Underpromise and Overdeliver
reinforce your reputation for reliability: Deliver what you promise. In fact, you
should even take it one step further. If at all possible, strive to deliver a little
more than promised—or a day or two ahead of schedule. When it comes to
being perceived as a reliable professional, there is no margin of error for keeping
your word.
WHAT IT MEANS: It’s all about managing expectations. Whenever you
make a promise, you have stated your commitment to perform something. As a
result, you have created a certain level of expectation—and by scaling down this
expectation, you can more easily create a positive outcome. Remember, when you
provide more than what was expected by your customer, you enhance any good
feelings they already have about you.
ACTION PLAN: Before you make any sort of promise, carefully think
through everything you’ll need to do to deliver properly within the time frame
you’ve created. Avoid the natural tendency to say yes to everything. If you make
ten promises and fail to deliver just once, people are not going to remember your
nine successes.
EVEN BETTER: When you think you’re done, and that you’ve kept your
promise as well as you possibly can, don’t stop. Try and think of what you can do
to do even better. Perhaps you’ll have some ideas that you hadn’t thought of earlier.
Developing a reputation as someone who exceeds expectations is invaluable.
