Someone joins your program…
They’re excited about what they’re going to create.
… And then a few days (or sometimes a few hours ) later, you get the message…
“I think I made a mistake.”
Maybe they’re overwhelmed.
Or perhaps they’ve decided now isn’t the right time.
They might even just be questioning whether they can actually do this…
Or they just simply flat-out ask you for a refund because of buyer’s remorse.
A tale as old as time.
And when that happens, I think our natural instinct is to either defend the decision they made… or immediately let them out of it.
But I actually think there’s a third option that we don’t talk about enough.
Get curious about what’s really going on.
Because the thing someone is telling you is often not the thing.
Let me explain what I mean…
Recently, we had a client come into one of our programs who was really struggling with her decision to join.
She was overwhelmed, she already had too much on her plate, she wasn’t sure she could actually do everything that was required, and she felt like maybe she’d made a financial decision she shouldn’t have made.
There were enough complaints that someone on our team eventually said something along the lines of, “Maybe we should just refund her and let her out.”
And I understood why.
But something in me kept thinking… there’s something else going on here.
Because here’s how I look at it:
When someone says yes and invests in you, they’ve given you permission to be a stand for them in creating the result they came to you for.
The dynamic of the relationship changes in that moment.
It’s no longer just our job to sell them on what’s possible.
It’s our job to help them get to the finish line, and sometimes that means being willing to lean into the storm with someone instead of backing away the second things get uncomfortable.
So we kept talking.
She told me she was overwhelmed, and instead of trying to convince her that she wasn’t, we started looking at what the overwhelm actually meant.
Was there genuinely too much on her plate?
Or was she experiencing the very normal discomfort that comes with doing something new, something she’d never done before?
And the more we talked, the more we started getting underneath what was actually happening.
Eventually, she was in tears.
Because what she was really afraid of had almost nothing to do with our program.
She’d previously gone through an experience where she’d lost everything financially, and making this investment had brought up this huge fear that it was going to happen again.
(Ahhh. There it was.)
The problem wasn’t actually that she was overwhelmed.
It wasn’t that she was too old, or too busy, or incapable of doing the work.
She was terrified of repeating something she’d already lived through.
And once we understood that, we could have a completely different conversation.
She later told someone on my team that through that experience, she felt so seen, heard, cared for and loved in a way she hadn’t felt before.
And I think there’s something really important in that.
Because how often do we try to solve the first problem someone hands us?
They say they’re overwhelmed, so we reduce their workload.
They say they don’t have time, so we tell them how to find more time.
They say they want out, so we start talking about the refund policy.
But sometimes the first thing someone says is simply the door into the conversation.
That’s actually why we teach something called the Communication Matrix to our clients:
Acknowledge → Clarify → Rectify → Close the loop.
First, acknowledge.
Acknowledgement is simply receiving someone’s communication in the way they’re delivering it.
You’re not changing it, making it right, making it wrong, adapting it, defending yourself against it, or immediately trying to fix it.
You’re just hearing them. Period.
Then, clarify.
This is where I think a lot of people move too quickly.
Because what someone is addressing is often not the actual problem, and until you understand what you’re really solving for, you can’t know what needs to happen next.
Ask more questions.
“When you say you’re overwhelmed, what specifically feels overwhelming?”
“What changed between when you said yes and now?”
“What are you worried will happen if you keep going?”
That’s how you get underneath the surface-level problem and find the real one.
Only then can you rectify what’s actually happening and close the loop so the person knows what happens next.
Now, am I saying you should never give someone a refund?
Of course not.
Sometimes someone wasn’t sold effectively.
Sometimes they genuinely misunderstood what they were purchasing.
Sometimes the program isn’t the right fit, and letting someone out is absolutely the right thing to do.
But I don’t think discomfort automatically means someone made the wrong decision.
And I don’t think leadership means backing away the second a client gets into a reaction.
Sometimes being a stand for your clients means being willing to sit in the storm with them long enough to understand what the storm is actually about.
Because we don’t get through things by avoiding them or shoving them under the rug.
We get through them by leaning through them.
So the next time a client comes to you wanting out, before you jump to defending, fixing, convincing OR refunding…
Listen.
Clarify.
And find out what you’re actually solving for.
Because sometimes the refund request isn’t really about the refund at all.
