Hub Mentality Element #8: Flawless Execution

February 10th, 2011 → 4:00 am @ admin // No Comments

It’s critical that you execute on your promises and deliver what customers expect. If they expect something great and receive something mediocre, their perception of you plummets.

Systems must be in place to ensure perfect delivery. If you don’t execute and keep your promises, these customers will tell everyone about it, and they have the web to spread their bad experience.

We call this “front stage” versus “back stage.” It doesn’t matter how pretty and flashy your front stage is if your back stage doesn’t deliver.

Front stage is your high-profile executives and spokespersons, events, website, materials, and media. Back stage is your people and systems—the inner workings of your company that customers don’t see, but the results of which they experience.

Stephen once purchased a training course from a company with an excellent front stage. The speakers were persuasive. The events were flawless. The results seemed inevitable.

However, after engaging with them for about a month, it quickly became apparent that their back stage was a mess. They wouldn’t return phone calls. They never delivered on their promises.

What looked like a golden opportunity was quickly exposed as fool’s gold. Stephen wasn’t the only one with a bad experience. The company went out of business a couple years after opening.

Carl once had a conversation of the leader of the execution team for a major self-help author.

The author had written many books and had phenomenal success. He had the ability to speak magically to the hearts of the audiences to whom he regularly spoke. He put on his own events where he offered and sold a number of in-depth solutions for personal growth and financial success.

Unfortunately, he had the bad habit of biting off more than he could chew. In other words, he over-promised on stage and his staff had no other option than under-delivering.

They couldn’t create nearly as fast as he promised. In the end, customers felt slighted. His staff felt the pressure and ended up leaving.

The key to great businesses and a successful hub mentality is just the opposite: under-promising and over-delivering.