Being open and honest.
While underpromising and overdelivering might seem like a good tactic to delight your customers because you want to have some buffer, don’t. There’s another way. You can be open and honest —that’s the core of business, right? Being honest with your customers— and say you don’t know exactly how long or how much exactly it’ll take. That you’ll put in some buffer, just in case. Sure, you can give an estimate of the time, or even a timeline. Just please don’t lie. Friend-of-the-list Jonathan…
A spark
Today, it’s Rick Rubin who leaves the daily: “The amount of time or effort put into a work doesn’t matter.Sometimes the most meaningful projects spark suddenly and completely quickly.” I couldn’t put it better. 🙂 You can check his instegram post here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyJCJKArIW-/
Looking under the hood
Under promising, over delivering, over servicing are not really the problems. They’re symptoms. And they have a few drivers: Cost-based PriceAt the center of the decision-making. Will the price be attractive enough to justify what I offer? FearAt the core of making the offering. Will it be good enough so my proposal doesn’t get rejected (or worse: ghosted)? WorthAt the core of linking the offering to you. Is it a reflection of my worth? Self-worthAt the center of your offering building. If…
Selling a personal brand
You can’t have a personal brand. A brand is an asset —a quantifiable one for a business. With that, you can value it and sell it for whatever you want. A brand can change hands and —at least for a moment— keep that same value. As well as it could go up (a VC-funded startup grows its value, as Figma) or absolutely way down (x/twitter). If you were to have a personal brand (aka “become” a brand), you’d turn into an asset. An asset, as a resource or capital… is a thing. If you were to sell…
Behind the math
If you see a bit further than underpromising, overdelivering, overservicing, you’ll find that most of it is linked with one question: “Will they accept my proposal?” When people don’t understand what they’re getting, the only thing they’ll get back to (and do understand) is price. So your default to answer this questions revolves around, yup: price. In this context, it’s (hopefully) a set price (and not an estimate/rate) and about how (if) delight could happen —only after the acceptance of…
The math in overservicing
Today, it’s about how overservicing can also hurt you. In Paul’s head, overservicing will delight his customer, Marie. It’ll get Marie to always work with him. Unfortunately, what’s actually happening is that Paul’s training Marie to expect way more than what they pay for —at Paul’s own expense. → The promise Paul makes: X → But Paul also works extra on things that are nice-to-haves to Marie, or are out of scope —without previously thinking and/or budgeting for them.The promise to Marie: XThe…
The math behind overdelivering
Here’s why overdelivering hurts your business. In a math edition. Paul is about to work on a project for Marie. In Paul’s head, underpromising and overdelivering will make a sweet deal in Marie’s eyes to: Close the sale Build a good reputation The opportunity to raise prices next time. [Because great work, right?] It’s the perfect formula… to unprofitability. → The promise in Paul’s head: X BUT → The promise in Paul’s mouth: Y → Paul tells Marie he’ll deliver Y, which is “10” less of what…
The best product wins
You’ve heard this before: if we have a great product, we don’t need marketing. Here’s the thing Product is part of marketing. And marketing is not comms and messaging —or ads.
Overdelivering 3/3
Makes your price go down —and your work’s value. Doing more of what you promise trains your clients to expect more of what you promise… every time. For. The. Same. Price. And since they’ll know you’ll do more for less, they’ll go for it. You’re giving a hidden discount, even when you don’t want to accept it. In the long term, it makes your work go for a lower price, and when trying to raise prices or go for the actual job, your customers’ expectations will be higher. You not keeping with…
Overdelivering 2/3
Overdelivering in the shape of attending an overserved market hurts you. You provide nice-to-haves. Moving one extra pixel that only you notice. Writing one more line of beautiful code, that only you care for. Here’s the thing If they’re nice-to-haves odds are, they’ll be mostly ornaments without a relevant job. It’ll increase your workload while adding either more complexity to your customer or adding nice features they don’t actually care about. You don’t need to prove anything. All you…