What’s the difference between a good product and a great product?

Have you ever tried to move a portaloo? Probably not. But I bet at some point you’ve used one. Maybe at a music festival, on a construction site, or at some kind of large outdoor event. I’ve actually moved plenty of portaloos, mostly to demonstrate a specialised trolley I designed and built with my company Hyprosteps. And it was whilst demonstrating our trolley for an event sanitation company that I learned a valuable lesson about product quality.

Hyprosteps can handle most challenges

Hyprosteps manufacture a wide variety of products in the manual handling and warehouse sector. We’ve built platforms, ladders and trolleys for all sorts of situations. And many years ago I designed a special trolley for transporting portaloos. It’s a niche product, but one that has a real use.

So when a large site and events sanitation company called Elliott expressed an interest in our portaloo trolley, I was delighted. Their first impressions were positive. They agreed the trolley was superior to their current models.

However, during the demonstration, we hit our first snag. I struggled to tilt the trolley whilst lifting one of their portaloos. I quickly realised the issue. The trolley was fine lifting an empty unit, but with a full one, like this one was, I had to hold my hands up and admit our trolley struggled.

So, I set myself a challenge. I knew our product was good. It could easily lift a demonstration model port aloo and take it for a spin. But it wasn’t quite right for in the field. I sat down with their team, and set about designing a trolley that would really suit their needs.

Making a good product great

I rethought our trolley. I made improvements to the original design. All the time I was thinking about our original product. It was good, but I wanted it to be great. So I worked hard, and spent a lot of time around a heavy portaloo Elliott had kindly loaned to Hyprosteps. Getting the thing tilted back on the trolley smoothly was the hardest part.

There was a lot of back and forth, and a lot of ideas thrown about. When our prototype was complete, I called up the guys from Elliott and told them I had some great news.

They visited us and spent time trying out our trolley. They were pleased with it, but I wanted them to try it out in the field. So I sent them off on their way, and waited to hear back from them.

What lesson did I learn?

The lesson I learned that day as I struggled to tilt back the portaloo was simple: Sometimes it isn’t enough to have a good product. The world is full of good and competent ways of doing things. Anyone can be good. What you need is something great. Something that is going to last, and be capable of doing a job like nothing else can. Our original model was great at lifting empty portaloos, but it couldn’t cut the mustard where it mattered. As soon as I realised that, I changed the design, and created something that was safer, more rugged, and capable of lifting a much larger load.

So remember: Whatever your line of business, don’t settle for good, go for great. If you’ve got something good, pull out all the stops to make it great. For us, that meant listening to the experts and end users, and delivering exactly what they needed.

The end result?

They’ve ordered several more units for their sites up and down the country, which is a massive win for us.

Visit Hyprosteps to find out more about their products and services.

Visit Elliot for further information on their unique range of storage solutions.