The Whole Truth

Yesterday, my son really, really, really wanted to go to play Magic, the Gathering (a card game) with his friends.

Every Tuesday, a bunch of them get together in Boulder from 5 until about 8. It’s a lot of fun and he looks forward to it big time.

This week, he was REALLY looking forward to it because he had some birthday money to spend on a card that his friend was going to sell him.

Well, it started snowing. And snowing. And snowing.

And I don’t drive in the snow. At least I haven’t before and I had a long day and really didn’t want to drive the 25 minutes (in clear conditions) to get him to Magic, plus I didn’t really feel safe doing it.

He was upset. Very, very, very upset.

I let him be upset and express how unhappy he was as loudly as he wanted, but I was not going to get in the car no matter what he said. Of that, I was clear.

Finally I said, maybe I can make it up to you. At which point, he began to howl “Make It Up to Me!”

And once he calmed down, I did.

And it got me thinking about how important it is for us to acknowledge disappointment.

Often, our natural inclination is to just say, “oh, get over it.”

But, disappointment is real. His sure was. And I wanted to make it up to him. Not out of guilt, but because if I was in his shoes, I’d want it made up to me too.

Making it up to him would go a long way in buying goodwill for next time I let him down, which was sure to happen.

So, what does all this have to do with you and your business?

Well, it got me thinking about something that happened today.

Dave and I opened registration for our 2010 Breakthrough Business Model program and offered several bonuses to people who are joining us for the year (in fact, purchased separately, the bonuses are worth more than the entire investment in the program).

Why?  Because we wanted to make it super easy for our most right people to justify the financial commitment to the program and themselves because we know it will be so transformative and many of you are struggling to impact lots of people, get to the money in your business AND build a sustainable, long term business you can count on.

So, we included a ticket to our live event in the fall, the recordings of our last money map program that everyone simply RAVES about, and a basic membership to my LIFT Foundation System & Toolkit.

Now, several of our most perfect people had already invested in the LIFT Foundation System & Toolkit during the charter launch and got in on it at 50% off.

So, within minutes of our announcement, one of the gals who had invested in the Deluxe version wrote my customer service team inquiring about a refund of her LIFT investment since she’d be receiving the basic version with her #BBM2010 memebership.

Ruh-roh.  Houston, we’ve got a problem.

I immediately let people who were listening in on our preview call know that we were bonusing the BASIC version of LIFT (which means it doesn’t have the 16 legal agreements, 16 strategy maps OR the personal records binder), not the DELUXE version and that refunding didn’t feel right to me.

I didn’t give it much more thought because yesterday was a big day all around (the culmination of 3.5 months of massive effort all in one day, which I’ll tell you all about as soon as I’ve processed more) and I was busy, busy, busy.

But then the thing happened with my son. And I acutely felt his disappointment.

As I felt his disappointment, I felt the disappointment some of my most perfect people that I’m meant to serve must have felt when they realized they had jumped in on LIFT early and maybe wouldn’t have needed to, if only they had known about the #BBM2010 bonus or waited.

Nevermind the fact that early LIFT investors got the Deluxe version for the Basic investment PLUS a 45-minute LIFT strategy session with me, which means they actually got a $3997 thing for only $997, I never want anyone who invests in anything with me to feel disappointed.

That wholly goes against what I stand for.

So, I thought about what to do.

And I weighed the options. The old paradigm way of doing things would say “screw it, do nothing.  You are already over-delivering, Alexis.  No need to justify the bonus.”

But, that just didn’t feel right to me.

I could do better than that.  And I decided “Make It Up to Me” felt right here, just as it did with my son.

Make It Up To Me has the power to cure disappointment.

I thought hard about what I could offer these folks who are my very best customers, my most perfect right people, the people who love me the most and invest in everything I offer.

They love me.  I love them.

So I decided to give them the greatest gift I have to offer.

Me. My time. Folks pay up to $3,000/month for coaching with me.

Private time with me is simply not accessible for lots of folks, even my most perfect people I love to serve folks.

I remember when I was in massive learning and growth mode how much I would have valued time with my mentor and coach. Just a little bit of time could have made such a big difference in my business.

So, I decided that would be the best Make It Up To Me gift I could give.

I’m going to let my most perfect right people bank a little time with me.

If you invested in LIFT and you now join BBM, you’ve got a use it anytime private quickie with me.

Sounds kinda dirty, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s not that kind of quickie silly! Get your mind out of the gutter, would ya? LOL.

This is a MUCH more valuable quickie.

It’s the kinda quickie you are going to use when you are really stuck having a hard time making a decision about something.

Should you hire? Should you fire? Which way should you go on that really hard decisions? Should you make that investment? Or not?

You’re about to jump to another level in your business or tumble back three levels and you know the decision you have to make could be a make it or break it turning point for you.

Where do you turn?

Well, I’ve been there many times friend. And if you’re a member of LIFT and you paid full boat and you are now joining our Breakthrough Business Model 2010 program, you will turn to me and I will help you decide.

This quickie  could be worth THOUSANDS to you when I help you make the right decision.

Does that feel like the right way to make it up to you?  I’d love to hear what you think even if you are not someone who had invested in LIFT and is now investing in BBM2010.   Let’s talk about it in the comments.

And, if you’d like to listen to the preview call we did for the BBM2010 program, you can get it here.

Just the call itself can take years off your learning curve by hearing us peel back the curtains about the breakthrough business model we’ve used to shift from the Flat On Your Back business model to what we call our Stand Tall and Go Deep model that allows you to make a great impact and a great living doing what you love and serving your most perfect people.

As always, I love to hear what you think and feel about all of it.