortunately, the people who have yet to figure this out are obvious. We can likely all pull up a real life example in our minds of a person, who on paper, is wealthy and successful, but knowing them deeper allows you to also know most of their life is spent feeling stressed, angry and unfulfilled. In contrast, are those who have learned that happiness is not having the best of everything; it’s making the best of everything.

Slowly, I too am learning to make the best of everything. Even the most unexpected and outrageous situations can be a reason to smile if you loosen up long enough to realize you’re simply not in control. Whether my career continues to excel or one day I have to take a different job to make ends meet, knowing that I have the power to be happy through anything makes any outcome okay. It’s an incredible realization that the stress we place on being happy can become the cause of our unhappiness.

Thinking back to that contagiously happy cashier, I would love to one day know that he finally got the life he dreamed of. But who am I to say that he hasn’t already?

 

Taking a Cue from Mother Nature

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Lao Tzu

So often in life, nature is something we first try to change and then try equally as hard to replicate. I might be among the worst offenders of this. I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient with my time, cut-out the waste and cram in just one more hour’s worth of work somewhere, somehow. But time and time again, this haste has led me to mistakes, accidents and set-backs that in the end required more of my time than if I had just tried to do things right in the first place. Just a few days ago I was inspired by the Lao Tzu quote, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Ancient philosophers have quite a knack for making the most obvious statements while lining them with an intensely deep meaning that changes your world in a matter of seconds. And with this quote, I began to reexamine the perceived benefit of rushing through life’s tasks.

I can recall countless instances where rushing has cost me valuable time and caused unnecessary frustration. In the morning, I always feel like I’m saving time by multi tasking while brushing my teeth, but when toothpaste ends up on clothes and carpets, I spend more time cleaning up a mess that would otherwise have not been created. One specific morning, I was reaching for a canister of oatmeal with one hand and opening a drawer to grab a spoon with the other, when the entire canister came crashing to the floor. I lost about 20 minutes that day sweeping up oatmeal all for the possibility of saving a few extra seconds. Aside from a few messes here and there, rushing while driving to a meeting, proof-reading an important document or balancing my finances could lead to consequences far more severe. I suppose the underlying point is – how much time could I really be gaining by overloading myself with unnecessary multi-tasking?

In looking to nature for examples, I realized far more important tasks are accomplished every day, moving at the exact same pace they have been for all time. There’s something to be said for steady and consistent progress. Flowers bloom, animals migrate and weather changes just as it should to keep everything else moving in harmony. Could you imagine if just one piece of this puzzle were to rush its role? Everything else would be thrown off to create repercussions almost unimaginable. Most interesting of all is that we might be the only species inclined to rush. Where does this pressure come from? Why do we feel like what we accomplish in the time we’re given is never enough? I’m sure we can each answer this based upon different reflections, but what’s important is that we stop rushing long enough to at least ask.

In my own life, I can easily pick out the almost comical examples of how I try to change nature, just to replicate it. Our natural state is what we first try to improve upon, but ultimately use as our model for perfection. Just last week I spent a day rushing through my to-do list, feeling overwhelmed by everything I needed to get done. My reason for the rush? I wanted to have time to do yoga that afternoon so I could “unwind and de-stress.”  My new goal is to take a cue from Mother Nature and find a pace at which I’m making steady and consistent progress. For a serial multi-tasker this will be hard habit to break, but if it allows me to find more moments of clarity and contentment to appreciate the natural perfection of the world around me, it’s a challenge I’m willing to accept.

One of my favorite photos of Scott and me in front of Penn State’s Old Main Building. Every year, these flowers bloom in perfect harmony with spring and summer on campus.

 

The Key to Time Management: Increasing Your Personal Bandwidth

Have you ever had moments in your life when you think “There is no way I will ever be busier than I am right now!” Then months or years later, you take on more projects, a new job or maybe a hobby and you again think, “No, now is the time in my life when I’m at my absolute busiest—I will never be able to fit even one more thing on my schedule.” But somehow we do. And so this gradual adjustment to an ever-increasing list of commitments continues on. It’s interesting for me to think back on times in my life when I felt the busiest and most stressed. My task list of those days now appear mild in comparison to my current schedule – but then again I was a college student who made afternoon naps a standing appointment on my daily agenda.

So how do some of the busiest people in the world continue to take on more tasks and always seem to find the time to accommodate them? I’ve concluded that it’s only possible through the well-refined skill of “increasing your bandwidth.” Just like the bandwidth on your internet determines the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time, we each have our own bandwidth for the amount of work we can individually take on in a single day.

Think of the well-known saying “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” Us “busy people” know that in order to possibly accomplish all of our given tasks we need to work quickly, efficiently and stay organized. There’s no room for procrastination or second-guessing; we have to keep the projects moving through the pipeline in anticipation of the new projects that will be added to our agenda whether we like it or not. You might be able to think of a few people right now – that when a task is asked of them, they dive in head first with how they will tackle it and are already on step 2 before anyone else has picked up a pen. These are the people who are fortunate enough to have learned the skill of increasing their bandwidth, or gradually easing into taking on more and more tasks so that one or two rush projects thrown in the mix doesn’t even break their stride.

I truly believe we can all learn to increase our personal bandwidth, but unfortunately it’s not as simple as calling up our internet provider and asking for an increase on our account. It can’t be bought with money, it can only be learned through time and practice—and simply getting comfortable with processing more data more quickly. For me personally, this has become a critical component for success in my business. In addition to my continual clients, I receive many one-time projects that come with little notice and a short window of opportunity to say Yes. If I let other projects build up, when this unplanned business comes my way, I’d be forced to turn it down. It has proven invaluable to me to keep my bandwidth as open as possible so that I can always take on these projects. It’s also amazing the way we can adapt to stress and a high volume of work. I’ve found that during slow periods of work, my motivation to tackle even the most reasonable task list diminishes. Yet, when I’m busier than ever, throwing family obligations and even planning a wedding into the mix and I knock these tasks off my list with ease.

At the end of the day, we’re only ever as busy as we make ourselves. You’d be surprised where you can find extra time in your day to accomplish something if you really want to and you’d also be surprised the unnecessary items you can take off your list because they’re inhibiting your efficiency. What’s most important is to never assume you know how busy or how free someone’s schedule is just from looking at them. Just because a busy person can get the task done, doesn’t mean we should expect them to pick up the slack. This might be a golden opportunity for us to practice expanding our own bandwidth and to become a more valuable member of the team.

 

Protecting Our Most Valuable Asset—-Our Time

To say these past couple of weeks have been “busy” is a gross understatement of the whirlwind the month of January has been for me.  But it’s been the good kind of busy. The busy that makes you feel like you’ve finally hit your stride in a long race, where you can no longer feel your legs but you know you’re sprinting as fast as you can. Yes, that sums up my first month of 2012 quite well—a marathon that I’ve also been sprinting. This blur of business meetings, new clients and planning events has made it unmistakably apparent that time is among our most valuable assets.

As a child, my mother instilled in me this same concept. She would tell me to “be a good steward of your time.” Back then, I found this terribly confusing because my name was Stephanie, not “Stewart” but now, not only do I understand the phrase, I understand its importance. We need to protect our time like we would any other item of great value because ultimately how we invest our time directly affects the lives we lead.

My time is of particularly high value to me because it’s my product, it’s what I sell. When I take on a new client and create a communications strategy for them, I am selling my time and my expertise (which also took more time to achieve). Unlike a bakery that sells cakes, I can’t go out and buy more time when the demand for my services exceeds my product supply. It is with this realization of my business model that I’ve recently become more protective of my time. Just as a business wouldn’t give away their tangible products for free, I can’t put my time into projects and activities that don’t earn something positive in return.

So how do I protect my time? It comes from learning to do one of the hardest things in the world—saying no. If we allow it to happen, our time can easily be taken away from us by unproductive activities and other people who are not respectful of our time’s value. In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for me to fill my week with meetings and commitments that didn’t result in future business for my firm or even a meaningful relationship—only a loss of time for which I can never make up. So now before I commit my time to anything, I ask myself “Will this bring me joy, fulfillment or money?” If I can’t answer yes to at least one of these, I don’t do it (It’s important to ask yourself all three categories, because time on the earth isn’t just for earning money, it’s for doing what brings you joy and what fulfills your emotional and physical needs. This encompasses hobbies, charity, time with loved ones and exercise).

Remaining a good steward of our time takes a conscious effort, but it’s necessary for productivity and ultimately for success. I’ll leave you with this final quote to consider from a man whose time and expertise was so valuable to us all. Steve Jobs once described the battle for time as it relates to success in this way, ““It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”