If you’ve travelled throughout Canada, you are likely familiar with Boston Pizza. In case you haven’t, it’s a chain of restaurants that serve, as their name suggests, pizza as well as burgers, wings, pasta, and salads.
All the restaurants have the same menu and the same recipes. No matter where you travel in Canada you can order something from the Boston Pizza menu and it will taste exactly how it did in the last town. It can be incredibly reassuring to know that wherever you are, you’ll enjoy a good meal.
Consistency is reassuring, comfortable and trustworthy.
As His Holiness, the Dalai Lama has said, “you can’t buy trust in the supermarket.” Even though a client may be able to buy a product or service from your academic business, they won’t if they don’t trust you.
These expectations may be explicit, like a sign that says ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ hanging in a shop. They can also be implicit, like the expectation that a copywriter will provide grammatically correct work.
A consistent business is a business willing to be held accountable.
If an audience comes to expect a newsletter every Sunday afternoon, they will hold the provider accountable to this distribution. Likewise, a client may be more forgiving of unmet expectations when you’ve consistently been accountable to high standards.
Consistency can be challenged by both internal and external forces. The latter requires forethought and planning ‘just in case’ for emergency scenarios. An example could be the weather forecast calling for a storm that may knock out your power for an indeterminate period. Back-up batteries or a generator might keep your laptop running or you may want to schedule your newsletter distribution ahead of time in case you lose connectivity.
Don’t be the reason your business doesn’t offer consistent output.
Internal forces such as workload, motivation, or momentum can hold both you and your academic business back, too.
- Plan ahead by working backwards.
Give yourself enough time to complete the task. Start at the due date and work backwards to ensure you set an appropriate timeline.
- Get assistance – or assistants.
If you have too much on your plate or you struggle with rote tasks, ask for help. Whether that’s delegating or asking a mentor for directions, you can create a shortcut to completion while staying consistent.
- Set a standard.
Don’t reinvent the wheel each time you set out to accomplish a task. Develop a standard operating procedure that outlines the task as well as the expected outcome.
Boston Pizza has earned the trust of millions of Canadians by being consistent and meeting expectations, serving a Hawaiian pizza that tastes just as good in Edmonton as it does in Halifax.
Your business will grow and prosper, too, when you earn the trust of your clients by consistently meeting expectations, offering a good or service that is excellent every time you serve it up.
Do you have Standard Operating Procedures? Use a content calendar? How do you keep your academic business consistent? Share your best tips and tools in the comments section to inspire other GradBloggers.
