Your Performance is Your Brand

There’s an idea you should put at the center of your thinking about your business: Does your performance thrill your customers?

There are a still a lot of businesses that adhere to brand-building that dates back to the 1950s. Say something loud and long enough, and the perception will stick. Messaging can overcome flaws in products and customer care. This mindset can lead businesses to buy a lot of ads, but it doesn’t lead to success.

No, your performance is your brand.

Picture any of a number of companies that have made a splash entering their market. Commonly, they promise to be disruptors who solve problems that have eluded industry veterans. The ideas are grand, and the marketing features plenty of glitz. But the actual products fall short.

They fail to perform.

That is always on our minds at Solatech. Unlike some of these disruptors, we don’t actually have a manifesto painted on our office walls, but we do adhere to several performance-based principles that are reflected in how our company works:

One, we do the hard stuff. Window fashions professionals want to maximize margins, so data needs to be exact. That’s why we invest a significant amount of time and money into aggregating and maintaining fabricator data, so quotes and orders are precise and trustworthy. How do we know it’s hard? No other industry software provider does this. And because others aren’t doing this, they can’t take the next step and send orders directly into fabricator-partners systems like we can.

Two, we’re in it for the long haul. We’re long time industry members (since 1993). We’re committed to the industry’s success, and to supporting our customers’ businesses. Window fashions software isn’t a segment of our business; it is our business.

Three, we’re only as good as our latest release.  This is where the rubber meets the road. Our customers depend on our software; it’s integral to day-to-day operations. If we fail to perform it’s obvious to those who count on us. Performance is our brand.

Maintaining the performance that customers expect is a struggle. For the people on the front lines, selling window fashions, it means meeting expectations for timeliness of appointments, providing quick and accurate estimates that are honored, delivery of the right products on time, appropriate follow-up, and ongoing service. But this is critical, because performance in any of these areas matters more than what their businesses say about themselves.  And Just OK is Not OK!