In my work I'm constantly helping people to work on their expectations. They have expectations of customers, employees, their salespeople, their vendors, the economy, politicians, their government, etc, etc. Most importantly, they have expectations of themselves. All of these expectations have one thing in common: they are seldom accurate. For some reason people assume that what they think is fact. Consider the news story I heard today: Bloomberg did a survey. They asked a number of people if the deficit is going up. 94 percent of the people surveyed gave the wrong answer. The fact is, it's going down. How can so many people get it wrong?

People will often tell me what their customers expect. Unless they have actually asked their customers, they are very often wrong. The same holds true with employees. Research has found that the work is much more important than the pay, but when was the last time you heard of an employer trying to improve that? We all know the description of "assume".

You can create expectations, and you should. Great marketing campaigns do this all the time. They take a negative and turn it into a positive - think VW Beetle, Avis's We try harder, and any label that says "All Natural"  (remember, crude oil is a natural product). Your customers should know what to expect every time they do business with you. You should have the policies and procedures in place that assure they are not disappointed.

For themselves, I've found that people tend to undervalue their experience and skill but inflate their ability to accomplish simple tasks. They fail to recognize the success they have had (because it should have been greater?) but think they can accomplish 6 hours of work in three. In each situation we can examine the facts to get a clear picture of what actually happened.

So, the next time you make a decision based on your expectations, remember this: Expectations are simply constructs. They are poorly built and seldom maintained. Sound decisions are built on facts.

We have all been in sales since birth. Your first sale was convincing your mother to feed you. So, don't tell me you don't know how to sell, you've just forgotten. For a refresher, get Daniel Pink's book To Sell Is Human. It will help you to see the world in a new way. 

Networking is about visibility and credibility. Showing up is 80 percent of the job, but no one will remember you as someone they would like to know unless the other 20 percent is credibility. It starts with what you have to say, so be prepared. Can you introduce yourself and tell people what makes you unique in 10 seconds? If you can, consider yourself at 90 percent - and you haven't even started to work the room yet.