Negotiations: Betrayal
When we overpromise and underdeliver, it costs us big time.
“I’m so sorry, but we need another week.”
“But you promised! I have ta present tomorrow!”
“I know, I know, but things changed, and we need…”
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When you make a promise and don’t deliver your client feels betrayed. They can be thrown into a state of emotional distress and extreme anxiety. Naturally they’ve made commitments to others. Maybe this puts them in a tough spot with their boss. Whatever happens, betrayal puts them in an immensely vulnerable position.
They feel it in the moment. Your need for another week, or more money, or revised deliverables, hits them hard. And the hit can be traumatic.
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“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. You were so confident when you scoped out the project…”
“I’m so sorry, but this was completely unexpected, I hope you’ll understand.”
“Understand! Are you crazy. I could lose my job!”
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Let down, feeling deceived, they’ll remember that emotional hit for a long time. Damaging your relationship, perhaps, beyond repair.
Over promising and underdelivering is a classic problem. And young creatives seem to fall into all the time. I sure did.
People who work in creative services are often eager to please their clients –– meeting all client requests with a “yes we can” attitude. The attitude’s fundamentally good. But off times our eagerness goes too far, and we find ourselves out of budget, out of time, or unable to deliver something promised –– dramatically letting our client down.
It is far better to tell the client in advance, what is needed to meet their needs –– and in the process underpromising, making room to over deliver.
This is key: make room to overdeliver.
Set expectations low –– then exceed them. Deliver more than what was promised. Deliver in less time than expected. Come in under budget. Essentially surprising and delighting the client by managing their expectations.
In my experience the best way to avoid being unable to deliver what we promise is through systems that give us tools for estimating schedule, costs and deliverables. The best systems are based on past work on similar projects that are boiled down into rules of thumb that are easy to understand and remember.
We don’t ever want to lose our desire to please clients. Promising less and delivering more harnesses our desire to please by strategically managing client expectations in a positive way, for us –– and them.
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“Thank you so much for being done ahead of time. The stress I went through with the other agency was unbelievable. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
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That’s the feeling we want to leave out clients with.
