Staying Aware and Accepting the Inevitable

It’s an unavoidable fact. If you’ve built a successful Six Sigma organization, sooner or later, someone will try to copy your success. While this is somewhat inevitable, you don’t have to sit back and accept it. Take an active hand in deterring fraudulent practitioners from stealing your business. Just look at companies like Coca Cola and Apple. There are countless rip-offs, knock-offs, fakes, and counterfeits floating around. The same is true of Six Sigma.

Countless Counterfeits, Frequent Fraud

Some companies try to pass their services off as the real deal via a flimsy copycat name, e.g., China’s Sunbucks, Wu Mart, and HiPhone. But Six Sigma fraudsters have the audacity to use the Six Sigma name while offering up sub-standard training services. Even more disturbing, some fake practitioners use Six Sigma as a ploy to clean out your wallets, promising the world and giving you nothing. They may recognize your success and try to piggyback off it with a similar-sounding name and list of services.

Moreover, it’s not uncommon for criminals to send phishing emails claiming to represent your organization. We’ve even heard of fraudulent websites, whose only purpose is to draw in customers to exploit, that are virtually indistinguishable from their legitimate counterparts. As such, accepting and building an awareness of these risks is the first step to deterring fraud in the Six Sigma industry.

Innovation is the Key to Success

Our advice? Keep innovating in every way possible, as quickly as you can. Use Six Sigma techniques to improve your training services. Employ Lean principles and continuous improvement culture for an added triple-effect solution. Outpacing your fake competitors through sheer innovation will put you at the top of the leader board, making it clear to customers why you deserve their custom. Once they realize their bait isn’t catching, fraudulent practitioners will throw it somewhere else.

Maintain Strong Company-Customer Relationships

Six Sigma stresses strong reliance on data which practitioners use to make improvements. Customer satisfaction is a key driving factor behind business success and one that Six Sigma aims to improve by proxy. It’s difficult to improve customer satisfaction directly. There’s more to it than simple hocus-pocus. Six Sigma streamlines processes for added efficiency while improving quality through systematic elimination of defect. All this adds up to greater quality products delivered quickly into customers’ hands, driving up customer satisfaction rates. The key to deterring fraud is to demonstrate to customers why your business is the one they need.

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At 6Sigma, our goal is to stand out from the competition. Specifically, the illegitimate practitioners. The only way to protect yourself from these scammers is to shine a light on the Six Sigma training industry. By comparing multiple Six Sigma programs, you can work out the pros and cons. Not to mention finding the best deal on the market. Here are a few ways you can compare our programs to others you’re considering.

How to Compare Different Six Sigma Programs

Whether you’re a novice Yellow Belt or an experienced Master Black Belt, Six Sigma training of any kind can create great opportunities. But finding the right training program for you can be a nightmare if you don’t know what to look for. The fact is, there are no clear guidelines on what makes the perfect Six Sigma program, although there are plenty of bad ones. Having no governing body to moderate its practices means fake practitioners can use Six Sigma to clean out your wallets. To avoid this, judge programs against the following factors.

Worthwhile Real-World Applications 

Improvement projects play a substantial part in Six Sigma certification. But there’s more to it than just theoretical study and simulated project work. But if your program helps you apply its theoretical content to real-world situations, then you’re onto a winner. With us, Six Sigma isn’t just bland theory. We apply Six Sigma concepts to real-life situations during training to keep our students on their toes.

Communication and Delivery

Communication is key in Six Sigma. This goes for training too. We pride ourselves on excellent training delivery and prompt communication, but that’s just us. How are other programs taught? Online study is certainly useful to those with tight schedules. However, class-based study is always more beneficial. You’ll be sure to get more one-to-one contact with instructors and develop a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of Six Sigma.

Value Over Price

Value is a key concept in Six Sigma and Lean principles. It’s also one of several subjects you’ll study on your program! Therefore, you shouldn’t be quick to judge a Six Sigma program on price alone. You get what you pay for isn’t always applicable, but higher prices generally equate to higher quality. Assess the contents of the course as well as factors like price. This will help you make the best decision. Remember, your training’s value will surely outweigh its cost. With our Six Sigma programs, you can rest knowing you’ve made the best possible decision.

Reviews and Reputability

There’s a reason people tend to prefer Coca Cola over supermarket own-brands. With brand recognition, it’s make or break, and discerning customers almost always go for the safest option. After all, why risk wasting money on what could prove disappointing, when they could have something they know and like? Bad reviews can do permanent damage to a brand’s name, and often for good reason. Pay attention to what other customers have to say. Furthermore, is the program or provider a recognized brand? How long have they been in business? Asking questions like these can provide eye-opening insights. Read our blog and check out our testimonials. You’ll be both pleased and intrigued to learn more.

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“Official” Governing Bodies

Our advice is to avoid any person, website, organization, or training program claiming endorsement from Six Sigma’s official governing body. As we’ve already mentioned, Six Sigma does not currently have an official, centralized governing body. That’s why, here at 6sigma.com, we do our best to educate the public and spread the good news about Six Sigma. Any decent practitioner should care about Six Sigma’s standing. Fake practitioners only interested in using the Six Sigma label to con you out of your hard-earned money are to blame for sullying its reputation.

Neglecting to Research

The best thing you can do is scrutinize the practitioner or the organization. Does anything seem off about them? Scour the web for testimonials and reviews. Look at what other customers have to say. This can help ensure you aren’t disappointed later.

We hear stories about good people like you all the time. People who jump on the first course they find, only to find out later they’ve made a mistake. Furthermore, even those who expend hours of their time searching for the right program are equally vulnerable. The one you settle on may seem too good to be true. It probably is. You might think you’ve got yourself a great deal. Only to realize, halfway through, with hundreds – possibly thousands of dollars – down the drain, that your Six Sigma certification program is complete rubbish.
You can prevent this from happening to you by seeking out only the most reputable Six Sigma organizations. Get in touch. Learn as much as you can. You can save yourself a lot of time and money. Plus, there are plenty of blogs and sites compiling the best legitimate Six Sigma organizations. Use these to your advantage in your search.

Missing the Warning Signs

It’s essential to be aware of the warning signs of illegitimate practitioners and fake Six Sigma certification. You never can tell when and where they might appear. Even professional Six Sigma conferences can also be at risk. Like a wolf among sheep, fake practitioners lie in wait everywhere. Don’t let them take advantage of you. Watch out for these key warning signs:

• A suspicious lack of employee bios on their website.
• Little to no contact information – Always suspicious.
• No blog – Serious organizations take the time to write about their Six Sigma work.
• Few or no client testimonials. Or, even worse, bad reviews.
• All talk, with no demonstration of Six Sigma knowledge or skills.

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