ADDING VALUE THROUGH QUALITY
Dr. Lawrence Steinmetz, a leading authority on getting top dollar for products and services, maintains value can be embedded in any product or service in one of five ways: Quality, service, delivery expertise, pricing strategy (high/medium/or low), and marketing and sales savvy.
Of Steinmetz’s five value-added strategies, for the ready-mix industry, quality may be the hardest to implement.
The difficulty is not because quality is lacking – the ready mix industry excels at providing a quality product in conformance to project specifications. Instead, industry-wide excellence makes it difficult for individual ready mix producers to claim the high ground for quality in a given marketplace, as quantifying quality can be difficult to do.
Central Ready Mixed, who serves the 53172 delivery area and supplied the concrete for our driveway in May of 2004, demonstrates the difficulty, promoting the quality of their product in their Yellow Pages ad as “the best concrete you can pour – period.” I love the pride radiating from their assertion (our driveway does not contradict the declaration) and the sound bite fits well on business cards and letterhead and in brochures, sales letters, advertisements, project bids, and web banner ads.
But the14 other ready-mix companies serving the 53172 delivery area also emphasize quality concrete in their ads and business communication. With every company claiming the quality high ground, quality concrete becomes an expectation, not a customer benefit … empty rhetoric, not a value-added strategy … a common, meaningless claim customers can ignore.
Quality is not a meaningless claim for Central Ready Mix. The company has developed an exceptionally high level of technical expertise and has provided innovative, world-class mix design solutions for some of metropolitan Milwaukee’s premier structures and infrastructures.
But to use quality as a value-added strategy, you must demonstrate how your quality is outstanding compared to your competition’s quality … in terms meaningful and important to your customers. Sound bites cannot do this.
Beyond simple conformance to project specifications, a concrete producer’s technical expertise can be employed to provide improved workability (a measure of how difficult or easy it is to place, consolidate, and finish the concrete) for the concrete as delivered to the job site, and durability and uniform strength and appearance for the finished concrete.
Selection (or availability) of mix elements – sand, stone, cement, fibers, admixtures, etc. – can add value for customers, as can the type of equipment and protocols used to batch the load. Project experience, testing, and field data management can also help differentiate one company’s quality from another.
Beyond qualitative measures, emotion can also play a critical role in implementing quality as a value-added strategy. Think of how powerful Central Ready Mixed’s assertion would be if the declaration was a quote, perhaps part of a testimonial from Jerry Kaminski, project executive for C.G. Schmidt, Inc, construction managers for the Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Quality is one strategy for avoiding commoditization. But to implement the strategy, your company must demonstrate, quantitatively and/or emotionally, how and why your quality outpaces your competition’s quality claim.
To comment on this post, click HERE and include "Quality" in the subject line.
Next week’s post will focus on adding value through service.
Post Script …
I have the best job in one of the very best industries in the world. I promote concrete, the most beautiful, durable, versatile, available, and environmentally friendly construction material in the history of the planet.
If, on this Labor Day, you are looking to improve your work life, consider a career in the ready-mixed concrete industry. Local ready-mix producers need people like you: Proud, positive, knowledgeable, safe, efficient, skilled, and service-oriented. To get a feel for the industry and the important roles ready-mix employees play in their communities, click HERE.