Always Under-promise

Even though I don't eat fortune cookies, whenever I eat at a restaurant that offers them, I take one anyway. I always enjoy the anticipation of opening the cookie (after the meal of course) and reading my fortune. In recent times it seems that the "fortunes" are really just sage advice. If I believed in fortunes, that may disappoint me, but I find advice more practical and useful.

I pulled one such bit of guidance from a fortune cookie last week. It reads:

Always over-deliver & under-promise.

(And just in case you wanted to know how to spell the word gooseberry in Chinese, it is 醋栗.)
I do actually find that to be brilliant advice. If you can get a job done without promising your client the moon, but then actually give them the moon - you will be well on your way to more business from them and even referrals.

To illustrate this point, I will provide an example.

For one of my clients, I would edit, upload and publish 5 articles to their website twice a month. When I would receive the copy of the articles, I would then give them a turnaround time. I was often tempted to say I could get these articles completed in 24 hours because in all reality I could. It would generally take 2 hours per article. However, I would give them a turnaround time of 2-3 days. Sometimes more pressing work would come up and take presidence and sometimes personal life would interfere.

If I would have given a 24-hour turnaround time, and then did not deliver in that time frame, my client's estimation of my competency may have suffered. However, if I gave 2 or 3 day turnaround time, and actually accomplished the task in 24 hours, their estimation of my competency would have increased.

It is always better to impress than to disappoint...that could even go into a fortune cookie!