Verbal Promises, Vague Deliverables, and the Real Cost of Miscommunication

“He said, she said” is my pet peeve when conducting business through events and on-site meetings. sign

I’ve been on both sides of the table in Q2 and just wrapped another call on resetting expectations. ⤵️

1. Conversations during presales not materializing later.

2. Promises or quota KPIs/deliverables at on-site ending in 90% less output the first 2 months.

3. Different stakeholders (especially middle level management) communicating one thing on a call, then another in-house on stakeholders, then reverting back a third story on another call.

4. Discussing “going above and beyond” as a general measure of effort, but without the KPIs and milestones to assess results.

Miscommunication is among the top 5 problems for every organization – from hiring through feedback and career plans, to assigning initiatives, defining goals and targets, setting expectations for delivery – you name it.

📲 I push back on calls for a reason, while some high-level objectives need to be discussed thoroughly. And events do inevitably end up being on-site, with no note taking, with both parties leaving with different expectations.

And God knows how many times I’ve received a quote from a vendor that ends up being 150% higher when we actually get to the final offer, or one that includes 10 things for X and then rounds to 5 things for 2X the cost.

The reason why business is often conducted by word of mouth and warm recommendations is exactly this: avoiding all the pitfalls, surprises, unrealistic expectations, overpromising, or the entire sales dance.

And while productized services and SaaS solve very specific and narrow problems, the core business objective alignment isn’t achievable with an off-the-shelf app or doing exactly what everyone else does.