Quality Control in a Startup Business… Is it Too Early to Think About? – Article #18

As you’re trying to establish a name and niche for your new business within the marketplace, you’ll eventually encounter quality control issues. Regardless of whether you offer physical products or services, I dare say that all business owners—even brand new startup owners—need to come up with plans to control the quality of their goods or services right from the beginning. So I’ve created a list of my top five ways to establish quality controls in a startup business like yours.

Podcast Time Index For “Quality Control to Protect Your Product or Service”

00:30 – Quality Control of Your Product or Service
00:39 – These boots are made for life
04:09 – What is Quality Control?
06:35 – Identifying the “Sight Lines”
07:09 – Establishing the right environment
09:00 – Knowing what the perfect Product or Service is
10:31 – Training your Team
14:32 – Testing
16:09 – Tracking quality standards
19:32 – In Conclusion

Address the Sightlines

In my late teens, my brother and I owned and operated a grass-cutting business called Lawn Care by the Boys. My mom was proud of us, and she wanted us to be proud of the work we did, too. Therefore, whenever we left the house for the day, she would tell us, “Boys, you must address the sightlines.” Now, you may not know what she was talking about. But we did. We knew exactly what she meant.

You see, when people came home from work and drove up to their houses, the first thing they’d see was the front yard. That was the first sightline. If we had cut the grass that day, they’d know it. Next, they’d pull into the driveway or the garage and walk through a front or back door. Therefore, those areas needed to look pristine. If we left a piece of grass on the sidewalk, they would definitely notice. Then, they’d notice another piece of grass and another. If we left grass shavings all over the driveway, our work would look sloppy and chances are, our customers wouldn’t have been very happy. Sure, we mowed their lawns, but we left a mess of grass or debris all over their sightlines.

You know, people aren’t going to care much about the back corner of their property. It isn’t in their sightlines. However, my mom was teaching us to treat the whole yard as if it were in the customers’ sightlines. She was telling us to control the quality of our service, to do more than just the task at hand. Yes, we mowed lawns, but we did more than that. We made the lawns and the surrounding environment aesthetically pleasing to the eye. We gave customers’ homes a cleaned, polished look. Essentially, we gave their houses curb appeal.

Steps to Set Up Quality Control

Investopedia describes quality control as “a process through which a business seeks to ensure that a product’s quality is maintained or improved and that manufacturing errors are reduced or eliminated.” In other words, quality control requires you the business owner to establish an environment where the entire team strives for perfection and to make sure your team members understand the process. This is done by creating benchmarks, training, and product or service testing. The team must know the process and be monitored to confirm the “sightlines are addressed.”

#1 Identify Perfection.

First, you have to establish the environment. As a business owner, you must know what perfection is for your product or service. In my grass-cutting days, perfection looked like clean sidewalks and driveways. Customers didn’t see grass on the sidewalks, and they didn’t see areas a lawnmower missed in the yard. All the grass was uniform. All the debris was moved from the lawn, from the flower beds, and from the streets.

In the financial realm, for our team, perfection looks like a completed financial planning process where clients are taking action to reach specific goals. They aren’t just following orders. They understand the reasoning behind their financial plans, and they’re moving forward with the plans.

In your business, then, what does perfection look like?

#2 Train Your Team.

Once you’ve identified perfection, it’s time to train your team. Show them what perfection looks like so they know what you expect from them. Then, train them on how to achieve it. Be as detailed as possible so your team members know exactly how you measure their success.

If you’re giving team members a 90-day probationary period, what criteria will you use to judge them once that period has passed? Or if you give year-end bonuses based on productivity, what must they do to be “productive?” In other words, don’t just define success. Teach your team members how to achieve it.

#3 Test Your Product or Services Against the Prescribed Specifications.

In addition to training your team members, you’ll want to test your product or service against the prescribed standards you’ve set for perfection. If you’re making or selling a product, you know what the perfect product should be. Therefore, you’ll know an imperfect product when you see one, and you can train your team members to spot imperfections as well. Have team members randomly check product samples. Hold up your products to your standard of perfection. If they don’t meet specifications, then find out why. Is there a margin of error in the manufacturing process? Was there a problem during shipment? Did human error play a part in the problem? Once you identify the source of the problem, you can fix it. Then, your product will be “perfect” again.

If you’re dealing with a service-based business where there’s no tangible widget, then testing specifications could take a little more time. Perhaps you send customer satisfaction surveys to clients upon the completion of a job. Maybe you have team members make follow-up phone calls to determine client satisfaction. Do you, as the business owner, follow behind your team members to ensure they do their jobs correctly? Can you place a manager in charge of that? Quality control testing within a service-based industry may take more time. Quantifying results might get tricky. However, it’s every bit as important to test the quality of your services as it is to test the quality of your products.

#4 Track the Results.

Over time, quality can wain. It can shift or drift a little bit. If you manufacture products, a machine’s blade could shift a millimeter to the right or left, cutting your products off-center. If you provide services to your customers, your team members could become slightly lackadaisical and start cutting corners to finish a job quicker or to go home earlier.

In one of my past articles, Clear Financial Reports Entice Business Buyers, I spoke about KPIs or Key Performance Indicators. In order to track the results of your quality control measures, you need to have those KPIs in place. Maybe they’re product returns or customer complaints. If you’re in the medical field, maybe your KPIs are customers leaving. If your product or service has remained “perfect,” or high quality, then such events should be minimum. For example, you’ll probably have very few returns if the product is meeting expectations. Or, you’ll have fewer customer complaints if your team members are doing their jobs correctly.

But the only way you’ll know the results is if you track them. Use a spreadsheet to track product or service results. Rely on your management systems to calculate customer returns or to tabulate customer complaints. Have a team manager oversee production. No matter what, you have to be able to track the results of the quality control measures in your business so that you can hold your team members and your business accountable for producing “perfect” products or services.

#5 Use Quality Control to Inspire Your Team Members.

So you’ve launched your business, and your product or service is underway. In order to sustain and build a platform for growth, quality control must be a part of your business. Believe it or not, the most important part of quality control might just be your attitude. You see, quality control shouldn’t be a burden. Don’t be like the rookie business owner who uses quality control as a stick to beat team members over the head. That’s not it at all. Don’t make quality control a yoke on your team. Don’t weigh them down.

Instead, use quality control in your business as a method of inspiration. Use it to show your team how good the company can be. Paint the vision, and paint it with a broad brush. Let your team internalize your vision. If you have the right team—as I’ve discussed in the past—then they’ll pull with you. They too will strive for perfection. Then, rather than quality control being a burden, it becomes a method and a process.

Therefore, keep your attitude right in quality control. Use it to give bonuses. Use it to inspire your team. People want to be inspired. They want to feel that they are a part of a “good” organization. Since they’ve chosen to be there, inspire them. Give them hope.

You know, it’s easy to make people feel beaten down. This world can drag us all down. Be sure to show your team members that quality control in a startup business is not a burden. It’s a way that you can inspire them and show what perfection is. With the right attitude and quality controls in place, you and your business can stand out for all the right reasons.

Join me in my next article as I discuss driving sales in your business!

If you’re finding that establishing effective quality control measures is a more difficult process than you’d hoped, reach out to our team! Our team would be happy to help.