Delivering on Your Promise

Gentlemen on horseback called highwaymen roamed the roads and countryside of Merrie Olde England with the sole objective of robbing carriages and their occupants of their valuables. "Stand and Deliver" was their command when they forced a carriage to a halt. Loosely updated this meant "get out and give me all your good stuff or I'll kill you". Read more.

Although not overly skilled in customer relationship building techniques, they never the less got results. They did, however, score low on gaining repeat and referral business. More about this later.

Nowadays I like to think that, "Stand and Deliver" means "I stand before you and give you my word that I will deliver on my promise to you". That promise may be of product performance, a value proposition, a service guarantee or whatever. But a promise is a promise and if broken it won't get you far in terms of repeat or referral business which, as we all know, is the lifeblood of any enterprise.

I also believe that when you "Stand and Deliver", what you charge for your product or service becomes less important to the buyer than the fulfillment of the stated or inferred promise of performance.

Golden Rule: Conduct quality control audits to ensure that your product and service promise can and is being delivered and that your customer is receiving at minimum, performance that meets or exceeds their expectation. If it doesn't then change the promise or change what's being delivered.

So, you have a choice, you can buy into the approach of the Highwaymen, make a quick profit, a quick getaway and spend the rest of your time looking for new prospects or, you can practice my version of "Stand and Deliver" and reap the benefits of consistent repeat and referral business while building a quality reputation and earning a fair return on your investment.

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