Revenue Journal®

Those who follow through make more money than those who don't. This is one of those absolute business truths. It comes into play in two situations: daily interactions and long-term, transformational projects.

Daily interactions

I recently worked on a project with a team. One person on that team didn't bother to go the extra mile. She didn't double-check. She didn't think for a second before answering a question. She acted as if she was thorough, but in fact she was not.

Everyone else on the team always went the last mile. They double-checked before considering something final - even a simple email. They were thoughtful and deliberate. Very few mistakes were made, and the few that were made were minor and quickly corrected.

The skip-the-last-mile person, on the other hand, made a mistake on a majority of her assignments. We got to the point where we knew that there was going to be a mistake - unfortunately, we never knew what it was going to be.

Why does this matter? Because we're all competing for business, and the person who follows through is more likely to get that business than the person who doesn't.

If you're a vendor competing for a client, and you follow through, you're more likely to get the account than the vendor who doesn't. If you're applying for a job, or a loan, or funding, and you follow through, you are more likely to achieve what you seek than the slackers competing for those same funds. If you're selling a product, and you've paid careful attention to product quality and thorough documentation, you're going to get more referral business than the company that cuts corners and turns out shoddy products.

When we're on the buyer's side of the transaction, we all know this to be true. But when we're on the seller's side, it's easy rationalize and let ourselves off the hook, claiming we have more important deadlines to meet. We think we just don't have enough time to double-check, to think for a few seconds before hitting the send button, and to ask ourselves, "Is there anything else I should be doing with this?"

If it were possible to do a study comparing the success rate of those who went the extra mile with those who didn't, perhaps the argument for it would be more compelling. I know from personal experience that whenever a business situation involves a battle between two contenders, the contender who follows through gets the business. The buyer sees the attention to detail, the care taken, the thought put in, and thinks, "I can trust this person. I'm going to give him my business."

Long-term transformational projects

A lot of companies are going through some tough, long-term transformational projects right now. For example, after years of acquisitions and mergers, companies are standardizing processes and consolidating systems, so they have an enterprise-wide view of their data in order to make better business decisions. Smaller companies are finding that they simply can't compete without streamlining or improving certain aspects of their business.

The last mile concept comes into play, big-time, in these projects. They typically require several years of intense effort, careful analysis, effective communication, and the ability to make intelligent and informed adjustments as the project progresses. All of this can be accomplished - if, and only if - top managers don't lose interest.

Boredom is the enemy of follow-through the long-term projects. I'm talking about boredom in all its forms:

1) Exciting new projects are beckoning. Who wants to work on that same-old, "we've been talking about this for three years" project, when you can start working on a new, more exciting project? It's tough to keep everyone engaged when they've been working on the same old problems for so long.

2) Completing someone else's unfinished project is boring. Outgoing executive creates and starts to build a new system or process. Incoming executive didn't come up with the idea, so isn't excited about it. The consultants and employees hired to build the system now find themselves working for a cranky, penny-pinching, distracted executive who is seriously thinking of killing the whole thing and approaching the problem from a completely new angle. The company has just wasted years of effort and millions of dollars building something that will never be completed.

3) When it's not my kind of thing, I get bored. In cases where a new executive takes over a project, not only is she not the originator, but she simply isn't the same type of person. For example, if the original founder of a long-term project was a numbers-oriented person, the project would be designed from the start to have strong metrics built into it. If the person who takes over the project is not as numbers-oriented, the metrics will become neglected. The company's top managers, who were expecting to see strong metrics (this is usually the main promise that causes them to fund new projects), will never see the reports they have been anticipating. Top managers will decide at some point that the project is a failure.

4) I'm tired of beating my head against the same old brick walls. Every company, from the one-person business to the multi-billion-dollar enterprise, has its character flaws. It's easy to get some things done, and way too difficult to get others done. Company owners who understand this reality (I would say this number is about 1 out of every 100 CEOs) are ruthless about identifying these weaknesses and eliminating them. These companies blast ahead of their competitors - and stay there, as long as that leader remains.

The rest of the companies - the other 99 - are handicapped by their character flaws. Employees become demoralized, cynical, and de-energized by these all-too-familiar barriers. At first, it's merely frustrating. Then it gets really, really boring. After a while no one even bothers to start a project that will encounter one of these barriers.

In larger companies, the obvious barriers are entrenched bureaucracy and risk-aversion. In tiny companies, it's the owner's natural tendencies. For example, a sales type who starts a company will do a great job of bringing in new projects, and a bad job of completing them. He won't double-check details. Those who work for him will be frustrated by his "ship it, it's good enough" attitude, and his inability to focus on the details.

5) Nobody is doing this anymore. It's so uncool. Who wants to work on last year's fad when this year's fad is so much more exciting? Management trends have a lifecycle. About three years into the trend, the lackluster results become apparent. Everyone bails out. Time to find a new, exciting bandwagon to climb aboard.

6) That's the same old boring sales pitch. I've heard it a thousand times before. Transformations of any kind are not easy. They need to be sold to management, shareholders, employees, and customers. As the transformation takes place and processes are "under construction," everything becomes more difficult. The promised benefits seem far away - and they never seem to get any closer. After a while, the pitch that worked to get the project going gets a big yawn.

7) I'm tired of finding the money to keep paying for this boring old project. When you first get funding for a project, everyone is excited about the outcome. The hard work hasn't started yet. Then, as the months and years drag on, it becomes less exciting to fund the project. New, more pressing projects or systems start competing for those funds. The long-term project starts to starve.

I believe that anyone can become a member of the "last-mile club." You begin by making it a key focus area in your life.

For the small-scale stuff, you make sure you invest that little bit of extra effort, to make sure that it gets the attention and effort it deserves. For example, every time you write something, even a simple email, you take that extra moment to double-check it. If it's really important, you even set it aside for a few minutes, and then come back to it and read it again before sending it. I guarantee there will be times when you find something wrong or embarrassing (usually both). You will be glad you waited and checked.

For the larger-scale stuff, boredom and complacency is your biggest enemy. You can never assume that you are "almost done." You have to be constantly on the lookout for those barriers and weaknesses built into your company that keep projects from finishing. If you honestly examine the success rate of your long-term projects, you may find that many of them are never finished.

Identify barriers and weaknesses, and aggressively replace them with more fruitful alternatives. You can also start thinking about ways to turn those long-term projects into shorter-term projects - projects that might actually get finished. There's nothing like a series of smaller successes to keep people interested in the larger undertaking.