How Risk Reversal Can Boost Your Sales Success with Jason Fladlien

Summary

Special Ops Podcast Episode Summary

Title: How Risk Reversal Can Boost Your Sales Success with Jason Fladlien
Release Date: December 31, 2024
Hosts: Emma Rainville & Travis Gomez
Guest: Jason Fladlien

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Introduction to Risk Reversal

In this insightful episode of Special Ops, hosts Emma Rainville and Travis Gomez delve into the powerful marketing strategy of Risk Reversal with renowned entrepreneur and webinar expert, Jason Fladlien. Recorded live at the Driven Mastermind in Mexico, this episode marks the beginning of their new series, the "Driven Diaries." Jason shares his extensive experience in crafting offers that significantly reduce customer risk, thereby boosting sales and enhancing customer trust.

Understanding Risk Reversal

Jason Fladlien begins by clarifying the concept of Risk Reversal, emphasizing that it intertwines operations and sales seamlessly. He asserts, "If you can't fulfill upon it, you should not sell it" (00:46). According to Jason, many marketers overlook the importance of addressing risks beyond just the financial aspect. He categorizes risks into three main types:

1. Money Risk: The fear of losing money on a purchase. While important, Jason notes, "Money is the least important" (02:30), as it's easily replaceable.
2. Time Risk: Concerns about the time investment required to implement a product. For instance, spending extensive hours on a $1 product versus minimal time on a high-value product with guaranteed results.
3. Energy Risk: The most critical risk, involving the emotional and psychological investment. Questions like "What if this doesn't work?" or "Am I a quitter?" fall under this category.

By addressing these risks, especially the energy risk, businesses can create compelling offers that resonate deeper with customers.

Strategies for Implementing Risk Reversal

Jason outlines actionable strategies to integrate Risk Reversal into business operations:

• Minimizing Risks: Rather than promising all possible benefits, Jason suggests capping the upside to ensure high probability of delivering the stated results. He explains, "We can take away so much of the upside, but we remove even more of the downside and we sell more" (02:45).

• Conditional Coaching: To provide high-value coaching without compromising profit margins, Jason introduces the concept of conditional coaching. For example, offering six coaching sessions valued at $1,800 with a $500 product by setting conditions that encourage client commitment. "It's a killer offer right now. If they fulfilled on all of those coaching sessions, I would go broke. So I say, how do I create conditions that they meet?" (04:19).

• Operational Support: Emphasizing the need for strong operational frameworks, Jason highlights the importance of ensuring that promises made during sales are effectively fulfilled. This includes tracking client progress, providing timely support, and maintaining high-quality coaching standards.

Creating and Scaling Offers

Transitioning to the creation of offers, Jason shares his evolved approach:

1. Start with the Ultimate Offer: "If I had a magic wand and I could give anything to the client... what would that be?" (09:14). This involves envisioning the most comprehensive and valuable offer without considering constraints.

2. Scale Down to Reality: Recognizing the impracticality of the ultimate offer, Jason advises trimming it down to what can be realistically delivered. This iterative process ensures that each version of the offer remains compelling yet feasible.

3. Path of Ascension: By designing offers that can evolve, businesses can continuously add value over time. Jason cites Amazon Prime as a prime example, starting with free two-day shipping and expanding to include video streaming and other services, thereby increasing the overall value and customer retention.

"Most people start in reality and then at best they push it a little up. But we start way out of reality and then when we bring it down, we get better" (10:00).

The Importance of Long-Term Strategy and Partnerships

Jason emphasizes the necessity of long-term planning and strategic partnerships in sustaining and scaling business growth. He discusses how operational excellence and marketing prowess must work hand-in-hand to create offers that stand the test of time.

"You need a good operational person to have your back and keep you accountable... even when you don't like it" (08:21). This collaboration ensures that businesses not only attract customers but also deliver exceptional value consistently.

Additionally, Jason explains his business model of partnering with exceptional brands to implement Risk Reversal strategies, allowing him to influence multiple businesses simultaneously without overextending himself.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode wraps up with heartfelt appreciation from Travis towards Jason, highlighting the invaluable insights shared. Jason reiterates the essence of Risk Reversal in building offers that minimize customer risk and maximize trust and sales success.

Key Takeaways:

• Address All Types of Risks: Beyond financial concerns, focus on time and energy risks to create more compelling offers.
• Operational Excellence: Ensure that promises made during sales are reliably fulfilled to maintain customer trust.
• Conditional Offers: Implement strategies like conditional coaching to provide high value without jeopardizing profit margins.
• Iterative Offer Development: Start with ambitious offers and scale them down to practical and deliverable versions.
• Strategic Partnerships: Collaborate with like-minded brands to expand influence and implement Risk Reversal effectively.

For a deeper dive into Risk Reversal and to access a free downloadable playbook, visit Special Ops Podcast.

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Notable Quotes:

• "If you can't fulfill upon it, you should not sell it." — Jason Fladlien (00:46)
• "Money is the least important." — Jason Fladlien (02:30)
• "We can take away so much of the upside, but we remove even more of the downside and we sell more." — Jason Fladlien (02:45)
• "If I had a magic wand and I could give anything to the client... what would that be?" — Jason Fladlien (09:14)
• "You need a good operational person to have your back and keep you accountable... even when you don't like it." — Jason Fladlien (08:21)

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Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube to elevate your business strategies with actionable insights from industry experts.

Transcript

[Jason Fladlin]

Foreign.

[Travis]

Welcome to another episode of Special Ops. We are super excited. Today. Travis and I are attending Driven Mastermind. A mastermind that we belong to for a long time now. We love dearly. We're here in Mexico and we are filming some episodes and calling them the Driven Diaries. We're kicking that off with the million dollar webinar man himself, Jason Fladlin. Jason, I am stoked and thank you so much. Like, you have been such a phenomenal resource to Travis and I, and we're just over the moon to have you today. You gave a talk at Driven some time ago about risk reversal, and, like, that lit up my whole soul. So I would love for you just to talk about what you presented on, what it means to you, and how you make that part of operation sexy to marketers.

[Jason Fladlin]

Yeah, that's a great point. Like, I don't differentiate really between operations and sales. It's like, I only like the top half of my baby. I don't like the left side. It's only the right eye of the baby that I like. You love the whole baby. And so with business, operations and marketing should be connected to each other. If you can't fulfill upon it, you should not sell it. And the better you can fulfill upon it, the easier the thing is to sell. I mean, this seems to make sense, but a lot of people miss that point because they think marketing is. We get people excited if we sell them, and then that's the end of the story. And then whatever happens after that, whatever, they don't even think that far ahead. What I love about risk reversal as a marketing strategy is if you grab a hundred pitches selling the same product essentially like this. Brand A has their version, brand B has their version, all the way to brand Z. They all emphasize the game. You buy this product and this positive thing will. Will happen to you. And they ignore the risk that anybody would take to purchase the product and use the product. So there's three risks. There's a money risk, there's a time risk, and there's an energy risk. The money risk is the least important. So people are like, oh, my God, if I buy this and I'll lose money. And marketers think, I got to make them feel like I'm not going to lose money. They emphasize any of risk reductions is on the money side, but money is the most easily replaceable thing. And if they ain't going to spend it with you, they're going to, like, buy some stupid thing that they forget they buy the next day, right? They're like, oh, yeah, I got a Candy Crush bonus. Here's five bucks. And then they don't even remember ever spending it. So money's there, but it's not that important. Time is more important, because if I buy a $1 product, but I spend 100 hours on it, that's a worse investment than if I buy a $10,000 product and I spend one minute on it and I get a result. And so people really. The risk of time to buy your product and implement it is a more serious concern. Time is an equal. So If I spend 10 minutes on a spreadsheet, I want to kill myself. But if I spend a million hours talking about persuasion, I'm like, I'm just getting warmed up, you know, like, bring it on. So it's the energy that's the biggest risk. And the energy for a lot of people buying a lot of products is, what if this doesn't work? What do people think about me if I fail? What do I think about myself if I fail? What if I try this and then I quit? Am I a quitter? And the energetic risk is the most important risk in any offer. So all these brands, they go out there and sell this product. They talk about all the benefits. They ignore the risk as if they don't exist, or they barely address them. Instead, when we do selling, we say, how do we minimize the risk as much as possible? We're willing to even cap the upside. So instead of, hey, this thing could do all these things, it can only do this one thing. But it's almost 100% certain that if you do this, you'll get that result. So we can take away so much of the upside, but we remove even more of the downside and we sell more. And that's where I focus on the strategy, though, as you know, if we can't support that, if I make the claim that we're gonna do A, B, and C for you to reduce that risk. Cause we have to take on their risk for them. If we can't operationally support that, we're screwed.

[Emma]

When you say take on the risk, and you're also talking about, like, changing or transforming the energy, is that one of the ways that you do that, or what does that look like specifically?

[Jason Fladlin]

Yeah. So, you know, like, on a micro level, a close that I'll use is like, if I have to pick you up kicking, dragging, and screaming and carry you across the finish line on shoulder, then damn it, I will do that. Because you losing upsets me more than it upsets you. So I'm not going to let you have that happen. Right.

[Travis]

That's so good.

[Jason Fladlin]

Yeah, it's a great close. It works even better if you can actually fulfill audit. So I teach this to clients and they think, oh, if I just mimic the words that's good enough and it's good enough. Point of sale, right. But it's not good enough on the fulfillment.

[Travis]

A lot of people forget that the sales process includes delivery. It's the sales to delivery process, 100%.

[Jason Fladlin]

And so it's like, how do we make good on that promise then? What are the actual fulfillables that would be the equivalent up to picking them up? Are we going to have somebody that's tracking their progress and then are we going to have them put pressure on them when they're falling behind? Are we going to reward them when they're getting ahead? Right. Are we going to bring in coaches? So one of the things that we do for risk reduction is this. Like if you're selling an offer where a coach would help enhance that offer, then the user would have to go and find a coach and then pay the coach. That's risky. So if you can say, I'm going to bring the coach to you and have the coach, I'm going to hand select the coach and give you the coach, that's less risky. But the problem with that is good coaching is expensive. Bad coaching is even more expensive. By the way, it's not in the price you pay, it's in the advice you get.

[Travis]

Right? The bad advice.

[Jason Fladlin]

How do we give them a good coach that we pay for without eating our margins apart? And one of the ways that we do this is with conditional coaching. So we'll say, you know, we're going to give you six coaching sessions with a coach that's 300 bucks an hour. So if you get all six session, that's $1,800. And we'll give you $1,800 worth of coaching retail value on a $500 product. I mean, this is a killer offer, right now. If they fulfilled on all of those coaching sessions, I would go broke. So I say, how do I create conditions that they meet? Condition A, unlock the first coaching program, right. Knowing full well through attrition that not everybody's going to do it. That's not my problem, by the way. It's if I cook you the meal and you choose not to eat it, right? Like I can only do so much. And anybody in marketing, you can only do so much. And so knowing the fact that only a certain amount of Your clients are going to implement. You can make a calculated risk to say, okay, I can essentially underwrite this coaching. So the winners get the most coaching, they get the best deal, and the losers finance that. Which is brilliant.

[Travis]

Brilliant. Yeah, absolutely brilliant.

[Jason Fladlin]

But they have to meet a certain level first before they underwrite, unlock the coaching, and then I'd be happy if they can get all of the coaching sessions or they're the fast actors, so.

[Emma]

They'Re the ones who are actually going to execute on it and get the results anyway. Yeah, it's like you can't have dessert without eating your vegetables.

[Jason Fladlin]

True, true, true. And so on an operational side, we gotta make sure the math works. Like, what's the take rate on the coaching? Is the coaching worth it? If we pay this much for the coaching, is the coach actually fulfilling on their end? Because a good coach isn't always a good coach. He might be a good coach yesterday and then his wife leaves him for the yoga trainer and then he shows up and he's drunk on the next coaching session. Right.

[Emma]

That might have happened before.

[Jason Fladlin]

I mean, I mean, I have had coaches. The worst coach becomes the best coach. Best coach becomes the worst coach overnight, right?

[Travis]

Yeah, happens all the time.

[Jason Fladlin]

It's like rich dad, poor dad, same dad, only with coach instead. Right. So you have to have somebody operationally supporting that and you have to bake that into the margins when you're putting that in place. And so it's not impossible. It's very possible. You just have to measure that. And a lot of people when they're marketing, they forget that element. They just say, okay, we'll give them this over the top offer and then cross our fingers, everything will go good. Or they'll say, this seems like too much to me, so I'm not even going to attempt to do that. You need a good operational person to have your back and keep you accountable and to also excel at the thing that you are not good at. Because typically, if you're good at marketing, you're not good at ops, and if you're good at ops, you're not very good at marketing. Sometimes you can cross that bridge and work really hard at both, but almost always it's better to bring in the thing you're not good at. And then even when you don't like it, tolerate it because it will be to your best benefit. So I always kind of feel like.

[Travis]

That was a dig at me. Even when you don't like Emma, just tolerate her.

[Jason Fladlin]

It's the necessary thing that needs to be done. That's not as enjoyable to a creator. A creator gets their high by creating and then fulfillment gets in the way of creating more.

[Travis]

Right.

[Jason Fladlin]

And so you have to be aware of your own weaknesses if you're a creator. And you have to plan to present or prevent yourself from engaging in those weaknesses if you care about your business and your clients. And so you have to have somebody operationally, if it's not you, to hold you accountable for that. And you have to acknowledge you're not going to like it, but you're going to love the results that it gives you.

[Travis]

Yeah, I actually appreciate that a lot about working with you is you do have not a lot of love for the journey, but a whole lot of love for the outcome. When you create an offer, do you create the delivery of the offer and then the sales behind it first, or do you create the sales and then the. We have a lot of clients that do the sales and then we have to figure out how to plug that in. And I feel like some of the things that you were saying, it sounds like if you did that opposite, it'd be brilliant. So I'd love to know how you do it.

[Jason Fladlin]

Yeah. The first 10 years we did it where we created the cells first and then fulfillment second. And I'm a slow learner. So about the 57th time that we got into problems with that.

[Travis]

I mean, I think you're a slow learner when it comes to ops. You're not a slow learner when it comes to sales, my friend.

[Jason Fladlin]

I'm stubborn is the problem. Right.

[Travis]

I'm like, that's more accurate.

[Jason Fladlin]

I'm going to do it somehow. I'm going to change gravity this time, you know, and then losing enough to gravity, I admit that gravity is a factor and then I plan for it. So we would always make it up and come across the finish line barely in time to fulfill on the thing. But it's not an enjoyable experience. And it's hard to build and it's hard to scale. So after, you know, doing it wrong enough times, you realize, okay, I'm going to discipline myself to do it a better way. And so now we try to do it the better way, which is, I mean, it's a three step process. Step number one is if I had a magic wand and I could give anything to the client and it cost me nothing and time and money and energy and I could just give them the ultimate best solution ever, what would that be? And then you come up with the mega, gargantuan, awesomest thing. That's ever existed. And then you got that on paper and then you're like, there is no possible way that we can fulfill on any of this stuff whatsoever. So, but if we could fulfill on it, what adjustment should we make to it? So we start here and then we go down. Most people start in reality and then at best they push it a little up. But we start way out of reality and then when we bring it down, we get better. Aha. Right, yeah. This is how we create breakthroughs. We start with the impossible and then go down. Most people start with the possible and then they just stretch it a little bit. And so we start carving it away. Well, we can't do that, but we can do this version of that. We can't do that, but we can do this version of that. And then we thread them together and then we come up with it and then we do this next step which is like, there's the version one of the offer and then if it hits, there's the long term version of it. And so like prime as a membership for Amazon started off with just this much stuff. You got, you know, two day free delivery if you spent over X number of dollars. Now you just get two day free delivery and you get a whole video streaming and you get this and you get that and you get everything under the sun.

[Travis]

The bonuses, Insane. Insane. But that's like they're Jason bonuses.

[Jason Fladlin]

They are like, yeah, it's. And it's the greatest risk reversal offer ever. It's like, you can spend more by not being a Prime member. Idiot.

[Travis]

Right, right.

[Jason Fladlin]

Or you can give me money and spend less by being a Prime member. The risk is in not buying. More so than buying. Now. Most people still don't buy anyway because they don't want to figure out what prime is. And this is way back in the day. Now everybody has it, right? But the evolution, they're like, I don't want to try that thing out. I don't want to have to jump through one more hoop, even if it will save me $125 a year. So screw that, I'm just gonna do it the old fashioned way. And then over a period of time, they say, okay, I'll try it that way. And then it becomes more well known and becomes even less riskier. And then it becomes not to have it. And then it's become the most valuable membership in the world. And they also increased the deliverables over time because they said, now that we have this many members, this is the value of this platform. So we can invest back into the platform. That's the mistake every marketer I know ever makes. They'll spend more money with Facebook, but they won't spend it on their own customer.

[Travis]

Crazy, right?

[Jason Fladlin]

It's insane.

[Travis]

It's crazy. One of the things that I love about Prime, I just want to point out that I've. I've actually studied this. I think that prime is like one of the most brilliant concepts. And so over time, what they created is I'm not going to go to any other website and. Or anything because I'm going to pay shipping. I automatically, I'm going to go look for it on Amazon because I save on Amazon, so why would I purchase anywhere else? And we're indoctrinated into that.

[Jason Fladlin]

Yep.

[Travis]

And it was. They played the long game, man. They were really smart.

[Jason Fladlin]

Yeah. And that's the brilliance of when you create your V1 of the offer. When you do that fantasy offer, like, if it could be anything, what would it be? It actually gives you the path of ascension. So if we can get market share A, then we can invest this to add thing B to it, because your goal is to have an offer nobody else can match in any market that you're in. And so we do the V1 of every offer and we know that if it hits, then we know what we can turn it into. If it misses, we can unplug as fast as possible. So we say, this didn't work, lesson learned, we're not out too much, we failed small, we can try it again, or we can move on to the next thing. And it only takes one really killer offer to completely revolutionize a whole business. And so we're trying ourselves to reduce risk and reduce risk for the customer, and then only bet on the winner. So we take the ultimate version, we trim it down to what's reality for us today, which is better than most people's, and then we know where it could go if it does hit and.

[Emma]

Incremental steps along the way to get there, there.

[Jason Fladlin]

Oh, 100%. Yeah.

[Emma]

Yeah.

[Travis]

That's so smart. And I, I just. I have a question. Does that keep you intrigued in the offer? Because, you know, most marketers, they're like, okay, yeah, I'm bored now. What's next?

[Jason Fladlin]

Next?

[Travis]

And so, because you've created an ascension plan, are you like, is. Do you gamify it in your mind? Does it keep you coming back from the question?

[Jason Fladlin]

Yeah. So my business model is fundamentally partnering with really good, awesome brands who have the ingredients of great offers. And so I get to do consulting with them. That typically sometimes leads to strategic partnerships so I can be the puppeteer behind the scenes pulling the strings. So by the time my ADHD wears off and I want to move on to the next thing, I've installed it into the company so they can take it and run it. So I can simultaneously be in multiple businesses doing this thing that I love, but not doing it in a way that's harmful and destructive. So that's how I solved for that. Yeah. God, that's brilliant.

[Travis]

God, that's brilliant. I love that. That's freaking amazing. Jason. My heart is so full. Thank you so much. Like, really, thank you so much. You're one of my favorite people. I love working with you. I love hanging out with you. I love learning from you. What a dream. A few years ago, I would have never imagined that I would have a podcast that you would be a guest on. And also, I would have never imagined that I would be calling you my friend.

[Jason Fladlin]

I appreciate that.

[Travis]

Thank you so much. We appreciate.