If you are new to the market with your product or service and you're struggling
to get sales,
then in this video I'm going to walk you through one of the most common reasons
why new course creators, coaches,
and digital product owners struggle to get sales.
And we'll talk about a better way to approach things as well,
because when you're just getting started,
there are some really important things you do need to be aware of and you need
to approach it differently to when you're at a later stage and you're generating
sales and you've got a bit of success.
Here's the first thing you need to understand.
When somebody is looking to purchase from you,
whether it's an online course or a digital information product or coaching or
something else,
the first thing they're looking for is are you the right person to get
them from where they are now to where they need to be? Meaning,
are you the expert who can actually teach them what they need to know or who can
provide the transformation that they're looking for?
The next thing they need to feel is trust.
They need to feel like and know that they can trust you and you're not going to
take their money and rip them off and not deliver on what you're promising.
And the next thing they're looking for is if they do have any problems,
that it's going to be easy to rectify,
meaning there's some sort of refund policy or guarantee in place so that if
things don't go the way they're expecting,
then at least they've got a safety net they can get their money back or whatever
that is. Now, there are a few things you could and should do to achieve this.
Now, this is what I'll refer to as de-risking the purchase for the customer.
So when the customer looks at buying from you, particularly when you're new,
there's a significant amount of perceived risk in their mind.
And so you wanna do whatever you can to remove that risk for them so that when
they're making the buying decision, they no longer see it as a big risk.
And there are a few things that work really well to do that,
but some of those you can't actually implement right away when you're a
beginner.
So we'll go through what these things are and then I'll talk about my preferred
approach for launching any kind of new product or service offering in the
information product, online course and coaching space. So the first one,
and perhaps the best way to do this is having a content platform where you
basically give away free content and free information to your audience on a
regular basis. So there are lots of different ways you can do this. For me,
it's YouTube.
I come here every week and I create a new YouTube video purely with the goal of
helping you my audience. So I just wanna give value every single week.
Another really common one is a podcast. So you see people like Amy Porterfield,
for example, who has a really large popular podcast.
She's there regularly every week giving free value and building a huge audience.
Another example is a blog. Soit Satie is a good example of this.
He built a very large, very popular,
very well respected blog and attracted a huge audience of fans and followers.
And what happens when you do this is you establish what we call no like and
trust. People get to know you.
They get to like you and the content that you're creating,
and they get to trust you.
If somebody is listening to you in their ears via a podcast every single week
for an hour, then they're really going to trust you.
And when you launch a product,
a lot of people in that audience are going to buy straightaway.
You see it with people like Amy Porterfield.
With Ramit, and with many, many others.
They build this audience and no matter what it is they launch,
a lot of people are going to buy it without too much of a push or without
needing to do a lot of this de-risking that I just talked about.
Because people already trust them so much and they know and they feel
comfortable that whatever they're launching is going to be good.
And now the downside that you're probably already thinking about is that this
takes a long time to establish.
So if you are new and you're just getting started and you want to start selling
your product or service right away,
you probably don't want to wait years in order to get your first sale while you
build up this content platform.
And we'll talk about how to approach this a little differently soon.
But what's important to note here is as they say,
the best time to start doing this was five years ago.
The second best time is today.
So what I would say is if you aren't already creating content on a regular basis
on some platform, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a blog,
whether it's YouTube or even social media,
you should start doing that as soon as possible because you are never going to
regret doing that down the line. You should start now, do it regularly,
and in 2, 3, 4, 5 years,
you're going to look back and it's going to be one of the best decisions you've
made for your online business. All right,
so the next thing you can do is publish reviews and testimonials.
So this is a pretty obvious one,
but when you've got any kind of online course or info product coaching program,
the more reviews and testimonials you have,
the more it de-risks the purchase in the mind of your potential buyer.
If somebody can see that social proof,
if they can see people like them have bought this program, have gone through it,
got good results, and are willing to post a positive testimonial,
then that's gonna make them feel really good about buying.
It's gonna make them feel really confident,
and they're going to be much more likely to hand over their credit card and make
that purchase. So if you've got them,
they're a fantastic way to reduce the perceived risk for potential customers.
If you don't have them, well, that perceived risk goes up,
We'll talk about what to do instead. Very soon, as I mentioned. Now,
the next thing you really should do if you wanna sell more courses,
coaching or info products, is get on my newsletter.
Each week I send out an email that's designed to help you get better with
Facebook and Instagram ads,
become a better marketer and generate more revenue from your creative pursuits.
So if you haven't already,
make sure you click the link in the description below and sign up for the
newsletter.
Now onto the next thing that people look at when they're considering buying your
program or service. And that is they look at your refund policy. Now,
generally the more expensive your product or service is,
then the higher the perceived risk for the buyer.
If they're looking to invest more money,
then they want more assurance that if it doesn't provide what they're expecting,
they can get that money back. Now,
one big mistake I see with refund policies is a lot of people look at
the incumbents out there or look at their competitors that are out there and
they do something similar to them. So they might look at a competitor and go,
Okay, they're offering a 14 day refund policy, and it's conditional meaning,
you know,
they have to do a certain amount of work and show their workbooks and tick all
these other boxes in order to be eligible for a refund. Now,
if you are new to the market and you're just getting started and not many people
really know who you are, you haven't established a good reputation yet,
you don't have a bunch of reviews and testimonials like I just mentioned,
then copying their refund policy isn't a great move because
what happens is they've already established a bunch of trust.
So let's use an example where somebody's got a massive podcast,
they've got a big audience, their course has had hundreds of thousands of sales,
they've got a bunch of reviews and testimonials.
Each of those things de-risks the purchase for the potential
customer.
And so they don't need to have a super strong refund policy because they've got
all these other elements that are helping reduce the perceived risk in the
buyer's mind. But if you don't,
then something you can do is have a stronger refund
policy, meaning one that's more in favor for the potential customer.
So if your competitors are offering a 14 day refund policy,
you might make yours 30 or even 60 days.
And if your competitors have a conditional refund policy, you might say, Hey,
look where ours is unconditional. You can just come in,
ask for a refund at any time within the refund period, and we will grant that.
And so it's understanding because you're new to the market,
because you don't have those other trust indicators that your competitors have
yet, you need to use what leverage you do have. And in this case,
something you can do is offer a more lenient refund policy in order
to de-risk that buying decision for your customers.
You can always change this in the future,
but when you're just getting started and you can't compete on number of reviews
or on sheer audience size yet, this is something you can actually influence.
And then along the same lines as this is guarantees.
So a refund policy is one thing,
but a guarantee is an even better way to remove risk.
So if you can guarantee a result,
then that makes it an even easier decision for your potential buyer because
they're essentially buying from you because they want a result.
They're not buying because they wanna learn something,
they're not buying because they want the information in their mind,
they're buying because they want a specific result.
The information is just the path to get to the result, but they want the result.
So if you can promise that your course or info product or coaching program
is going to get them a result and you can put a rock solid guarantee behind
that, then again,
that helps make it an easier purchasing decision for the buyer because they say,
Look, this is a new program. I haven't really heard of this person much before,
but they're guaranteeing it. So if I don't get the result I want,
they'll give me my money back. Or they will do, you know, X, Y, and Z,
whatever your guarantee is.
And so that makes them feel more comfortable about purchasing from you.
And the question then becomes in their mind,
am I willing to pay X dollars to get Y result? Okay, that's the question.
Is that simple?
Because they know that if they pay however much you are asking and you
guarantee the result, then it's as simple as that.
And if they don't get the result, boom, they get their money back.
No risks to them. Guarantees are great like that.
If you are not super confident in what you're offering,
it can be difficult to put a guarantee behind it,
but it's also a good driver for you to really over deliver and do everything you
can to get that result for those first few clients or customers because you
really want to make sure that they get what they're expecting so that you don't
have a bunch of refunds. But more importantly,
so that you've got happy clients and customers.
So you've probably realized some of these things are a bit of a chicken and egg
problem. You want to get great testimonials and reviews to get more sales,
but in order to get those reviews and testimonials,
you need to get sales in the first place. And so the question becomes,
how do I get those initial sales?
How do I get those initial customers in the business so I can deliver results
for them?
And start to get that real momentum because that's what you need to do if you
want to be really successful with courses or coaching or whatever it is you're
selling. And so here's how I like to approach it.
So the first thing I would do is start at a lower price point to your
competitors.
If you are coming in and trying to charge the same price or more as your
competitors who are delivering a similar course or coaching program,
it's gonna be very tough to compete because as I said,
they've already got a large audience,
they've already got these reviews and testimonials,
so it's a difficult one to come in and say, Well,
I'm going to charge the same price.
When you are largely unproven compared to them,
people are going to compare and they're going to go to the incumbent,
they're going to go to the competitor. If you're priced similarly.
So I would actually start at a lower price point for that reason.
You're not going to stay there,
but starting there does help you differentiate from your more expensive
competitors. The second thing, offer a low risk refund policy.
Make it a no-brainer so the buyer doesn't have to jump through hoops to get
their money back if for whatever reason they feel you don't deliver.
And if you can offer a big guarantee, this one makes sense.
If you can offer a guarantee comfortably,
it's not a must out if you can't necessarily offer a big guarantee. Now,
the next thing though is important and that is to deliver.
Deliver in a massive way. Now,
I prefer to deliver live first if I'm delivering an online course.
So if you can do live delivery, meaning deliver it over six weeks, eight weeks,
whatever it takes to deliver, I recommend doing that.
And the reason for that is you get one to one face to face time with your
customers every single week. So you get to teach live every single week.
You get to answer their questions and interact with them and build a
relationship. Okay?
So whether you are live though or whether you are doing it just prerecorded
doesn't really matter as long as you deliver in a massive way.
So you really want to get as many of your first customers and future customers
as well. Obviously,
you really want to get them big results and over-deliver on what you've
promised. Once you've done that, ask for reviews and testimonials.
And the reason I like live delivery so much when I'm just starting is because
once you talk to them every week and you establish a relationship,
then it becomes much easier to also ask for a testimonial or a review because
you've built some rapport with them.
And it's very easy to have a chat with them about how their experience has been,
what their thought of the program, what their results have been like,
and to ask them, Hey, would you mind, you know,
putting something on video or giving me a written testimonial that I can share
with others about this?
And you basically need to just keep doing this until you've got a bunch of
really excited.
Happy customers. What that's going to do is allow you to build momentum.
It's not going to be an instant get rich quick type thing. This takes time.
You're going to get customers one by one by one. You're going to over deliver.
You're going to collect those reviews and testimonials.
You're going to build a great reputation,
and then you can go through and increase your prices.
You can go through and adjust your refund policy if and when you need to,
and you can start to do more of those things that your competitors are doing.
That might make it more scalable for you.
But it's important to understand that when you're just getting started,
you really need to do these things to de-risk the buying decision for your
potential customers to get people in at first. Then you deliver those results,
you get those testimonials, you get that feedback, you improve further,
and then you can start to increase your prices.
You can start to scale up and you can start to really grow that business.
It's so at first,
but this is how you build that foundation that leads to long term success.
Now speaking of long term success,
if you want to learn more about how to market an online course,
got a video on that right here that kind of walks through my start to finish
process for that. So make sure you check out that video Next.
Hope you've enjoyed this one, and I'll see you next time.