Andrew: This course is about how to reduce your refund rate so you can avoid flushing more money and more customers down the toilet. The course is led by an expert. Her name is Marie Forleo. She is the best selling author and marketing strategist and business coach who created “Rich, Happy and Hot,” a program that shows you how to use your unique talent to change the world while creating a lifestyle you love. There’s her website. We’re going to show more and more of her site and her products as we teach this, but I want to show you first the big board and tell you what’s coming up here. I decided, actually, that, I should just be going over the main ideas here so you know where we’re going and then we’ll launch right into the tactics. Here’s some of the things that we’re going to be talking about that I want you to specially pay attention to. A lot of this stuff is counter intuitive, including, you’re going to make customers work and you’re going to see in this section, we talk about making customers work, why she sometimes turns people away and, some of the things that you’ll hear do turn people away and you’ll find out how that increases your sales and lets you keep more of the money you earn.

We’re going to talk about how to reflect people’s exact feelings. If you’re having trouble closing sales, never mind getting people to stay committed, if you’re even having trouble closing sales, this section is one that you’re especially going to want to pay attention to and, of course, once you get a sale, understanding this section of the course is going to help you keep that sale and keep that revenue coming in. You’re going to see how to show social proof and how to show all kinds of proof to your audience and you’ll see specifically how Marie does it. I think we’ve got some great screenshots that will show you. So we’re not just going to tell you, we’re going to show you how she does it so you know how to do it too.

Look at this. If you’re in a content business, we’re going to talk about why having no content weeks is in your interest and what you do when those no content weeks to make sure that people are excited about the product that they’re getting from you. So much else. I’m skipping over things, like brutally honest. I want to just call your attention to a few things that you might miss. Finally, how to create strategic bonuses and how having that bonus at the end of a session will get people excited and bought into your product and program and they’ll stick with it. That’s all that we’re going to be going over and Marie, thank you. Thank you for coming here and teaching us all this. Before we get into the tactics here, I know what our audience is thinking, which is, ‘What’s the pain?’ Let’s help them see that we’re going to do one of the tactics that we’re going to teach them later on, which is, show them that you’ve experienced this and what the problem is and, in fact, in 2010, you experienced this problem, what happened then?

Marie: In 2010, we had this amazing program called “Rich, Happy and Hot B-School,” and we sold about 330,000, $329,000, to be exact, in terms of revenue, in terms of sales that were coming into the company. And it’s a $2000 product and once we finished, and it was an eight week course, all video based. We had customers from all around the world and we’re talking a look at our numbers and we’re doing a little posting analysis and we saw that the refund rate was near 20 percent. And for me, this is what I do for a living. I create content, train people, teach people how to get results. The fact that we had a 20 percent refund rate was absolutely unacceptable to me. I just thought, ‘Wow. All these people said, ‘Yes,’ and then we gave them back their money? We’re not doing something right. What’s going on here?’ I was looking at it from a few different perspectives, maybe the people that we pulled in, I wasn’t specific enough about who should be taking this course. Then also I tried to look for the fail points during, especially, the refund period, why was I losing this many customers. To see that much money come in and then to see that much money go out, and if we look at those specific numbers, it’s about $64,000 going right back out the door. That’s painful for any business owner. More importantly, and what’s more important to me than money is my reputation and the results that I get for people. I want folks to know that if they’re going to sign up for one of my products or programs, that I’m going to do everything in my power to give them the best experience possible and, more importantly, to get them results. I really had to take a step back, deconstruct everything I was doing and look for ways to, not only keep more money as a business owner but, more importantly to get my customers better results and to have a better reputation and brand reputation out to the world.

Andrew: You did it, and people are going to see throughout this course how you did it and what exactly happened when you got this right, but let’s give them a taste of where you are today. What’s your refund rate right now?

Marie: We relaunched the program with everything that we’re going to teach about today, all the strategies that we use. We sold $1.36 million, so that’s a 314 percent increase in revenue. So there’s tactics which got us there and more importantly less than a three percent refund rate, 2.97 percent refund rate, which in the information product industry, in the teaching industry, in the seminar industry, that is unheard of. Very, very well and I will tell you this, the people that did ask for a refund, were kind of happy about it. They didn’t feel upset, they were just like, ‘You know what? I did this. I realize this isn’t for me. I really want to take advantage of one of your other offerings. I think I’m more suited, rather than a virtual offering, I should come learn with you in person.’ Great feelings. Great rapport with us and it was just an incredible experience.

Andrew: We’re going to show people how to get that done starting with, and everything we do here is very tactical so that you can see, learn and then go out there and do. And the first thing we’re going to ask you to do is to set boundaries. Specifically you want to be choosy and set boundaries before you accept customers, and can you tell people, I’ve got a screenshot here that we can show people when you let me know it’s the right time.

Marie: You can show it right now. One of the things that I’ve usually been very good at in my business is outlining who this is for and who this is not for and I think every single business owner, whether you’re selling products or services, you have to get very specific and clear about who you do your best work for. For example, you’re seeing a screenshot right now from our highest level program, it’s called Adventure Mastermind. It’s a $20,000 per year mentorship program. It’s very, very involved. We travel around, it’s a cool program, but as you scroll down in that particular site, you’ll see, we have a whole list of who this is for and who it’s not for. I started to outline some of the psychology of the kind of women that are going to perform great in this program. Women who take responsibility for their own success. They have a viewpoint that they don’t look at the world like it’s negative. They don’t look at the world like, ‘Oh, everything’s being done to me and I’m just the victim.’ They are fast learners. They don’t require a ton of handholding. They ask smart, strategic questions. I just started to make a list of the kind of women that we wanted to attract to this program and then conversely, underneath that, the kind of women who would absolutely fail in this program. Women who need a ton of handholding, it’s the mirror, the reverse of the women who would do well in it. Communicating this, it’s one thing to know it as a business owner, it’s one thing for your team to understand who your ideal clients are, but it’s another to communicate that in your sales process.

Andrew: Instead of a screenshot here I pulled up the website and right there we can see, on the right, you’re saying what they’re saying and you’re giving us an understanding of who this is for and you’re doing it right from the start. What about the entrepreneur who says, ‘You know what? I need to get customers in the door. Once I get them, if they ask for a refund, I’ll deal with it later, but I got a business to run and I need revenue now.’ We’re telling them, ‘No. You’ve got to turn some people away. You need to focus on just women.’ I don’t see even one man on here. I see that you’re specifically targeting a specific kind of woman. I could see a lot of similarities, I should say, in the women here. What do you say to the person who says, ‘Maybe I should stretch it out even broader at first, because I need more people’?

Marie: You can do that, but you will likely pay the price. Your team will pay the price, you will have, what we like to call ‘PITA clients,’ or ‘PITA customers’, Pain-in-the-Ass. If you think about the cost for your team and the cost for you, in terms of servicing these people, answering their questions and then giving them refunds. All of the admin and all of the time that gets eaten up that could be used for further marketing, reaching your ideal clients. Most people who’ve been in business for a little while will see that it’s just not worth it to have people consuming your products or your services who are not your ideal fit. Especially with social media these days and how our reputations are very clear online. Think about it from a service perspective. If you’re a tailor, and I’m just making this up, off the top of my head, and you know that you only deal with a certain kind of client, they need to drop their things off Tuesday. They’re not going to get things back ’til Saturday, you’re a little hard core with your timing. If you accept a rush client and you broke your own rules and then that person didn’t even like your service, they would go on Yelp and talk about how crappy you were. It’s not worth it.

Andrew: Even the psychology of it, of selling something to a customer who’s not the right fit and then they return it and you feel bad, like you’ve screwed up, like you’ve made a mistake, like you’re on the wrong track. Especially when you’re starting out, to hear that is painful. Later on, as you’re building, you want to keep identifying who you’re going after so that you know where to go and find them. You want to identify who you’re not going after so that you avoid the wrong places and so that you can customize the way that you sell. I don’t know that I could really show this and do it justice here, but the marketing material here all speaks to the person who’s represented in your ideal customer profile.

Marie: Yes. I think you hit upon, Andrew, something really important. I just want to highlight what you said and it’s something most of us gloss over, is the emotional and psychological impact of refunds that it has on a business owner. Especially if you’re just starting out and it’s just you and you have a small team, when you see a bunch of people asking for their money back, think about what that does to your psychology and how it takes you off your game, and your team off their game. Questioning, ‘Is what we do really worth it? are we in the right business? Do we suck at this?’ That type of psychological, emotional [??] being eaten up, that can put you out of business faster than having just a bunch of clients who are not the right fit.

Andrew: Target the right customer and you’re already starting to keep the revenue that you’re earning from the customers who are buying from you. Let’s go on to the next one which is, ‘Make the customers do some work. Hold them accountable by submitting homework.’ This goes against what many entrepreneurs want. We just want to close the sale. We just want to get the customers in and we want to do everything we can to service them and to make them happy and in comes Marie and says, ‘No. You are not their butler. You are not going to do every single thing. You’re going to make them work.’ Why?

Marie: This is really interesting. We’ve all heard, ‘Thirty day money back guarantee. Sixty day money back guarantee. No questions asked, just let us know you’re unhappy and we’re going to give you your money back.’ I tried that. With this particular program, the program we’re talking about is “Rich, Happy and Hot B-School,” part of my qualifications, going back to number one, was I only want to work with women who are committed, who are willing to implement, take action and see results. We set up that precursor before, those boundaries. Now we told them this, ‘You have 30 days to test drive the program. Take all the material, everything we released in the first 30 days. If you want a refund, we’re going to require seeing your completed homework.’ This is a business training course, so we have worksheets, there’s different things they need to fill out each and every module. We said, ‘If you complete all your homework, you send it back and you say, ‘I still have not gotten any value,’ of course we will give you your money back because we don’t deserve your money.’ Here’s the thing. The way that we design our courses and the way I design my curriculum, I know that if people actually do the work, we teach them how to think differently. We challenge them to grow as an entrepreneur and if they actually do the exercises, really unlikely that they’re not going to get value.

Andrew: What about the idea of even handing out exercises at all, beyond the fact that you can then say, ‘Do this in order to get a refund. Do this if you want a refund after the initial refund period is over.’ A lot of entrepreneurs don’t feel comfortable asking customers to do any work. We feel like, ‘If I went to the bagel store and asked for a bagel with cream cheese and they gave me the bagel and told me to go pull out cream cheese.’ Well, maybe that’s a bad example. If we went to a burger stand and they said, ‘Go and cook your own burger before you eat it,’ we’d feel wrong and that’s why we don’t want to make our customers work in the first place. Why does making customers work, why does it work for customers? Why are they happy to do it beyond the fact that it holds them accountable?

Marie: Obviously, this is going to be tweaked. I’m in an information product business so this works for the style of business and you have to get creative and think of how this could work in your business. For me, here’s what it means. People love to be challenged. So many, I think, content creators are freaking lazy. They just want to put out content and pump it out and, ‘I’m going to turn my laptop into an ATM machine.’ That is not how I run my business and that’s also not the client’s that I want coming to my business. My clients, they want to grow. They want to be challenged. They want to learn and they want to be held accountable but nobody has the balls to do it. No one has the guts to say, ‘Look. I actually care that you’re going to implement with this course. That’s why I’m going to require your homework before I let you off the hook.’ Does that make sense?

Andrew: Yeah. It does.

Marie: Completely different psychology and this is very, very smart because in business, when everyone else is zigging, you need to zag.

Andrew: What is this and at what point in the process do customers see, this is obviously the Buy button and right before they buy, you’re telling them, they have to complete their homework. After the 30 days.

Marie: Before the 30 days, so the refund period is 30 days and once you get past 30 days, then there’s no refund, because 30 days is a long enough period of time, especially, we release our content, we give people content immediately and then we release it week after week so there’s more than enough time to get to know the program, to try things out, to implement strategies, to really understand the full scope of what we’re offering. So, we let people know. I mean, I’m very, very clear in my sales process, and that’s the same thing we talked about with point number one, as far as really setting boundaries. It’s about being clear with your customers, letting them self-identify to say, ‘Oh, my God. This girl is no joke. If I sign up for her program, she is going to make me work.’ What does that do? It filters out all of the people who are tire kickers, and all the people who just want to try things out, or their just addicted to information products. I don’t want those people. I want real business owners who want to learn, and who want to be trained, and want to be challenged to grow. So, that refund policy is right there, so that they know, the moment that they click ‘Enroll’ and they start giving us their money, they know what they’re in for.

Andrew: Here, by the way, this is what I was looking for earlier, ‘The IKEA Effect.’ So this goes beyond information products. When people assemble IKEA furniture, turns out, according to this Harvard Business Review, that they feel more connected to what they’ve assembled, they feel a sense of pride over it, and it leads them to feel differently about IKEA furniture than furniture that they might have gotten home and not had to do anything to beyond just put it out in the living room or in the kitchen, or wherever it is. So, that’s another benefit of doing it, and of course, as we are talking about here, helps you get revenue and keep that revenue. All right. On to the big board, and the next big idea is, the next big tactic is, ‘Say no to what they want.’ What do you mean?

Marie: Okay. So, this is really fascinating. You know, I listen to my customers. We do a lot of surveys. We take a lot of information in through Twitter, through Facebook, through email correspondence, and one of the things that we heard from our women who enrolled in B School was, ‘We want community. We want community.’ And I know that community is so important, but what we created is an eight-week program. If we created community within the eight-week program, right? And then all of a sudden at the end of eight weeks we go and take that away, my customers would hate me, they would be so upset, because they formed all these conversations, there’s all this data and wisdom, you know, in the comments and things like that, that they’d want to have access to. So, I really took a step back and said, ‘A, this is not an ongoing course, it’s eight weeks long. It has a beginning, middle and an end, it’s not continuity. B, I really stand for empowering people. I’m not the kind of coach or business owner who wants to keep people in my little circle. While I love my customers, I love our key customers, I love empowering people to take what they learn and go out in the world and make it happen.’ So, we thought about this, and we said, ‘Why don’t we, you guys, form your own Facebook group?’ You know? ‘We’ll give you the tools, we’ll give you guidelines, we’ll encourage you to do that, but you run the community. If you want community so bad, step up and lead it. Take charge. Make it happen.’ And that’s what we did. So, we said no to what they wanted, and they formed this amazing group called the B School Babes, and it’s an extremely vibrant community. And we’ve been doing some follow up with our B School graduates, wanting to find out how their businesses are doing one year later. What’s the impact? What kind of results are they seeing now? And consistently, one of the biggest value drivers from the program, ironically, is community. And it’s community run. So, it’s a really beautiful, beautiful way. Again, we endorse the community. We support the community, but we don’t run it. They monitor it themselves. They make sure everyone’s staying positive and staying motivated and staying on the right track. But, it’s a great thing, and it came out of saying no to something that they want.

Andrew: It’s so hard to do that, because we are told constantly to listen to our customers, to only innovate based on what our customers want. And I know from experience, even from the early days of doing Mixergy, people would demand all kinds of things. They would demand not just transcripts, but certain kinds of color-coded transcripts. They’d want the video, especially in my audience, very techy, they want the video and audio available in more formats than I could ever provide. You know, if I were sitting and re-editing everything in their formats, I’d never get a chance to produce, you know? What is it they wanted? The open-source audio format, which I get. They wanted mp3, which I get. They also want mp3 lower bitrate, mp3 higher bitrate. You start offering all that, and you can’t do anything well, and of course, people are starting to get frustrated. And you, specifically with community, this is a tough thing to say no to when people are asking for community. You’ve said, ‘You know what? No, but.’ And you found a clever solution. You’ said, ‘No, but you guys can do it yourselves.’ And this is what I’m looking at here, is them sharing photos on the Facebook page that they created themselves. And this is the place, this is the community that they’re curating on their own.

Marie: Exactly.

Andrew: All right. So, it’s not just saying no, sometimes it’s, ‘No, and here’s another way that you could do it.’

Marie : Exactly.

Andrew: But definitely not giving in to every whim of a customer, just because they’re a customer.

Marie: Yep.

Andrew: All right. On to the big board, and we’ve got, ‘Reflect their exact feelings. Write emails that reflect their feelings. Talk to the customers in a way that reflects their feelings. Know the customer psychology.’ Do you have an example of how you were able to do that?

Marie: Yes. I call this mapping your customer psychology. You want to think about getting into your customer’s shoes and really experiencing life through their eyes. They’ve just said, ‘Yes.’ They’ve just purchased something from you, so we’ll just use B-school as an example because that’s our example. The first thing that they’re feeling is massive excitement. The first email that they get is not just about the content that I’m delivering, but I’m also mapping their customer excitement. I’m telling them, ‘I know how excited you are. This is going to change your life, it’s the most incredible thing.’ Just really staying with them in that emotional place of exactly where they are. Week two, is when they’re starting to feel challenged because there’s a lot of challenging exercises and homework, so in addition to sending out an email saying, ‘Hey. Here’s week two, module two of the course that’s going to be amazing and here are all the great things that you’re going to learn. I bet you’re starting to feel challenged by the exercise where we take you through customer avatar and maybe you’re starting to see how much work really needs to go into your business to take it up to that next level. I know that you want to be challenged, because you’re here to grow, but if you’re feeling challenged, it’s OK. All of us experience that and here’s what I suggest you do about those feelings.’ Make sense?

Andrew: It does. How do you know that? How do you know at week one how they’re feeling? Week four, how they’re feeling? Because I can get that if I’m feeling insecure and I get an email from you, the person who I just bought from and you say, ‘At this point you’re probably unsure of yourself.’ In fact, I’ll give you a great example. I did this workout video that was supposed to improve my abs and around week two of the video, the guy says, ‘You’re going to have highs and low. Some days when you just don’t feel like doing anything and days when you’re really super passionate.’ In that moment, I said, I still remember it, it’s been years, I said, ‘Oh yeah. I wanted to quit yesterday and I thought it was me. Maybe working out is not really meant for me.’ I stuck with it because of that. How did he know that at that point I was feeling what I was feeling? I know the value, but how do you know it?

Marie: This all comes down to us doing our homework. First of all, we’ve all been customers of something. This is where I believe really great business owners are born, is when you can take yourself out of your own little sphere, your own little universe, and step in your ideal customer’s shoes and really think about their life. For example, we know that our ideal customer has two kids, she’s got work piling up, her business is at a certain level, so we can imagine her day. We’re imagining on week two, if we’re this woman, we’ve got dinner to put on the table, the freaking mail’s like this, the kids are screaming. What the hell is she feeling right now? I can imagine myself going through courses, ‘What do I wish people would have said to me at this point?’ I shared this tactic, Andrew, with an insurance agent. He had a completely different business model. He said, ‘Marie, what you just told me right here is going to change my business.’ He never thought about what someone else experiences when they’re buying insurance and what they’re going to go through day after day or week after week, and he told me, ‘I can now think that through and address those concerns or insecurities or excitements or self doubt or fears, just through an email or a phone call.’ I don’t think it’s rocket science, I think it has to do with compassion and empathy and getting out of our own heads and really seeing life through our customer’s eyes, standing shoulder to shoulder with them and really digging into our humanity. That’s all it takes.

Andrew: I don’t have to massively survey everyone, though I imagine that helps. I don’t have to talk to every customer, if I have thousands of customers, that’s really tough to do. Maybe in the early days you can talk to every single customer to get a sense of where they are, but you’re saying, sometimes just sitting down and saying, ‘Look. I’m not going to think about how to create. I’m going to think about where the person is right now. Where would they be second week? Where would they be third week?’ And as you’re going through other people’s programs, you’re doing the same thing. ‘It’s week two. I give up,’ or ‘It’s week three. I’m a little bored.’ Write that down and be prepared to handle your customer in those situations.

Marie: Of course, from a more analytical standpoint, pay attention to your customer service emails. If you have a big enough team, and someone else is handling your customer service emails right now, get in there. I always have my team forward me stuff, in fact, I make my team create separate Google docs of objections, of challenges, of problems and then I go through and read them so I can get better at this stuff.

Andrew: Good idea.

Marie: You can start off from your own experience but really dig into customer service. If you’re in an information product model, going into the comments, going into their community, taking a look around and seeing what’s being said, where people are dropping off and then here’s the brilliant one, ask them. ‘How are you guys feeling? Where are you at?’ Most people, for any kind of service, are happy when someone just asks how they’re feeling. What are you experiencing? What’s happening right now? If you really are willing to hear, you’re going to get a gold mine of information.

Andrew: I was just thinking about how I installed software on Mixergy.com, my site, to help me figure out the sales funnel and I didn’t know what to do with it after I installed and I never went back into the software. If only they, and other software that sees that I signed up, maybe I’m even paying month to month and I haven’t even used it, if only they’d reach out and say, ‘We see you’re not using this. You didn’t even set up your first funnel. You did not tell us even where the sales conversion pages.’ If they did that I’d feel like, ‘These guys are really helpful because in my most desperate moment, they understood it and they were there for me.’ This goes beyond information, products and now you’ve shown us how we can do this going into customer service, thinking about the customer, writing down our own personal experiences when we’re teaching, when we’re going through other people’s products and also having that Google doc, which is really helpful. Someone else is going through customer service, we should have that Google doc and I know we at Mixergy need to have that. You just gave me one of the greatest ideas for the team to get feedback back to me without overwhelming me. [??], I also have another image here, what is this image of? Before we go to the next big idea. Let me zoom in really tightly.

Marie: This was a reply from one of our B-schoolers. “Thank you for the segment.” This is basically underneath a module. “I too appreciated the encouragement to not get too overwhelmed. You inspired me to post a blog entry.” It was just me talking about, at this particular stage in our program, it’s very natural to feel overwhelmed. This was one of 20 or 30 comments of women saying, ‘Oh my god. Thank you. This module is amazing and thank you for addressing the fact that, ‘Yeah. I feel overwhelmed right now.’

Andrew: I see. This woman, Tera’s [SP], noticing the impact of what we just discussed. I heard in one of our copywriting courses on Mixergy that if you could express the problem to a customer in the way that they express it, they feel like you already have the solution and I can see how effective this is here. Any other points on this one before we go to the big board and another big idea?

Marie: Just in terms of mapping customer psychology, really think through in terms of your specific product or service. Think about what people experience and do some, I call it, marketing detective work. I know we talked about Google docs and we talked about going through customer service emails but if you have some core key customers, maybe they’re returning customers, pick up the phone. Call them up and say, ‘Hey. Do you have five minutes?’ Maybe you can offer them a free service or just a movie ticket, who knows? Just take the time and talk to a few of your customers and find out what are their frustration points and what can you be doing better? They’ll be happy to help.

Andrew: Back to the big board. You say, ‘Show proof. Show real time social proof and success stories for motivation.’ Do you have an example of how you did that?

Marie: Yes. One of the things, again, this comes back to being in really tight communication with your team, also paying attention across social networks. As we started to release the content for B-school, people started writing in, like, ‘Oh my god. This idea just changed this,’ or ‘I use this one strategy and I just improved my conversions,’ or they’re having these breakthroughs that sometimes they don’t post in the members area, but they want to give me a shout out on Twitter. Or, again, they write into customer service just to let us know how much they’re enjoying the course and what results they’re getting already. I will pluck those exact stories, word for word, and go draft an email and send it out to the entire community to say, ‘Hey. Betsy just sent us this email, she just used strategy from Day Number Two and Module Two. Look at the results she’s got. Look at what’s happening.’ If it’s a tweet, if somebody sends us a great tweet we’ll take a screenshot of it, pop it into an email, send it out to the entire community. This does a few things. One, it confirms that they’ve made a great decision, because obviously if members of the community are getting results already, it increases their possibility for themselves that they’re going to get those results if they see it actually happening in real time. Two, it further cements the community, because people like to see other people win. That’s the only kind of people I want to attract. People that are happy because of other people’s success.

Andrew: I’m going to show a screenshot about it up here from your web page. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are reluctant to do that because they don’t want to boast. They don’t want to say to the audience, ‘Look how great I am.’ They don’t want to take someone who’s just complimented them and turnaround and say, ‘I’m going to use you for marketing purposes.’ It’s a hard thing to do. What do you say to those insecurities that some entrepreneurs feel?

Marie: To be really honest, most of the comments are not so much about me, it’s about the person. I’m always trying to frame it so, ‘Hey. Look at what Betsy just did. Take a look at what she just created.’ It’s not about, ‘Hey. Look how great Marie is.’ Yes, I’ve created this program but I don’t do it just to hear myself talk. I do it to help people get results. So, I’m showcasing the results. So, if you can again, keep your attention on how can you make your customers the star, how can you highlight their success, how can you really hold them up in the community, then it’s really not so much about you, it’s about them.

Andrew: You know what, I just realized that I was hiding behind generalities. Yes, other entrepreneurs feel that way, but I’m the one that I was talking about. I do insecure about the (?).

Marie: Sh! [claps hands]

Andrew: I do feel insecure about sending out emails about the praise that I get from the customers, and I do feel at the moment like, whoa, wait, wait a minute, this guy just said thank you. Now, I’m going to turn around and say, “Can I use it in public?” But you’re right, if it’s about them, then it’s more effective. And if it’s about them, then I don’t feel so bad.

Marie: Yeah. I’ll just get you this. This framework might help you, Andrew. One of the things that you can do is, and this is the truth. This isn’t just like a strategy. What I always say to my customers, because I know it’s true in my life, look, there are literally tens of thousands of women out there that I am mentoring each week through my free content that love to be inspired. They want to hear that other women are doing it.

So, for example, my customers are like, “Oh, it’s for you, Marie, you do these videos and you’re like, you’re great on camera” thinking that I have a special gift and that I can do this but they can’t. So, it’s my job, it’s my responsibility to showcase other people doing it and doing it well. And so, again, it’s like, I let my folks know. So, if somebody writes in a success story, I say, “Hey, look, you are about to inspire 50,000 women. Is that cool to you?”

Andrew: Hah, that’s a great way to put it.

Marie: You see what I mean?

Andrew: Yes.

Marie: That might give you a slightly different framing to help you just get over that hump because people do. We need more good news in the world. I think you’ll agree to that, right?

Andrew: Yeah. You know what?

Marie: There’s enough crap around. Let’s showcase some people that are making things happen.

Andrew: You know what? I’ve got to say this to the audience. Write that down. I’ve seen some good speakers say this, and it sometimes feels dorky, but it really sticks in my mind. And often, I will actually write it down in my Evernote. Write that down. You are about to inspire 50,000 people. Is it OK? That’s a good way to request a testimonial. And speaking of it, here is the testimonial page on marieforleo.com/praise which you can see for yourself, how people have done this.

You got praise from really impressive people, including Tony Robbins. You’ve got Richard Branson, Laura Roeder, of course, over here who has done a course and an interview on Mixergy that’s been really popular with the audience. So, you put it together on this page, and you know what, I’ve got to take this format from you. It’s so polished. I like the way that you’ve done this. Is there any way that we can specifically ask for feedback?

By the way, I’m going back to the main topic before I ask about how to ask for feedback, testimonials like this.

Marie: Yeah.

Andrew: I can see as a customer, if I’m feeling that oh, this isn’t working for me and I see all these people coming in with their testimonials, with their excitement, with the rewards of their work. I feel like, maybe, I’m not really applying what I’m learning. Maybe, I’m not really doing the homework because I’m getting lazy. Maybe, I’m not doing something, and I should just go back and try it again. I can see the effectiveness on this for retention.

Is there a way specifically to ask for testimonials so that they’re useful?

Marie: Yes.

Andrew: Or do we just … Yeah. What do we do to make them especially well written or useful?

Marie: We actually have a system for that. I try and create a system for everything in our business so that we can put it on auto pilot as much as possible. So, we create feedback surveys using simple Google forms, right?

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Marie: And we’ll ask very specific questions. I don’t have them memorized in my head right now, but I’ll give you a few of them. What specific feature do you like best about this program? What specific results have you seen in your business and your life as a result of taking B School? What challenges have you seen? Have you tried some strategies that have worked, and have you tried things that didn’t work? Please explain them. So, we have about six or seven questions that we ask people. So, it’s more about really getting feedback, not just a testimonial, but we ask them very specific answers to very specific questions and just let them roll.

And than, at the end we always ask, “Is there anything else?” One of our other key questions, “Would you recommend B School” If so, why? That gets people to really dig into, God, if I was going to recommend this to a friend, what would I say? So, then we go through that content, and we also ask people permission. If we have further questions, can we follow up and ask them? So, sometimes people will give some great feedback, but you know they’ve got a little more in them or you know it wasn’t really clear, so then we know exactly what to ask them to get a better answer and that’s it.

Andrew: All right. That is very helpful. I keep waiting for people to send me the perfect, well written email and instead I should be guiding them and let them know what I’m looking for and what’s helpful.

Marie: And, also, ask people – this is really a power question especially if you sell premium products or programs. What hesitations did you have before signing up?

Andrew: Ooh, that’s a good one.

Marie: This way, one of the things that you want to do, one of the things that we do really effectively, I try and highlight the hesitations so people have asked me before, ‘Marie, you have a mountain of testimonials on MarieForleo.com. Why is that?’ I was like, ‘You know what? First of all, we’re in an age where people have a lot of doubt and they certainly have a lot of doubt with anything that remotely is making money online.’ The new reality of business, every business is online. We have to understand how to make money online. As a business owner, it’s my job to give an avalanche of social proof so people understand, ‘I am not some huckster.’ This is my life’s work. I am here to stay and take a look at all these other people who have experienced my work and, in their own words, can tell you what it’s like.

Andrew: Let’s go on back to the big board and we just covered Social Proof so let’s go to this one which is, ‘Have no content weeks.’ What do you mean? What’s a no content week?

Marie: In B- school we have six key modules, but the program is eight weeks long. Knowing my ideal customer avatar, knowing that it’s a woman who’s juggling a lot of things, going through a pretty intense coursework for six straight weeks, ain’t going to happen. I thought about it and I was, ‘What if we built in implementation weeks? A little bit of a breather.’ So we do three modules, module one, module two, module three, week one, week two, week three and then week four, no content. It’s all about catching up. We all have busy lives and during that week, there’s extra coaching, there’s just room to breathe, there’s room to digest and then we get started in week five with the rest of the content, and at the end there’s another implementation week and room for more questions and taking action and all that good stuff. Just looking at the ideal customer and what’s going to fit for her life. How can I best serve her and get her through this program and make her not feel like a failure and help her really get the result that I promised her?

Andrew: I’ve got a screenshot here. How’d you get this email from Courtney and why is Courtney so excited? I wonder if people can actually see this.

Marie: This is a slightly different strategy. This goes down to ‘Being Brutally Honest.’ If it’s OK.

Andrew: Oh, I see that we’re going to move on to that? Before we do that, implementation weeks, let’s give us ideas for what it is. First of all, it’s just to catch up week, which, if you’ve fallen behind, if you knew you were supposed to do something but have been feeling guilty, now you get rid of your guilt to catch up. We’re not moving ahead before you take a little bit of time for yourself. That’s one thing we could do. Second thing is you can ask them for specific action to happen during that week. You take a step back from giving them more content, more product and you say, ‘Go and do this homework.’ I think you used the example of having customers create a customer avatar, which we talked about in a past course, the one with Cindy Alvarez of KISSMetrics, if you guys are watching and want to know how to do that, go watch that session and you’ll see how to create the customer avatar step by step. In this case, you teach your customers how to do it and you say go and spend a week doing it. So you give them an assignment, you said you also give support in that week, I guess in the message boards, what else do you do in that week?

Marie: We do fun things like there can be newsletter reviews, website tear downs, just extra good Q&A coaching. I’m very much a real time person, if there’s a live course, I’m taking a look at what are the conversations that are sparking, if everyone seems to be talking about a particular theme or if they’re all struggling with one issue, we can create some bonus content that doesn’t require necessarily more work, but just something to engage with. Something extra and unexpected. It’s also a great week to give your customers surprises. How can you delight them? How can you surprise them? How can you have open office hours or just little extra touches that will make all the difference in helping them move through your program and, of course, reduce refunds.

Andrew: I know a lot of people in my audience are creating software that they’re selling on a monthly basis and they’re doing an onboarding process where they email customers every week and they’re training them and then giving them things to do and to try out with their software to say, ‘You know what? In this email or in this part of the onboarding process, I’m going to give you a week to catch up,’ or ‘I’m going to give you a week to email us if you have any questions that you haven’t had a chance to.’ Take that no content, no direct request week and give people, actually I should say no content, but you sometimes are asking for specific action. To take that break is helpful.

Marie: What about this, Andrew? You’re getting even more creative. What if you just took a week and rather than, ‘Use this, use this, use this,’ you’re like, ‘Let’s celebrate.’ You just did something wacky and unexpected out of left field. Telling them how much you appreciate them as a customer and why don’t they take it a little easy this week, because they’re probably working their eyeballs out usually. Even an email like that, you can use these ideas. What I like about what we’re teaching right now, if you really get creative and you’re not just literal like, ‘How can this apply to my business?’ Just think about, ‘What can a breather do? How can I use something unexpected in my business to delight people?’ That can also work with this strategy.

Andrew: Let’s go on to the penultimate tactic, the next one which is ‘Be brutally honest.’ Should I show Courtney’s email at this point?

Marie: Yeah. Sure.

Andrew: Let’s take a look at Courtney’s email.

Marie: This is an email from a B-schooler that actually refunded, and I’ll just read it, just to make it simple so you don’t have to strain your eyes. She said, ‘Just wanted to thank you Marie, for being honest. I was in RHHB school for a bit and then bowed out because of her honesty. She was right. my idea was lacking and it wasn’t going to get me where I wanted to be. She didn’t say it like that but she asked the right questions. The point of this is to say that I am extremely grateful. Her honesty, her willingness to risk my request for a refund in order to be authentic in her work, well it’s clearly paying off. I’ve since developed an awesome new plan of action, I’m quite positive in a few months I’ll be moving and grooving. Hopefully some day soon I’ll be joining Mastermind Oral Access [SP]. Thank you, Marie, for being connected to her authenticity and for standing up for my own. Awesome Blossom, Courtney.’ This is just an example of, if you have someone coming into your business, whether they’re buying your software, they’re buying your service, they’re buying your program, just know that you can’t get them the results that they’re looking for right now. Be honest. Be brutally honest. Don’t just be hungry for the sales or to get more revenue in. All of us have that little internal meter inside where you know sometimes, when a customer comes across your doorstep, you’re like, ‘Gosh. They’re just not right,’ or ‘There not ready right now,’ or ‘What they’re trying to achieve we really can’t help them achieve based on where they are, what they’re thinking about, this stage in their business.’ I don’t think enough people have the courage to say, ‘No,’ and to be brutally honest and to turn people away.

Andrew: It’s really hard. I can see how it’s helpful for you and, is this a blog post on your site, on MarieForleo.com, about how to set boundaries?

Marie: Yes. Being brutally honest with your customer, one of my highest paying customers, she was a member of Adventure Mastermind, which was a $20,000 a year program and she was showing up to our coaching calls late and I said to her, ‘I am not cheap. I am very expensive, and for you to be pissing me off and showing up to coaching calls late, you’re not only hurting our relationship, even though I don’t take it personally.’ I knew that she had to be pissing off other people in her life. Her boyfriend, her kids, because when people are late one place they’re usually late everywhere. It was that being brutally honest and, of course, she could have been like, ‘I’m not taking this. I’m out of this program. I’m going to take whatever’s left of that 20 grand and go someplace else.’ She thanked me for it and it changed her life because no one had ever really been that honest with her and told her what was going on in a way where she could really hear it.

Andrew: Let me see if I can play a quick thing of this. I don’t think the audio’s going to come out. Let’s see.

Marie: Might not. My intros are a little funny. There’s a lot of [??] to do.

Andrew: I’ll let people watch this on their own but you do keep those videos moving. What do you do, a two second intro and then you go right to the intro video and then you launch?

Marie: Can I tell you, Andrew, it is funny when we shoot these videos, it’s the bane of our existence. There’s a two second thing that’s usually comedic and I never know what we’re going to do and I make them up on the fly and that one I was like, ‘I’m not saying anything.’ So you just hear crickets.

Andrew: Final big idea here, which is to create strategic bonuses. What’s a strategic bonus?

Marie: For most people there’s a refund period. For us there is a 30 day refund period and it was a conditional guarantee. A strategic bonus is if you think about wanting to keep someone and retaining them past your refund period, how can you create something that is really juicy, that’s really enticing. Something they’d really want to get but you hold it out past the refund period. You make them work and get through it and then you reward them for graduating. Because B-school, online business school, we have that them going, I created Graduation Bonuses. Content, experiences, goodies, things that you’re only going to get when you graduate. When do you graduate? After the refund period. When you’re thinking about creating strategic bonuses, think abut what your customer ultimately wants. What are the things that make your customer so excited, that they would do anything to get it? Rather than giving it up front, wait until the end. That’s all about strategic bonuses.

Andrew: Oh. That’s a great idea. What are some of the strategic bonuses that you’ve used? You’ve used oversized B-School mugs, what were they?

Marie: OK. I have on right here.

Andrew: Oh. Let’s see. I’ll zoom in.

Marie: It’s Rich, Happy, and Hot B-School. Then on the other side. Women have, not all women, but many of us… It says, “I freaking love marketing.” Many women I come across have a negative association with sales and marketing, and one of my missions in life is to change that. I think marketing is the greatest skill to make money and change the world if you really get it. So, we send out these big mugs after you graduate. Over time, because the brand has been around for a little while, people hear about these mugs and they always want to buy them. I’m like, ‘You can’t buy a mug. You have to graduate B-School to get your mug.’

People take pictures with them and it’s all kinds of fun. But then I hold back some content. I do a live event every year called “Rich, Happy, and Hot Live”. We don’t sell DVD’s to that program. It’s a live experience. You come, it’s amazing, and then you go home, but of course we record everything. So, I’ve held some strategic bonuses, graduation bonuses, like a session or two from the live event that you’ll get after you graduate.

Those are things that some people really want to see and be able to take advantage, but they can’t get it until they make it through the course.

Andrew: Here, I think, these are women that are holding with pride, they sent you pictures…

Marie: Yes.

Andrew: …of the mugs that they earned.

Marie: Yeah. We have little sub-communities all over the United States and all over the world. This is a group of L.A. B-Schoolers. One of them is a photographer. She invited some other women over to her studio and they all took these professional pictures with their mug. Then they sent us this photograph, which I think is amazing. It just goes to show you, nothing that we suggested today, Andrew, there’s nothing bad. It’s really about supporting people and challenging them to be their best, and to make it through something that they invested in. Something that they raised their hand and said, ‘Yes. I want to do this.’ Just like when you said, ‘God, this software could help build my business.’ Right?

Andrew: Right.

Marie: You signed up because you had a dream of it helping you get where you want to go.

Andrew: Right.

Marie: So, wouldn’t it be amazing if the business owners got on your side, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you and saying, ‘OK. I’m going to understand human psychology, and I’m going to do everything I can to help you, Andrew. Use our software to get to where you want to go.’?

Andrew: This has been spectacular. I keep thinking of different ways that I can use this. I’ll tell you something that I feel, and I’m wondering if the audience is feeling it too. We covered so many big ideas here, and so many specific actions that people can take, and that’s intentional. We want this all to be tactical so that they can learn and go and use and see results. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed that there’s just so much here.

So, I’ll tell you what I do. First of all, I always, people see this, sometimes I lose connection I feel with a guest for a moment as I take my notes, but it’s important. So, I always take notes. If you haven’t taken notes, you might want to go back to the transcript, which we’ll give you, so you can highlight the sections that you want to remember.

Do find a way to just write it down, not so you’ll remember it later, but so you can pay attention to it now and be aware of what’s useful for you. The second thing is, what I’ve discovered having gone through all these courses and gotten all these great ideas is, sometimes you don’t want to do everything.

You just want to say, ‘What’s one thing I could do?’ In fact, what I sometimes will do is say, ‘What’s the easiest thing that I can do?’ Not the best, not the most impactful, not the greatest thing I could do, but what’s the easiest thing that I can do based on what I’ve learned from this course. Then I go and I implement it as quickly as possible. Maybe even the next day. Maybe I stop everything else I’m doing and I go and I implement right away, just so I could feel that sense of momentum start.

So, I’m going to suggest the same thing to you. We have lots of ideas here. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you’re feeling like you don’t know where to get started, find the easiest thing that you can do, commit to doing something about it right now, and then come back and tell us what you’ve done with it. Come back and report. Tell us what the results have been. Share the results with others, with me specifically, and with Marie and in the comments on the side. Let us know.

It’s not for me. In fact, I almost hesitate to ask. You know how I feel about asking you guys for testimonials. I almost hesitate to ask, but I’ll tell you the truth is, it’s not for me. It’s about you. If you can just commit to using one thing. If you’ve tune in to all this, all to the end right here, then there’s got to be at least one thing that you can use.

Find it, commit to using it, and use it. You’re going to see that if you keep doing that, how your life changes and how the results just keep flooding to you. I’m going to do one other thing that I recommend that everyone who watches these sessions do, and that is say, ‘Thank you, Marie, for teaching us.’

If you’ve watched this and you want to reach out, Marie, let me bring up your website so that people can connect with you there. Your blog posts just kick butt. They’re so freaking interesting and they’re cool. The videos, unlike mine, are really short, so they’re fun to dip into. This is the website that I recommend people check out, marieforleo.com to get to know everything that Marie is working on.

Is there one of these programs that they can check out if they want to see how you implement the ideas that we’ve talked about?

Marie: Yeah, sure. Rhhbschool.com is the program that I actually discovered all of this, everything we talked about today. We’re just about to go into our launch process, so depending on when you’re watching this, you might see a different page that comes up there. That’ll be the place that we’re sharing a lot of free training, absolutely free.

You’ll be able to watch how we rolled this out. We do the same thing. We just really try and be clear on who we best serve, so we only pull people into our funnel who we can really make a difference for, because we know that everyone else, there’s other teachers and there’s other programs that will serve them even better than we can.

Andrew: Well, rhhbschool.com. Of course we’ll link to it. Thank you for doing this session with me, Marie and thank you all for watching.

Marie: Oh, my pleasure.

Andrew: Thank you.

Marie: Thanks, guys.