Earlier this week I came across a post in my newsfeed on Facebook that felt momentarily like the post of the year winner to me.
Why?
Because it brings out a point that many of us have been feeling, but no one was really saying.
Yes, it is about refunds, but actually it’s more regarding a mental shift that is seriously needed in this industry.
So before I remark any further, let me share Joel’s post with you.
I wanted to do a “happy dance” when I read this because he is absolutely correct.
The biggest issues with IM these days:
- It’s too easy to jump from shiny object to shiny object, and never see success because you aren’t sticking with it long enough.
- Contrary to what seems to be the hype in IM, normally you CAN NOT get rich overnight. You can’t even always make a lot of money “overnight”. In order to do that takes a LOT of effort, prepwork, and ACTION. It’s easy for a marketer to say “I slapped this up and made $xxxx in minutes”… but they fail to usually reveal HOW much time it took them UP TO THAT POINT to earn that money.You can’t take a person who has no knowledge or understanding of any of it, AND with no money to start with – and expect them to make even a few hundred dollars in under 24 hours WITHOUT a proper foundation or training. And if on the rare chance it happens once…. the odds of that happening twice are not very good.I’ve seen this far too many times and it’s frustrating.YES, many of us can send a mailing and earn in a short period of time. Does it happen “every time”? No of course not. Sometimes things just flop. Other times, it goes crazier than you ever expected.
But there is definitely time and experience in these factors.
- People see “refund” and they come along and decide the next shiny object deserves their money more, even though they never even attempted to make it work.
I think it’s important that a refund option should typically have some requirements along with them, such as there requirement for the person to actually take action and PROVE that they have to bring some value back to the industry.
It’s important to switch the “dollar store me mentality”, help people STOP jumping from product to product, and actually implement.
I’ve had many admit to me that they get too distracted too easily. But then don’t blame the product and ask for a refund because you didn’t actually take the time to fully test it and get through ALL of it. And even still, if you’ve bought a course or something, and you DO get through 100% of it (rare that everyone does) – I’m sure you still learned SOMETHING you could use in future. Sometimes you already “know” it, but perhaps it’s said a different way that sticks in your mind.
There have been tons of products I’ve bought that even when finished, weren’t that great. But I’ve never asked for a refund on them, because I would never want to get that sort of Mentality.
I look at it this way:
If I go and buy say a hand crafted food item from a store… and I don’t like it – am I going to try to take it back because it didn’t taste the way I thought it would? Of course not!
If I go to Chapters and buy a book – did you know that they actually DON’T usually like to refund a book?? I had that happen ONCE. The book we bought had a lot of offensive material we didn’t know was in there, it was complete garbage, and I took it back. They didn’t want to refund me – because their answer was, books are non-refundable. It wasn’t their fault I was offended by it. (Which is true).
My husband went to college for programming… but no matter how good he was at it (and amazing at troubleshooting), he kept getting jobs in Networking instead. Does that mean he has the right to go to the college and say he wanted a refund on his training because he didn’t end up getting any job in programming??
Of course not!
Another associate posted this morning that a person actually asked for a refund because he wanted to change the affiliate he bought through to get a better bonus. Really??
He’ll get refunded… and very likely blocked from ever buying again.
The fact is, all of this hurts:
- The product creator
- The buyer’s paypal account (YEP they do get flagged if it’s done regularly and too often)
- The affiliate(s) who offer the products
- The industry as a whole gets a bad name.
So let’s clean up the mentality surrounding marketing online, and infoproducts.
Stop offering frivolous refunds for no reason. Make people realize in order to GET a refund, they must do this, this and this. This WILL help stop the “shiny object syndrome” and the serial refunders.
This might help bring a lot more value back as well, because affiliates and JV partners will absolutely be much more likely to properly vet a product and make sure it’s good before the promote it and put their name to it as a referrer.
Some of the time a product creator advertises how good the product is but doesn’t actually say how the moneys made. You have to buy it to find out. For example, it might be some way to use on social media and the buyer once got burned and now doesn’t want anything to do with social media. Instant refund. Same again if a product advertised as “The Best Course You Can Buy” might turn out to be a blind course on using Fiverr. If the buyer feels they have not got the time or the skill to offer anything on Fiverr what’s the point in keeping the course. I’ve seen both of these scenarios happen.
I do agree with you regarding refunds on the whole. So let’s have no more ‘blind’ ads and no more free refunds for properly described products would be great.
Oh, we do have one supermarket chain in the UK where they WILL give you your money back if you don’t like the taste of something you bought there. Only once per type of food though and again serial ‘testers’ will not be accommodated forever. They do it because a lot of their brand names are not known in the UK, so those are the ones they let you try out.
I agree Tony – it should be as clear as possible – and in these instances, these are things that should be refunded within 1-2 days of purchase at most, and to me that is acceptable. It’s when they come back 25-30-60-90 days later like the above, that shouldn’t be allowed.
Interesting about that store!
What’s needed even more in IM is a stop to these outrageous ridiculous promises of making money overnight. I tend to write back to those kind of people and say Show me a certified public accountants statement that your claims are true and I will buy your product. Or show me a certified public accountant’s statement thatn your proof of earnings is real. That usually produces no emails back and I don’t buy the product. The warrior’s forum is one of the worst for these type of BS claims. Mostly I have found jvzoo’s products to be pretty good. I stopped buying from clickbank because 80% of stuff I purchased was not as advertised. Just my experience. And these comments are based on my experience and opinions.
Great post (not certain what provoked you)…
If I was selling my own created products I sadly suspect I would identify too well with your remarks.
And agree with all of your suggestions.
However, as a consumer, (like Tony mentioned), I would say Guarantee of Refund is necessary for those products that are only pitched as “Made Me $2345 in 48 Hours” and give us No Idea what was done or what the product teaches about. “But it is so easy and I will tell all after you pay” – and we wade through 3 upsells. Ya know?
I don’t mean YOU!
So we need also wish for promotions that are more helpfully specific about content details?
P.S. Guarantee of Refund is often taught as an Overcoming Objections method, to “remove Risk”, and Close the Sale. Sleazy promoters better follow through.
But generally I think your suggestions could still be implemented.