TIME OF PERFORMANCE

Alan Shepard - First American to enter space

Freedom 7 mission

May 5th, 1961

According to Gene Kranz in his book, Failure Is Not an Option, when reporters asked Alan Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he replied...

"The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder."

I am always fascinated by this story because it illustrates such an important phenomenon in how we buy or how we choose a service. Initially, we get so caught up in what I call the "moment of purchase" (looking for the best deal or the lowest price) that we often lose sight of what REALLY matters which is the "time of performance." We forget that there will come a time where we will be "sitting at the tip of the rocket, about to be launched into space" where all we care about at that moment is, will this product/tool/service do its job?

When you are about to enter that "time of performance" moment for you, you will either say, "Man, I wish I would've..." or "I'm so glad I did..." choose the highest quality possible.

When I started in this business, I was faced with a difficult decision. Did I want to create a brand that competes as the lowest cost provider (like Walmart) and spend my time and energy in finding the cheapest prices, knowing I would have to sacrifice quality and service? Or did I want to invest in creating the best experience, and truly partner with my clients and referral partners to ENSURE that at that "TIME OF PERFORMANCE" I could deliver every time!

Well, the decision was easy because I knew it would be a lot easier to explain price one time, than have to apologize over and over again for: