Eva, are you throwing money at your problems?
That’s what I ask myself when I’m being seduced by a great sales page. You know the kind: emotional, a great price, promising to solve my problem.
You think to yourself, this sounds like exactly what I need. Could it be that this will fix my issue? Am I that close to the end of the problem!? I just need to buy this course!
There are a lot of great salespeople peddling courses and programs online. Their sales pages have videos of previous clients, extolling the course’s virtues. There’s a list of myriad benefits, results, and outcomes. Maybe there’s a first-person story from the coach or consultant, explaining how she was once in your exact shoes.
There are fact-action benefits, like a 48-hour discount. There are bonuses, like free templates or membership to a private group. They have slashes through the full price with a discounted price below; there is a “total value” of all the bonuses next to a lower number that is “your investment.” There are tiers of pricing, so you can see everything you could get.
It sound like I’m griping about these sales tactics. I’m not: they’re great tactics, and many courses and programs truly deliver on what they promise. They can be a cost-effective, comfortable, and appealing way to learn.
But when you buy a course or membership or program, are you eager and able to do the work or are you throwing money at your problems?
Your Online Course Completion Rate
Of all the courses you’ve purchased in your tenure as an online businesswoman, how many have you actually completed?
If you’re like me, the answer is somewhere around “zero.”
I’m not trying to make us feel guilty. Sometimes when you buy a course, you know what you’re buying is the live coaching – not the videos. Or you know you’re buying the video trainings – not the workbook.
There’s no law that says you have to do EVERY SINGLE THING in the course to get a ton of value from it. (Did you do every single reading in college? [TBH I think I did – as a nerd with a guilty conscience the size of the moon.])
But a lot of times when I’m confronted with a sales page, I’m seduced by the promises of the course, NOT by genuine readiness to do the work. My mind goes,
- If we buy this course, we’ll be taking action on our problem. Nope! It’s only action when you DO THE WORK. Handing over your credit card does not count.
- By having this course, we’ll have all the tools we need to fix our problem! I guess, but that’s a trick: having the tools doesn’t change anything, you have to USE THEM.
- We can always go through the whole course later. It’s ours forever! This is a dupe. If you’re not ready to go through the modules NOW when you hand over your money, what’s the likelihood you’ll be magically ready later?
- This is such a good deal for the solution to our problem. We can’t pass it up. TRICKERY AGAIN! See above. It’s only a good deal if you’re ready to DO THE WORK!
When this happens, it’s because I want a quick-fix. I want to throw money at it my problem and hope it will go away. I want that rush of yes! I did something about my problem! feeling which is exactly what buying a solution can give you.
It makes you feel like you took action on your problem – which is fine, and might be true. And if you go on to do all the course work, that’s great, and if you don’t and you just appreciate the relief for a little while, that’s great, too.
I just want to make sure that I know what I’m buying. My friend Lauren calls it security. To me it feels like relief and reassurance, which is kind of the same thing.
Am I buying temporary relief by throwing money at my problem? Or am I buying a path to solve my problem? Or both?
