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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Networking in Person

Networking events are great opportunities to meet potential Six Sigma practitioners for your business. Sometimes, you must rely on your gut instincts. By meeting and talking to them in person, you stand the best chance of separating the bad from the good. Look them in the eyes, look at how they dress and present themselves? Do they look professional? Remember, you’ll have to work with this person on a frequent basis, so it’s critical you decide early on whether they’re right for you (or right at all).

Active communication is key. As such, it’s highly beneficial to prepare a set of questions in advance of your meeting. Make practitioners work hard to demonstrate their capabilities. That way, you’ll get the best understanding of how they would, or would not, be able to improve your business. You’ll meet lots of different practitioners, too, which allows you to judge one against another, to see who measures up.

Communication Over Social Media

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. This triad is an incredibly useful source of information you can’t afford to ignore. If you can’t meet your potential practitioners in person, social media is the next best thing. Social networking sites are all valuable means of communication. You can send messages to potentially legitimate Six Sigma practitioners and see how they interact with other users. Furthermore, look at their pages and posts for a good idea of their legitimacy. There might even be links to their website or blog, which is usually an indicator of legitimacy and reputability. You can learn a lot about a person or company from their social media accounts, so don’t neglect them in your research.

Check Their Website

An organization’s or individual’s website is the number one chance you have of gauging their legitimacy. It can also give you an idea of how reputable they are as well. All reputable company websites, especially for Six Sigma providers, should provide detailed information on their services and goals. A blog is always a good sign, as it demonstrates an interest in their work and reputation.

Some sites even provide profiles on their employees. Naturally, you’ll want someone with the right stuff for the job, and employee bios are a means of judging this. They may even provide contact information so you can reach out to them directly. Moreover, drop them an email and see what happens. If you can meet them in person, go for it. In our experience, one-on-one meetings are the best way of judging someone’s legitimacy.

We also recommend looking at testimonials to see how other customers and clients have reacted to your practitioner’s services. You could even follow this up by contacting former clients to get an informed opinion straight from the source. Facts, like communication, are invaluable tools. Getting yours straight is the key to finding the best legitimate Six Sigma practitioner for you.

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