I had to get some awards made with engraving and, of course, I waited until the last minute to get them ordered. I ran down to the Things Remembered store here in town and the guy there helped me find what I want.  Next, the dreaded question: “How fast can you get these done because I need them for tomorrow night.” He told me they would be done by 5pm the next day BUT that I should call at noon the next day to see if they might’ve had time to do them.

I placed the order just happy to have something that I could pick up late the next night.  The deadline would be met. I also put in my calender to call the store at noon the next day just to see if they were done. No way in Hell, I thought.

So I called today at noon thinking they’d tell me to come by after five pm and before closing at 9pm.  NOPE!  She said they were ready!  WHAT?!

So I ran to the mall and checked out the great job they did. Oh, and then I realized I’d forgotten to order one more. Dumbass! 

I humbly asked if there was any way she could do one more. She said, “No problem, if you have another store you need to go checkout I’ll have it done in 15-minutes.”

NO WAY! 

Yes way.

So not only did they do a great job on the product, they also blew me away with their service.

So here are 2 reasons you should under-promise and over-deliver as an entrepreneur:

Don’t look like an ass: If you promise the moon then fail to deliver you’ll look like an idiot and you may lose that customer.  You effectively just lied to them. Instead do what Things Remembered did for me. Set a conservative deadline, then beat it. 

You’ll Look Like a Rockstar: If you do this over and over again you’ll gain the reputation of being a business rockstar.  Surprise your customers by delivering more than you promised. Don’t let them expect it. That takes all the fun out of it.

So get out there and start under-promising. Then work your tail off to over-deliver your kickass product or service. Your customers will love you for it!

Originally posted on Carlos Cooper's "A Swift Kick" Blog

Yeah, yeah I know it’s a silly picture. But someone recently told me I needed to use more pictures to grab YOUR attention.  So here we go.

I was working on a presentation earlier today and I was trying to narrow down the common reasons why a lot of small businesses fail.  The one I kept coming back to was that the so-called entrepreneur gets in the way of his/her own success.

Literally it’s like they’re peeing on everything they’ve built.  How do that they do that?  Let’s explore:

1) Failure to Delegate: A lot of small business owners are afraid of delegating because they think if anyone else does the work they’ll get it wrong, the customer will be lost, then the business will die. You’ve either heard it or done it, “Nobody can do this thing as well as I can.” Well, maybe it would be better to break down that task, come up with a system/checklist so any monkey (no offense to all my monkey readers out there) can do it. Why do you want to do everything? Learn to delegate tasks.

2) Failure to Look Around: Being a small business owner can be hectic, crazy, insane, exciting, etc… It’s easy to get so caught up in our daily routine that we fail to look around and A) see what’s going wrong, and B) see how we can improve things. Make it a part of your weekly routine to step back and see what’s working and what’s not. Then, come up with systems that help you fix and improve.

3) Failure to Aim Higher: Success is great. Sometimes continued success can be daunting. I’ve recently talked to some entrepreneurs that are at the point where they need to take their business to the next level…but they’re scared. They’re scared of hiring employees, scared of increased inventory, scared of more time, scared of everything.  Don’t let your fears keep you from growing. Build your business incrementally and take baby steps. Nobody says you have to be the next Apple tomorrow.

So again, don’t pee on everything you worked so hard to build. Make sure you aren’t getting in the way of your business’s success.  Take a systematic approach, get outside help and push on through. And use the restroom before you leave…

Originally posted on Carlos Cooper's "A Swift Kick" Blog