Treating every job as a custom order is very time consuming. You want to be flexible to meet client needs, but being overly custom has some serious down sides. Things take longer, there is more room for error, and you may deliver something completely different than what the client had in mind.
In order to avoid the drain of customization, you need to standardize your practices. Having standard offerings can keep things humming along inside your business and help you avoid serious time drain. Its okay to standardize. It means you present a consistent product or service. And yes, its actually easier to customize if you are doing it from a standard base.
Have you ever watched the reality show, American Choppers? They build custom motorcycles. Even though each bike is a serious custom job, they have to adhere to certain standards. Every motorcycle needs certain things to be a motorcycle. They aren’t reinventing the bike. They simply customize the standard each time they build a custom job.
Save Time, and Money!
Every time you customize something, you are going to spend a lot more time, and probably money. You can pass some, but not all, of this on to your client. If you go into every job with no plan and just throw it together, you are far from maximizing your time.
Why should you care about maximizing your time? Because you can take on more work and scale your business better if you learn how to do it.
Start by building out systems for your basic steps. If you always conduct a client interview, put down regular interview questions on paper. If there are basic things you always do when you build a website, write those down. Perhaps you can even create building blocks to help you move a job forward faster. This might be digital templates or pieces of physical products that you always use.
By creating standard systems, you can move a job forward a lot more quickly. You can also avoid unnecessary errors.
Error Heaven
You do you best not to make mistakes. But you are human, after all. When you customize on the fly, it is much easier to make a mistake. Sometimes, you make verbal promises that you forget to write down. Maybe, you make a change but don’t fully realize what impact it will have on the entire job.
The more you customize, the more opportunity there is for things to go wrong. You may catch all of those things before you deliver to your client, but what a time eater!
If you have standards, they help you avoid errors. One great standard is to have a contract for each sale. The contract should list everything that you and your client need to know about the sale. If its not on the contract, its not going to be done. On the other hand, if it is on the contract, you will be sure not to miss it.
Standards also help you to streamline processes and bring others up to speed more quickly. This is especially important when its more than just you working on the job.
Don’t freestyle everything. Creating systems, procedures, and standards can save you a lot of heartburn later on.
Expectations
You may think its a great selling point that you offer customized service based on unique need. And it is, to an extent. However, you also need to be sure to deliver consistently across the board. If your customization leads you into things you are not as proficient in, you could under deliver for the client.
Sometimes, a client comes to you because she has seen your work. In this case, she hires you to do a job, and you deliver a customized solution. Problem is, she really liked how you did it for the other client, and is disappointed to have something different.
Having standards helps you to set expectations. Not only expectations of the end result, but a good handle on the time a job will take, the cost, etc. If you get too custom, these things can be all over the board, and even you won’t fully grasp them.
Riff the Standard
Okay, here’s the hidden secret about the power of standardization. If you create strong standards, you actually have a better platform to customize from. If you save time and energy on the basic things, you can get your creative on where it will make the most impact.
Don’t be afraid of standards. Use them to help you toward your creative goal. You don’t need to reinvent your process each time you have a new customer. Figure out the best systems for working with a client and use them over and over again. Add your flair on top of that. A great analogy is the cake decorator. Beneath all of his beautiful and unique decorations is the same cake, every time.
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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow Bradford on Twitter @bradfordshimp.
