Follow through with what you say because your word is everything in this world. Your word drives and determines your brand. Which determines who wants and gets to do business with you. Whether we like it or not, we can’t get to the top all on our own.
The worst doctors are the ones who schedule an appointment for 2pm and shows up at 3pm. If a doctor refuses to respect my time, I personally walk away and go to the next doctor. Many people, especially recently, do not care about following through.
The follow through is the difference between acquiring a business relationship and not. The follow through is the difference between others wanting to hand you opportunities versus not. It’s so critical because then our words have meaning. It has impact.
Many people say words yet their word means nothing. Some people earned so much respect just from their word alone because they follow through that others trust their word more than some others’ actions. Even when actions speak louder than words!
Follow through with what you say because it means more than you know. When people respect what you say and want to hear what you have to say, that’s when you win the game. That’s when your reputation precedes you and others can trust what you say to be true.
It makes a difference in the business world and it especially makes a difference in life.
Follow Through With What You Say: 3 Reasons Why
Below are 3 reasons why you should ALWAYS follow through with what you say.
1) It Builds Trust
When you say you’ll show up at 12pm, you show up at 12pm. No ifs, ands, or buts. There’s no “traffic ran longer than expected”. There’s no “my earlier appointment ran later than expected”. You show up on time because you gave your commitment and word to the other person.
When you do this enough times, they trust that what you say will get done. That there will be follow through. It doesn’t take that long to leave the house a little bit earlier to meet a commitment. When others trust you and feel that you will do what you say, there will be a second meeting.
Many people take the first meeting for granted and think that they “made it”. Relationships, trust, and respect builds over time. Years, and some after decades. Follow through with what you say because trust is the ultimate social currency.
It’s how we determine how to allocate our non-renewable resource we have. Which is time.
2) It Builds Relationships
Long lasting relationships aren’t built overnight. It’s built over years and years of doing the right thing, following through with what you say, the more. The good relationships require respect, trust, and love. The deep relationships that are worth having in the first place.
Follow through with what you say because relationships take time to build. We can’t just go up to a stranger and expect them to trust us right off the bat. Relationships take a long time to build, which is why I personally only keep a close number of friends at my side.
I don’t want to invest my time, effort, and attention by focusing on quantity of relationships instead of the depth and the quality of the relationships. When I commit to a Saturday hang-out, I follow through with it. No “I’m tired and I just can’t tonight”. I show up.
That’s why showing up is half the battle.
3) It’s Simply the Right Thing to do
If there’s no other good reason to follow through with what you say, it’s just the right thing to do. We shouldn’t take our word for granted. It’s how we build our reputation. Our word means everything to someone else because it communicates a much more subtle message to the other person.
When we follow through with what we say, we are communicating that we are to be trusted. We do the right thing not just when it benefits us, but we do the right thing even if it harms us. We’re much better than the ones who are always complaining and negative.
But rather, we do positive things like building trust with our words. Words are impactful. What words and how we use our words is how others perceive and see us. When others associate our words with good and positive thoughts and feelings, they know we always do the right thing. Period.
Doing the right thing sometimes feels painful, but it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Follow Through With What You Say: 6 Ways It Helps
Follow through with what you say because there are more ways than one on how it helps you. It helping you is a great side benefit to keeping your word.
1) It Builds Your Reputation
In the world of people, your reputation is everything. How people think and feel about you when you are not around is everything. Reputation takes decades to build but a second to destroy. That’s how powerful it is. A good reputation gets the best deals.
A bad reputation doesn’t get any deals. Not even the bad ones. Follow through with what you say because your reputation says everything about you. The best part is, all you have to do is keep your word and your reputation takes care of itself.
There’s no need to control how others perceive you because when you always do the right thing, people will only have good things to say or think about you. When I was moving within Austin, the apartment company I hired was a whopping four hours late.
I was steaming but I had no other choice but to wait it out.
However, their service was exceptional and they went above and beyond with the job. Therefore, my Google review of them was still good at the end. Because I had already built up a great reputation in Google, I let their mistake slide. And was happy to refer for further business by the end.
2) Your Boss Becomes Dependent on You
It’s one thing if you are dependent on your paycheck. It’s another when your boss is dependent on you. When your boss needs you, they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep you. To prevent you from getting laid off and anything of the kind.
Follow through with what you say because when you get your boss hooked, if you ever get another offer from another company, you can bet that there’ll be a counter-offer at play. Every time I got a counter offer from my boss was when my boss needed me.
She had no other choice because my teammate was leaving and I was leaving, meaning 25% of her analyst class was gone. She already gave me flying colors on my performance reviews. Therefore, she had no other choice but to increase my salary 25% to keep me in.
When your boss feels like they need you is when your career moves up.
3) It Becomes Easier to Ask for Favors
When others see that you are doing them favors, it becomes easier for you to ask a favor from them in return. It’s the reciprocal principle. The reciprocal principle is so effective that we go OUT of our way to avoid favors from others just because we don’t want to owe them.
That’s how powerful it is.
When someone in the streets gives us a flower, it makes us feel like we owe them. We try to avoid that feeling as much as possible. However, it’s a different ball game when the other side wants you to keep your word.
Then when you follow through with what you say, they feel like they owe you something in return.
When you tell someone you’ll help them move and you actually show up and do it, then they feel delighted and happy. I helped one of my friends get a job. It became much easier for me to ask him for a favor later down the road for advice on a job application.
It may be a business principle, but unfortunately, people don’t give away favors for free. We have to earn them.
4) Repeat Customers
Customers don’t want to frequent a business who never delivers on their promises. When the company advertises their quality products and we get subpar results, we feel cheated. We would never want to do business with them ever again no matter what.
The best is when you overpromise and overdeliver. When you overpromise and underdeliver is when everything falls apart. No one will want a second meeting with you. The businesses who keep their customers know how to communicate what their customers can expect.
The reason why I still loyally buy Apple products is because while their products are expensive, they function as advertised. MacBooks last a good 5 years before their performance declines. A Windows computer lasts maybe 2 – 3 years before the performance declines.
Because they follow through with what they say, I still dish out thousands of dollars for just one of their products.
5) People Respect You
Respect is one of the best feelings in the world. We don’t want people to like us, we want people to respect us. No matter how great it feels to be liked, it doesn’t compare to the feeling of being respected. If we don’t do anything that is respectable, we cannot earn others’ respect.
Respect is something you earn, not anything that others give you. Follow through with what you say because that’s the first step in gaining the other person’s respect. To thrive and succeed in the business world, we require people to respect us.
The real opportunities are given to the ones who earned it. When our word carries weight and meaning behind it, that’s when our lives change. The business opportunities others gave me was because people respected what I had to say. I had influence.
Influential people know how to command respect from others. Without even trying.
6) Your Word Means Something
Our word is the social currency of the world. When our word and talk is cheap, then we have a problem. Because words are what makes up who we are. It’s not the clothes we wear or the color of our skin. It’s our word that carries the most amount of weight with others.
When we take care of the little details about ourselves, others give us a good chance with the big details. Others notice the small and seemingly inconsequential things that we do. Not the big things. Things like showing up on time, delivering on promises, and not telling lies.
Follow through with what you say because the little things are what others care about. Your words should mean something and it shouldn’t be cheap. Others know cheap things always come at a cost. Your word should be the highest quality product on the shelf.
It’s easy to compete just through your words, alone.
Follow Through With What You Say: My Story
To manage expectations with my boss on my work quality, I underestimate when I’ll deliver on the work product. If I estimate I’ll get the work done by Tuesday, I say I’ll deliver the work on Thursday. Then when I deliver a quality work product on Tuesday, he’s pleasantly surprised.
As a result, he can depend on my work and my word. He knows that I follow through with what I say. That gives him comfort to give me more work later down the road. This is how trust forms and this is how his brain connects and remembers me as someone who consistently produces quality work product.
It’s how I earned $200k+ just in my 20s, alone. I can only imagine how much more money I’d earn in my 30s. The future just looks bright. As long as I manage expectations and maintain my brand, I wouldn’t be surprised if I start earning $300k+ in my 30s.
When you follow through with what you say, only good things can happen. Trust is hard to earn but once you earn someone else’s trust, everything falls into place. The more people who trust you, the better your life becomes. It’s not about who you know.
It’s about who knows you. Word of mouth spreads, just like with any product that’s on the market. Which brings more opportunities down the road. Follow through with what you say because your word means everything in life.
It’s the easiest way to outpace your competition. And it costs nothing to do what you say you’ll do.
Follow Through With What You Say: Words Matter
We get annoyed when we read clickbait articles that promises to change your life in the headline but the actual article wastes our time. That’s when journalists don’t manage expectations and don’t deliver on their promises. We don’t want to be a source of revenue for a clickbait article.
The best thing to do is to over-promise and over-deliver on your promises. Every one of MrBeast’s videos go straight to the point in the first 10 seconds then delivers on his headline promises as the video progresses.
And by the end of the video, he gives us more content than what he promised to give us. It’s no wonder he earned $54M in 2021, alone. People come back to his content because he delivers on his promises, and then some. Follow through with what you say because words are impactful.
When our word is cheap, no one takes us seriously. When no one takes us seriously, we are alone in reaching success. Which is still possible but very difficult to achieve. Follow through with what you say because your brand depends on it.
What people say and think about you when you are not around is when the magic happens. People have no choice but to make snap judgements on others because we are flooded with information on a daily basis. The easiest way to associate positive judgements with you is to follow through with what you say.
It’s one of the life-changing inspirational values.
Follow Through With What You Say: 6 Ways it Helps Shortlist
- It builds your reputation
- Your boss becomes dependent on you
- It becomes easier to ask for favors
- Repeat customers
- People respect you
- Your word means something
