MBA2025 Q&A Wednesday: Should I offer a money back guarantee?

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Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA Show Business Advice. You can count on every sing day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just email me over@omar mba.net Today's question is from Candace and Candace asks. Hey Omar, love the podcast. I got a question. I'm a coach that runs group coaching sessions for my clients. Some of my customers have asked me do I offer a money back guarantee? Should I offer one? I kind of find it unfair if I've done the work already to refund their money. What are your thoughts? Happy to take on any advice you can offer. Thanks Candace for the question. Solid question. Because a lot of people feel like it's unfair to have a money back guarantee or or to refund somebody money after they've already given them the value. Whether it's a course or training or coaching in your example. But in today's episode I'm going to tell you why you need a money back guarantee and I'm going to show you how to offer it so you're not out of pocket. This is a strategy I use when I offered one on one and group coaching. I've also seen this used by some top top coaches in the business world as an actual client, as a student of the teacher of the coach. So I'm going to give you a game plan so you can give a money back guarantee with confidence and I'll explain the why and the how. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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So Candice runs group coaching and she's pondering if she should have a money back guarantee. Some of her clients were asking her and I said at the top of the episode, you need a money back guarantee. And the reason why is you got to leave. No excuse for for anybody to take a bet on you and to be coached by you. You want to remove all rebuttals, including what if this doesn't work for me? This is called a risk reversal. You're taking on all the risk for your clients saying, hey, if this doesn't work out, you got nothing to worry about, you'll get your money back. This makes your coaching offer a lot more of a no brainer. This makes it a lot easier for you get the right clients as well as more of them, especially if you're doing group coaching. So having a money back guarantee is essential. Now how do you offer this money back guarantee so that you don't feel like you're being gypped, like you have given them all the content and they just changed their mind and they want their money back after you've done all the work for them. Well, it's very simple. Coaching is not a one way street. Okay? You can coach somebody all they want, but if they don't implement what you coach them to do, they're not going to get the result that they're looking for when they sign up for your program. So the key element here is implementation and this is how high level coaches are able to offer some really generous money back guarantees. Even like 90 day money back guarantees where they basically say, hey, you have nothing to lose. We're going to work together for the next 90 days. I'm going to give you some assignments, I'm going to coach you through some of the things you need to do and implement and install in your business. You need to do these things. If you implement everything, we discuss everything I prescribe to you and you're still not happy with your results, then we can walk away from each other and you can have your money back now, you have a couple options here. I've seen this done in two different ways. I've seen coaches say you can have a full refund of the first 90 days. And I also have seen coaches where they say, hey, you have to commit for a year of coaching and if we don't get your results after you've done everything you're supposed to in the first 90 days, then we can part ways and you don't have to continue the rest of the year in terms of paying for the rest of the year, where it's kind of like a prorated refund. Now, the reason why this kind of protects you is most people that would ask for a refund in a coaching, especially in a group coaching thing is they're not showing up to the sessions, they're not doing the work, they're letting lying get in the way. And therefore they feel like, oh, I'm just spending all this money and I'm not actually getting anything out of it because I'm not doing anything that's on them, that's not on you. And what you're doing here is that you're vouching, you're guaranteeing your coaching ability, your strategy, your ability to help people who are going to help themselves. You can't guarantee that miracles are going to happen. Things are just not going to happen without them doing the work. That's unreasonable. So having this kind of caveat and saying, hey, my money back guarantee stands if you implement, if you do the work, if you show your work. And I've seen this done actually in online courses too, where they say, hey, you can have your money back if you show me that this didn't work out for you, you did all the work and you've proven that you implemented the strategies and the lessons that I teach in the course. Happy to give your money back. And that's fair enough. Like, it's hard to argue with that. Now, by doing this, this allows you to have a more compelling offer. It allows you to really say, I stand behind my. If I have eager students that are willing to implement, they will be happy. And guess what? In my own coaching programs, in my own courses, I've tested 30, 60 and 90 day money back guarantees. Guess which one converts the best and has the least amount of refund requests. Not the 30, not the 60. The 90 day money back guarantee actually works. A lot of people think, oh, I shouldn't give that much time, I should let the time expire so it doesn't give them a chance to return. No it's actually the opposite because it requires them to put in the work for 90 days. It requires them to be consistent and implement, and that kind of person will get results. So you're actually giving yourself more time. You're actually giving the student more time to be successful.

We've all been there. You hold onto a coupon, hoping to cash it in at the store, but then you forget about it and suddenly you've got a mountain of useless expired coupons.

Do you think this one's still good? Free milk?

Oh, mate, that expired in 1993.

Dang it.

Fortunately, there are better ways to save money. Like by switching to Geico, you could save about 900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

Ooh, how about this one? Half off floppy disks.

Now you should try a bit of spring cleaning.

It feels good to save big. It feels good to Geico.

To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday episode, Candice, I highly recommend that you give a money back guarantee. As long as you say, hey, show me you've done the work and it didn't work out, you didn't get the results you're looking for. Happy to give you the money. And it's hard to argue that. It's hard to say, no, I'm not going to show you the work or that's not fair. This isn't a do it for you service, right? This is not me build your business for you. This is a coaching service, right? This is a coaching program. You got to do the work. I hope that helps. Candace, thanks so much for asking today's Q and A Wednesday's question. If you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over at Omar MBA Net and we'll feature it right here on Q and A Wednesday. If you haven't hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app yet, make sure you do so you don't miss another episode of the $100 MBA. You also get access to over 2,000 business lessons in our archives simply by hitting subscribe. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Coaching and group coaching is uniquely rewarding. I particularly like group coaching because it creates a sense of accountability between all the students. It creates a sense of community and we learn from each other's challenges and mistakes and struggles. They learn when you coach other people. They see your value more sometimes through the advice you give other people than the advice that you give them. And group coaching is a great way to scale your coaching services. You can charge a little bit less than one on one coaching, but you can bring in more students. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take.

We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon, hoping to cash it in at the store, but then you forget about it and suddenly you've got a mountain of useless expired coupons.

Do you think this one's still good? Free milk?

Oh, mate, that expired in 1993.

Dang it.

Fortunately, there are better ways to save money. Like by switching to Geico, you could save about $900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

Ooh, how about this one? Half off floppy disks.

Now you should try a bit of spring cleaning.

It feels good to save Big it feels good to geico.