One of the sales lessons I learned from Sabri Subry, the author of Sell Like Crazy, is that in every transaction, one party carries the majority of the risk.
It’s either the customer or the company.
If the company doesn’t have a proven process to get results then they often put the risk on the customer. They will charge full price, offer no refunds or guarantees.
If the company is willing to take on the risk and remove it from the customer, they will win more sales since they provide a security net for the client to leap into.
A perfect example is Costco.
Here’s their guarantee…
On Membership: We will cancel and refund your membership fee at any time if you are dissatisfied.
On Merchandise: We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell, and will refund your purchase price.
WOW!! Talk about a grand slam offer. They’ve taken on 100% of the risk and removed it from the customer so they can shop stress-free with them. Guess what, it pays off BIG TIME!!
Costco is one of the only steady stocks that constantly climbs year over year. And their staff satisfaction is through the roof. There’s waiting lists to join their team. And best of all, they have die-hard customers who are loyal to Costco.
And they don’t hide it. You are reminded of the ability to return merchandise every time you walk out and see their return station.
They welcome it because it removes risk from the customer. Now you know why people drop $300 minimum at every visit without an issue. They made it easy to be a customer.
Create a guarantee for your business that puts the customer at ease. You can have an unconditional guarantee (like Costco) or a conditional guarantee (if you take 3 sessions a week for 30 days and aren’t happy with results, I will refund you.)
But the worst thing you can do is have NO guarantee. That’s 100% risk on the customer. If this is the 500th (or more) time you’ve put someone through a transformation, why don’t you feel confident in your service?
If a business is REALLY confident (like Costco) they flex a strong guarantee.
If they aren’t confident they post (No Refunds or No Guarantees) in their business.
Which one do you want to be?