Underpromise… Over deliver

You learn this lesson and see  the magic it brings to your business.

When it comes to selling we always promise our product highly to people. It’s the basic premise of our “Sales pitch”. We speak and promise our product to be the solution sent from gods heaven to customers. We promise all our products features, benefits price, value and all the MBA jargon we think it is required to convince the customer of our product! But we loose focus of the customer’s needs and “ the spotlight” is from the customer to “you and your product”

But the customer gives a damn about our product. He doesn’t care!

What matters to him is his problem and the solution. He doesn’t love the product yet like we do. Actually what we love is the promise we make our product can do. And we hope the customer falls in love with the promise. What the customer does give a damn about is how well our products fulfill his need and solves his problem and no yada yada.

My uncle sells white cloth and suitings to retailers for tailor made clothes. While on his sales pitch my uncle rarely talks about the quality of the Shirt, the price, the market trend and how quickly it will sell. He doesn’t promise much about the quality, the price, the type of cloth and all. He just says this is good cloth and all his earnestness says they haven’t at all cut back on quality and leaves the buyer with a sample piece. No big promises made.

And when the buyer places the trial order my uncle promises it to be delivered to the store in 7 days. And this small promise he vows to deliver and not just that but over deliver. He supplies the same quality cloth in 4 lumps delivered to the shop owner in another district in 4 days. The buyer is taken aback by this awesomeness. Yes my uncle knew the trick from the start. He knew if efficiently handled he might ship him the product in 4days but he doesn’t promise much. He says 7 days because that’s the market practice. And he wows the customer by delivering same quality cloth, same price but lot quicker.

He told me this over a cup of Garam chai at this “Vishnu Chai thella”. And my uncle just said if with Chai you got  2 Parle G biscuits won’t you be wowed by this Stall. It doesn’t cost much. And it isn’t promised by him and when he over delivers you would have smiled with joy over the extra biscuits. This is example of under promise over deliver. 

In the present context, All the marketing hype from all corners all sort of promises made to customers and hardly the promises are kept. This doesn’t wow us, infact it leaves a dent in the brand.

But keep it simple just promise and over deliver. In present day with social media on consumers’ fingers your customer will be your free brand ambassador.

Promises are meant to be broken. Break them to delight your customers

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