You are SO right, and it already does. -(sm)
Posted By: My 2 cents (per line?) on 2007-06-11
In Reply to: better pay is better quality/less pay=less quality - this will start to reflect on companies in time -
Everybody knows that in this world, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
I sort of see the MTSO industry shooting itself in the foot on this one, don't you? They, too, are *putting themselves on sale* when they keep trying to underbid the next guy, and the next.
I've had a couple of small, service-oriented businesses of my own in the past. One thing I learned is that getting into a bidding war with competitors is deadly. You're trying to underbid people who are bidding low because they're: (a) inexperienced, (b) unlicenced, (c) unscrupulous and/or dishonest, (d) fly-by-night, (e) offer a substantially inferior product.
Knowing that time is money, I found that setting my prices higher than my competitors was a great time-saver (and time is money!), because I wasted less of it dealing with clients who were major pains-in-the-a$$. Any client who wants a discount right off the bat, instead of EARNING that discount, is trouble down the road. They usually aren't loyal, and will change service providers the minute they see one for 5 cents less. Who has time for that? I didn't. So a higher price helped to *WEED OUT* the less-desirable clients. I'm sure that would be the case in the MT industry.
Also, amazingly, the more I charged people, the better they liked my services. Unbelievably, some clients who griped and moaned about this and that, and were always late to show up, or late to pay, and never tipped, often became model clients as the charges were raised.
I also had different fees for different degrees of difficulty. WHY the MTSO's don't charge more across-the-board for ESLs and sloppy dictators is beyond me. They're time-wasters, and ultimately, money-wasters as well. I had one set of prices for my courteous, loyal clients, and quite another set for my pain-in-the-butt clients!
And as for attracting and RETAINING top-notch employees, I sure can't figure out the MT industry's thinking on that one, either. Time is MONEY. The time & money they spend advertising for new MTs, interviewing them (paying some more highly-paid manager-type to do that, of course), test them, do a background check, check references, and yada, yada, yada, not to mention time spent training them, has got to be more than simply rewarding top-notch MT's with a good wage, benefits, and a little self-respect.
When I read these boards, I'm amazed at the amount of job-hopping that goes on, and the pages and pages of ads for MTs on the MT Jobs board. Obviously they never heard of the saying, "A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH."
That could easily be translated to, "An experienced MT in your employment is worth TEN not-yet-hired."
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