Promise Archive - This Moment Counts

Don’t confuse your vision with your marketing

A lesson for entrepreneurs from one of tech’s biggest failures in recent years.

It’s well known that tech brands like to paint sweeping narratives of transformation, promising us devices that will reshape our lives and disrupt industries.

They love larger-than-life stories and lofty promises to captivate our imaginations with visions of groundbreaking innovation.

Such as Humane’s ai pin which was marketed as the product to finally free us all from the slavery of our phones, a personal assistant that looks like it’s coming directly out of a Star Trek movie with features that definitely sound SciFi.

But reviews were brutal.
Their product didn’t deliver.
Worse, it failed at basic tasks.

Apparently, Humane wanted too much.
They certainly promised too much.

Perhaps, they had confused their vision with their marketing.

Vision is crucial, but it needs to align with current capabilities.

The vision might be what motivates the team.
It informs the choices you make.

But it’s not the reality.
At least, not yet.

You shouldn’t make promises that sound as if it were.

I think it’s a safe bet that reviewers were merciless at least in part due to their oversized promises.

Had they marketed it more grounded in reality, for example as a first step towards that vision, perhaps even with more limited functionality (but which actually works as expected), reviewers might have reacted very differently.

They might have rooted for the newcomer.
Followed along their journey.
Cheered for the little successes along the way.

But Humane chose the grandiose, larger-than-life story.

I think they confused vision with marketing.

Truth shaping – the dark side of marketing

The dark side of marketing is what I call “truth shaping”.

It leads marketers to exaggerate the pros and hide the cons in order to shape a truth that fits into the marketing story.

Essentially, the dark side of marketing leads businesses to spend huge resources on inventing promises that sound irresistible for products that aren’t.

Which inevitably leads to frustration when the product doesn’t meet the buyer’s expectations. That, in turn, leads the dark side to make even bolder promises which leads to more frustration … which leads to … a vicious cycle …

Great marketers understand that it’s the other way around and that a virtuous cycle is possible.

The best products are those that customers love even more when they know the complete truth. Those that are not irresistible because the promise sounds irresistible but because it is irresistible.

Those that have been built with the customer in mind and that solve a specific problem they have.

These products might not be perfect. But that’s not the same as irresistible.

It basically reverses the shaping. Rather than build a product and then shape the truth so that the irresistible promise can somehow fit the product, you start with an irresistible promise and shape the product to fit into the promise.

If it eventually does, you’ll need to merely tell me a true story about your product in plain English.

The comfortable place of honesty

You’re an honest marketer. That’s why you don’t overpromise. You care for keeping your promises.

I do, too.

But still: could your promises be bolder?

The reason I’m asking is that I’ve met quite a number of brilliant people for whom the noble statement to “underpromise and overdeliver” has become a place to hide. A comfort zone. They play it a bit too safe.

The problem is that they fear not keeping a promise so much that they promise only the things that they can comfortably keep. They only ever promise something that’s easy to keep.

But there’s an alternative to overpromising. And that’s to promise big. Promises that are outside of your comfort zone, yet not so far as to be unrealistic. Promises for which you don’t know all the answers, yet, but know where to look for the answer. Promises that lead you to try harder and push your own boundaries.

This is what differentiates people who care from “overpromisers”. The latter put all their effort in finding excuses why it wasn’t their fault if a promise wasn’t kept. People who care put all their effort in finding ways to keep the promise regardless. That’s why they are able to make bold promises and still be able to keep them. (And, at least in my experience, they usually do.)

What was the boldest promise you ever made to a customer?

Why didn’t you make it bolder?

Bold promises are a competitive advantage. Too often, though, we leave that advantage to the bullshitters.

Bullshitters don’t care for keeping their promises. They care for getting the deal. And so, they will make whatever promise their customers need to hear to close the deal, the bolder the better. These marketers are super creative at coming up with excuses why they couldn’t keep the promise. For them, it’s about the deal, not the promise.

And yet, it’s who you have to compete with. The good news is this: When you make bold promises, you care to actually keep them. Instead of being creative with excuses, you get creative with keeping them.

Honest marketers often struggle with making bolder promises because they are not 100% sure to be able to keep them. The problem is when you keep this 100% in your comfort zone.

So, here’s a challenge: Which promise can you make outside of your comfort zone? What would need to be true so that you can be sure to keep it?

What’s the boldest promise you can make?

I’m speaking of bold promises that you actually intend to keep.

I mean, it’s easy to make bold promises when you don’t intend to keep them, right? It’s also easy to keep little promises when they are not bold at all.

It’s the combination that is hard: Make a bold promise and confidently keep it.

Bullshitters don’t care about keeping promises. That’s why they are so good at making bold promises. Their sole concern is to get the deal and they will promise you anything that will make you more likely to sign it.

People who care for the cause, on the other hand, struggle at the other extreme. Too often, they shy away from making bold promises because they want to be 100% certain to be able to keep them. Which leads them to only ever make the littlest of promises.

But too often that’s a way of hiding. Hiding from the work that would be required to keep a bolder promise.

The sweet spot is to make a bold promise (possibly even one that scares you) and work hard to keep it.

The key difference is this: For the bullshitter, the deal is the end of the story. For people who care, it’s the beginning.

The customer will only know after the deal.

Don’t leave them to the bullshitter. In the customer’s best interest you need to be able to compete with the bullshitter. You know their game. Change it! Not by making smaller promises but by making bigger efforts to keep bold promises.

A better future

Great salespeople show us a better future. They make us see that there’s a gap between what we have got now and what we could have in the future.

They make us want that future.

The difference between selfish and honest salespeople is that the former doesn’t care whether a path exists between the now and the future they paint us.

Which is why their promise can be bolder, their future even brighter.

In fact, if all you care for is the quick deal, the best thing you can do is to paint the brightest future that’s not totally unbelievable.

It’s what bullshitters do all the time.

Things are different, when you care for your customer to actually achieve what you promise. Then you can’t bullshit.

But that means that you need to work extra hard to paint a credible and true picture of a possible future that’s just as attractive as the fake picture of the selfish salespeople.

It means that we need to work extra hard on bold promises that we can confidently keep and then tell true stories about it that resonate deeply with what matters to our audience.

PS: If you struggle, let’s talk: https://michaelgerharz.com/coaching

The promises you make

“I will send that over to you.”

Which, of course, they don’t.

Because it’s easy to make a promise in the moment but a lot harder to keep it later.

It’s also a bummer for the other person because they might have thought you mean what you say.

Of course, you didn’t lie. You meant to keep it. And yet, you didn’t.

Maybe you just forgot about it. Or an urgent call came your way. Maybe it was even impossible to keep the promise.

The thing is: the person you made the promise probably to doesn’t care. And I think she shouldn’t care. She cares about whether you keep your promises.

But there’s an easy fix: Make less promises.

Make less promises so you can keep the ones you do make.

In other words: only make promises that you are absolutely certain you can keep.

Don’t try to be “nice” by making a promise in the moment.

Be nice by keeping the promises you do make.

Making bold promises

Building credibility is actually easy: Mean what you say.

Make promises you can keep; don’t make promises you can’t keep.

While it’s obvious how the latter serves our credibility, the former is often overlooked. Because it contains the hard part.

It’s easy to promise something and not bother to keep it.
It’s just as easy to promise a small thing and keep it.

The hard part is in making bold promises that we can keep. Pushing our boundaries. Taking the risk of making that promise and then giving it our all to keep it.

Meaning it when we say things that require ambition, dedication, and skill.

And yet, it’s so much more worthwhile to promise things that are hard to keep and still keep these promises. Consistently.

The habit of meaning what you say

The habit of meaning what you say is one of the safest ways to build long term trusted relationships.

It requires honesty, empathy, and clarity.

The honesty to only promise to others what you can keep (and be open to say so if you can’t).

The empathy to understand that this is what they need.

The clarity to speak so that others get what you mean.

A surprisingly large amount of frustration around broken promises stems from a lack of the latter. What we said was not we meant. At least it’s not what they thought we meant.

You need all three.

Speaking with confidence

Most of your competition leads with vague statements such as “improving efficiency”, “providing flexible solutions”, “using high quality materials”.

One of the easiest ways to differentiate yourself from this competition is to be really specific in what you promise. What does “improving efficiency” mean? What does it look like? How will it change our processes?

And then make a bold statement about it. “X will increase Y by at least a factor of 3.”

There’s one important pitfall: You need to keep your promises. It’s easy to make bold promises. It’s a different thing to actually keep them.

Yet, this is the actual differentiator – and the reason why so many companies shy away from making specific promises. They lack the confidence to actually make them happen. They don’t go all the way to make sure that this will always work (or figure out which version of the promise will always work).

The best pitches start with empathy: Understand what matters to your customers. Make a bold innovation to improve this aspect. Work hard to be able to keep a promise around it.

When you’ve done this, speaking about it with confidence will be the easiest part.

Posts in Tag: Promise