A friend was telling me a story the other day. She'd felt she'd been burned by a company she'd been doing business with and needed to vent about it. Several months ago, when the relationship began, they'd sat down and agreed on how they'd work together, outlining who'd do what and when. Things looked pretty good at first. But as the honeymoon phase began to wear, she saw signs that all was not as it had been discussed.
In fact, the other company wasn't keeping specific promises they'd made. She addressed her concerns with them and they promised to not let it happen again, to keep on track. I'm sure you can see where this is going. Recently they did it again ‘ and this time in a big way. They agreed to approach a situation a certain way and then one of their guys completely and knowingly blew it. She walked away from the business.
What does this have to do with marketing? Everything.
Everything you do is marketing
Not just your ads and your blog posts and your websites and your sales pitches. Everything. And when you make promises explicitly or implicitly, you're asking for someone to trust you. If you're lucky, they'll grant you their trust. If you don't uphold your promises, you'll lose their trust. It's that simple.
If you imply that your product is the fastest, it better be the fastest. If you say you answer calls in 24 hours, you'd better answer calls in 24 hours. No ifs, ands, or buts. People can be forgiving. You can make a mistake. You'll have to earn back that bit of trust that you lost.
But, you cannot intentionally deceive. Not allowed. Say what you're going to do and then do it. Mom always said,
If you make a promise, keep it.
Who knew she was talking about business, too'
"Everything you do is marketing". You nailed it with this sentence. Even when you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror, there's marketing involved: you're selling yourself back at you. If you look tired, you'll feel tired. If you look energized, oh boy, watch out! It's going to be a great day! Thanks Nila. –Paul
About 10 years ago one of my favorite sales people told me this: You have to tell a customer the truth 1000 times before they'll trust you but if you miss it even once they'll never trust you again. If you say it, do it.
Nila,
You're so right! I worked for some companies who had sales teams that simply sucked folks in with promises of grand results – that they knew they could not meet. The problem wasn't simply a sales and marketing problem, it was even deeper since it impacted customer support and the account management staffs. There's nothing more terrible than setting expectations you should not be committing to!
Awesome post! Thanks so much for sharing!
The important thing to remember is the concept of change. If you make a mistake on something fix it and try to never make that mistake again.