Integrity & Promises

What’s in a promise?

More and more we have to promise more and more.  Sell it , make that weekly nut, take a breath, and do it all over again, and again, and again.

One of the most dif­fi­cult things to over­come is the del­i­cate bal­ance between integrity and accomplishment.

Those nomads in the land of sell what­ever -  to who­ever is buy­ing, — at any and all costs, can make money. But they do so at their own peril.

More impor­tantly they screw it up for the rest of us.

For those of us that stay in a ter­ri­tory, build­ing our own and our company’s rep­u­ta­tion it takes a bit more patience, per­sonal bud­get­ing, and frus­tra­tion man­age­ment.   Yeah those other guys are sell­ing more, and doing it faster than us. And you sim­ply cant give into  the temptation.

Back in the day, you could sell the bleed­ing edge of every­thing, because every­thing was bleed­ing edge, and cus­tomers were used to tak­ing in on the chin if the tech­nol­ogy didn’t work out, it was a mov­ing target.

The tar­get is still mov­ing, but it moves with a pur­pose.   Those same buy­ers from yore are now today’s C’s, and not tak­ing any shit. That’s where the promise comes in. If your com­pany is build­ing it, you bet­ter freakin’ be there.  But if your com­pany is not build­ing it you need to come clean.

If you don’t pro­tect your integrity no one else will.

It’s  tough and the temp­ta­tion is huge given the econ­omy and the slow­down in most industries.

If you bow to the pres­sure you’ll be out and won’t get back in.  You’ll become one of the afore men­tioned sales nomads. Sure they’re screw­ing it up for you but never mind, pretty soon they will find them­selves liv­ing in Sioux City, sell­ing micro­film and printer rib­bons for recur­ring revenue.

Keep your head, under promise, over deliver, and let your cus­tomers help you sell through their suc­cess. Don’t sell the old joke that ends, “ that was when you were a prospect, now you are a customer”.