Quality before Quantity

Nowadays, a lot of companies and people focus so much on quantity and sometimes quality is simply an afterthought. It's all about making more money. Don't get me wrong, I like money too, but I also believe doing things based on quantity over quality is a "short-term gain, long-term loss" strategy for you and everyone. There is a better way: quality before quantity.

Here are some examples of quantity vs quality questions to clarify what I mean:

How many customers? How much money? vs How much value did we provide to customers?
How many have we sold? vs Is this a good product? Did we provide good service?
How many hours did I work? Can you work on weekends? vs What value am I providing to my employer & vice versa?
How fast can you fix it? vs Was it a good fix?

Quality before quantity is quality first followed by quantity. And better believe it, companies and people using that mindset are not worried about money because they provide great value to their customers and, in return, the customers give them more of their money in the long term. Great companies like, Google / Amazon / Apple, fully embodies that strategy with their product and service offerings. They invest a great deal of money to come up with quality solutions to people's problems -- providing great value -- first, and then people can't help themselves to give them money.

Sometimes, especially when I was younger, I was also guilty of picking quantity over quality. While that provided a quick fix and everyone's happy, over the long term, the quick fix is never enough and eventually would have to be replaced with a better quality fix. So overall, quick fix costs more as they need to be thrown away and replaced later by a quality fix. Sometimes, you do need a quick fix, and that is ok as long as everyone knows that it is meant to be temporarily and is ok with the cost of replacing it with something better later.

There are so many "cheap" products online -- low quality imitations for the sake of lower prices. When I see them, I just feel like 'what a waste of resources to make a few quick bucks'. People need money, I get that, but there are so many better ways to make money by making quality products. Of course, it's a two-sided problem as consumers are buying them because they are cheaper, which they eventually have to buy many replacements and then finally buy a quality product later.

It is feeling more like a rant than an article with meaning life lessons, so gonna end it while it is still good -- quality over quantity.

This is part of the Essential Life Skills blog series.