Lesson Forty-Eight: Have You Bought Caviar Recently?

Try your best. Be the best you can be. Being the best is how you achieve success, right?

Wrong.Most people don’t really want the best.

When I go out for dinner, I don’t want the best. Even if it’s a nice dinner, I’d be very happy with good. I don’t want the best car, I don’t want the best house, or the best TV, or the best stereo, or the best computer or the best of anything.

Rolex makes the best watch, Rolls Royce the best car, Armani the best suits. I’ll never buy any of those things, even if money wasn’t an object.The best is excessive, high maintenance and not worth the cost.

No, most of us don’t want the best. It’s not important to us. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever truly wanted the best of anything.

I just want good.What I don’t want is average, and I won’t tolerate bad.

So if you think about it like that, business is not that hard. You don’t have to be the best, you don’t even have to be great. All you have to avoid is being average. Average is right down the middle. It’s wishy-washy, non-committal, goes unnoticed, dull, grey, plain, blah. It’s nothing in particular. Average is boring.

How can you be good? The best way to start is by defining average. Look at your industry. The highest quality level of service and innovation shared by 50% or more of your competitors is the average mark. Anything below that is bad. Anything above is good.

Now tell yourself, your staff and your customers that you’ll never be satisfied with average again and challenge yourself to better the average by 100%. If the average turn around time in your business is two days, do it in one. If the average product lasts 5 years, make sure yours lasts 10. 100% improvement over average gets you to good. Good is money well spent.

Once you’re standing from a position of good, and surveying your competitors and their pitiful average, you’ll realize just how bad average is. Forget about being the best. If most customers will settle for average, imagine what good would do for your business.