This is the second installment of a four-part series on expectations in sales.
May 12, 2021
By Rachel Smith
According to my father, if you expect to get something quickly, on budget, that is of high quality, you’re out of luck—at best you can hope for two out of three. He imparted these words of wisdom when my husband and I began building our house. “Not us,” I thought. We knew our builder, were there every day, and had been promised the house we wanted under budget in eight months.
We broke ground, at which point it proceeded to rain for four months straight. Our eight-month timeframe quickly went out the window (the window that did not yet exist since all we had was a large hole dug for our foundation that was full of mud). “I guess my dad was right,” I thought. We could settle for high quality and on budget.
I’ll spare you the rest of the details and just tell you that 27 months after hiring our architect, we had a house that we loved. We could not afford to furnish it because the budget had long ago been thrown out the window. We were just happy to have a window to throw it out of. Dads are always right.
This is the first, last, and only house I will ever build, so I wasn’t going to be a repeat customer. The fact that timelines and low costs were overpromised won’t have a huge long-term impact on anyone we worked with (plus it’s par for the course in construction). But what happens when you don’t deliver on the expectations of someone that you’re relying on for continued business? In the world of SaaS, the point of sale marks the beginning, not the end, of your company’s relationship with a customer.
Nobody likes to be let down and end up with something less than what was expected. When you’re selling something like cloud-based technology, however, you really cannot afford to let your customers down. You are relying on them for continued engagement in a way that’s not the case for other markets.
Nobody is completely immune to overpromising. In order to avoid it, it’s helpful to look at the reasons we might do it in the first place.
It’s great to get new clients. It’s natural to want to make every deal, but making a deal on which you can’t deliver does more harm to you and your company than no deal at all. If a company’s sales process or targets lend themselves to sales reps overpromising, those need to be addressed.
The most common reason for overpromising to a prospect is not malicious in its intent. The salesperson doesn’t even know they are overpromising. It happens when the sales team does not truly understand the product. They think it can do something that it can’t, or think a certain function is quick and simple when it’s not. This has less to do with communication between salesperson and prospect and everything to do with internal communication and understanding between the sales and product teams.
There is also the possibility that someone on the sales team is suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is the psychological phenomenon that describes how people with the least ability think they are the most competent. In this case, it’s the salesperson who knows the least about the product thinking they have a thorough understanding. They proceed to promise capabilities and adaptations that are extremely time consuming or not even possible.
There is some data suggesting that the Dunning-Kruger effect is not really a thing. Whether it is or not, Dr. David Dunning’s explanation is helpful to keep in mind. “The lesson of the effect was always about how we should be humble and cautious about ourselves,” he said. Basically, take a hard look at what you’re promising prospects. Do you truly understand the technology enough to make that promise?
If you constantly feel the need to make promises above and beyond what your technology or your team is capable of, it might be because there are prospects well into your funnel that should not be there. If your lead is not really a good fit, but you didn’t ask enough questions and get enough information early on to determine this, it makes sense that you’re having to bend over backwards to deliver.
That’s what Maestro’s information gathering framework, DRIVE, is all about—digging down into each letter to make sure your prospects’ needs and expectations are in line with what you can provide.
Are you a people pleaser? I’m a people pleaser. That’s why I have positions on boards that I never wanted and why I get several magazines that I don’t read. I’m not good at “no.” When it comes to agreeing on expectations with a client, however, saying yes when you should be saying no is just plain bad business.
This is one of those bad news/good news situations—your customers’ expectations are higher than they have ever been, but not very many businesses are fully living up to these expectations. That means you have a chance to set yourself apart from the crowd by exceeding them. However, it’s extremely easy for B2B customers to take their business elsewhere. That means if you overpromise and underdeliver, they likely won’t be giving you a second chance.
Here are what the statistics say:
When you, your sales team, and your company overall have good processes in place, it becomes much easier to avoid overpromising. In fact, by getting all of the information you need through DRIVE, the perils of unrealistic expectations can be avoided.
The best way to avoid disappointed clients is be setting clear expectations from the very beginning. Have a clear understanding of what their needs are and what would constitute a win for them. Make sure you know and they know what your product does and does not do.
Let your prospects and your customers know what you are planning to do and when—then deliver on that. It takes time to develop a set-in-stone process for sales and onboarding, but it makes things more transparent and easier to manage.
It’s critical that you’re not the only one who knows what you have promised to your client. Use your CRM to log conversations with prospects. That way, anyone from your team knows their expectations. This also smooths out the entire experience for your prospect because everyone on your team is aware of all previous interactions.
This goes along with setting clear expectations. Make sure you communicate these expectations with your prospect and revisit them often. After a call, it’s always a good idea to send a follow-up email with a summary of what was covered. That way everyone is on the same page and it’s documented.
The great thing about setting clear expectations is that you know exactly what you need to do and can go a step beyond. Excite those dopamine neurons by giving your client more than they expected (see box)! We’re not suggesting that you set low expectations in the beginning, but by underpromising just a bit you leave room for a positive surprise later on.
When you break a promise to a customer, you’re breaking a social contract. Even if you can explain it or patch things over, you have set a series of events in motion at a primal level. You’ve broken their trust, and likely lost their continued business. It can seem like no big deal when you’re trying to get the sale, and you might even believe that you can deliver what you’re promising, but if you’re not absolutely sure, it’s not worth the risk.
Instead, set yourself up for success and set your customer up for happy surprises. Using DRIVE and having a solid sales process in place will allow you to make a promise and then overdeliver. The result will be loyal customers that will champion your products and services.
Do you want some help setting up a solid sales process? Contact us at mastery@maestrogroup.co.
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