The short answer
Trust is not built by large gestures. It is built by keeping small promises exactly, especially the inconvenient ones. I would rather promise less and deliver on the hour than impress someone once and disappoint them twice.
In full
Every relationship in business runs on a simple ledger: what you said, and what happened. People stop reading the words when the two stop matching.
That is why I promise conservatively. If I say Thursday, it arrives Thursday. Small precision earns disproportionate confidence.
When something goes wrong, I say it first and I say it early. Bad news delivered by you is credibility. Bad news discovered by them is a loss.
Over years, this becomes the cheapest competitive advantage there is, because almost nobody is willing to be boring about it.
From experience
I once called a client to tell him we would miss a deadline by two days, before he had any idea. He renewed the contract that same call and told me later it was because I called. Nobody else ever had.
Common mistake
Overpromising in the pitch to win the deal, then spending the whole relationship apologizing back to zero.
Do this next
- Step 1
Reduce your next commitment by twenty percent and hit it exactly.
- Step 2
Report one piece of bad news before it is discovered.
- Step 3
Track every promise you make for two weeks and score yourself honestly.
Questions
- Does under-promising cost you deals?
- It costs you a few. It keeps the ones worth having, and those are the ones that refer.
- How do you rebuild broken trust?
- Slowly, with a sequence of tiny kept promises. There is no shortcut and there is no speech.
By Robert T Fletcher