In my earlier years of internet marketing I went to a three-day conference filled with a lot of great information about how to build a business online. It was very well done.

After the first two days they pitched us on a very high-end coaching program. It was your typical ‘back of the room’ thing that you seen in many events where people are seriously excited by opportunity. People were RUSHING back and linking up, people were crying, people were loud with ideas and new friends were made fast. It WAS really exciting and I totally got caught up in it.

The program cost: $10,000 USD (when the exchange rate between CAD & USD made that equal about $13,000 CAD)

You can fall over now… lol

I had no right to be buying that program. I was a single mom. I was already $30,000 IN DEBT (owed to my parents who helped clear it from credit cards). I was a BABY when it came to running a business and I was DESPERATE to be somebody. I wanted to prove to my parents I could live up to their expectations and be somebody really cool: An Internet Pioneer!! Yeehawwwww!

OK – Back to Life… Back to Reality….

After I left the conference I went back to life. I told my boyfriend what I had done.. he thought I was crazy but amazingly he was supportive (love).  I didn’t tell my parents.

The happy ending to this story is that I had time to really think as I spent my nights at my boring, stinky factory job I was trying to escape. I became so anxious I couldn’t take it. Very shortly after reality set back in I called the company, stopped the coaching process and got my money back….. I MAJORLY DODGED a BULLET THERE!

A new friend I had met at the conference didn’t. She signed up the same time as me and when I went back to the same event a year later she had a very sad story to tell. She had also signed up and she was in lots of hurt from being $13,000 out, plus Adsense, plus other extras. Her husband had talked about leaving, she told me sometimes they didn’t have enough for groceries and they had cut out all non-essentials like TV, cell phones, etc. This was very serious. (I also talked about this in my most recent podcast here)

High-End Coaching Can Do Serious Damage

Look, I know that high-end coaching can do amazing things and I know that some high-end coaches may read this post. If you do high-end coaching I’m not BASHING YOU. What I’m saying is that as a marketer I simply can not stand the idea of being ANY part of doing major damage to someone’s life. Even if they chose to make the decision. Even if I DO warn them they must be ready. We all know when we hype people up sometimes they’re going to use money they don’t really have with the expectation it will come back to them – EVEN IF we don’t tell them.

My Website Design Mojo course is my highest priced program. It’s $397. I’m pretty sure nobody’s family is gonna break up over that. I’m pretty sure that my customers are not going to go without groceries because of that. I’m not nieve enough to think that no one will put that on credit card, though. I think I do a good job of not over-hyping my products and maybe sometimes I under-hype. Now you know why.

So that’s why I don’t do high-end coaching right now. With my experience I could likely create a program worth $1000 or $2000 and have people buying it. I’m not yet comfortable with that. I’m not saying I’ll never do high-end coaching. I’m not saying those who do high-end coaching are bad. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take high-end coaching if you’re ready.

What I’m saying is PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE  don’t buy something that you’re not ready for, don’t act out of desperation and don’t believe that anyone has a magic bullet for you to build your business with!

All the best to you and Happy New Year

Angela