A Lesson in Quality

Recently I’ve been working on a book with a client, and one of the lessons being taught has to do with quality. In a nutshell, you don’t want to accept second best simply to pay a lower price. Putting out the extra money to get what you really need will save you double the effort, time and money down the road. 

I recently had a object lesson in this myself. For a multitude of reasons I’d been planning on switching to Macintosh for a couple years. I had just been putting it off because I knew there’d be a learning curve on it, and also knew it would be quite a bit more money than just another Windows computer. But at the beginning of this year I knew I had to get a new laptop for an extended out-of-town trip, and decided enough was enough—I’d just get what I really wanted: a MacBook Pro.

It turned out that the learning curve was remarkably short. Two weeks after I purchased my new MacBook, I was up and running and ready to go. I set off on my trip fully operational on the Mac.

I was out of town far longer than expected—almost three months, and had an incredibly abbreviated work schedule the whole time while still maintaining my normal client load. To put it mildly, that Mac saved my ass. Just because of its amazing speed and efficiency, it improved my production by at least 25 percent, allowing me to accomplish more work in less time. 

When I got home, I put the Mac to work in another way my Windows computers couldn’t have touched: music. The quality of my music demos has increased well over 100 percent, partially due to the use of that Mac. 

Lesson learned! I wish I’d made that switch years ago. 

So here’s the lesson for you: just spend the money to get the product or service you know will really do the job. 

That does, of course, include me.