10,000 hours and you STILL want someone else to deliver?
Or Expert and Sheer Genius Deliveries
This week I have been reading articles about someone called Malcolm Gladwell and the Outliers, and in these articles research by a chap called K Anders Ericsson is quoted.
In the early 90s, the psychologist K Anders Ericsson and two colleagues set up shop at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music. With the help of the academy’s professors, they divided the school’s violinists into three groups. The first group were the stars, the students with the potential to become world-class soloists. The second were those judged to be merely “good”. The third were students who were unlikely ever to play professionally, and intended to be music teachers in the school system. All the violinists were then asked the same question. Over the course of your career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practised?
Everyone, from all three groups, started playing at roughly the same time – around the age of five. In those first few years, everyone practised roughly the same amount – about two or three hours a week. But around the age of eight real differences started to emerge. The students who would end up as the best in their class began to practise more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight by age 12, 16 a week by age 14, and up and up, until by the age of 20 they were practising well over 30 hours a week. By the age of 20, the elite performers had all totalled 10,000 hours of practice over the course of their lives. The merely good students had totalled, by contrast, 8,000 hours, and the future music teachers just over 4,000 hours.
Now, I am not quite sure where this quote comes into play with Mr Gladwells book (ok, maybe it’s about genius
), but I do know that having worked at least 48 hours a week for the last 6 years delivering cargo, freight and the odd sofa or two we have clocked up at least 10,000 hours. Thats in just our own business, Kev has another 14 years experience in doing this for other companies. That makes us an expert apparently…. and we certainly do know all the tips and tricks to get the best out of your delivery.
So, would you rather see the local schools piano teacher or Maksim? Well, I am sure they both have their place in life, and you choose what is appropriate. If Maksim was looking to move his grand piano, would he use Joe Blogs from down the road who had been trading 5 minutes or would he use a professional piano mover? He would use the professional piano mover of course.
We often get phone calls about Freight / Cargo deliveries that have gone wrong, and the most common these people have used someone who are cheap. They have no experience or wisdom to pay for, and then the customer gets upset when it has gone wrong. We get upset too, why didn’t they come to us first?
Why spend months manufacturing an item, then get the cheapest delivery slot available? because you wanted a courier to cut the costs? If that’s the only reason then you really have only yourself to blame when it goes wrong, you are paying for the experience, the 10,000 hours of skill and dedication and you will not notice the lack of it until something goes wrong.
Expertise in any field is worth paying for, and if you are an expert yourself why ruin your own reputation by using someone who is less than a genius?
Sarah
|
|
|
|
|
![]() |
Related posts:
Posted in: Courier Business



![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b46d4796-c73a-4f5d-b2cc-46caffe15cf4)

Funny, I’m currently reading the same book too, Sarah. It’s not so much about genius as about what factors contribute towards success. Experience and 10,000 hours on the clock certainly do make a difference in what someone does – it becomes a craft, a passion, a dedication to do things well.
There are always cheapskates around but, as my Dad used to say, ultimately you get what you pay for and deserve.
Sarah, how would a client recognise expertise in a courier service? And how would a client recognise lack of expertise?
Expert suppliers may face problems when dealing with non-expert or even novice clients. You probably appreciate the benefits of dealing with expert clients, who understand what they need and what you do.
So maybe part of the expertise that you have, or need to develop, is to help clients develop their expertise in choosing and using courier services.
S
Twitter: essex_courier
Thanks Stuart, at the time of writing the blog (over a year ago, how time flies) I naively assumed that people would recognise ‘expertise’ instantly. I thought about it. People like to be shown rather than told, so I began to show what expertise looked like so those that cared about their goods would find us, and those that just wanted a swift move, no questions asked, could get that elsewhere.
As a writer, how do you get expertise in your words?
Your last line there Sarah, is an EXCELLENT question. I would love to answer it, but I have to think about it quite a lot first. Big thank you.
S
So, are you agreeing with Gladwell that: persistence x time = expertise Sarah?
Persistence and time are hard for the customer to measure, but expertise and particularly enthusiasm are easy to spot and highly human functions.
To many today in sales, stories are the answer to all of this. The more stories you can tell, the more evidence you have of persistence, time, experience, knowledge and – fun!
Good Luck!
Leave a Reply
Call us free for your delivery quote
Testimonials
Not only were they so professional, the price was phenomenal (in a good way) they quoted me, Kevin personally came and picked the package up himself because he wanted to meet me and not just be another faceless company, which I greatly appreciated.
Actor
Looking for something?
Join us on twitter
Blog Directory for Tilbury, Essex
Blogroll
Pages
Available Courier Services
Powered by WordPress | Log in | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS) | ilookgood! theme by iwritealot!
Same Day Couriers, Essex is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache