Well done is better than well said. – Benjamin Franklin

How many people have you met that are great talkers, but bring questionable results? Maybe the first few times you had a conversation with them you were very impressed by their eloquence, their promises, and their confidence.

But then, nothing happened.

To ask whether you’d lose or gain respect for this person is rhetorical, odds are we have all experienced a situation like this. Maybe, you’ve even been the one doing the talking.

It may not have been intentional to mislead someone, but maybe you got overzealous and made a promise you couldn’t follow through on.

That is a lesson quickly learned.

The other strategy, though, is to produce. To put your head down, and do the work. You can tell someone you’re going to lose weight or you can go to the gym. You can talk about all of the sales you’re going to make, or you can get on the phone. You can promise results, or you can deliver them.

Sure, you can do both, and oftentimes we need to promote ourselves in order to get more work, find more prospects, and deliver more results.

The thing is that our actions prompt others to do our talking for us. Word of mouth, reviews, positive testimonials, are all things that people are happy to provide us with if we give them outstanding results or exceed their expectations. That’s how we create momentum, through DOING.

If we are always talking about what we’re going to do, WE always need to be the one talking. Others don’t perpetuate our promises for us. They just talk about what’s already been accomplished.

To produce results, we must be willing to take risks, learn new skills, and step outside of our comfort zones. We need to set attainable goals and create pragmatic and strategize steps needed to accomplish them.

We do this through taking real action. So many of us talk ourselves in circles to the point where we end up getting so nervous about actually doing something, that we never do. Motion creates emotion. Progress breeds confidence. Action creates progress.

Your words will tell someone what you want them to know, but your actions will tell them what they actually need to know.