Great Things Never Get Done by Under Promising

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Amazing Things Can Be Accomplished by Over Promising

 


This is not to say that we should make promises and not keep them. Keeping a promise is important and speaks to who we are as individuals. We’ve become lazy in our use of words and the English language in general. We throw words and clichés around without considering what we’re saying.


“Under promise, and over deliver” is one of those truisms that at face value sounds like a good way to treat customers. It looks great on a business card.


What are we really saying if our goal is to “under promise”?


Last week I wrote about the issue of businesses over promising. As I was researching, I found an online article, by Josh Linkner “Why Under-promising and Over-delivering Is bad Advice”. In this article Mr. Linkner speaks to the lowering of the performance bar when we under promise.


He says, …this false wisdom encourages mediocrity. It grants permission to make small, flaccid commitments and then gleefully celebrate delivering them. The very nature of the argument suggests holding back on achievements that can actually be attained. Simply put…


Under-promising is a promise to play small.”


Most businesses don’t want to play small. There are so many great things that we want to accomplish and so little time to do it. This is why we over promise.


It’s been said, if you want to get something done you should ask a busy person to do it. On the surface this appears counterintuitive. It would seem the person with spare time would be more likely to do something than the busy person. In reality it isn’t in the time available, rather it’s in the person’s level of drive. Busy people are doers.


The more we want to do the more we get done.


I’ve come to realize that the tighter my schedule is packed, the more I get done. It’s frustrating to have things left on my list at the end of the day, however when I step back and look at the bigger picture, I can see the benefits of “over promising”.


What we need to do is to rethink the terminology. To come up with different words that better serve our purpose. To be our most productive selves we need to push ourselves beyond our existing boundaries without lying to others or ourselves.


We need to keep our promises.


This is where things get difficult. How can we grow and do more, if we don’t push against the walls and move them out?

 

“I don’t think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.”


Seth Godin

 

Be careful to be true and honest, keep your promises to yourself and others as you continue to raise the bar of expectation.

One of the Biggest Issues in Business Is Over Promising

 

 

 

 

Why in the World Do We Do This and What Are We Going to Do About It?

 

 

I received a phone call from a gentleman asking about a problem he was having with a leaking metal roof on his shop building. As normal when confronted by a situation like this I began asking questions.

 


Early in the conversation I found out some important pieces of information. First, he thought he had called his contractor neighbor. Second, they live almost a hundred miles away. I pointed out the distance and unlikeliness of my coming that far to do a project.

 


This didn’t stop him from needing answers to questions.

 

 


As the conversation continued, he shared about his problem and I (being the solution seeking contractor that I am) continued to discuss his situation with him. Then I found myself looking for ideas to solve his problems, all the time thinking to myself, why are you doing this when you know he’s so far away and you’re already doing too much.


Near the end of the discussion, I agreed that if he would send me some pictures and a written description of what the problems were, I would give him an estimate…strictly from a consulting perspective of course.

 


You know you have too much to do. Why did you do that?

 


As we ended the conversation, I told him that I was busy and would get him something as quick as I could. He proceeded to tell me a story about several experiences he had with people in the construction industry that had made promises and then not kept them. He asked why this happens? I’ve asked myself this question many times.


The question of over promising is rampant. I know that in my business it raises its ugly head daily, whether it’s sub-contractors, suppliers, IT people, mechanics or my own schedule. I certainly believe that most of the situations of over promising that I experience are not done from a place of malice. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still being done.


Why does over promising continue and what am I going to do about it?


 

Maybe this isn’t the right question. Andy Andrews says that “The quality of your answers is determined by the quality of your questions.” I’m thinking that maybe my question isn’t very good.

 

 


This is a big issue, as you can see from these previous posts.

Over Promising Is Easy When You Have A Servant’s Heart
5 Ways to Stop Over Promising and Under Delivering
How to Create Realistic Expectations for Customers – Part 1
Honesty Is the Best Policy – I Don’t Care How Hard It Is

 

 

I’m not going to stop looking for an answer to this question.

 

 

How To Stop The Time Monster From Eating Up All Your Time

 

 

 

By Being Selfish and Not Letting It Have Any

 

 

The time monster will chew up our time if we let it. He gobbles it up as soon as it’s available and doesn’t leave anything but crumbs. This is one case when it’s okay not to share.


Don’t let the time monster have any of your time.


Last week’s solution was about ways the monster eats up your time. I concluded by pointing out that it’s up to me to manage my time, just like it’s up to you to manage yours. Let’s look at how we can get control of the time monster.


The first thing is to acknowledge that there is a monster. Pretending that he’s not out there won’t work. Closing your eyes and putting your hands over your ears doesn’t make the monster any less real. He’s out there and he likes the taste of time.


Next, we have to recognize it. Time monsters come in different sizes and shapes, see last week’s post. Each of our monsters are different. If you’re going to do battle with your monster you need to know what it looks like so that you can protect your time.


Once you recognize it and see how big it is, it’s natural to want to turn around and run. Don’t be overwhelmed by the size of the monster.


When dealing with a big hairy time monster the best weapon is a snowball.

 


The intentional, continuous, focus of small actions over time will bring the monster down. The process, known as the “snowball effect”, is the accumulation of small things upon small things until they become a big thing, like a snowball rolling down a hill.


The snowball effect works the same on time as it does on anything.


Small segments of time used wisely over and over add up to big savings. Saving a minute here and a few seconds there add up over time. If we save five minutes every hour, twelve times per day, we end up with an hour that the monster didn’t get. If you add that hour to another the next day and do that five times a week for a year the time saving snowball would be 260 hours. The monster is not going to like that.


We can’t imagine our little snowball having any effect on that big hairy time monster. At first it doesn’t appear that it does, but if we keep after it, it will. Those little wins add up. Being able to see each of these little wins give us an opportunity to celebrate. The more celebrating, the more winning, the more winning, the more celebrating.


This leads to another nice thing that happens when that snowball rolls downhill, it picks up momentum. This is another benefit of good time management. The better we get at spending time wisely the more wisely we spend time.

 

There are a lot of different ways to spend time and how you spend yours is up to you. The important thing here is to realize that you control the snowball. The only way to get control of our time monsters is to just do it.

 

 


If you take care of the minutes, the hours will take care of themselves.

 

How to Be More Intentional About Being on Time to Meetings with Myself

 

 

 

My Time Is Just as Important As Anyone Else’s

 

Scheduling and planning accurately are a difficult (practically impossible) thing to get right. This includes not keeping appointments with ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m much more intentional about being on time to a meeting with someone else…not so much when I’m meeting with me.


We’ve all been given a limited amount of time; we need to spend it wisely!


How we choose to spend our time is going to vary for each of us. What we spend it on is not the issue. The problem is not a lack of time, it’s a lack of control. Why is it that if we have a day full of meetings and appointments we can make it to all of them on time, but if we fill our day with tasks and projects that don’t involve anyone but ourselves we are running late after the first thing?


Here are three major things that can cause schedules to go wrong:


Things take longer than planned – We have all experienced things taking twice as long, or more, to do than we expected. This is called the Planning Fallacy. This is a phenomenon in which predictions about how long something will take to complete is underestimated. Parkinson’s Law is when we underestimate the time needed as a way of accomplishing more. If I think something should take four hours and then tell myself that I can do it in two, I will get it done faster than if I tell myself I have all day, even if it still takes five. We focus more and work harder when there’s a deadline.

 


Too many things on the list – This is another common problem. Most of us have said yes to too many things. There are so many good things that we need or want to do. The more things we think about the harder it is to focus on one thing. This, like the previous point, pushes us harder to get the things on the list done, even though we know we won’t be able to do them all. Having too many things on the list leads me to the next cause for schedules to go wrong.

 


Distractions and interruptions – Our busy lives are full of these, whether self-inflicted or from outside sources. In this fast-paced digital age, there has never been more opportunities to be distracted. The previous two things are more internal than this one. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have any control, it just means that it often comes from outside sources. These can play havoc on our schedules if we allow them.


You can choose to manage your time better or not…it’s up to you.

 

Managing how I spend my time is up to me. If I’m going to manage it better, first I have to decide that’s what I want to do. Second, I need to consider who I am and what works best for me. Third will require developing a system that works for me.


The flexibility of a digital calendar is nice, but I’ve noticed recently that it’s much easier for me to move things back when it’s a meeting with myself rather than someone else.

 


There’s no perfect system for scheduling and planning, but my time is as valuable as anyone’s. I need to be intentional about how I spend it and be on time to the meetings I’ve scheduled with myself.


It’s up to me!

 

Links to similar Solutions:

How to Live A Well-Balanced Life

How to Get Your Puzzle Pieces to Fit

How to Achieve Your Desired Life Results

 

 

Is Real Customer Service a Thing of the Past?

 

It Doesn’t Have to Be

 

Customer service is a term that has been thrown around a lot. It’s often a marketing slogan rather than a core value. In this fast paced, information overloaded time that we’re living in, it’s easier now than ever to become part of the noise and make unrealistic promises.


Customer service is found in the heart, not the head.


When running a business, it’s easy for our focus to be on the bottom line rather than the customer, not that bottom line isn’t important. Bottom line is head thinking. Heart thinking is about serving the customer’s needs. It’s finding out what the customer’s goals are and helping them achieve them.


We all tend to naturally lean in one direction or the other, heart or head. It’s important for us to be clear which we are and adjust accordingly. Once we acknowledge that we can compensate accordingly.

 


If we’re operating our business well, both heart and head will be in sync.

 

 

The problem with heart thinking is that in an effort to help the customer achieve their dream, we over promise. We create unrealistic expectations and then when they aren’t accomplished there is disappointment. We need to be clear with customers and ourselves on what’s realistic and share that with them honestly.


Customer service is not about telling them what they want to hear. It’s about telling them the truth. It is hard to tell someone things that they don’t want to hear, but that’s better than telling them a lie. This kind of honesty is hard for a people pleaser like me. By wanting to help everybody with everything, ultimately, I do the customer and myself both a disservice.


This past week I encountered both sides of the customer service experience.


First – Our air conditioner at home quit one night this past week. The next morning, I made a few calls to HVAC contractors that I use as subs. The only one that answered his phone said that he was busy until later in the day. Then in a few minutes he called back and said that he could be out within the hour. Once there, he diagnosed the problem, it was going to require a new part that he could order and have the next day. Or if I would go to Wichita and get the part he would come back out and put it on. I did and he did, by 1:00 that afternoon the AC was working. Thanks Jim Finney with Finney Heating & Air for great customer service.


Second – I was meeting with a customer about a project that was going to include some painting. I have done a lot of work with this customer over the years and several of them included painting. While talking about the painting the customer told me they didn’t want “that painter” to do the work. When I asked why, they told me about some issues on some separate painting projects they had used him on. These consisted of using lower quality paint than they thought they were getting, scheduling delays, and lying. They had been working with him on a parent’s home painting project that the start date had drug out over two years. They even said they would have been okay with the timetable if the contractor had just been upfront and honest with them.

 

 


We need to start by being honest with ourselves. Figure out who we are and who our customer should be. We can’t’ be everything to everybody and we shouldn’t try.

 

Over Promising Is Easy When You Have A Servant’s Heart

 

But It’s Not A Good Business Plan

 

At the risk of sounding like (or writing like) a broken record I want to discuss the big issue of promising to do more than we can. I have written about this on several occasions focusing on different aspects of this struggle.

Five Ways to Stop Over Promising and Under Delivering

How to Create Realistic Expectations for Customers – Part 1

Honesty Is the Best Policy – I Don’t Care How Hard It Is 


I may be overly optimistic, but in my experiences most of the professionals that I work with and/or associate with are driven by a selfless desire to help others. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t selfish people out there, but I believe they are the minority.

 


The problem arises when overly zealous unachievable statements are made and then not followed through.


Much of the time the over promising is encouraged by the person receiving the promise. I know when given an answer that wasn’t what they wanted; customers have pushed me into saying things that I knew weren’t possible. I let them do this because I wanted to help them realize their dream.
I have done the same thing to my suppliers and subcontractors. When trying to achieve a schedule, I urged them to give me answers that both them and I knew they couldn’t meet. This isn’t right or fair to anyone involved.


I have been dealing with this ‘over promising’ issue a lot lately. It was echoed this past week when I listened to a Michael Hyatt podcast about “How to Delegate Even If You Don’t Have a Team”. It encouraged me to not give up on shoveling this particular mountain.


How do we solve this problem?


First thing is to figure out what works best for you. This may be the hardest part…I know it is for me. Not every idea or plan is going to fit your needs. We are all different and this means our systems will be too. I’ve tried different things and give up when they don’t work immediately. The most important thing is to persist.


Prioritize your to do list – This is probably the hardest thing for someone with a servant’s heart. Everything on the list is given ultimate importance and this is where the problem starts. There simply isn’t enough time to do everything. So how do we prioritize the list. Michael refers to the Eisenhower Matrix in the podcast. Like any system, it’s a good way to organize tasks, but only if you use it.


Delegate – Sharing the shovels needed to move any mountain is a good plan as long as you have someone to share them with. Delegating is a part of the productivity plan in the Eisenhower Matrix. There are a lot of unconventional ways that delegating can be done. Thinking outside the box is a great plan, you just can’t stop at the thinking, there has to be some doing. Michael shares ideas for this in his podcast as well.


Say NO – This is probably the hardest thing to do with a servant’s heart. We want to help everybody. The problem is there simply isn’t enough time to help everybody. Saying no is the only way we can do our best work, it’s the only way to serve well. The Lysa TerKeurst book, “The Best Yes”, is a great resource for helping to prioritize which things we say yes to and why. Most servants don’t want to tell others no but wouldn’t that be better than to give them an over promised yes.

 


When we attempt to help everybody, we really don’t do a good job of helping anybody.

 

We can have the best intentions when we say yes, but “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Unaccomplished good intentions are not the best way for us to truly serve others well.

How To Keep A Finger On The Profit Pulse Of Your Company

 

Accomplished by A Weekly Profit Comparison

 

Have you ever been shocked when preparing your year-end financial paperwork and you find that profits were not what you expected?

 


You had, what you thought, was a good year. You were busy and working hard all year long. This was an unexpected and disappointing surprise. What happened?

 

There is so much required to operate a business and it’s hard to keep everything balanced. There are three support columns that hold up a company and financial health is a crucial part of one of them. If you neglect to regularly monitor finances, by the time you realize it, that support leg may be too weak to keep the company stable.

 


It’s easy to lose track of things if you aren’t intentional.


Profit and loss reports are easy to prepare, especially if you use a computer bookkeeping program. The problem I had with the profit and loss report was that it didn’t answer questions that I wanted answered, not without doing a lot of extra work. We all struggle with not having enough time to get everything done so, it gets put off and the next thing you know the year’s over.

 

Been there done that. That’s why I developed a Profit Comparison report.

 

I wanted, at a glance, to know if we were on target for the current year’s financial goals. This way adjustments could be made before the financial support leg got too weak. I also wanted to be able to see how the company’s income and expenses compared with last week or last year at any time throughout the year.


The Profit Comparison is an Excel spreadsheet that within a few minutes can be filled out and ready for review. We take information from a standard profit loss report, enter it into the proper places on the spreadsheet and with a few clicks of the mouse it lets us see what the “profit pulse” is. By filling it out and reviewing it every week we can stop bleeding before it becomes fatal.


The Profit Comparison report provides:

  • Comparison of the current Gross Profit to last week, last year and this year’s goal.
  • Comparison of the current Overhead Expenses to last week, last year and this year’s goal.
  • Comparison of the current Net Profit to last week, last year and this year’s goal.
  • Revenue deficiencies or surpluses, providing an opportunity to make necessary adjustments to get and stay on target.
  • Job cost overruns, providing an opportunity to make necessary adjustments to get and stay on target.
  • Excessive overhead expenses, providing an opportunity to make necessary adjustments to get and stay on target.


One of the biggest problems that businesses struggle with is the lack of time to get everything done, this is especially true for small to medium size companies. Financial reports are one of those things that get put off because they aren’t “directly connected” to generating revenue.

 


This simple report can easily provide the “profit pulse of your company” weekly.

 


We are working on developing this Profit Comparison Report complete with instructions into a product available for use by others. If you or someone you know would be interested in this, please let us know in the comments below.

 

Every Minute of Every Day We Make One Decision After Another

 

It’s Like Playing A Non-Stop Game of Would You Rather

Most everyone is familiar with the game “Would You Rather.” This is a game in which the players are asked questions that compare two different scenarios and are asked to choose which of the two they would rather do. These questions can vary from simple to the complicated.


Would you rather…

  • Spend a day in the Sahara Desert or Spend a day at the North Pole

 

  • Have the ability to fly or Be invisible
  • End hunger or End hatred

 

This game isn’t any different than everyday life. We are faced with choices every minute of every day. Some of these choices are small and simple, some are important and carry major consequences.


Would I rather…

  • Eat this or Eat that
  • Wear this or Wear that
  • Drive this route or Drive that route
  • Go in debt to buy a new car or Save my money and drive something older
  • Take this job that pays well but requires me to sacrifice my morals or Take that job that pays considerably less but allows me to be true to my principles


This past week an either-or situation was in the forefront of my decision making and was a part of multiple conversations.


I was faced with a situation of needing to keep a construction project moving forward or doing proposals that customers were eagerly waiting for. Not to mention all the other everyday business responsibilities of running a company.


The construction project was behind schedule due to weather delays and next week’s forecast showed the possibility of more rain. The subcontractor was behind on other projects of his own due to the weather. The sub said he could get there but was going to be shorthanded.

 

The “would you rather” question arose for me when he jokingly suggested I come on site and help. I could dust off my tool belt and go spend a couple of days swinging a hammer or I could work on the things I had already scheduled to do.


The sub was surprised when I showed up with my tool belt on.


Was it the right decision? I think so, other than being a little sore after framing for a couple of days, we moved the project forward and this was important.

 

Every day we are confronted with hundreds of these choices some big and some small. It’s easy for some of us to spend more time than we should when making decisions, we want to make the best ones. Sometimes when spending too much time trying to make the right one, we have inadvertently made the wrong one.


Little decisions shouldn’t require too much contemplation. Bigger more important ones are a different story. The important thing is to know yourself. Know what you need to make the best decision possible and have those tools in place when you make that next big decision.


One of the best toolboxes I have found for being prepared to make decisions is Andy Andrews’ book “The Traveler’s Gift. In this book Andy gives seven life principles that successful people throughout history implemented at times when they were making crucial decisions.


Would you rather…
Know how to make better decisions? or Guess at making decisions and take a chance?

 

Being Careful to Not Get Stuck in a Rut

The Importance of Changing and Growing

There’s a saying, “A rut is a grave with both ends kicked out.”. Too often we get in a rut and don’t even realize where we are. We are plodding back and forth doing whatever it is, never looking up to see where we are or where we’re going. If we’re not careful the rut will get so deep that we’ll never get out.

On the other hand, changing things just for the sake of change, isn’t a good strategy either. Growing and changing is good if there is a plan. Starting out on a trip without a destination and a map usually doesn’t end well.  

Change can be scary; it might not work. We know our rut well and we like it. Doing it because “We’ve always done it this way.” Isn’t a very good plan for improvement. This kind of rut thinking doesn’t allow for growth and change.

Change costs time, effort and money…the question is, is the change worth it?

Things that need changed and are ignored have consequences, i.e. diapers, your car’s engine oil, furnace filters, tooth brushes and bad habits.

Change is a natural extension of growth. As our services have grown from construction at Timber Creek Construction to coaching and consulting at Solution Building there have been a lot of changes. Changing allows us to do what we do better. Early in the growth process things naturally do more changing.

An example of this kind of change is the recent changing of our Solution Building tag line and logo. We originally started out with “A Foundation for Business & Life”. This was beneath the logo which included an image of a block foundation holding up the words Solution Building. This isn’t something that was thrown together quickly. I had given it a lot of thought and was sure it was the right choice.

After being confronted three different times by people thinking we laid block foundations I decided we needed to make some changes.

After going back to the proverbial drawing board, we changed the tag line to “Helping you find solutions for building your dreams”. The logo changed from the block foundation to a detective’s magnifying glass. This seems to better explain what we do…not to mention I’m NOT getting asked to lay concrete blocks.

It’s important that your message is clear.

Another change that we are going to be implementing next week is the changing of our weekly solution schedule. Since we added the mid-week Sunday School (email) post we’ve noticed that it consistently gets more opens. This caused me to ask the why question. We have concluded that people would rather not spend their weekends reading posts (no matter how good they are 😉).

So, rather than staying stuck in the rut of Saturday and Wednesday posts, we’re going to make some schedule changes. We are going to move the Saturday post to Monday and the Wednesday post to Thursday. I’m anxious to see if this change will help the open rate grow. If not, we can always change again.

One thing that helps us serve better is feedback. Please give us any thoughts you have about day of the week preferences, construction topics or business questions in the comment section below.

What Is It About Communicating That’s Missing?

It’s A Lost Practice That Is Getting More Lost All the Time

Communication is the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing or the use of another medium. It’s common for one person to presume when communicating with someone that that person understands what they mean. When, in reality, those receiving it don’t. When we receive a message, it generates a range of things including pictures, perceptions, emotions, etc. Often these aren’t the same for both people.

I think social media messages are lowering the communication bar. The lack of punctuation and proper English in emails, texts, social media posts seem to be increasing. It can be fun to use abbreviations, symbols, slang and acronyms in these conversations. We just need to be careful that we don’t loose the ability to communicate effectively.

A poorly communicated message makes an already overwhelmed customer feel even more overwhelmed.

Communication between the contractor and customer is critical to a positive outcome for both parties. The importance of good communication is key to helping customers accomplish their dreams. It takes time and effort to prepare comprehensive proposals but it’s worth it.

An example of how words mean different things to different people is in last week’s post when I wrote about a “manufactured” home. I received a communication that it was a “modular” home, not manufactured. This is how communication should work. Thank you, Ivy.

Technically it’s both “modular” and “manufactured”.

Modular – Relating to a module. A construction system using units or sections for easy construction. A system that subdivides construction into smaller parts or modules that can be built in one location and moved. Constructed using standardized units or dimensions for flexibility and variety.

ManufacturedMaking something from raw materials by hand or using machinery. The process of making something systematically. Producing a product in a large scale. Built in one location and able to be shipped to the end destination.

Both definitions describe this home and depending on who you talk to the definition is likely to be different.

Historically manufactured housing is connected to the trailer house industry. These homes aren’t attached to a permanent foundation (another one of those words that can be misleading, nothing is permanent when relating to construction). They typically have a steel frame that remains as part of the home’s construction.

Modular homes on the other hand are generally fastened to a concrete foundation and have no steel frame remaining. They are usually constructed using standard construction materials.

When communicating we need to be intentional in our choice of words. We need to be clear about our message. It’s a good idea to repeat that message multiple times in a variety of ways.

The most important part of communication is to ask questions!

When it comes to communicating, listening is twice as important as talking. Why do you think God gave us two ears and one mouth?

As the business owner or professional is it even more important that we communicate clearly. We have (or at least should have) more knowledge, experience and understanding than our client.

Communication is the number one problem between businesses and customers.

Generally, the customer is a novice and have come to us professionals for guidance and direction. This doesn’t mean that we should tell them what they want. Rather, we need to ask questions and listen to the answers. Find out what their dream is and help them accomplish that. We need to guide them through the process from the beginning to the end.

Communicating is a problem on both sides. The customer generally knows what they want but doesn’t know how to explain it or is afraid to ask questions for fear of appearing dumb. The contractor thinks they know what the customer wants but doesn’t bother to clarify and just charges ahead leaving the customer feeling disappointed, disregarded and regretting having done the project at all.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We are working on some ideas to help narrow the chasm between customers and businesses. Let us know in the comments below if you or someone you know has some specific issues regarding communication that needs solved.