I just finished listening to an amazing podcast where Tim Ferriss interviews Seth Godin. (Click here to listen to Tim Ferriss’ podcast).  The podcast is 2 hours long!  I listened to it in bits while ferrying by daughter to and from school.

At the very beginning of the interview,  Tim asks Seth about his coffee-making.  This is interesting because not only does Seth not drink coffee, he has very high standards about the coffee he offers to his guests.

He grinds his own coffee beans.  He says that the roasting and the high quality beans are the most important part of the process.

There’s a saying, “how you do anything is how you do everything.”.  Being thoughtful enough to go out of your way to provide a high-quality experience to your guests (even if you are not partaking yourself) is a way to make sure that you succeed in business and in life.  How do you go the extra mile for your customers?

The other lesson from Seth Godin’s coffee bean obsession is simply that you need to start with the best ingredients.  Seth’s coffee is good because he starts with the best beans.  Any true foodie will tell you that the quality of the ingredients is a big factor in determining the quality of the dish.

Before you spend a lot of time and effort on creating a marketing machine for your business, ask yourself – is my product good?  Is it truly meeting the needs of my customers?  Not sure?  Then, before you go too much further, spend some time doing some market research. We have a market research hack to help you with that here.

Taking time at the beginning of your business to make sure you are building from a quality product, will pay long term dividends for your business.