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It’s always at this time of year when we are inundated with “buy my course now and get rich quick” ads and messages. And there is a slew of other icky tactics at play. We decided to get a bit raw and real in this episode and share how you can wade through the world of some shady offers.

Alyson Lex 0:03
It's that time of year when some of the big-name coaches bring out their big signature programs and promote that, you're just one step away one course away one thing away from making it big, and all you need, of course, is their thing. Their program is going to give you the end-to-end information and results that you need to make a difference in your life and achieve financial freedom. Well, and make money while you sleep on a plane. I'll make money on a beach. If I had a nickel for every time somebody told me I could make money sitting on a beach. I would not need to make money while sitting on a beach because I'd have the money already. It's It's insane. I saw an ad. Actually, I've seen a series of ads, they've been delivered to me it's a software shopping cart software. And they're promoting this idea that you can sell a $5,000 course with no experience. What the actual, right. And it feels so wrong to me. Because you and I know better.

Jennie Wright 1:22
We do know better. We also want to say that. Yeah, there are some people who've never done business before who've never built anything before that fall into success backwards with their eyes shut and their hands tied behind their backs. It happens.

Alyson Lex 1:35
We have we have clients like that

Jennie Wright 1:39
we do. But the majority of people do not have this wonderful fortune. Okay, we're not blessed with this little Genie that comes out and says, Would you like to totally blow your first course out of the water and be the poster child for every other coach to tell you that it can happen to you. It's that promise? Is that story that it can happen to you. Which makes us go for it. It's why we play the lotteries. Do you think I think I'm gonna win the $70 million lottery? No, I don't. But do I play? Yes. Because there's a chance. So I'm just as gullible as the next person. But I'm not gullible when it comes to my online business. But I was I made the mistake. And it happened to exactly happen at this time of year where somebody pitched their big, beautiful program told me that if I just did a summit, that I would get 5000 people on my list, and I would make $100,000 in the first year, by the way, that was a promise on a sales page. And I went for it. Because I was naive. This was like 2012, I was completely naive. And this person was saying 98% of my people, actually, you know, are able to make what I say they make. And I actually was in the back end of that particular industry for quite a while. But number wasn't true, just FYI. So there's a lot of soapboxing there's a lot of grand us. What's the right word? grandstanding? Thank you. There's a lot of standing on stage and spouting dreams and wonderful numbers and wonderful opportunities and slideshows with people, like Alison said, making money on a beach. And for some people, it's true. It really can be. But for the majority of people, it doesn't work that way. And we need to address it, because it's that far fetched, far flung dream of potential that keeps people spending a boatload of money. Allison, and I can't even tell you how many times we've met somebody, oh yeah, I spent $10,000 on such and such a did nothing. I spent 15 1000s on such and such a did nothing I spent $5,000 on such and such. And all I got out of it was the community. There's a lot to be said about that.

Alyson Lex 3:57
There is a lot to be said about that. And before we really dive into it, and what to look for, and how to really make those kind of decisions for your business. I want to just kind of break down the marketing. Because of course when we share testimonials from our people, we're going to share the best results. Of course we are and what you're going to be looking for is what did it take to get there? What did it take to get the result that this testimonial is showing? Okay, so one of the testimonials that I have that I love is a client of mine, Mick and I just did a cop out quick copy review and made some tweaks to his sales page. And he talks about how it added 30,025 to $30,000 to his business in just a couple of weeks. If you take that at face value, you might think Holy guacamole Allison can help me make 30 grand Awesome. But then when you look at it, he already had an existing offer, he already had an audience, he already had a campaign that converted, he just needed it to continue converting and convert a little bit better. So we already had a lot going for him. And my staff helped re energize, revitalize that campaign. To finish it out strong.

Jennie Wright 5:27
Great for me.

Alyson Lex 5:29
But if you don't already have all the same stuff in place that Nick had, you're not going to see that level of success. And that's why Jenny always, always laughs when I talk about thrive being an acronym, because the first word in our acronym, the T word is transparency. And so what I want you to look for, is the transparency of the person selling to you, are they giving you that kind of information? Are they saying, in order to be successful with my program, you really should have X, Y, and Z. together first, I signed up for a coaching program, I fell victim to it, and it wasn't that long ago. Huge promises. And when I got in there, well, there was a lot that I probably should have had in place before joining in order to really be successful. Ultimately, we're going to call it an expensive lesson. Because I didn't have the stuff in place that I needed. Now I took it, and I made the most of it. But that doesn't mean that I really wanted to spend that amount of money. To to discover this about myself, would have been nice to not spend that money, okay. The marketing aspect of it. And I say this, I actually have it on a post it note, because I've been teaching it to a lot of my clients lately is you want to be the diet pill, not the diet plan. When I teach that, I mean it in the marketing. You give them the quick solution, you promise them that the quick solution is there. And then you deliver the plan on the back end. Okay, what I mean is, people want the easy way. So you, you show them, Hey, this is really simple. And then in your program, you take them step by step through the plan. So you're still delivering the goods, you're just selling the fast when the problem is, a lot of these courses, a lot of these signature programs are designed to not be an end to end solution. So by the time you're done, there's still 85,000 bajillion more things to do and learn in order to get to the success that they promise you. And so when you look at these things, I want you to go into it with that grain of salt, right in front of you.

Jennie Wright 8:08
That's hard when it looks so so hard, so good. Like it looks so good. That's I mean, it's marketed amazing, like kudos to their marketers, kudos to their developers, kudos to their ad, you know, their ads people and everything because they make it look amazing. But what you need to look at instead and what else in the saying is really understand? Well, first of all, you need to understand yourself. So I went to a conference in San Diego a number of years back, and I, I knew it was going to be a pitch fest. I was completely prepared for it. And I purposely left my credit cards in the hotel safe. Because I just like everybody else can be like I mean I can be swayed by marketing, just like everybody. I'm not immune. Even though I'm in the industry, I'm not immune. So I left my credit cards in the hotel safe, just so I wouldn't be tempted. Okay, and this is one of those big events where those big coaches were offering like $10,000 for this one person was like, Hey, here's my $10,000 such and such, you know, we'll fly you to our studio we'll record a bunch of video, we'll turn your you know, we'll turn what you already have and your content will turn into video content, and bam, you'll walk away with a course Well, what they don't say is you still need to have the core software you still need to have a launch plan. You still need to grow the audience and connect with people and if you don't have your own audience then you need to use other people's audiences Oh pa to grow that right? So they leave it like Allison Allison the same a whole bunch of stuff. So the first thing is I think need to know yourself and understand how you're swayed by marketing. And then try not to be the next thing is decide what you want. You know a lot of these, a lot of these programs and products and services these large ones they're being offered. They Come up with a private Facebook group, or they come with a private community slack or wherever you want mighty networks.

Unknown Speaker 10:07
However,

Jennie Wright 10:09
are you paying the big price for community? Are you paying the price to receive results? A lot of people will come out and they're like, Oh, yeah, that was a really expensive program. But I met some really great people. So I see it as a win. So they justify the price based on the fact that they met 100 other awesome people who also got taken by the same marketing. And you know, you're all banded together. So they love it because of the community. So make a decision, do you want community? Or do you want results. And depending on what you want, if you need that community, if you need that group of people who are going to sit there and like, rah, rah, you, great, but if you need results, then you need something different.

Alyson Lex 10:52
I want to challenge this too, when it comes to community. Because there are so many ways to connect with other people. And if you're going to pay for it, if you're going to pay for something and think the community is the big value, then go pay for our community, go join a higher level mastermind group. And what you then do is, you now put yourself in a room full of people you can aspire to be. Alright, here's what I mean by that. When you are in a lot of these communities, and the value is there. In the people that you meet, are they at the same level? are they struggling? Are they are you struggling? like where are you always look to network up. And that's not to say you can't be friends with everybody, okay? Like, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about investing in your business. And if a community is an investment for you invest up. Find the people who are at the success level you want to be and go join the groups they're hanging out in, not the ones that have people who are at or below your level of success. I think that's really an important thing, an important distinction. Because the quality of people that you surround yourself with will matter in your business. You know, Johnny and I say a lot you can work your way in or you can buy your way in, you want to know how some of these people got where they are. They join masterminds and they networked with people at the level they want it to be. And they bought their way in. So don't work, just join some it works. Don't just join something for community, I'll say, I have been a member of a paid community. And it's not very much a month. So but it's a membership. And it's got a ton of information in a members area that I don't use. And I've been saying for years. Oh, I'm in there, because the community is so great. Well guess what happened? The community lost its value for me. And now, you know, I was actually just gonna message Jenny earlier today I was Should I stop this? I think about it every time and then I forget. And then I see the charge and I'm like, Oh, I should probably stop this. But that's, that's how they got me. Right? They've gotten how many more months of revenue out of me because I keep forgetting to cancel. The community has no value for me anymore. It's not in line with me any longer. And so I'm gonna stop. It's okay to leave a community that doesn't give you value in moving your business forward. You don't need to stop investing in big programs to get access to a community of people that aren't where you aspire to be.

Jennie Wright 14:06
Easy peasy. I know Am I say? I say easy. I'm Mike drop Exactly. Like that was a that was a mic drop moment. That was definitely a soundbite right there. We're gonna have to we're gonna have to grab that one for the YouTube channel. That was awesome. The other thing that I like to you know, having been through this, Allison has been through this. Allison and I have had to come in and be super women, put on our little white capes and take people who've gone through programs like this and not all not all of these programs are bad. Okay, not all the people who were offering them are crappy. But you really like I said, No, you're no you first. And really, really think about it. You know, I'm a big believer that if it's a really great decision today, it's a better decision tomorrow. And it's still okay, right? So don't let FOMO oh my god the prices you know, oh, they said if I don't do it today, I'm going Lose shirt.

Unknown Speaker 15:01
Okay, all right,

Jennie Wright 15:03
no problem. here's a here's a wonderful example, the coaching program that I joined years back, the one that I spent oodles of money on that wasn't, you know, worth my time. Although I can like in my head, I justified it because I got access to people who eventually hired me as a client, like, you know, as a provider, and they were my client. They chased me for two weeks, they had representative to contacting me, they had somebody messaging me, they set up two different calls with me, they told me to sell my car to pay for the program. They told me to borrow money to pay for the program. They were adamant that this was the way you know, this is the only way I was going to achieve success. And I didn't have to sell a car or anything like that, because I actually, between you, me and the light socket, I negotiated a tail. But we won't go that's a time that's an episode as a different episode. However, once I got in there, and once I saw the way they were treating people, one of the other things that I saw is that to keep them in to keep people in line with the program, and not to see the fact that this was very light on results, and very heavy on what I guess was their teaching. They told everybody, you have to stay in the step that you're in, stop worrying about the results, and why it'll happen later on. Just stay in the stuff that you're in. And all will be revealed to you like it was very mysterious and what we were supposed to do next. But Oh, don't worry, the coaches will tell you and me, and 182 other people were like, well, what are we doing next? Like I need to plan these kinds of things. wasn't cool. You need to find the best way to understand how you're going to get the best results for your business. And quite honestly, you might make mistakes, like Alex and I were talking about the mistakes, being very honest about the mistakes. You're gonna make mistakes. You might, yeah, it's totally

Alyson Lex 16:59
cool. We've all done it. We've all invested in things that have pushed us the wrong way. And one of the things that, well, a couple things stood out when Jenny was telling her story just now. One, she talked about justifying, right, I justified it because I found people who would later become clients. That's not justifying that silver lining, silver lining, you're you're finding the silver lining in something that otherwise would have been a bad experience. And that is awesome. That's a great way to look at things. Because you're finding the positive in every opportunity. And I think that's a really good mindset to have. Everything is a lesson. It's not a mistake, it's a lesson. Some lessons are more expensive than others. Some lessons are harder to get than others. But ultimately, they're lessons. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing that Jenny said that I really liked was know yourself. When she was breaking down how that course or that program was laid out. It didn't work for her, because she wanted that to know more steps ahead. It made me think about when I'm driving somewhere. It made me think about when I'm driving somewhere, my husband likes to tell me all of the directions from here to the destination. He likes to say you're going to go down the street, you're going to turn left, and then you're going to go blah, blah, blah, I don't need all that. I need to know my next step. That's how I operate. But that's not how he operates. He needs to know all of it. So he can think it through in his head. I just want to know what's next. That's a fundamental difference in how we prefer to operate and neither one is wrong. So when you're looking at investing in something, when you're marketed to when you see something that catches your eye, consider asking, Hey, how is this delivered? Do I get to know all the steps up front? Do I only get what's dripped out to me what is included? That's going to work with me or not work with me. I'm the kind of person that I really require more discussion and accountability. But you may not like that. You may want something different. And so it's not necessarily that all of these courses in the whole world. Of course, they're not all fundamentally bad. We create courses for our clients. Of course we think some of them are great, we've made them but beyond that there are really good options and opportunities out there. If they fit your needs, and you go into it with the right expectations and that's the last thing I want to talk about. A lot of these big signature programs are marketed as if they are a one stop solution. Do this process and you will win. Full stop. But it's throughout this episode, Jennie and I have mentioned a bunch of instances where you have to come in with something you have to do something after. It's not always a one stop solution. And so what I prefer to do is create my own plan, either by myself or with the help of a coach or an expert or something like that, which I do recommend, if you don't have that strategy, arm or muscle, in your in your business, that's fine. Get some help coming up with your strategy, and then take programs and courses to help you fill the gaps in your own knowledge. learning something specific is not a bad thing. If you want to know how to run a successful challenge, Jenny has a course for that. But she doesn't promise that it's going to give you help you, you know, build the audience to email it to or launch a product at the end of it. It's how to create, promote and run a successful challenge, which we're reworking. So don't go looking for it because we're we've pulled it off. We're reworking at relaunching it next year sometime. It doesn't promise to be an end to end solution.

Alyson Lex 21:38
And it's my firm belief that this idea. And this is my rant. This is my soapbox, moment for the entire episode, this whole idea of I will teach you everything A to Z on how to be successful and it's only going to cost you $2,000 is total BS. Do you know why? Because to discover how to just end to end go from zero to a bajillion dollars, it's going to cost you a lot more than two grand, it's going to $2,000 will get you step one, I promise. And what's going to happen is at the end of that course, you're going to have 30,000 questions. And magically, they're going to be answered in the next course. And that is huge. Alright, so we are pulling back the curtain into the ugly side of this online business world right now. There's always another thing. There's always another level, always another thing you need to know, to finish what you've started. I hate operating that way. I want to know what my plan is. fill in the gaps and do it myself. Yes, take a course to learn a specific thing, a skill set a technique, or whatever. But don't rely on that course to be your strategy. It's not going to work that way. It's just not

Jennie Wright 23:17
people think that it will.

Alyson Lex 23:20
Well and it sucks because it's it's born out of a little bit of desperation. I don't know what to do. So they're going to tell me.

Jennie Wright 23:27
I know that desperation. That's exactly where I was in September of 2012. When I bought my course, I started my business in March. Yeah, start my business in March, I tried to make it happen on my own. The first thing I fell prey to was Infusionsoft that was a big mistake. That was a $450 a month mistake that I quickly fixed because I was silly, I swear I was so naive. Can Can Jenny from right now go back to Jenny from 20, March, April 2012. And just be like, sister set the hell down. We need to talk. And I would lay it all out. Like it would be a game changer.

Alyson Lex 24:06
I am going to say no, because then we wouldn't have the journey right now. Right? We've all had to go through these kind of things where we, you know, we take a couple of steps in the wrong direction. And you know, I'm hoping that this episode doesn't come across as us just, you know, being really crappy about the online course industry because, frankly, it's my favorite industry, which is why I'm so critical of it. And we work in it every day. It's It's where I spend all of my time and I want to see excellence. I want to see excellence. I think that when you create a course you have the opportunity to transform lives, truly transform lives. And as someone who works with a lot of coaches. I get to have a part in that like that's really Soul satisfying for me. And so to see people struggle so hard after going through something, you know, there's work involved in it there, it's real work. You can't just it's not it's not a diet pill as much as you might have been sold the pill, and that's a marketing thing, and I teach it. Go into it knowing it's not a diet pill, it's a diet plan. I'm gonna have to put work into it. It's gonna require effort on my part, I'm gonna have to trust this process if I'm going to be successful. And unfortunately, there are people out there who will take advantage of that. But I think that if you go into it with your eyes open, you can, you can be successful, no matter what I do. I am,

Jennie Wright 26:00
I love everything that you said on this episode, just FYI. Because I think you you see the things that need to be said and you definitely talking to the right, you're talking to the right audiences, but that way, all right. All of the sass from today's episode has helped us write a couple takeaways. So here's Sassi takeaway, number one, I'll take this from Allison. She said it not me, all mistakes are lessons, I was brought up to believe that mistakes are mistakes, and you know, got all the shame that went with it. But I really prefer this all mistakes are less than smart. And, you know, we're all going to make some of those mistakes, if we can avoid some of the most costly mistakes, that might be cool. But you're all going to make them and how you come out of them. And how you learn from them, I think is the most important thing.

Alyson Lex 26:50
I love it. And yeah, it's definitely always look back at the lessons you can take from everything you've done. Know yourself before you invest, is this going to work for you? If it's not, that's okay. Right? Is this delivered in a way that's going to work for you? Is it going to meet how you need to learn?

Jennie Wright 27:15
I like that one too. Because if you don't know yourself, it just makes it more of a challenge. I really love this part, which is, again, this was an Allison deciding on community versus results. If you're going to pay five or $10,000, to be part of a Facebook group, and that's the value you're getting out of it and everything else you're justifying as well, it's not that great, but at least I'm in a Facebook group of you know, 180 other people, and they're all awesome, and they're all we're all supporting and helping each other. And that's what we need. But the coaches aren't really present and the contents really not there. Is that really what you should be paying for? So decide community or results? Where do you want to put your money? I'm going to bank on results.

Alyson Lex 27:54
And if you choose community pay for the right community? Yes. My last takeaway is it's better to fill the gaps in your knowledge after you've built your own strategy, rather than relying on the course to build the strategy for you. And you can build your own strategy or you can get expert help Jenny and I can help you build your strategy. It's kind of what we do. So you can head over to System to thrive.com click on the work with us and schedule a call. We'll see if we're fit there. But however that strategy happens, you create it and then fill the gaps in your knowledge with your courses.

Jennie Wright 28:32
Do you like this episode? Did you like a little ranty Allison and a little bit of sassy Jenny. I thought it was fun. We had a good time with it. It's it's been something that's sort of been boiling up for both of us. Simply because Allison literally just finished spending I think four days writing a very amazing course for a client and seeing that you know what a lot of the courses that are out there just really aren't even are comparing so if you like this kind of stuff. Great. We love it. You know, occasionally we have to do this versus our regular step one, step two step threes, but we really enjoy this sometimes it's kind of fun. So take that for the group, you know for what it is. Hopefully you've enjoyed this. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure that you're following Allison and I wherever you want on social media, for the podcast, however you want to stay in touch with us. We would love to stay in touch with you. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back again soon. Answering a question maybe also around. Take care