100 Skills of the Successful Sales Professional

CHAPTER 3

80 to 71: Establishing a Basis

80. Manages Appropriate Expectations and Overdelivers

If there is one key to business, I would say it is the following lesson:

Do your best to underpromise and overdeliver.

This lesson is closely tied to managing appropriate expectations and setting the right precedent. Responding to clients within 5 minutes is fantastic, but if you do it all the time, it becomes the expectation. The moment you respond 25 minutes later (which by all measures is still fantastic), you’ll find they are more annoyed at how long it took, as opposed to pleased by how much quicker you are than everyone else.

If it’s something you can control, keep your SLAs (service level agreements)/KPIs (key performance indicators) on the low ...