Putting the Marketing Cart Before the Quality Horse

With so much focus on marketing, could businesses be putting their hype before the horse?

I read an interesting story by Jack Neff in Advertising Age magazine, who talked about big corporate botch ups. The "Big Three Transgressors Against Public Trust " -- BP, Toyota and Johnson & Johnson -- aren't the only ones who have had problems this year.

Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of cereal; P&G has recalled 8 different branded items since November; Unilever recalled Breyers, Country Crock and Slim-Fast; and McDonald's took back its Shrek glasses.

All that investment in marketing to build brand and brand loyalty goes the way of the garbage truck when companies put their marketing message monies ahead of quality control. Cutting costs can destroy brand equity.

Since Northwest Arkansas is tied to the Walmart ship, this is news relevant to all of us. I can imagine what madness our colleagues at Walmart face when recalls of this caliber occur.

But, since I'm a small business champion, it strikes me that the message for our ears is about quality on a much more subtle level. Instead of recalling products, we're faced with recalling customers and clients. We all know the numbers -- acquiring new customers takes five to ten times more effort than keeping the ones you have. Are we following the math?

What do you do to make sure the quality control in your business is up to par? What is it that your business does to build brand equity in your neighborhood marketplace?

Top notch customer centric service?  Well trained, happy employees? Clean, up to date environments?

There's a lot to think about. As you look to grow your business and market share -- even if it is a small business -- it's worth putting your dollars on that horse called "Quality" to win.