(Or, Why Don’t They Love Me When I Give So Much?)

If you feel like you’re always overdelivering,
how come clients aren’t gushing with gratitude?

It’s possible you’ve been relegated to The Overdelivery Zone.

The Overdelivery Zone is like The Friends Zone, except for business.

They like you a lot, they really do. But this is never going anywhere exciting. It’s not you, it’s them. You’re so amazing they’re actually overwhelmed. It’s too bad, because they would be so much happier with you than with what’s-his-name.

As consultants and business owners, we’re conditioned to wear Overdelivery as a badge of honor.

“Underpromise and Overdeliver,” the cliché goes. And now they’re telling us to “Overpromise and Overdeliver!”

Well then! I’m going to Overdeliver on Overdelivery itself!

It’s a tough break.

You don’t want to try too hard not to overdeliver. Better to err on the side of “too much.” Right?

Cue eery music.

Oh, no, it’s The Overdelivery Zone—again!

Here’s how we find ourselves here—and why it’s a problem:

1. Most people aren’t ready for The Works all at once. They get overwhelmed with helpful reams of deliverables. They can get so overwhelmed that nothing actually happens.
   
2. You might be conditioning them to devalue you. They begin to expect more for less, without actually following through on any of your brilliant advice—because it didn’t cost them all that much to begin with.
3. The Burnout Zone is just around the corner. The Burnout Zone and The Overdelivery Zone are owned by the same parent company, Wig Superstore. 

Recently, I found myself in The Overdelivery Zone regarding certain copious notes I sent clients after a package.

These notes were taking me forever to compile and edit. And they were still too lengthy. I began to suspect the time they took to create was disproportionate to the benefits most people got from reading them.

Then I had a session with the brilliant Sinclair of Self Activator, who gently advised me to remove said copious notes from the package. Sinclair pointed out that more information wasn’t necessarily doing more. It was too much to digest, too soon. She said just because I love to synthesize vast quantities of information doesn’t mean my clients do. I knew this already. I also needed the reminder.

I’d been using The Golden Rule by mistake. Five pages of notes are exactly the kind of thing I like to get. But I would never hire myself to do what I do. People who hire me don’t want to do what I do. That’s why they hired me.

Bites. Bites. Bites. This is how people like their stuff. This is how people like their everything.

For the past two weeks, I was physically incapable of working more than an hour or two a day. (I feel better now, thank you.) Even though I hated not being able to power through the day, this involuntary capacity diet reminded me that in these times like these, I do not want five pages of notes. I just want the good stuff.

I don’t want 100 action steps. I want the three that I can do this week.

That probably wouldn’t hurt my clients, either.

Look out for a few changes soon. I’m adding more packages, changing existing packages, and simplifying and streamlining bunches.

Thanks to Sinclair for helping me escape The Overdelivery Zone. For now.

Dun-dunnnn.