Looking for Value?

“It’s unwise to pay too much but it’s unwise to pay too little.

When you pay too much you lose a little money, that is all.

When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.

It can’t be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it’s well to add something for the risk you run.

And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better!”

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

I thought I’d share this piece of wisdom from John Ruskin that I came across the other day. There is so much wisdom in this quote, whether you are a consumer or a business purchasing goods from its suppliers, and is as true now as it was back in the time of Ruskin.

Now, I am not saying that finding something that is cheap or inexpensive is not good. After all, what is finding a bargain? Is it not, finding something at a cheaper price than you would otherwise be willing to pay? So, you save money. Fantastic.

However, in the normal course of events bargains don’t exist in all areas at all times that we would like to buy things. So, if we are not getting what we want, ie. Value, from the thing(s) that we are buying then there is something wrong.

If we’re not getting the value we want then we need to ask ourselves if we are getting caught in Ruskin’s ‘lowest bidder’ scenario.

I know economic times are tough and every cost has to be watched but rather than just focus on costs and prices alone, perhaps we should be stepping back to look at the complete value picture. For example, if we put the cheapest inputs into our system then can we seriously expect to generate outputs of the highest value. I think that’s called Alchemy, right?

When I suggest that we need to look at the whole value picture, this needs to include:

• What we pay our staff
• The type of training that we provide for them
• The way that we treat our customers
• The inputs that we use for our business

So, if price is a real driver for you and/or your business ask yourself this:

• What are you getting and what are you paying for?
• Are you getting the value that you are looking for?
• If not, where’s the problem lie?

Hope you enjoyed this short piece. Please comment, share your thoughts and share with your friends and contacts.

Thanks to wetwebwork for the photo