We had just gotten verbally spanked by the client during a QBR - We had missed the mark on a key deliverable. I was debriefing with my boss at the time, and I remember him saying "in the future we need to underpromise and overdeliver".

I was very young at the time, both in my years in the industry and in any sort of leadership position, and the advice made sense at face value. Set the bar low, then jump so high over it that the crowed is left in awe. This in theory is supposed to keep the client happy because we are consistently able to meet and even exceed expectations. But in practice it doesn't really work this way. We lost that client about a year later. And it didn't seem to matter how much underpromising and overdelivering we did.

I have heard this same advice from other bosses and peers over the years, and it's never really made sense to me - not since that first experience. For that matter, in my experience going this route is a long-term recipe for disaster.

Culture is Brand, and Brand is Reputation

The original idea of underpromising and overdelivering comes from a desire to consistently delight and deliver for customers. But it also comes from a fear of missing the mark, and having clients churn. The only way to consistently underpromise and overdeliver is to make that part of your core culture and operating model. That means consistently taking fewer risks. Fewer risks with your value proposition. Fewer risks with your delivery model, fewer risks with your core frameworks and methodologies. Fewer risks means less innovation.

All of that likely leads to a consulting brand that's very vanilla. A brand that looks like every other consulting firm out there, which creates downward pricing pressures and actually increases client churn, because your firm becomes much more replaceable in the minds of your clients.

And here is the kicker, over time you will need to elevate your brand value promise to meet the actual reputation you develop when you actually deliver the work that overdeliver based on your original underpromise. So now you still need to elevate your promise to meet client expectations, but you have to do it with a much weaker position in the market.

The Price is Right

Sure, you can over-deliver on certain micro operational things (e.g. promise a deliverable in 4 weeks, but deliver it in 3) but if you are consistently over-delivering on the macro brand value, then you are likely leaving a bunch on the table by not promoting the actual value you can deliver.

So it's really a fine balance we are trying to strike. We want to make our brand value differentiated, yet rooted in understanding that buyers perceive different as risky. We want to promote brand value that is audatious, but not too audatious where we run the risk of not being able to deliver consistently.

It's sort of like The Price Is Right - how close to reality can we get, without overpromising.