First and foremost – I want to come clean and say that I am nervous to write this post.
I don’t want this to come off as brash or self serving. Although… this is something that must be said.
Because if you harbor this mindset, success in any endeavor is going to be near impossible.
This message may rub you the wrong way or offend you… if it does, I’m sorry. Truly I am, but that may mean this might be most important for you especially.
My goal is to deliver this message clearly enough to make the point but also with enough velvet wrapped around the brick to make sure you know I love you.
With that, I’ve noticed a recent trend over the past year or two and it’s not a good one.
I’ve noticed it both in my network marketing business and even in my online coaching business.
People are descending more and more into a victim mentality…
An “it’s not my fault” mentality, an entitlement mentality.
Sadly, when we think someone owes us something… we automatically don’t take responsibility for our own results and lives.
And our industry is predicated on taking responsibility for our income and lives.
I see this in my network marketing business from people who quit after not getting results in their expected timeframe.
And typically those same who quit after a few months who “didn’t get results” fast enough are typically the same ones who didn’t take enough action to get results. Crazy right?
They got in, said “They want an opportunity to truly flex their ambition.” and they don’t want any “Get rich quick schemes” Then when they don’t see Benji’s flying out of their CD drive in 3 months, they get angry and quit.
Only to pursue something else that promises riches and fame with no effort.
Thankfully we can increase our recruiting ability to identify these types of people and keep them from ever getting in our business in the first place and we can increase our leadership ability to actually assist these people from sabotaging themselves with their entitlement thought process.
In addition, I see this showing up nearly every day in my inbox in the form of refund requests.
Every company deals with returns and refunds. Target, Amazon, Apple, Best Buy etc. They have entire departments and teams dedicated to refunds.
But the information / coaching industry is a little different. People aren’t returning things because they didn’t fit, or because it was broken…
They’re returning something that they consumed. They’re returning knowledge that delivers and even exceeds what was promised.
But because they don’t see it as a “real product” or they think that the producer is a faceless person, they think it has less of an effect on the business, the business owner and their family.
Content builders like myself always offer a guarantee whenever you purchase a product. We guarantee that we’ll deliver (and even over deliver) exactly what we promised from the first time we talk about the product.
Essentially we guarantee one thing. That we’ll deliver the training and information that we said we’d provide.
We can’t and don’t guarantee that it will change your life or make you a millionaire. That is up to you.
And the people in question literally put an expiration date for their guarantee on their calendar, consume all the knowledge they can from the producer and then return it at the last possible second.
Why do I know all this? Because I’ve been there. I’ve been a that guy. The person who marks the guarantees expiration date on my calendar.
I’ve bought information products before on a credit card with the full intention of returning it before my guarantee was up.
But you know, I’ve never actually requested a refund on any training product.
Thankfully I got set straight a few weeks after I bought my first information product.
I realized that the producer of that product was in fact making a real product, a real service, he was an expert in his field and was selling me his expertise and how I could apply it to my life.
And he was using the money I paid for the product to to his bills, to make the car payment and to allow him the ability to continue to create awesome content.
You can see why I was nervous to write this by now. Because it can seem 100% self serving.
To be honest, it is to a degree. I do use the money made from the coaching business to pay bills, put food on the table and fund the advertising expenses.
And getting refund requests does suck. It especially sucks when you can see someone consumed nearly all of your content and still has the audacity to do it.
But if we’re digging even deeper…
The real person that loses when that happens isn’t me.
It’s the person who did it.
The person who bought a training product with the full intention of going through it, only to request a refund after they were done gets the short end of the stick. Why?
They’ve just cemented in their own mind that they are supposed to get something for nothing.
That the world owes them something.
Sadly, that mindset will absolutely, positively sabotage their greatest efforts to succeed. Because success demands that you give something before you ask for something in return.
I also know that I can seem faceless if we’ve never talked before, I know that other content producers are very hard to get a hold of. (I hope it seems by now, that I am not) I know it seems that it’s ok because “That guy is already successful, what does a $47 refund matter to him?”
It means a lot. I know it can seem that your actions don’t effect anyone. But they do and they affect you the most.
I’ve been broke before. I’ve had $11 in my account with no job when my $1100 rent was due the next day. I’ve had to bring laundry to my parents because I couldn’t spend the $1.25 to do my laundry at my apartment.
Taking advantage of people will never get you anywhere in life.
Whatever you sow you reap. Karma always comes back.
And if these people are trying to build a business based on servitude and trust with that kind of mindset…
It’s going to be a VERY steep uphill battle.
I know from experience that the entitlement mentality runs deep in our culture today, so if you’ve been a practitioner of it… I’m with you, I’ve been there too.
But from here on out, you’re in charge, you’re in control. Time to ditch that mentality, realize the world does not owe you or me anything. We have to go get it while respecting our fellow man and woman.
One of my favorite sayings goes something like… “It is our responsibility to pursue our freedom without depriving our fellow man of his freedoms.”
So let’s go get it. Thanks for being apart of the journey with me. If this hit you square in the face, I’m sorry. I still battle today with having those tough conversations with people.
But truth is an arrow that pierces people’s hearts. And I hope that our relationship will grow stronger because
of it.
All the best,
Zach
