Some years ago, American automobile companies had a
problem. Japanese cars were taking market share away from the
American companies because they were perceived to be of better
quality. The solution, of course, was to make better-quality cars.
As simple as that might seem, it proved to be quite complicated.
Quality may seem a straightforward concept, but it isn’t. In
the case of automobiles, different buyers had different ways of defining
and evaluating quality. Some buyers would visit a showroom,
open a car’s door, and slam the door shut, determining
quality by the sound of the door’s slamming. Some car companies
responded to this measure simply enough by adding sound insulation
that gave the slamming door a solid thunk sound. Other
buyers defined quality by the paint job, reasoning that if a car has
a f lawless paint job, it must also have f lawless mechanicals. Still
others had their own methods for determining quality. Is the car
with sound deadening a higher-quality vehicle than the car without
it?
In marketing terms, quality is largely defined and measured
by the subjective perceptions of a target market. For better or
worse, your prospective customers may not have the same standards
of evaluating quality that those within your own profession
do. Doctors who have the respect of their peers are most likely
to be those who can make the most accurate diagnoses, consistently
prescribe and administer the most effective treatment, or
spearhead research that leads to new treatment or new understanding
of the human body.
Though it may seem superficial, patients are less aware of the
behind- the- scenes intricacies of the medical profession and
judge practitioners based largely on bedside manner and the ability
and willingness to communicate with patients. If asked, “If you
were ill, would you prefer the doctor who could quickly cure your
illness but was somewhat gruff or the one who would talk nicely
and comfort you but couldn’t offer as effective a cure?” few of us
would choose the latter. Yet in real life, because we probably
wouldn’t know which doctor was better equipped to cure our illness,
the latter doctor would likely be perceived as the better one.
Those within a professional group are capable of judging another’s
abilities by that profession’s measures. In the eyes of your
target market, however, professional skills are only one set of criteria
used to evaluate quality and decide with whom to do business.
Factors like location and the look and feel of physical
facilities have little bearing on members’ standing within their
profession. The teacher of the year, for example, if chosen by
other educators, will probably be chosen on the basis of his or her
abilities to motivate and teach. A teacher assigned to a beautifully
appointed high-tech classroom that is convenient to major highways
would have no advantage over a teacher in an old school that
is well off the beaten track. However, in the world of competing
for, say, teaching writing skills to corporate managers, the centrally
located state-of-the-art classroom would have a compelling
advantage over the less convenient and less attractive classroom,
even if the latter had a more capable teacher.
This is not to say quality doesn’t matter; it does. It is to say
that there are different conceptions of the keys to quality. In
operating your own business, you need to be sensitive to the marketplace
definition of quality as well as to your own profession’s
definition of quality.
The point in short is that knowing how to run a business is
as important as knowing how to exercise the skill itself that you
are selling to your market. Many wonderful architects, teachers,
social workers, and other professionals have been less than successful
in running their own businesses, despite their professional
abilities. And many less-than-outstanding practitioners in
those same professions have done well in business. Of course,
the ideal scenario is to be an excellent practitioner and an excellent
small business manager.
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