31/08/2026
A hotel owner who was struggling to attract guests told Alex Polizzi (aka 'The Hotel Inspector'):
"We don't want our website to look too good, in case it raises client expectations too high."
You might be surprised that anyone would say this, but I've heard it from law firm owners too.
And I can understand the rationale behind this: nobody wants to over-promise and under-deliver.
But there's a fairly obvious flaw.
If your website doesn't persuade anyone to use your services, you've solved the disappointment problem by creating a much bigger one: no clients.
But the choice isn't:
great marketing + disappointing service; OR
mediocre marketing + mediocre service.
There's a third option: great marketing + an experience that lives up to it.
If you want premium clients and premium fees, you need to be comfortable creating premium expectations – and build a law firm capable of meeting them.
So if you're holding back from saying how good your law firm is because you're worried about creating expectations, the question isn't:
"Should we keep underselling our services?"
Instead it's:
"What would we need to change about our services to make sure we can deliver on high expectations?”
