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 overdeliver”
You know the old saying “Under promise and over deliver”? – well, here’s 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 past 20 years, we’ve all been applying the mantra “Under promise and over deliver”; For example, tell them that the job 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 client can’t help but be impressed by your overdelivery! 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 pm, although he knows that he can finish it on Friday. Hey, that gives you the weekend to think about it, Monday morning to polish it, and you can turn it in Monday afternoon. A great job underpromised and overdelivered! 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 wasn’t as complicated a project as you said? Or could you have finished it by Friday? Perhaps you have overcharged him?
Because he’s 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 price, again unpromising so you can confidently deliver 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 time scale. You do it, because he 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 your 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 he could lower his price or shorten his time scale. And he pushes, and pushes…
You have taught your client that he can do it faster than you told him. 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 the actual time scale, or if the price increases? Or does someone disappoint you, or do they change the goalposts?
Problems
Now, the problems are a bit broader than the previous example.
Some of our clients even say that these days to stand a chance of winning a job, they have to make big promises (and then figure out how to keep them 😉
Quite 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 they can deliver on that. Then deliver something 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 would 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 biggest reason for customer disappointment and feelings of failure.
Control VS Influence (Results and Intentions)
What is beyond your immediate and complete manipulation is not, like it or not, under our control. So what is in our control?
* Our Emotions and Motivation (although not all of us accept it)
* Our response to external influences (although we don’t all 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 outside of us (especially other animals/humans) we can only influence. These are some examples of things that 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 are a hypnotist)
Sure, you can exert enough influence to make it look like control. If someone held 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 different things or feel different about something because they still only have influence.
Finally, there are some things that we don’t have direct control or influence over… like the weather, the space, the weather, where we start in life, but there’s no benefit in dwelling on the 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 is in your control and what you can just influence. And then you need to Overpromise and Deliver on those things that are in your control.
Simple 😉
Talk soon,