In the film The Founder, about Ray Kroc- the man who made McDonald’s into a billion-dollar company, there’s a speech about success. Ray Kroc, played by Michael Keaton, keeps listening to it over and over again throughout his journey. He listens to it as a mediocre milkshake maker salesman, as a McDonald’s partner, and finally as the CEO.
The speech outlines how genius, education, or talent, always fall short of achieving success. The only thing that will guarantee that you become successful is persistence. That’s the lesson in business. Nothing can take the place of persistence, and cutting corners will never earn you long-lasting success.
Why You Shouldn’t Cut Corners at Work
The consequence of cutting corners at work should be pretty self-explanatory. Your performance suffers, your work becomes sloppy, and your overall perception is affected. It takes a lot to build a reputation as a hard worker or a resourceful one. However, consistently bad performance can disappoint just as badly.
Millennials often get a bad rap for not working hard and disliking work culture. While work has become more arduous, it’s also true that cutting corners has become characteristic of the modern workplace. More people waste time than ever before and become intimidated by the assignments they’re given. They also refuse to learn things on the job and hope everything comes naturally.
While these gripes are typical of the old generation criticizing the new, it doesn’t mean they’re false. It leads to company resources being wasted, targets not being met, and work lives being less meaningful. Workers repeatedly choose the shortest route to getting things done. This is what leads to them finding ways to do the bare minimum.
While that may seem appealing on a day to day basis, it’s not going to get you that great promotion. It’s also not going to get you noticed. It’s just going to get you an increment a year down the line. The importance of hard work and ingenuity is only realized later in life. Instant gratification, what most young workers hope for, is just that. It’s instant, and then it fades.
Long term success is the direct opposite of that.
Cutting Corners While Running a Business Is a Bad Idea
Running a business is tough. It’s hard to deal with investors, customers, and employees at the same time. Businesses struggle with keeping the balance. At times, the burden of government policies, consumer and investor expectations, can cause a lot of losses. This can tempt a lot of people into cutting corners. Yet, that’s almost always a losing strategy.
Take the example of DuPont which cut ethical and legal corners and let thousands die because of chemical leaks. Take the example of Baxter International that cut corners on quality control in their Heparin products which killed dozens. Both these examples occurred when companies decided that cutting corners was more profitable. They put lives in danger simply to make money.
That resulted in lawsuits, legal penalties, and long-term detriment to reputation. This is exactly what cutting corners to the extreme will get you.
Cutting Costs Isn’t Necessarily the Same as Cutting Corners
This is a very important distinction. If you want to cut down on the electric bill or on dining out, that doesn’t mean you’re cutting corners. If you want to reduce the number of office supplies or cut salaries to save the company, that’s your right. Where it gets sketchy is when you start to provide substandard products or services to your customers. Not only do you devalue your own business as a result, but you open yourself up to slander and mistrust. Once a company loses the trust of the customer, it usually loses its business. Only the most stable companies recover from this and that too at great loss.
That being said, cutting costs isn’t illegal or unethical as long as it stays in clearly defined boundaries. Anything that can diminish the company’s profits or affect the top executives’ salaries can be fine up to a point. There’s no shame in being more fiscally responsible for the good of the company. Just make sure that it doesn’t leak into the product or service.
One great way to cut costs is to assign the most mundane tasks to virtual assistants. Not only will this save you time, but will benefit your productivity manifold by de-cluttering your workspace. For the best virtual assistants, you should contact Pickett Fence Virtual Services.
Cutting Corners with Customers Costs You Business
One area where the importance of persistence and dedication is paramount is customers. They’re the lifeblood of any business. No matter how successful a business is, if it doesn’t have the trust of the public, it’ll fail eventually. If you’re a food company, customers will only come to you if your product is delicious. If you’re a ride-hailing company, people will come to you for your pricing and services.
However, customers can just as easily leave if you offer them bad deals. They can just as easily switch if they are offered substandard services. Take the example of AT&T. Its subpar services are the stuff of comedy gold at the moment. However, that translated into net losses when the service lost more than 1 million subscribers in 2019. AT&T raised prices this year and a lot of their customers simply switched to alternatives.
While there are no easy answers to success in life, there is one immutable truth. It is the fact that persistence eventually pays off. While this may not translate the same way into every scenario, it is true that persistence yields value. Working hard at your job, learning new skills, running a clean shop all translates into success. Cutting corners and taking shortcuts results in legal troubles and failure in one way or another.
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