Underpromise Partnership Results

A story about how Shaan's father taught him the importance of managing expectations during a partnership pitch meeting.

"We were going to a big partnership pitch meeting. We had this technology that would give them results 100 times better than their current solution. I thought it was a slam dunk and put that on the slide.

We go into the meeting and I noticed my dad had changed the slide to only say '3 times better.' After the meeting, I asked him 'Why'd you do that?'

He said 'Did you see their faces about 3 times better? They were over the moon. That other stuff is now my dry powder. If I said 100 times and we came in at 80 times better, it would be seen as we did not deliver on what we promised.'

The principle is to only sell to the amount you need to get them to green light the thing, but don't overpromise beyond that. You'd always rather beat your numbers - that's how you exceed expectations."