Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey, but has amazing paybacks for the patient and consistent soul. One of the greatest mistakes we make on this journey is under the aspect of failing to deliver once a client has paid.
When we pitch to a client, we normally do it with all guns blazing, we put our best foot forward. We dazzle the client with so much facts about our ability to deliver, you would think we are sending someone to the moon.
This is normally a big and erroneous mistake we make because we end up raising the client’s expectations over and above what they were expecting, all because we are so keen or desperate for that check. We are normally like a puppy waiting for a bone from the master.
When you raise a client’s expectations over and above what their brief was all about, you are simply setting yourself up for failure.
From personal experience, it’s a recipe for disaster when you over pitch, knowing very well that you true intention for the beautiful and extraordinary pitching was that check so that you either pay overdue bills or take your girlfriend out.
This is a mistake that kills any hope for the client, once they realise that your bark is louder than your bite. It kills your business even before it takes off.
In business, it’s not important to just work hard, but it is important to work hard on the things that result in sales.
— Barbara Corcoran (@BarbaraCorcoran) July 15, 2017
Clients don’t care about your challenges. They don’t care about your problems. They don’t care about your sick employees. They don’t care that your landlord locked you out. They don’t care that politicians went on strike and the Central Business District (CBD) was shut down. They don’t care that internet providers were down all week. They don’t care that telecom providers were down all month.
Truth is, clients don’t care about you and yours one bit. Their primary, secondary and tertiary concern is the deal with you, the deal’s execution, and delivery as per the time stamp agreed in the contract.
Before you report to work behaving like in your abscence the company would collapse, remember Nkaissery was incharge of the just ended games
— Intellect Mogul (@GicheruGicheru) July 16, 2017
Majority of us once paid, forget to execute the deal. We use the money to pay overdue bills that have no relation to the current deal and hence we end up suffering when actual delivery of the current deal commences. Most of us will get paid and start balling. Instagram and snapchat and all, forgetting that work needs to be done.
We need to have governance structures in place that will ensure that we manage our funds properly to ensure that our cash flow is healthy to deliver to clients. We normally don’t even care how we will execute the deal. This particular problem is the genesis of cash flow problems and we never realise it.
