00:00

Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

00:44

Hello and welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

And today we’re talking about love it or leave policies and whether you should have one now bear with before you escaped this podcast thinking oh my gosh, this sounds like the most boring podcast episode ever. I promise you it isn’t. This is so important that you pay attention to this, whether what you take away is knowledge around love it or leave policies and whether you should have one, or the biggest statement I’m making today. You want to stick around for that. Okay, so what why am I talking about this today? Why is it so relevant? Aside from the fact that I’m introducing one myself and my own program skill with the power one, it felt like a really relevant conversation because the landscape is changing and the online business world, people aren’t buying as blindly as they did previously. And this is a very good thing. Clients or prospective clients are way more discerning than they used to be. At this stage. Most of them have been bitten at some stage, a lot of them have invested in things which did not deliver upon the promise. And so they are looking for reassurance before they make any kind of investments. And of course, it’s still the odd client who will hold themselves into a new investment with very little thought. But that’s not the majority of clients. And to be honest with you, you want your clients to be discerning because you want them to recognise whether they’re a good fit for your program, your expertise, because that’s where you’ll get the very best results for them, too.

So this is where the love it or leave policy comes in. In 2020, I was inside a group container and there’s no shade on this whatsoever. But the particular policy that that coach had, she shared and kind of explained her reasoning behind it was that she herself would not have a love it or leave policy. She shared that she previously had offered things like you know, refund policies and was really clear on it. But she found that it attracted a type of client who was kind of already already have their eye on that on their exit door. already thinking about all the ways that could go wrong already worrying that if know that the person behind the program in themselves didn’t trust it enough that they had to kind of reassure people that there was a refund available if they didn’t like it, that this was a no, it just wasn’t attracting people with the right energy. And there were some parts of what she said that I really, really resonated with. One of the things she spoke to was that, you know, her container was 12 months long, and it supported people in the online business space. And as we know, when it comes to growing an online business, you’re never going to have consistent wins, you’re going to have moments where you doubt yourself, you’re gonna have moments where you don’t see evidence for all the things that you’re doing. I mean, we see this in all parts of our lives, right? But in business, it can feel a million times more scary because that’s our livelihood right there. You know, it can feel incredibly vulnerable, particularly when it’s your own business. It’s hard not to take the knockbacks personally and fear for it, we can bring out our inner demons.

And it impacts everybody differently. And one of the things I really resonated with was kind of saying no, this is a 12 month program, because most incredible results that clients get don’t happen overnight. A lot of it is about reframing, tidying up systems and offers and all the things and you know, the kind of gradual, incremental improvements that will happen that seem almost invisible day to day. But when you look back a year on and recognise, oh my gosh, I now have a team, I now have an offer that’s selling on autopilot, I now have this I now have that you can see a lot more clearly, you know, the transformation that’s happened to somebody. And there’s also an element of helping them recognise like, this isn’t something you can get out of easily. This is something you need to commit to and trust that it’s going to support you. So I was on board with it in so many ways. I mean, obviously I’d signed up to work with that coach, knowing that was her policy. And when I heard that reasoning, I totally I got it. I got it. And so if you are if you if you similarly do the same thing, you know, I’m not casting any shade on it. And you knew that was coming right. And I believe that because we’re in a world now, where people who went mad or throw their money at these online offers in 2020, have now been, you know, perhaps bitten at some stage, recognising that, for example, I support experienced online business owners now, which means they have inevitably, at some stage worked with at least one other mentor or coach, probably several, some of them have already been in various masterminds, etc. And not all of those have been incredibly positive experiences. And to add to that, it’s not just about your client, either. It’s also about your experience and protecting the group dynamic, where you invite in somebody who, quite obviously, is not coping, coping, who’s not getting along with the way that you mentor, the way that you coach, the learning experience that you provide, which is very individual and very personal.

You know, for example, if you are neurodiverse, the way you consume content, you know, if your ADHD will be different to somebody who’s neurotypical, and not all containers allow for spaces like that, you know, some people may have a sensitivity to something which you bring out in them, which, again, isn’t necessarily something you’re doing intentionally, but they’re bringing something with them and their experience, which has been triggered purely by the experience of being coached by you or around you. I mean, they’re various, that’s there’s so many different things that can happen, right. So it’s also about recognising that if you are going to be supporting someone for 10 to 12 months, you want to be confident that you feel good that they are in the right place, and that they’re not damaging the dynamic of the container, which is so so frickin precious. So this is one of the reasons why recently, I recognise that a love it or leave policy was really, really important for my signature program, which is 10 months long. The other thing I recognised was that the note first 90 days and my program are the foundational elements that everything essentially is built upon following on from that, it is the most exciting and sexy phase of the program, because it’s also where you tend to see an ROI and start to see results. And it’s just it’s just an exhilarating, incredible experience that I wanted to make available to more people, predominately because I also recognise that one of the biggest hesitations to moving into scale with the power one, which I had repeated to me time and time again was, what if I don’t know what my one thing is?

What if I create my high ticket offer, but nobody wants it. And by introducing this love it or leave policy at 90 days, I am now in a position to kind of say, well, you have the option 90 days in after you’ve done all this work. If you want to then spend more time on it without thinking about the scaling parts to tweak and refine, you can you know I’m fully aware that while you know it’s really nice to have, you know time, time limits and timeframes. Ultimately, as you probably have recognised already, sometimes we can be doing all the work and nothing seems to appear. And then the moment we sit back and go oh stop this. Suddenly, all the all the kind of payment notifications are pinging in your inbox. So we don’t have entire control of these things. So here are the reasons why you may want to consider having a love it or leave policy.

Firstly, by having a love it or leave policy. It clearly sets expectations for the program and the level of commitment required from participants. By clearly communicating that the program is designed to meet specific goals and outcomes, you can attract and retain participants who are fully invested in the program’s success. Secondly, this policy can help you create a supportive and accountable environment within the group. Participants who are committed to the program and share a common goal are more likely to support and encourage each other and hold themselves and others accountable for progress towards a shared goal. And thirdly, the policy can help you avoid having participants who are not fully committed or who do not align with the program’s goals and values. Participants who are not fully invested or who have different expectations can disrupt the group dynamic and hinder progress for other participants. Overall, a love it or leave policy can help you create a focused and supportive environment that is conducive to achieving the program’s goals, while also ensuring that all participants are aligned and committed to the program’s success. So there we have it, and that’s my rather tidy way of explaining explaining it.

So firstly, it makes the level of commitment really clear, it makes the goals really clear. It means that people are fully committed and invested in this access. It also means that it creates a really supportive and accountable environment so that people can share those goals and be excited together. Thirdly, it also supports you to avoid have Being participants who aren’t committed to the process, who aren’t committed to showing up to themselves enables you to enormous invite them to the door in the nicest way possible, of course, where it’s quite evident that now is probably not the right time for them to be focusing on this area of their business. And, you know, like I said, overall, it just allows you to have a positive, focused, highly curated, beautiful dynamic and experience for your clients.

10:31

Now, of course, when it comes to practically implementing something like this, then you’ll need to be thinking about getting a contract, which obviously represents the fact that they have the option to leave at a certain stage, I also think it’s really important to think very intentionally about where is the right time, in my case, for my program, I chose 90 days, because any less wouldn’t be doing any justice to the process that I’m inviting them through. As you probably know, by now, I very much believe in not just strategy, but being an embodied CEO. So I didn’t like the idea of having people rushing, I also didn’t want to have the sense that people would be coming in and having unrealistic expectations in terms of what they need to put in, in terms of, and what they’re gonna get out the other side immediately. And so 90 days felt like a really reasonable time period where I know people can create significant shifts in their business within 90 days, and get a real flavour for the scale with the power one experience, and ideally make an ROI on their investment. Obviously, that’s not something I can promise.

But it’s something I’ve seen regularly enough that it feels like something I you know, what I wanted to give them that time to be able to see the difference that can make for them in terms of their sales, in terms of their brand, vision, and clarity, their positioning, all the things that come alongside having a really robust high ticket offer. So it’s really in alignment. And similarly, it gave me the opportunity to kind of get to know that client, and understand whether this genuinely is the very best container for them to be in when it comes to moving forward and scaling. So I’m really obscene ly excited about introducing it. But I also wanted to speak to one mindset issue I had around this one limiting belief, I had considered a love it or leave policy, probably I don’t know, about four or five months ago. And what I chose to do instead was run a separate container. I’ve now run two different cohorts called elevate for evergreen, which essentially is the first 90 days of scale with a power one with gorgeous results. It’s been absolutely stunning. And I had to take a look at myself because my very spacious timetables suddenly became busier, because of the fact that I was hosting these additional, these additional containers. And while I absolutely loved them, I had to be really honest with myself and acknowledge that actually, the experience would be as good if not elevated, if they were to be inside scale with the power of one, and to be able to tap into that community of experienced business owners and to be inspired by their journey and their success as they continue to scale their high ticket offers. And I recognise that the thing that was standing in my way was nothing practical. And it was ego. It was a fear of how will it feel if suddenly a large number of people decide at three months that they don’t want to stay.

So it was also known as ego. But obviously, you know, that fear that negativity or whatever, what if, you know, how will it make me feel to see kind of a constant flux of people coming in and then potentially leaving three months later? And it was only recently that I recognised Why am I framing it this way? What if instead, it feels really incredible every time someone says an empowered Yes, to staying inside the container? What if by them or joining the container, rather than than being in a separate one, they get to be you know, they love being in that container so much with all the other experienced business owners who are deeper into the process, that they want to continue on that process themselves, and see what it makes possible for them to. And I recognise ultimately, that as much as it protects them, it also protects me. And when somebody isn’t necessarily getting along with the process or the program, it also felt like a really empowering, cooperative, collaborative relationship to be able to make that decision together almost like a beautiful ceremony. So anyway, the details are still being hashed out.

Obviously, the contracts are being updated, the sales page is being updated, and various other things like that. But I wanted to share kind of behind the scenes of the kind of decision making process behind why we’ve introduced it. Why I think it’s something that a lot of other business owners should be thinking about too. And I guess the final thing to say is when you have an evergreen business Do you want people to be able to say an easy yes to working with you, what you don’t want is to be attracting leads into your world and have them sat on a fence watching what you’re doing for months on end, hesitant to actually jump into working with you. Because they just want to get a better feel for who you are and the results you create and the way you support people. Rather than have a kind of massively delayed flow of inquiries and sales. Something like a love it or leave policy really shortens the timeline between somebody discovering you and deciding to work with you. Because you’re taking away a significant amount, the risk. And when you trust that what you deliver is top is not just and really creating incredible results for your clients. There is no, you don’t need to be in fear. You don’t need to let the ego roll. You can trust that when they come in you you provide such an superb experience that they won’t want to leave. And when they do that’s also probably for the best. So there we have it. Those are my insights into a love it or leave policy and whether should you should have one if it resonated at all. If it’s something you’ve been thinking about, please feel free to reach out to me. I always love to hear from you. Next week we’re going to be talking about my embodied CEO toolkit. So there you have it, guys, if you enjoyed today’s episode, please please please give it a review. I would love to have this content reaching even more is and that’s it. I’ll see you next week.