In this solo video Jacob Morgan argues that dog‑training clients care only about whether a trainer can solve their specific problem, not about credentials. For new trainers lacking proof of results, he recommends offering a conditional money‑back guarantee (MBG). He defines an MBG as a promise to refund the client if, after completing agreed‑upon steps (e.g., attending all sessions, weekly check‑ins, submitting homework videos) the client’s stated goals are not met within a set timeframe. Jacob explains that the guarantee serves three purposes: it creates friction that filters out unsuitable clients, it forces the trainer to deliver high‑quality work, and it provides a powerful sales lever that can dramatically increase conversion rates, especially for businesses with little social proof. He touches on consumer‑rights laws in the UK (and likely the US) that obligate service providers to offer refunds for undelivered promises, and notes that actual refund rates for well‑structured MBGs are typically 2‑5 %. He also discusses how to handle refund requests—give the money back, solicit feedback, and use the experience to improve client acquisition and service delivery. The overall message is that a well‑crafted, conditional MBG is a win‑win that boosts credibility, pressures the trainer to perform, and drives sales.
Chapters
We're gonna cover just a concept, a selling concept today. Well, two really, but I'm gonna start with this one. No one gives a fuck about your accreditations. No one gives a shit about, I don't know, how many letters you have to have after your name, who you've shadowed, who you've worked with. The only thing your client gives a fuck about and cares about is, can you solve my problem? Do you have evidence that you can solve a problem that looks just like mine? Just like mine. So that's a biggie, right? Can you provide me evidence that you have done this before? But what if you're new? All right, what if you're new? What if you don't have this evidence yet? Well, we're going to talk today about money-back guarantee, and it's a term that scares the shit out of new dog trainers, but I'm going to reassure you through the process in just this short video. So, all right, should we offer a money-back guarantee? Well, especially if you're, uh, working early doors, you're working with your first set of clients, then yeah, you probably should. We still offer a money-back guarantee to this day for the reasons that I'm going to specify in just a second. So money-back guarantee is essentially— it's going to be a conditional money-back guarantee. E.g., if you take X, Y, and Z steps and you follow X, Y, and Z criteria, and we don't meet the goals that you have like described to me, or your intended goals, or your dream outcome in X time period, I'm gonna either keep working with you until you do, or I'm gonna just give you your money back entirely, right? And again, that might scare the shit out of people, but unfortunately, if that scares the shit out of you, you have a delivery problem. Maybe you have a client curation problem, and maybe you just have a skill set problem because I truly believe you shouldn't take money off people in the first instance if you can't guarantee them results. Couple of like points I'm going to make here. One of the first points is, especially in the UK, people have the right to claim their money back over like general UK laws. I actually don't know, I can't fucking quote them, but I'll ping them up here if you want me to. If you don't deliver on the services like you've said you're going to deliver. And so you might as well use a money-back guarantee and use it as part of your sales and advertisement process because of you're obliged to offer one, realistic. Anyway, it's probably even more strict in the USA. I'm not sure about Australia. So, and the second thing is the money-back guarantee is great because anyone that ever does ask for their money back, seldom do they meet the criteria that you set out. So I'll just give you an example. Let's do, say you do a 5-session programme and it's over 6 weeks, it's over 8 weeks, just for argument's sake. And you say, Hey, if you attend all 5 sessions, you check in with me on WhatsApp once a week on a Friday, and you demonstrate some way, somehow, that you've done the homework by sending me a video once a week on a Tuesday, for example. If you tick those boxes for me and we don't achieve your goals, I'm gonna give you your money back or work with you for free. Now, chances are, because of the client has an element of aversion loss here, like they've put some money on the line, you know, they don't wanna lose that money, they're gonna oblige the conditions in order to protect themselves from potentially, you know, being let down by yourself, for example. And that's a good thing because if you set rigid criteria, you're actually setting the client up for success because we obviously need them to attend the sessions. We need them to give us feedback on a Friday. We need to see some videos of them doing the homework, right? And so seldom does anyone that meets the conditions that you set, so long as they're realistic, don't be getting people jumping through fucking hoops, will actually ever need a money-back guarantee, will want the refund because they're gonna be happy with the results. And those that do not get results and might ask for their money back, very rarely do they qualify for the money-back guarantee because of they're not gonna tick those boxes. And so it's a win-win situation for really everyone involved because if they're not gonna qualify for the money-back guarantee, you're not entitled to give it to 'em. And if they do qualify for the money-back guarantee, they're very unlikely to request it because of they've done the homework. Now, if you still experience people that do the homework and then ask for their money back because if they've not got the results that you have promised, a couple of things have happened here. Like I said earlier, one, you've taken on a client you shouldn't have taken on in the first instance, and you've not created the adequate amount of friction in your client acquisition process in order to find the right clients that you can legitimately help. And you've perhaps operated outside of your remit. That occasionally might happen, and that's fair enough. And like with big rules of business I operate on, People ask for their money back, don't spend energy on like fighting a refund or anything. Just give them the money straight back. Ask them what you could have done better next time and take that energy that you would've sent fighting to give that person a refund, finding a new client and doing a new job. The second mistake you might have made is you just haven't done a good enough job as a dog trainer, as a service provider, and that's something you need to look to improve on in the future. Another thing with a money-back guarantee, it puts an adequate amount of pressure on you to do a great job, right? It kind of puts your metaphorical balls on the table and creates a level of stress that is probably healthy in you into going and doing a good job. And so yeah, if you're a new trainer, I know that some people be up in arms here. No, there's no such thing as dog training that could like is guaranteed results and shit like that. Well, fine, but listen, if a client comes here to us and we can't guarantee we can give input that can help that dog and owner be successful, we don't fucking sign them up. It's as simple as that. And if you can't as a dog trainer speak to 10 clients, and at least 8 out of 10 of those clients be very sure that you can help, I think you might be in the fucking wrong industry, or your marketing's off, your messaging's off, your funnels are off, maybe a combination of the above, right? People screaming at us all the time, like, "How can you offer a money-back guarantee, blahdy blahdy blah." Well, I don't wanna sign anyone up that's 8 weeks down the line in nowhere near a fucking better position than they currently are. Like, that's just absolutely insane, and so, yeah, there aren't any guaranteed results for training, but you can guarantee that you can do your best possible job to sell to the right people. And once you have sold to the right people, deliver the best possible solution to their problems. And if you have a refund rate of anywhere between like 2% and 5%, that's actually totally normal in like across all industries. It's very unlikely to be anywhere near that. I think ours is like 3% or 4%, and a lot of that is like people buying passive products in different countries and then looking to claim them back as opposed to like our actual coaching programmes, just to be clear. So anyway, Anyway, yeah, I definitely recommend it. You have to make it conditional. It will give the right level of pressure to both you and your client. It might kind of make some more of the process collaborative as opposed to someone just forking over money to you and then, you know, them thinking you're going to do all the work or you thinking they're going to do all the work. Everyone's balls go on the table and you will see a massive increase in sales conversions just by saying, hey, this doesn't work, you're going to get your money back. I'll just keep helping you till you do. Right. So that's my opinion on money-back guarantees. I would highly recommend it in your business regardless of what stage you are, but especially if you're the type of business that hasn't got a lot of social proof just yet. Hope that was helpful. Didn't need to use my whiteboard, but it's in the video anyway. So yeah, I'll catch you in the next one.
