Hey, it's Samantha Hartley of the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast. This season is about management consulting. And today I want to talk to you about over delivering or more specifically, breaking the habit of over delivering. It's a challenge that has been brought to me by many of my consulting clients and many of them are women, and they are stuck in this kind of compulsive behavior of over delivering.

So I worked with these wonderful consultants out of New Jersey, a three woman firm doing amazing work. And they had a signature system that they developed along with the clients. And it was very important to them that they developed the work that they did with each new client. They said that's kind of like a differentiator for us. And after I'd worked with them for a little while, I said, actually, do you think there's a right way to do it? Or do you feel like you need to kind of finesse this with the clients? And they said, no, actually, we think there's a right way to do it. I was like, well, then don't co-develop this anymore. Like your stuff is done being developed, leave it there. And then what they found was they were challenged because they didn't realize that they could charge instead of for the development costs that they were passing along to the client, they could just charge for the thing that already had value. So instead of just saying, hey, we have a program and it costs $130,000 a year to do for your organization, they had been redeveloping it every time to be able to pile that $130,000 in there. And I was like, your program is already $130,000 or whatever it needs to be for any particular client. But that's how much there's already value in this.

Don't try to pile other value in there, because the interesting thing is that they would work themselves to death doing this and the clients didn't, first of all, they didn't know the difference because they didn't have anything to compare it with, and they didn't really appreciate it and value it like they really liked the program, but not the fact that it was new or that it had been developed with anybody. They just, you know, clients want the result they want, they don't really care how we get there for the most part.

And so what we finally got to was that they were able to come in and say, well, we have this program and here's how we're going to do it. And here's the investment. You know how much the client is going to pay for that. The end. And they didn't feel compelled to develop and do new work for every single client because that work had already been done and the value was already in it.

So that is just one example of over delivering. But I've also had clients who will go in and do work and then kind of in the middle of it or part way through they start to go, I feel like I'm not doing enough.” And then they start to bring in all new stuff and do more work for the clients when that's not what the situation calls for. So why does that happen? Why do we get stuck in this idea of over delivery?

Well, first of all, what I want to look at is like, why over delivering doesn't work and doesn't help? First of all, for most clients, they're not able to implement that. I've talked many times about the fact that when we go in and do work with a client, a lot of times we're doing so much that they're not able as an organization to kind of absorb that new work into their schedules and to implement it. And so what benefits them is like less is more. An intellectual challenge to us is like what's the least I can give them to get the biggest result? That's the thing that you're going to be aiming for. So don't give more stuff. You will find, and every experienced professional consultant I have known has said to me, the less I gave them, the better the results they got.

In addition, like when I removed all this stuff for my program, what I realized was that like the 20-80 rule, like 20% of the things had been giving that disproportionately large amount of results to the client.

So less is more in curriculum, in activity, in meetings. Everything that you're doing with your clients, do the minimum level of that stuff and you'll see a more successful implementation. It's counterintuitive, but true and proven, not just by me, but many, many of my peers and my clients.

The second thing that you want to do is why you don't want to over deliver is that you exhaust yourself for no benefit. So the young consulting firm that I was mentioning, they were doing so much work and they were fried and flying all over the place and redoing and redoing curriculum that was already working before and didn't need any improvements. They kept doing it and the client, like, didn't appreciate it because they didn't have a basis for comparison. So it didn't improve their results at all. They were just exhausting themselves for no reason.

And the third thing, the third reason that you don't want to over deliver is that when the clients have gotten a lot of stuff and they haven't been able to implement it, but they're like sitting with a bunch of the stuff, they're going to feel like they've overpaid, like we have all the stuff that we can't use. So probably we bought too much, like maybe we didn't need to get all of this. And that's, you know, kind of an existential crisis. For your firm and that project, it's like, did this thing even need to happen? So it's confusing when you pile too much crap into your offers and when you're delivering and you're doing so much stuff, it's confusing to them and it can make them think, I think we paid too much for this.

Ironically, the less you do, as I said, than the first point, the less you do, the better results you're likely to get and the more the client is going to be delighted with what they paid for. Do not forget that what they want are results. They don't care how much stuff is involved in getting those results. And really the easiest it could be, the better.

I've often said if we could wave a magic wand and just make it so that's how they would want it. Right. And so we would all want it like just wave a magic wand and have my problem go away. And since that's impossible, the thing that you can do is focus on the least, the most minimal amounts of work and stuff that you can put into your offer to get results.

So my question from earlier, like, why do we do this to ourselves, why do we over deliver? I think the problem is that we get in there, we get nervous and feel like I'm not enough, it's not enough, and really I'm not enough. So, you know, first of all, take away an affirmation that you're going to say, I am enough, I am enough. And second of all, review these things that I said, doing more doesn't work and really set yourself the assignment to do only that which is effective, only those things. And if you reflect on that, then you're going to find out is you can focus on results.

I had a client say to me just today, but what about the idea of under promise and over deliver? Super dangerous idea, comes from old time industries. And maybe the problem there was that they may do bigger promises and they didn't deliver on them and people got burned and confused.

OK, not your problem I want you to think about rather than under promise and over deliver. I'd like to give you a little paradigm shift in this of a thing that I want you to think about, which is surprise and delight.

OK, so under promise over deliver is like pile a bunch of crap that they don't need. Surprise and delight is how can you do like tiny gestures or experiences that really help the client to get results and feel good about that. So I've collected surprise and delight ideas for many years and so have some kind of old and obscure examples. You'll remember like originally it was like a bed and breakfasts would put like a cookie on the on the nightstand before when you first got there and there would be beside the bed and then hotel chains started doing it as well. So it's a fun idea to go into a place which is kind of like a hotel, but like a little homier and have that homey aspect. It's a little unexpected. It's a surprise and delight. Restaurants can do this when they have like an amuse bouche, which is not on the menu and you're not paying for it. But like, here's a little thing that we give everybody who comes into the restaurant. Yay! That's a nice little surprise and delight.

Years ago, I had some sort of dental surgery and I went into the place that I'm laying down in the chair and they give you a blanket because I'm always cold. That was the most fantastic of all benefits. You know, you're at the dentist, right? So they gave me a blanket and then, you know, they got the awful light that's shining onto your teeth. They give you sunglasses, so they're sunglasses and a blanket. I was like, why isn't everybody doing this? How is this one genius in Arkansas providing this surprise and delight experience? Was I surprised? Oh, my God, I've never seen that before. Was I delighted? You bet. So you see how it was a tiny detail that made a huge difference. Like somebody paid attention, I was like when people are laying in this chair, they get cold and also that light kind of harsh.

So what is your version of that? I think you can do simple things like a gift. When people sign up, you can go do like a “thinking of you” kind of thing and send those kinds of gifts. So there's those kinds of options. But also, I think we surprise and delight when you have a component in your program, maybe it's like a role play or maybe it's a handout that they can hang on to. There's just a little thing and they go, I can't believe that worked as well as it did. Like, wow, results from just a little thing.

So you don't have to pile in stuff. Right? You can say I have a little thing. And when we do this thing, everybody has an amazing time. Or, you know, it would make our meeting better to have it as an off site and I'll have, you know, it'll be catered or it'll be fun. We'll play a game, whatever. I think more about the results that you want to get. Think creatively and not voluminously. It's not about more. It's usually almost always about doing much, much less with a little bit of that surprise and delight element. I think you'll find that it will help you feel even more confident and even more worthy to do the work that you're doing and your clients will be super happy with you.

Please break the habit of over delivering. It's bad for you, it's bad for the client. It's bad for the industry. And I invite you to adapt and bring in the idea of surprising and delighting your clients. It will be good for you. It will be great for your clients and it'll be good for our industry.

And with that, I wish you a profitable and joyful consulting business.