Maurilio Amorim

Month: October 2013

  • Managing Expectations: The Difference Between Success or Failure

    I love to say “YES.” It’s more than just the salesman in me who wants to promise the moon in order to get the deal. I thrive on the challenge to help someone accomplish a goal or seize an opportunity. I specially love tell “yes” to my clients on projects that I know will make a difference in people’s lives. But behind every “yes” there are moving parts, deadlines, budgets and deliverables that most often are beyond my control. I’ve struggled over the years to balance my can-d0 attitude with the realities of resources and realistic time lines. But over the years in business I have come to believe while my clients appreciate my willingness to understand and even share in their sense of urgency, they appreciate even more my honesty on what can realistic be done.  Managing expectations has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn, but it has been one  the most important

    Managing expectations

    Early on in my business career, I was often quick to promise solutions to my clients without much thought on how to deliver them. Sometimes it worked, often it backfired. I was constantly putting my team at a disadvantage because of the unrealistic expectations I had setup with clients. Honestly, I haven’t changed. I still want to say “yes” to every request, but here’s some safeguards I have put in place in order to manage expectations:

    Know what you know. I usually get in trouble when I find myself in a space I don’t have any expertise in. The variables I know I can speak confidently about, but when I make the mistake of promising something outside my comfort zone, I’m in for trouble. Take, for example, my first stab at developing an iPhone App. I charged the client 8 times less than it cost to develop it.

    Build in safeguards. No matter how excited I am about a project, I can no longer agree on a deliver date. I always make sure I get a firm commitment with the people who’s actually delivering the product or service before a timeline is finalized. This action alone has saved me a lot of grief.

    Stand your ground. Sometimes an over-eager potential client will push back and want to manage or even dictate every aspect of a project. I have regretted every single time I’ve given in to demands I knew were unreasonable for the sake of  getting the business. Unreasonable people are like spoiled, undisciplined children who, no matter what you give them, always want more from you and are never satisfied or grateful. If they’re not willing to work with you on the front end, then you’re in for a tough time for the remainder of the relationship. If you blindly give in, you’ll lose the project, the relationship and the money. There are no winners here.

    The bigger the stakes the bigger the trust. My best projects and products have been forged during the mutual exchange between our clients and my team. Without mutual trust and honest exchange, projects take an ugly turn where stakeholders watch out for miscues and mistakes. But when you let them know from the beginning that this is “collaborative effort” and that “we’re together in this” grace abounds and instead of blame, people focus on solution. This never happens without trust.

    I’m sure this list could be longer. How do you manage expectations?

  • Take Your Brand to the Next Level with Two Questions

    The question is almost always the same: how can I improve my __? Whether the question refers to a skill, a product, an experience, it’s ultimate about a brand.  How can I improve my brand, then becomes the question. There are corporate, product and individual brands. A brand represents a promise that it makes in the mind of its intended audience. A successful brand evokes positive feelings and delivers in its promises. We all want to improve and grow, but the answer to that question is not as obvious as you might think. Before we can get to the next level, whatever that might mean, we must know at least two critical concepts. What’s my brand promise? Who’s my audience?

    Taking your brand to the next level

    Your Brand Promise. That’s what your audience/customer/client can expect to get from you. Walmart’s brand promise is simple: everyday low prices. There’s a lot of things you don’t expect from a Walmart experience, such as great customer service or amazing facilities, but you know that if you want the cheapest prices, you’ll find them there. If you can define your brand promise, you’ll be able to stay focused on your message as well as your product.

    Your Audience. Understanding your audience is key in order to communicate the brand promise. Your promise must be delivered in the medium and language of your audience. Nordstrom knows that its audience is willing to pay a little more for a great shopping experience. Their sales associates or personal stylists are some of the best in the industry. I had a handwritten note from a personal stylist at a Nordstrom in Dallas after she helped me with a purchase. By any standards, I didn’t spend enough money with her to warrant such attention. Her note communicated everything the Nordstrom brand stood for: customer care, quality, attention, service.

    Are you fully aware of your brand promise and your audience?

  • Sometimes All You Need Is To Show Up

    It’s a cliche, but it’s a good one: “Sometimes all you need to do is just show up.” I have seen its power in my own life. As a matter of fact, it works for me on a daily basis.

    Sometimes you just need to show up Maurilio Amorim

    I cannot tell you how many times I have abandoned personal growth goals because I was too afraid, too lazy or too discouraged to even try, so I didn’t even bother showing  up.

    You can’t fail if you don’t try, right? Wrong.

    For me the greatest battle is winning over my mind. Waking up at 5 am and dragging myself to the gym when I don’t feel like going is not always easy to do. Sitting down and working on a project that’s important but not urgent is tough to do sometimes.

    But there’s so much more than just showing up at the gym or getting your job done. Sometimes just showing up at a potential client will get you the sale because you’re present at the right time. Showing up at a counseling session when you don’t feel like it, might be the first step to making the changes you need in your life. Showing up at your child’s dance recital after a hard working day might create a bond that could last a lifetime.

    So we need to be present, fully engaged and committed to make the kind of progress we want. However, these are secondary actions. They don’t matter if you are not there. Because before you can engage, you must first show up.

    What area of your life do you need to just show up?

  • The 10% Rule of Life

    We judge most things and experiences on details. I call it it the 10% rule because most of that what makes the details worth of notice usually happen at the very end of a project, building construction, manufacturing, design, experience–the last 10% of completion.That’s why finishing well is not just a good idea, it’s the difference between mediocrity and greatness and even success and failure.

    10% ten percent rule of life

    I don’t care how solid the foundation of a house is or how well-framed the walls are, if the painting is sloppy the entire structure gets devalued. “It’s just cosmetic,” you might say, but in the minds of most people the entire product gets devalued because of the last 10% of effort was not done well.  The opposite is true as well. Sometimes a beautifully finished building will garner top price before its owners find out that at core the structure is substandard. The value, rightfully or not, is mostly assessed by our first impression of the very last phase in any project. In construction we have even named them  “finishes.”

    Your last 10% can also be more than just an impression. It can be the difference between success or failure. I’ve been in multi-million dollar church facilities where I couldn’t hear or see well. After millions spent on steel, concrete, pipes and electrical wires, costs overrun “value engineered” sound, lighting and video to something inadequate.  The 10% rule comes to bear here and the entire church experience gets downgraded because the most important aspect of it, the message, gets no priority.

    Over the years, I have stopped using some very talented freelancers because they constantly break the 10% rule. They can get projects close to completion with brilliant ideas, but fail to deliver at the very end. They often “disappear”, miss deadlines, can’t get corrections and fixes done, or are not able to take direction to bring their vision and the client’s expectations in line.

    What are you thoughts on the 10% rule?