“Underpromise and Overdeliver” is a common business mantra, but it’s certainly a wise approach to live by in general.
How many times have you talked up a comedian as “the funniest,” or a movie as “the best,” or a restaurant as “the most incredible food you’ve ever had.” And how many times does that object actually live up to its high billing?
If you’re experience has been like mine, I’ve let a lot of people down! If you set the bar at a height that’s so difficult to attain, you’re bound to disappoint.
I had this experience in my business this past week. I OVERpromised & UNDERdelivered, and it’s resulted in a lot of damage control & public relations efforts.
However, much of my “underdelivery” is the result of a strategic partner who has grossly underperformed what we contracted with them to do. When they didn’t deliver to me, the burden fell on me as I couldn’t deliver to my customers.
The result has been a uncharacteristically high level of stress, which I absolutely hate with all my limited capacity to hate.
The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.
- Henry David Thoreau, words to live by
I’m still working my way out of the deep end with this situation, but there are some things I’ve taken from it already.
1. It’s easier to deliver when the control is in your hands. When you have sole responsibility to deliver on a promise, you have the opportunity to do whatever it takes to fulfill all expectations. When you’re simply the middle man, making promises on behalf of a third party to deliver a good, a service, or an experience to someone who trusts in you, you need to temper what you promise. This holds true whether you’re promising customers that a new business partner will deliver reliable service, or whether you’re promising friends that a restaurant will deliver the same life-changing fettuccine alfredo that they did to you.
2. Don’t let your excitement to promise something result in overpromising. I hear this happen all the time when people talk about places they’ve visited. We loooove to talk about our globe-traveling adventures. We make our one week in Europe sound like we lived there for 10 years & we know all the back streets of Amsterdam, Paris, & Prague. So what happens? We tell our friends “oh, you HAVE to do this while you’re there”… so they waste half a day trying to find that little bar that you recommended when there’s 1,000 more interesting things they could have done. And you’ve just underdelivered. We’ve all done it!
In business, we want to promise new features. We want to keep customers excited about what’s to come next. But there are so many variables that could skew or thwart the results before they come to fruition.
3. Beta-test everything. The truth of the matter is that my business predicament probably could have been avoided with a little more testing before launching the service publicly. In life, don’t promise things until you’re sure you have full capability to deliver more than is expected.
So the main reminder here - in business and in life - is to underpromise & overdeliver. Stay humble. Let the results speak for themselves. You’ll gain a lot more trust that way.
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