Several years ago I attended a business seminar and although I don’t remember much about what was said, one thing that I do remember was the “cheap, fast and good rule." I don’t know who made up this rule, but it seems to be one of the primary truths in all of business.



The speaker began by saying that you can never have all three items together at the same time. In other words, if you are purchasing any thing, you may want it cheap and fast, but it won’t be good. You may want it cheap and good, but it won’t be fast. Or, you may want the item fast and good, but it won’t be cheap.

Let’s take as an example setting up a website. Anyone can create a website without having to know anything about html. Free websites are given away every day and it only takes a few minutes to create one; this is the cheap and fast, but not good rule. Having a website that will attract customers takes a lot of time to create.

And if you want a good website, unless you can create one on your own, it can be expensive to pay for the hosting, creating, and updating, not to mention the search engine optimization (seo), and ppc (pay per click) advertising. This is the good and fast part of the rule. And lastly, if you want a website that is good and cheap, prepare to wait a while for it to be up and running. I can imagine one person, in a home office working on your website at his convenience; he’s not in a hurry, it’s not his website.

Another example that seems to prove this rule is shipping. Fed Ex is a prime example of this rule. If you need a good service and you need it fast, then this company will get your items to wherever it needs to be – but you are going to pay a lot for the service. UPS and DHL are similar to Fed Ex. The United States Post Office is an example of a good service – no matter how we like to complain sometimes – but it can be slow; so we need to add extra time when we send off that credit card bill, and it is still cheap. I do not know of any service that is fast and cheap, but not good. If there are any shipping services that fit this description, they won’t be in business very long.

The last example that I want to use is advertising. If you want customers fast and good (qualified), it definitely won’t be cheap. One example of this is the ppc advertising on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You can also have your advert as a “popup" and it is cheap, but the click thru rate is not good. And finally, you can build your good customers over time and reasonably cheap, but it want be fast.

I want to end this article where I began. In order to “make your business grow" one thing that I want you to remember is that “you get what you pay for." If you pay for a good website, you usually get it. I know that there are exceptions, but overall you will have a better response than on a free website. If you want fast shipping, you must pay for the service and if you want more customers, you have to do the work necessary that will attract more customers.

Fast, good, or cheap – which two will it be?