opinion

Expounding on Expectations

For some readers, the questions of "why would an adult industry trade publication want to run an article on 'expectations' and why should I care about it?" will be natural ones. The simple reasons include the facts that while we all deal with expectations on both personal and professional levels, the way in which we handle them can dramatically impact both our profitability at work – and our happiness at home – making a closer look at the subject a matter of "good business."

We all have expectations of one sort or another in our lives; starting with the most basic assumption that we will continue breathing from minute-to-minute and indeed wake up the following morning. The problem is that one day we'll be wrong and there will be no "tomorrow." And so goes all of our expectations; while it's nice to wish, plan or hope that some situation or another will turn out exactly as we want it to, rarely does this happen – and often for reasons well beyond our control.

Personal and Professional Expectations
Two different areas of common expectations are those that surround our personal and professional lives: On a personal level, the things that we as people expect from one another can include a range of actions (or in-actions) from "common human decency" and kindness to violence or apathy – and beyond – with these expectations all based upon our own past experiences in dealing with others. For example, if people have usually been kind and decent to you, it stands to reason that you will expect most people to treat you that way; whereas if most folks have shown you only negative behaviors, then you will understandably come to expect the worst in (and from) other people.

Do you have the right to expect anything? Besides expectations of death and taxes, people have the right to expect to get what they pay for. This expectation is the foundation of all business relationships and when these expectations aren't met, trouble can't be too far away. Conversely, when a person or company exceeds expectations, stronger and more profitable business relationships are easy to forge.

For example, a webmaster purchasing content that its provider claims to be licensed and '2257-compliant could reasonably expect that copies of all of the necessary documents would be included. Likewise, a webmaster purchasing hosting should expect his website to always be "available" and running at an acceptable speed, and when his or her needs turn to design work, the webmaster should expect the job to be done on schedule, on budget, and with an acceptable level of quality.

The list of examples is endless, as is the list of reasons why these expectations aren't always met – or why they were exceeded.

Satisfaction and Disappointment
Having expectations leads to one of two outcomes; either satisfaction or disappointment – and this outcome, rarely being absolute, is typically marked by being seen as a "more or less" situation, as in "I'm fairly satisfied with the way this turned out," or "I'm kind of dissatisfied with the way this is going..."

While the outcome of many situations for which we might have reasonable expectations is often beyond our control, what is within our control is the way in which we respond to these different outcomes. Although advice on dealing with exceeded expectations is easy to give (and to take), and can simply be stated as "reward it with generosity and praise," dealing with un-met expectations is more problematic.

Part of this problem is the sensitivity of the relationships, both personal and professional, that make up the parties to expectation.

With personal relationships where "feelings" may be hurt when one party expresses disappointment in another, it's important to prevent your disappointment from being compounded by your response to being disappointed. Whenever possible, looking for solutions to any problems that might have led to your disappointment, rather than simply focusing on the problems and trying to assign "blame," is a much better use of resources that might also preserve valuable relationships. The same can be said for professional relationships, that despite occasional hiccups, are worth maintaining: Remember, there's no profit in burning bridges.

Some expectations are the result of miscommunications and misunderstandings. Some the result of selfishness or other emotional reasons. Many are mutual, reasonable and prudent. Some are even contractually obligated. Regardless of the nature of our expectations, we should always focus on improving their outcomes and the way in which we show our satisfaction – or disappointment – with the way in which our expectations play out.

Copyright © 2024 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More Articles

profile

VerifyMy Seeks to Provide Frictionless Online Safety, Compliance Solutions

Before founding VerifyMy, Ryan Shaw was simply looking for an age verification solution for his previous business. The ones he found, however, were too expensive, too difficult to integrate with, or failed to take into account the needs of either the businesses implementing them or the end users who would be required to interact with them.

Alejandro Freixes ·
opinion

How Adult Website Operators Can Cash in on the 'Interchange' Class Action

The Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement resulted from a landmark antitrust lawsuit involving Visa, Mastercard and several major banks. The case centered around the interchange fees charged to merchants for processing credit and debit card transactions. These fees are set by card networks and are paid by merchants to the banks that issue the cards.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

It's Time to Rock the Vote and Make Your Voice Heard

When I worked to defeat California’s Proposition 60 in 2016, our opposition campaign was outspent nearly 10 to 1. Nevertheless, our community came together and garnered enough support and awareness to defeat that harmful, misguided piece of proposed legislation — by more than a million votes.

Siouxsie Q ·
opinion

Staying Compliant to Avoid the Takedown Shakedown

Dealing with complaints is an everyday part of doing business — and a crucial one, since not dealing with them properly can haunt your business in multiple ways. Card brand regulations require every merchant doing business online to have in place a complaint process for reporting content that may be illegal or that violates the card brand rules.

Cathy Beardsley ·
profile

WIA Profile: Patricia Ucros

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Ucros graduated from college with a degree in education. She spent three years teaching third grade, which she enjoyed a lot, before heeding her father’s advice and moving to South Florida.

Women In Adult ·
opinion

Creating Payment Redundancies to Maximize Payout Uptime

During the global CrowdStrike outage that took place toward the end of July, a flawed software update brought air travel and electronic commerce to a grinding halt worldwide. This dramatically underscores the importance of having a backup plan in place for critical infrastructure.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

The Need for Minimal Friction in Age Verification Technology

In the adult sector, robust age assurance, comprised of age verification and age estimation methods, is critical to ensuring legal compliance with ever-evolving regulations, safeguarding minors from inappropriate content and protecting the privacy of adults wishing to view adult content.

Gavin Worrall ·
opinion

Account-to-Account Payments: The New Banking Disruptor?

So much of our industry relies upon Visa and Mastercard to support consumer payments — and with that reliance comes increased scrutiny by both brands. From a compliance perspective, the bar keeps getting raised until it feels like we end up spending half our time making sure we are compliant rather than growing our business.

Cathy Beardsley ·
profile

WIA Profile: Samantha Beatrice

Beatrice credits the sex positivity of Montreal for ultimately inspiring her to pursue work in adult entertainment. She had many friends working in the industry, from sex workers to production teams, so it felt like a natural fit and offered an opportunity to apply her marketing and social media savvy to support people she truly believes in and wants to see succeed.

Women In Adult ·
opinion

Understanding the Latest Server Processors

Over the last decade, we mostly stopped talking about CPU performance. Recently, however, there has been a seismic and exciting change in the CPU landscape, due to innovation by a chip company called Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Brad Mitchell ·
Show More