Most understand that ‘really cheap’ rarely equates to ‘really good’ but for those who are uncertain, read on.

My Dad always used to tell me:

You get what you pay for, Mike.

AJ Fitzpatrick

Dad was right and those wise words have stayed with me, influencing my decisions to this day and embedded in the way I approach business and run Liquid Audio.

A much better/smarter question to ask is: Do you want a job done really cheaply or do you want it done really well?

The two are almost always mutually exclusive.

See, cutting costs means cutting corners and the sort of people who think corner-cutting is OK are not the people you want doing critical technical work on cherished hi-fi equipment, brain surgery, preparing legal documents, fixing aircraft or a Rolex watch.

This premise is 100% common sense, yet the temptation of silly prices or sight-unseen quotes often lure people in. We see this in the building industry with dodgy builders, dodgy automotive work, botched cosmetic surgery, the list is endless.

I’m familiar with equipment that visits the cheapest repairers because it usually visits others for rectification. These seemingly cheap repairs deliver predictable results: shortcuts, poor workmanship, ‘Swell-Long’ capacitors (yes, I’m serious), devalued, damaged, or destroyed equipment and court cases. Amusing, maybe, until you fall victim and always more costly than having work done properly in the first place.

The reviews, business owner responses and continually changing business names tell the story, so do your research. Quality, professionalism, results and the deep insight generally associated with people who know what they are doing are things customers remember long after they’ve forgotten the cost of a repair.

I call this real value, it’s why I’ve used my plumber for 20 years. One reason my approach is copied is that even some of the corner-cutters seem to realise how sensible it is.