You know how it is, you believe something for so long, everyone agrees with you, all the books tell you it’s true, and suddenly you have a blinding revelation: we’ve all been deceived! Do you know what my fellow gorillas were like? (If you’re not sure about my fellow gorillas then you really need to read the book, we’ve got a great deal going on right now!)
And you feel so dumb, how did I fall for that? The logic just isn’t there, I must have been a fool. Let me explain.
“Under promise and over delivery”
You know the old saying “Under the promise and over the delivery”? – well, here is the idea behind it.
Shoppers these days are more and more willing to complain when something isn’t to their liking (yes, even in the UK!) Customers are willing to walk away if you don’t deliver when you said you would. Customers are mobile and promiscuous and will switch providers if they can get better service.
So, to meet these demands, for the last 20 years, we have all been applying the mantra “Under promise and over deliver”; For example, tell them that work that will take 10 days will take 12, and then surprise them when you deliver ahead of schedule.
Now, in theory, this sounds great – your customer can’t help but be impressed by your over-delivery! Or can they?
Big mistake
Now, think about it some more. The client arrives and you promise to deliver the project on Tuesday at 2:00 pm, although he knows that he can finish it on Friday. Hey, that gives you the weekend to reflect, Monday morning to polish it, and you can deliver it Monday afternoon. A great under-promised and over-delivered job! But what really happens?
The customer is delighted: you delivered a day early. But then Mr. Client has some fleeting thoughts; Did this mean that it was not as complicated a project as you had said? Or could you have finished it by Friday? Perhaps you have overcharged him?
Because he is happy that you did what you said and within the time scale, he pushes his doubts to the back of his mind.
However, the customer now learns to “expect” (that’s their job) the service you created in the fantastic way you promised. So he gives you another project. You give him a time scale and a price, again unpromising so you can confidently comply with a big smile on your face. The client recalls his thoughts from the last project and asks him to “try some more” on the timeline. You do, because hey, you like the guy. He was very grateful last time.
And so the next time Mr. Customer asks you to do something, he expects it to be done as quickly and efficiently and for the same price as before, now he won’t be impressed by your over-delivery, this is just his expectation.
And sadly, when you deliver on time and on budget, Mr. Customer wonders why it took so long. He wonders if he pushed a little harder it could lower his price or shorten his timescale. And he pushes, and he pushes…
You have shown your client that you can do it faster than you were told. The doubts are there. He wonders if you lied to him! What a shame!
And what happens if something goes wrong, if you can’t deliver on real time scale, or if the price goes up? Or someone lets you down, or the goal posts change?
Problems
Now, the problems are a bit broader than the previous example.
Some of our clients even say that these days in order to have a chance at winning a job, you have to make big promises (and then figure out how to keep them 😉
Very often the client needs to do their part to make the project work well, and they will have their own clients and other things to do!
Increasingly, you are not working on a project in isolation, there may be other vendors in the equation
All of this can lead to dissatisfaction for everyone involved.
So what is the answer?
Well, all things considered, you still have to make promises to your customers, but the answer is in the details. The answer lies in understanding what’s important to the customer and working with them to make sure you can deliver on that. Then deliver something that you have full control over.
In our course “Coaches Can!” We talked about the difference between control and influence.
So before I tell you our secret, I’d like to clarify the difference between Control and Influence. For me, misunderstanding the difference between what you can control and what you can simply influence is the number one reason for customer disappointment and feelings of failure.
Control VS Influence (Results and Intentions)
What is beyond your immediate and complete manipulation is not, whether we like it or not, under our control. So what is under our control?
* Our Emotions and Motivation (although not all of us accept it)
* Our response to external influences (although not all of us accept it either)
* The direction we take in life
* Every action we take
* The way we communicate
* What we say, do and promise
* What we choose to believe or ignore
* Inanimate objects and tools we use
Everything else that is outside of us (especially other animals/humans) we can only influence. Here are some examples of things you can only influence…
* If someone likes you
*If people will buy
* What other people find important
* If people believe you
* convince someone of something
* Get someone to do something (even if you’re a hypnotist)
Sure, you can exert enough influence that it looks like control. If someone put a gun to your head, they could probably influence you to do a lot of things. But despite that, they couldn’t make you think differently or feel differently about something because they still just have clout.
Finally, there are some things that we don’t have direct control or influence over… like weather, space, time, where we start in life, but there’s no benefit to dwelling on things we can’t do, because it’s more empowering to focus on what we can do.
The solution
You can’t control how your customers feel, but you can influence it. You should focus on explaining value, rather than cost. Understand your actual requirements, rather than standard time and budget requirements. You need to figure out what you have under control and what you can simply influence. And then you need to Overpromise and Deliver on those things that are under your control.
Easy 😉
Talk soon,