Don’t Do Quick and Dirty Work

Years ago, before the emergence of Squarespace, Wix, and the host of other DIY website builders, I worked in a web development shop, where we built websites from scratch. Our sites could take weeks to up to months to build and publish depending upon complexity.

It always surprised me how often business owners would come in and say they needed an ‘emergency’ site by the end of the week. They assured us they needed nothing fancy, weren’t concerned with how the design looked, and the site didn’t need to do anything special.

They just needed a quick and dirty job, and convinced us they would be happy with whatever we produced. Upon delivery, however, reactions were “Oh, that’s not quite what I expected,” or “Why can’t it do this?” or “My boss isn’t going to like this.”

“People remember a lack of quality a whole lot longer than the speed at which it was delivered.”

Lesson learned? People remember a lack of quality a whole lot longer than the speed at which you delivered it. They forget how quickly something was done and the tradeoff they made for it.

In other words, the dirty stays a lot longer than the quick.

The next time someone asks for a quick and dirty job, just say no. Don’t fall for it. Remind customers why higher quality takes time, and that they’ll appreciate it later. They will quickly forget the wait, and remember how good the end result was.