You Get What You Pay For…

I have a friend who took his young daughter to day camp for the first time this week. His description of walking in to the camp for the first time demands to be blogged about…

He calls me on the phone and says, “I walked in, and it felt like I had walked into an underground Rave”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“The walls – I kid you not – were all painted straight black.”

“That seems odd for a kids’ day camp…”

“Yeah! And stuff wasn’t really organized or set up nicely. Oh, and there was a strobe light flashing.”

“A strobe light?”

“Yup”

“Ok, stupid question, but humor me here. Why, at 10AM at a kids’ day camp, was there a strobe light flashing?”

“I don’t know! But it was. Oh, and to top it all off, there was a person on a mic leading the kids in song, but the mic wasn’t balanced at all so it was all squawky and ear piercingly annoying.”

“It sounds to me like you were dropping your daughter off at a day camp straight out of A Clockwork Orange. Was Malcom McDowell one of the camp counselors?”

“I wouldn’t have been surprised. But the price is right.”

“How much is it?”

“Zero dollars!”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s free.”

“Well if it’s free, what are you complaining about?!?”

“I know, I know, you get what you pay for…”

True dat. True dat.

And that my friends, is the lesson:

Lesson: You get what you pay for – Simple enough, and you’ve heard it before, but we all forget this simple idea. You absolutely do get what you pay for. Which is not to say that you can’t find amazing bargains, or that anything that is more expensive is automatically better, but when your only, or primary, criteria is based on budget, you will frequently find yourself regretting your buying decisions. (This is why you should seriously consider hiring a qualified professional speaker for you next event instead of trying to find someone to do it “pro bono” – remember, you get what you pay for!)

Bonus Lesson: If you are providing a service, you *can not* buy-in to “you get what you pay for” What this means is that if you do offer to something pro bono, or on the cheap, the worst thing you can do is deliver low quality and then shrug at the customer and say, “well, you get what you pay for.” People don’t care how little they are paying you; if you agree to do something, you must deliver what you said you would in the manner you said you would. Ideally, you’ll deliver even more than you said you would. You word is your bond, and at the end of the day your reputation is the only thing you have.

This isn’t to say that you should go broke by over-delivering. Instead, this means that you set up expectations and outcomes very clearly at the beginning of a business relationship,no matter how much (or little) you are getting paid. Once you agree, you deliver high quality, regardless of what great deal you gave the client.

The conclusion
In the story above, my buddy was laughing the whole time he was telling me the story, so he wasn’t angry about it. And, I think overall his daughter had a good experience, so it all worked out ok. But it should create great food for thought the next time you are hunting around for the cheapest provider of an important service…