Episode #91: Difficult Clients, Refunds, and the Dark Side of Entrepreneurship – A Conversation with My Mastermind

Ruth Poundwhite: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome back to another episode of the Soulful Sales Show.

I have. An exciting, weird, hermit round table for you. Again, there’s been a lot of these lately, but we’re off of the AI now and we are talking about the dark side of running an online business. It is so easy to take it personally when things go wrong. Sometimes people ask for a refund and it really hurts, or a client turns on you or a payment.

Plan fails or something bigger can really, really derail what we are working on. But this is part and parcel of being an online business owner and talking honestly about all of this stuff is one of the most helpful things we can do. So in this weird hermits Mastermind round table, we are talking about these less glamor.

Sides of running an online business. We get into the hardest client situations that we have personally navigated our different refund policies and philosophies behind them, and why there is no one size fits all. We talk about how we handle failed [00:01:00] payments and people who goes to their payment plans, the contracts and the terms and conditions that have saved us, and really, really importantly, the mindset shifts that help us to stay regulated and.

Learn and also detach when things don’t go right. This conversation was with my mastermind group, like I said, and we do have a free bundle of goodies, so find everyone’s links in the show notes and head to that link for the free bundle. There are some really, really fun things in that bundle. And yeah, enjoy this conversation and please do let me know if there’s something else that you would love us to talk about on a future weird term.

It’s Roundtable episode, please. Send me an email or a DM and let me know and we will do our best to cover it in a future episode Anyway, for now, enjoy.

Liz Stapleton: Welcome to our guests who are joining us. If you haven’t been to one of these round tables before, this is our mastermind. It’s part of our ma. It’s half of the people that are in our Mastermind, but the ones that can make it today, we call [00:02:00] ourselves the weird hermit. Uh, and we just like to have these live round tables to share different topics and our takes.

Uh, I think it’s always helpful to see how other people are running their businesses. So we’re gonna kick this off by having everyone introduce themselves. So Kate, if you wanna go ahead and kick us off, that’d be great.

Kate Kordsmeier: Okay, great. Hi everybody. I’m Kate Kme. I run Success with Soul, which helps people, um, create high profit, low maintenance businesses without social media.

Liz Stapleton: All right, destiny?

Destini Copp: Yeah. Hi, my name is uh, destiny Cup and I have two brands that I manage. I have a hobby school where we do online learning, virtual summits, and all types of fun type hobbies. And then I have my personal brand, which is my creator’s, MBA brand where I help digital product creators get that consistent recurring revenue in their business.

Liz Stapleton: Fantastic. Ruth.

Ruth Poundwhite: Hi everyone. I am Ruth and I help people to grow and sell in their business in a way that [00:03:00] doesn’t require them to be on all the time.

Liz Stapleton: Awesome, Jordan.

Jordan Gill: Hey y’all. I’m Jordan Gill, founder System, save me and I. Frolic. But right now what I’m doing is I am helping people build micro tools using ai.

Uh, most people understand it as vibe coding if you’re in the techie world, but if you’re not, then it’s basically just create us creating little apps that people will pay you for, and that will help supplement your other expertise that you do, whether it’s services or courses or whatever.

Liz Stapleton: Fantastic faith.

Faith Mariah: I’m Faith Mariah. You can find me@faithmariah.com. I run a mastermind for women that wanna grow their business in community and start making consistent income, and we do 90 day planning and basic business strategy as well as mindset.

Liz Stapleton: Awesome. And I’m Liz Stapleton. I run creator ops hub where I help creators build systems that run their [00:04:00] businesses so they can scale without chaos.

And then over on my other brand, elizabeth stapleton.com, I use my background as an attorney to teach on the legal side of running an online business. So today’s topic for our panel is Difficult Clients refunds, and really kind of the dark side of entrepreneurship, um, which definitely doesn’t get talked about as much even though we all, you know, experience it.

I don’t know if, because I’m. Don’t use Zoom anymore. Can, is anyone able to like turn off the sound when someone’s coming in? I don’t know if that’s possible. It’s very distracting. Um, but yeah, so while we try to figure that out, let me go ahead and bring up our first question. Um, that, uh, we’re gonna be starting with, and if you guys have questions for us, please drop them in the chat.

I’ll be keeping an eye out there for questions. I’ve, I’ve come up with some, we’ve received some ahead of time, but, um, if you have them let us know in the chat. I’ll be keeping an eye on it so that we can answer them as well. So, first question is, what’s the hardest client situation you’ve had to navigate?

Anyone wanna kick us off? Well.[00:05:00]

Jordan Gill: And I can throw my hat in the ring. Having been in business for 10 years, I would say probably one of the hardest ones was when I was doing VIP days. Um, I had someone who, while I was on the call, like just didn’t believe in the work I was doing while I was on the call, which is a very strange. Experience where, you know, I, at the time I was building out people’s client management systems and so I’m sitting there, I’m talking with her, getting her information building at the same time and she just kept saying like, I don’t think you’re gonna get it done in time, like literally throughout the entire call.

Um, and we got about halfway through and I said, Hey. Maybe today is like not the day. Like I’m feeling like something’s going on. I’m not privy to, which is totally okay. I don’t need to know all the information, but let’s just put a pause in it and let’s reschedule for another day that you feel more confident in [00:06:00] like the work we’re doing together.

So we got off the call and then um, she proceeded to email me and say, okay, I’m filing a dispute because you didn’t get everything done that we were supposed to get done. And I said, well. If, if we remember the conversation, we’re gonna reschedule and do it on a day that feels really good for you. So then she went ahead and filed a dispute and I was like, okay.

So I sent in the information to PayPal and I won, which says a lot because PayPal never.

Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah,

Jordan Gill: gives you money back. Um, and then she proceeded to say that she was going to create a, and this was honestly before a lot of people even knew who I was. So it’s fascinating. But she said she was gonna create an entire webinar called, um.

Celebrity scammers and she was gonna have my face be the face of it and was going to share it in a Facebook group of 10,000 people who also had been scammed before by people [00:07:00] and yada yada. She actually had bought the domain names systems scammed me.com and she had like, she went down the crazy and I was like, whoa.

Like, and what’s even crazier is I was literally about to launch. What became my, like signature program done today, that next week. And also the pandemic was happening, so like so many things were happening at the same time. And she tried to file another PayPal dispute and I was like, absolutely not with this craziness.

Um, and so what was funny is she’s just like, if you don’t, you know, pay it back for me. Like this is going live on Tuesday, and I said, bring it on. Like, I just like stood my ground because I had been bullied like in my younger years, so I was like, I felt like I was standing my ground like now, and she never put it out there.

She never put anything on the page. She never did the webinar. Never did any of those things. And I’m not saying that, oh yes, thank you Faith for, uh, explaining what [00:08:00] my website actually is. It’s not system scammy.com. Um, but um, so yeah, it was a lot of talk, but at that point it just like, you know, it shook me at that point.

’cause I’m like, I’m about to go and sell this VIP day program and talk about how great vi IP days are while this. Somewhat unhinged human is like literally trying to attack me when I was just trying to figure out a better way for us to get the work done, because that day just didn’t seem like her day.

So I would say that’s like. Very far on the spectrum, friends. So I share that story to be like, what year? Probably, you know, probably gonna experience this well on the lighter side of that, but also know that I’ve continued to have a business six years after that and who knows what she’s doing with her life.

But, um, yeah, been through some interesting, uh, experiences. I would say that’s. Definitely in the top, the top for me. Imagine

Liz Stapleton: if she put all that effort into the day she had with you to actually get,

Jordan Gill: that’s what I’m saying, [00:09:00] like I was like, we have three more hours together. Like you probably spent at least three hours buying the domain, putting these slides together with my face and like you’re like kind of obsessing over me in like this weird way.

So it was, it was very odd. I was like, we could wrap this up. Like we could make it positive, but apparently not. So.

Liz Stapleton: Gotcha. Does anyone else have, have a, you know, worse or hardest situation you’ve been in that wants to share?

Faith Mariah: Not like that. I feel like Jordan wins that.

Jordan Gill: I take the crowd,

Liz Stapleton: not a competition.

Jordan Gill: I’ll say, Liz, my agreement is what saved me in all the PayPal. Like, um, I worked with a, I mean attorney obviously for my. VIP day agreement. And that’s genuinely what saved me. Like she was helping me with, you know, a lot of the conversation and how to communicate well and stuff, but my agreement was a hundred percent what saved me.

And so I’m like, guys.

Liz Stapleton: Have contracts, have policies, make sure they have to agree to them before they can buy.

Jordan Gill: Yeah.

Kate Kordsmeier: So what you’re saying is your next site is gonna be called [00:10:00] Contract Save Me.

Liz Stapleton: We could collab on that. Me and Liz tag

Jordan Gill: team. Uh,

Ruth Poundwhite: I was gonna say, Liz, when you ask this question like. Jordan just shared the perfect example. I was like, I can’t think of anything I have since thought of some stuff. But what was interesting to me as I was going through my thought process was I remember times when things were happening or a client accused me of something or said I only care about money.

You know, when I upheld a boundary about being paid for the work. Yeah. Or you know, when I’ve run a summit and they’re saying you are deliberately trying to overwhelm neurodivergent people. That really hit me. But like things like that. Sometimes at the time can feel very, very, like so big to me as a sensitive person.

And it’s just funny to reflect on, like when you’re saying, oh, what’s the worst things that happen? I’m like, oh, well, I don’t even remember. And it’s just that that’s the really interesting part of it, right? Sometimes in the moment, these things are so huge and so difficult [00:11:00] and we don’t know how to deal with it, or to take this, what feels like an attack on us or like our character or whatever.

And then it’s no big deal when you kind of look back. Mm-hmm. And we can laugh about it. Like Jordan, I’m sure that you were very stressed in that situation, but it is a great story now. Yeah. Like it’s, it’s interesting and it’s, it’s all part of the journey, isn’t it?

Liz Stapleton: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I told you about this truth where like last week I came across an article written about me of like review of Liz Stapleton, her membership.

And it was like a 600 word article and I didn’t actually check it. She spec this person specifically said it in the article ’cause they had. I don’t know when they wrote the article, probably right after it happened, but I looked back to figure out what this was from, and it was like. Over a year ago, I just happened to stumble upon this article now where they were in the membership.

They had a renewal, which by the way, I have things turned on. So like a week before the renewal goes through, they get notified. Like, I don’t want, I’m not trying to pull one over on anybody, you know, but in my terms, my refund is. Seven days from the initial purchase, it does [00:12:00] not apply to renewals. And they wanted a refund and I said no.

And they’re like, well, I’m just gonna like file a dispute. And I was like, you’re welcome to. But you’ve already acknowledged in these emails that those were the terms, you agreed to the terms like, you know, whatever. But so the whole article was. Like clearly I could tell she was trying to like smear me basically of like it laid out.

She was like, look, these were the terms and I did agree to them, but just know she does not make any exceptions. She’s like super, you know, doesn’t care and whatever.

Kate Kordsmeier: She had other boundaries.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah, initially I was a little bit upset ’cause obviously I could tell the intent was to make me sound bad. And the more I thought about that, ’cause it did, it, it sat my mind for a bit was I was like, that’s actually an amazing article.

Put the world on notice that I set boundaries with my terms and I stick to them. Like, but it was, the initial like, emotion of it was not great, you know? So, yeah. Does anyone else wanna share a difficult situation or do we wanna move on? Kate’s got

Kate Kordsmeier: one. Yeah. I, I [00:13:00] have, well I have a long list of, um, them that I could share, but what I’ll say is.

I can echo everything that’s been said too. I have had plenty of refund requests. I have had plenty of people threaten me, um, either to file a dispute, which I’ve won every single dispute except one, and it was an actual scammer that like got into my site, scraped the entire. Um, my entire course in like, you know, one hour and then filed these disputes, they actually went through on three payment plans, three months of payment plans, and I lost that one.

I was like, this was the one that was like actual fraud. But, um, I have always won all of my disputes because. Of my terms and conditions and everything is very explicitly laid out, but I agree, like I have definitely, I’ve had people who filed disputes for things that were clearly delivered exactly as they wanted.

I’ve had people who file a dispute without ever even reaching out to [00:14:00] us to say. Hey, I’d like a refund or I’m not happy with this, or I can’t find this. They just file a dispute as if it’s nothing. And it’s like this is such an impact on small businesses. Like I personally would rarely file a dispute, especially not before reaching out and actually just trying to work with another human.

’cause most people are human. I mean, all people are human obviously, but most people can be human about this. Um, but the one thing I was gonna share that’s kind of different is. I actually had an employee situation. Um, back in, I think it was 2021. And it’s funny ’cause it’s just like kind of what Jordan is saying, like, you guys, I don’t know.

I have, I was so anxious about what happened and basically out of the blue she quit to my. Um, ops manager instead of quitting to me, she lives across the street from me still today. Um, and she threatened to burn my business to the [00:15:00] ground. Literally, those were her exact words. She called me horrible names.

She said she was gonna expose me for the fraud that I am, which was based on literally like nothing. I wasn’t actually afraid of anything She could. Suppose because like, I really felt like you, you don’t have anything on me. I, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my business.

I think because this woman was a friend. She was a neighbor. She still is a neighbor. Um, you know, we, she came to my daughter’s birthday party, like we worked together for almost two years and we had a real relationship and something snapped in her and, um. I’m not saying I’m totally blameless in this situation, but the way that it was handled was so stressful.

And I mean, I definitely remember thinking at that time, like, I’m not cut out for this. I should just close my business. I definitely should never have another employee or [00:16:00] even a contractor like, you know, I’m the worst And, um. Now, five years later, you can almost look back on it and laugh. It’s still a little like, oh, that hurts so much, because it was like such a relationship.

But I think the moral of this story is going to be like of this round table is going to be that people are unwell. And we have no idea what’s going on in people’s lives. I did come to find out later that like she was going through a divorce and her mom was in the hospital and there was like a lot of personal stuff that I didn’t know about.

I think oftentimes these things say a lot more about that person than they do about you. Um, so I hope like if anybody has experienced anything like what we’re sharing here that you’ll know like. At the end of the day, sometimes you just have to let people be wrong about you and say like, I know the truth.

And I feel like as long as I can stand in integrity with how I behaved and even if I made a mistake, how I handled the [00:17:00] mistake or how I handled the situation, like sometimes that’s just all you can do.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah. No, I like that. Um, does anyone else wanna add anything before we move on? No. Okay. Um, so. I’m just curious, and I don’t know if I gave you guys this question or not, and I apologize if I didn’t. I thought I did. Have you noticed, or have you come to see like a pattern of like earliest signs that people might be difficult to deal with later?

Is anything that like kind of jumps out?

Kate Kordsmeier: Yes. Love bombing like. I feel like it’s very similar in relationships Sometimes when somebody comes in real hot and is like, I can’t believe I found you. You’re gonna save me. And they like just have like they, and it feels really good. At first you’re like, oh my gosh, this person loves me.

A lot of times those people have gone on to be a little [00:18:00] cray.

Liz Stapleton: I got, I like that. Anyone else have, have one They’ve noticed.

No. All right. Moving. Moving right along. So I wanna know what boundaries do you guys enforce that maybe you didn’t before that it was kind of like a lesson learned of having to set a boundary. Oh, Destiny’s ready.

Destini Copp: Well, I, yeah, I mean, I’ll just kind of jump in here. One thing that I’m very, very clear on, and I tell the contractors that I’m working with me, working with me, that.

This is something that they can enforce. I have a zero tolerance. Zero tolerance policy for people being mean. So when anybody comes in, and I’ll just use Hobby School as an example. If anybody comes in to one of our. Free events and they are complaining about something, you know, openly without even contacting us, or they have sent a really [00:19:00] mean and nasty email to one of my contractors or our help desk.

I’m like, you have permission. To kick them out of the event, un unsubscribe them from our email list, block them from our Thrive Card account so they cannot purchase from us. We don’t want those type of people in our world. Or same thing if they’re posting on social media and they’re being nasty there. I have a zero PO tolerance policy for that, and I would just, we will absolutely, basically just cut ’em off immediately with no warning.

They don’t even have to warn ’em.

Kate Kordsmeier: And you don’t have to tell them either, right? Like, you don’t have to even waste your time responding or explaining. It’s just like, you’re, you’re done.

Destini Copp: We’re done. We, we will just unsubscribe them, basically. Block them, do whatever. We don’t have to deal with them. We, we don’t deal with those type of people.

Now, if they have a valid concern and they’re nice about it, that’s a different story.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah. [00:20:00] The, the thing is, you guys can have in your policies a like. No shoes, no shirt, no, you know, no service. Right? It’s the same, it’s the same kind of idea of like, look, we have the right to refuse service to anybody. You know, just make sure that it’s in there and that’s gonna protect you a long way.

I also love, if anyone even threatens a dispute, I don’t care whether they follow through or not. It’s an immediate blacklist. I don’t want you as a customer in the future. Mm-hmm. Um, a hundred percent blacklist that I don’t buy from me. I don’t, I don’t want you to. Who else has boundaries that they have, have learned from, or.

Faith Mariah: Of mine. One of mine, uh, that I was thinking about was. This sounds nuts now, but when I first started my business, we didn’t have any policies for like refunds and stuff. And I found us getting in this place where me and my business manager, Rebecca, or me and my VA, were always having these conversations and it was almost like, whose trauma is bad enough to deserve a refund?

And I’ll say it was just [00:21:00] really stressful. ’cause it’s like if you don’t have policy, I don’t think you can be fair. Right? And so. I was like, I can’t treat everybody the same. And then it’s like, well, how can I say like, this person deserves a refund and this person doesn’t just based on like, oh, their trauma is bad enough, or Their situation is bad enough.

We can, they can have their money, but this person can’t. And so I guess for me, the boundaries are really been like terms and policies that are just the same pretty much for everyone. And we just follow the policy. That just takes the emotional kind of component outta dealing with this stuff away. And it also allows my team to handle that stuff a lot without me.

I usually only have to get involved if it’s like, if something’s really bad, I’m like, if somebody’s really unhappy or something’s really broken, or like something’s really wrong, then I have to step in. But most of the time the team is able to handle it ’cause we have the policies, they just follow the policy.

Ruth Poundwhite: I think that’s so true. Like, um, something [00:22:00] I heard someone talk about a few years ago is like, it’s actually kinder to uphold your policies because otherwise it’s exactly what you said. You’re judging people on case by case, depending on how good they are. And some people will give you all of the reasons.

And some people are genuinely struggling, but won’t, and you know, it’s, it’s really how good they are at making you think that they need it. I dunno like, and. Being kind to everyone, including yourself and your own business, is just having a policy and sticking to your policy and your boundaries across the board.

I think so many of us, like heart led business owners, like we care and we don’t wanna screw people over and stuff, but actually it, it, it doesn’t work that way. And, and to be kind to everyone across the board actually is having policies.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah. Because just like, you know, a hundred dollars can make a difference for the customer, like getting it back, well I have these terms in place, so I knew that a hundred dollars was mine at this point.

You know, like it makes a difference for small business owners too, right? It’s both sides. Um, so no, I think that’s a great point. Anyone [00:23:00] else?

No. All right. So we’ll move, we’ll move right along, but let’s go ahead and actually dig in. What are your kind of refund. Policies or philosophies and has it changed over time? And I mean, I think we’ve all kind of talked about having a policy is important and doesn’t mean you can’t find other ways to be generous if people ask for a refund and it doesn’t meet your terms.

I think in the past what I’ve done is like, Hey, I can’t give you a refund. These are our terms, but if, if this is truly not a product you’re gonna use, I’d be happy to like cancel that and give you credit towards something else. Right? Like. Just to kind of provide a solution, but it’s not a violating my policies, it’s still upholding those.

What are some other kind of, you know, refund policies or, or philosophies that you guys have have learned and used?

Jordan Gill: Wait, oh, go ahead Kate. Sorry.

Kate Kordsmeier: Okay. Um, I was gonna say, I have tried lots of different refund policies over the last decade plus of [00:24:00] doing this. And I feel like I’m in a place now where I’ve found what feels good for me, but I think there’s no like, one right answer.

It really does need to be like business owner, uh, to business owner. But, um, I used to do, um, like. Refund within a certain period of time, usually was like two weeks, but you had to like prove that you tried it. And so this was kind of like, I think I got this idea from Amy Porterfield by way back in the day.

Um, and I liked the, that it was like, right, you can’t, like it was supposed to get the tire kickers out, right? Like people who were just gonna come in and like never do anything and then go, oh, I wanna refund it didn’t work. And it’s like, well you didn’t even try, you didn’t do it. Um, but I found that it.

It made it so difficult and sometimes people are like, I didn’t need to try. Like I could tell that this wasn’t going to work for me. Not that maybe this doesn’t work as a blanket statement, or this wasn’t the right fit for me, or [00:25:00] they had to, you know, and I’ve been in programs that have had that where.

To get a refund. The amount like that you had amount of work that you had to do is like, this is not worth the refund because it’s my time that’s gonna have to go into this. And so I got rid of that. I went to a no refunds policy period, because a lot of what we sell is digital products, and it felt like, well, once I’ve given it to you.

It’s yours. Like, it’s not like a shirt where you could keep wearing it after you return it. Like what you, you know, it’s, it’s hard to manage. So no refunds kind of felt clean, but then I felt like that didn’t really feel like an integrity with me either. And so last, I think it was last year, maybe two years ago, I switched to a seven day refund policy, no questions asked.

And so if you get in and take a look. You decide it’s not for you, then you can get a refund. You don’t even have to tell us why. I mean, of course we’re gonna ask you for our own feedback, but you don’t have to tell us. We’re not gonna decide your refund based on your answer. Um, [00:26:00] and that has felt so much better to me.

And interestingly, I think our refunds have gone down. Um, and I think we make more sales because people feel safer to buy and like be able to figure out, is this gonna be the right thing for me before. Um, whereas before they were like, oh, I don’t wanna risk it. And I really feel like I stand behind the quality of our product.

So I wasn’t too worried that people would get in and then say like, oh, actually I don’t want this, this sucks. Like, most people get in and I say most people, I mean like 98% plus get in and say, this is great. I don’t want, you know, I’m ne I would never wanna refund anyway.

Jordan Gill: Yeah. I, I have the, and I’ve. I don’t wanna say I’ve always had this because 10 years, I can’t think of every thing I’ve ever launched.

Um, but I have always had just, there’s a no refund policy and that’s what felt good to me. Now, the reason I, I remember [00:27:00] starting out my business, the reason for having that was because, again, when I was a single woman, like. That was like my livelihood for my bus. Like if I didn’t make money then like, I’m not eating right.

So I didn’t have a husband or anybody to like fall back on. And so if somebody was sending me money, like I needed that to pay the rent and my food and like very closely related to my livelihood. And then ever since then I, I have like re-thought, okay, do I need to rethink this or does this still feel good to me?

And. For me, it just does because I know that for me, whenever I purchase something, like I’m never thinking like, how can I back out of this? Like I just think of either I am giving money, and even if I learned one thing from this, will I still be okay sending this $37, this thousand dollars, this upwards of $24,000.

That’s a decision that I have to make. And so there really was only. [00:28:00] I think there’s only been two times where I’ve even asked for a refund in 10 years in business and one had to do with someone saying I had instant access. But then when I got in there, it was, um, drip and then I had to like do a quiz after every module in order to get access.

And I was like, this isn’t my learning style. And you said I got instant access and like I don’t. I actually only need, technically, like the one thing I wanted to pay for was in seven, and you’re telling me I gotta go one through six and waste my time in order to get there. And they didn’t give it to me, and that’s fine.

So then I was like, okay, whatever. Call it a wash. And then this other time was just again, like a values mismatch that ended up happening. But every, even if I didn’t like the investment that I made, like I, I want to stand firm in every investment that I’m making. That doesn’t mean that this is. Everyone’s philosophy.

This is just mine, but I, I, I like when people, and again, if someone doesn’t like something or is confused, like I’m obviously available on [00:29:00] email and, and yeah. I don’t, I mean, yeah, they’re rarity. There’s some times people forget that they bought something from me. So when I see them come through two or three times and I’m like, okay, I’m just, hello, you already have this.

I’m just gonna send you a refund. Like, that happens more. Um, I don’t think. I haven’t gotten asked for a refund in, I don’t know, a hot minute. Definitely, like I don’t even remember the last time. Um, just because in my checkout pages I have the little checkbox of I agree to the terms and conditions, and I added the language of I agree to the terms and conditions of no refunds.

Something, something. Yeah. Like, it’s like you have to check it and it literally, like, you can’t, you can’t even buy it unless you check saying, I understand that I won’t get any refunds. And I agreed to those terms and conditions. So that for me was really, um, that’s been the cleanest thing for me. And so I’m sticking to it.

Like I don’t see myself changing, and that doesn’t mean you need to come to [00:30:00] my side, but I know my side is a little controversial, but. I have a lot of peace, so for me, so that feels good,

Liz Stapleton: I will. I will say there is a rule coming outta the EU regarding refunds that’s supposed to take effect next month. I gotta dig more into it.

I know there’s exceptions for digital products, but it might be something you have to like, update your terms to cover, um, just as FYI to everybody. Yeah, and I think, so that kind of leads into our next question is what systems. You know, have reduced refund requests from you. You just said, well, they have to agree to no refunds when they check out.

I’ve actually start, since I used thrivecart and they’ve added that functionality to add a specific refunds term. I’ve started using that as well. I need to go back and update older products, I think. But I do think that definitely helps. Does anyone else have sort of some systems or policies that have helped reduce refund requests for you?

Destini Copp: Um, I could tell you on our checkout pages for Hobby School, and I have to be very, it, it is different in the B2C market than it is for my B2B B2B brand. I don’t, I don’t. I can’t even think about when I’ve ever done refunds there. But [00:31:00] my V two C brand, just the volume there, you’re getting a lot of people coming in.

People forget it. It is just a, it is just a different beast. But on the checkout page, I will, I put it very clearly ’cause we do refunds within 14 days, and that’s just been kind of our standard there. Um, I feel good about that because it, you know, it’s, it’s, they’re having to make a decision very quickly, right?

It’s on, it’s on the trip wire, so I feel. I felt better about doing that 14 day for that particular offer, um, for our VIP passes, but it is on the checkout page. It does say that 14 day deadline.

Liz Stapleton: Anyone else?

Ruth Poundwhite: I will say that, um, some of the stuff Jordan was saying was making me think about how it’s just really important to act in integrity with your own values. With this, I am not someone who would ask for a refund. Unless there was genuinely something mis-sold, you [00:32:00] know, um, I’m paying for something right now on a fixed term and I’m not using it, and I, and I’m annoyed that I’m not using it, but I’m not.

I’m gonna fi finish my payments and I’m not gonna ask for a refund. Sometimes people go, sometimes people are clearly looking at their expenses from months back and trying to claw back money, and it’s just really unfair. Anyway, I’m not gonna go on a rant about it, but the importance of being in integrity, and I know for some people, you know.

Not to get into a debate about countdown time as an urgency and all of that stuff, but for some people their version of being an integrity when they use that kind of urgency is to have a refund period, because then at least they know if you know, they’re giving people a reason to like make a really fast decision and encouraging them to make that decision more quickly without necessarily having certain time to think it through, then they know that they can ask for a refund.

So it is. An option that I know that, you know, some of my clients use to help them feel integrity. Personally, I don’t offer refunds. It feels a lot easier and cleaner for me right now, and it is in my terms. Um, but yeah, just think [00:33:00] about what is inter in integrity for you as well.

Kate Kordsmeier: It kind of makes me think too about failed payments, which are sort of their own form of a refund.

It’s not necessarily money that you had that’s taken back, but it’s money that you were counting on that is not completed. So I don’t know if there’s a question coming up about that, Liz, but um, that might be a good direction to go to.

Liz Stapleton: We can go ahead and pivot to that direction. I did not have that in my list, but I think that’s a great, I, that’s definitely like a dark side of business and it sucks.

Ruth Poundwhite: It’s a huge pain. It’s a huge pain anyway, I think. Yeah.

Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah. It’s. I understand that some people really do get themselves into a situation where they cannot make their payments, and when those people communicate that to us and we come up with a repayment plan or we figure something out, like of course that’s just cost of doing business and totally.

Expected that there’s gonna be some of that. The [00:34:00] people that just like drop off or treat, uh, what to me is like, I graciously offered a payment plan even though I’m not a bank, so that I can make this accessible to you and now you’re treating me. Not only like a bank, but like garbage. And just like that you don’t have to, you know, fulfill the obligations.

And we have lots of terms everywhere on our site, especially for anything that’s like, it’s not a subscription. And we say that very clearly of this is not a membership, this is not a subscription. You are legally obligated to complete all six or 12 or whatever the payments are. Right? And people just ghost you.

Um, we have some people that. Fail every month, but then they like fix it eventually, and then they’ll fail again. And it’s like just this whole, you know, this whole thing. But I do think it is like the dark side of, of business and, and some people in our, in our mastermind have decided not to offer [00:35:00] payment plans for that reason.

And I get tempted to sometimes when I look at how much money we have. Uh, I, I don’t, I hesitate to even use the word lost, but for lack of a better term, lost because of that. And when I look at the data, I can also see that we made a lot more sales than we would have made without the payment plan. And that.

Because of the policies and the procedures we have in place, if somebody fails their payment, they’re immediately removed, access from the program, and we really only have one offer right now that has a payment plan, so they get removed, access completely from the program immediately. And it’s not ever reinstated until they finish out their payments.

So sometimes I think of it as like, well, I got $200 from somebody that I would’ve gotten $0 from if I only had the pay in full. Mm-hmm. And they don’t have access to it anymore. And [00:36:00] so, you know, to me it’s still worth it for me to offer that, but it is a huge pain in the ass.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah, I, I’d say I kind of fall into the same sort of thinking of like, well.

I still got that much, you know, and they no longer have access. The one thing that I would, that just pops to mind is I was like, I should really set up a system that if someone’s failed a payment, they’re not allowed to buy from me again until they complete. That’s a little trickier, I think, to set up.

And of course now I’m gonna go like, brainstorm that. But uh, like, ’cause I think that’s a, you know, I don’t wanna blacklist them necessarily. There’s a lot of different reasons people use different email addresses so they don’t see that they, you know, like failed the payment or something. There’s a lot of, you know, work like, it’s not, a lot of times I don’t think people are like blatantly ignoring the fact that.

The payment failed, right? I think they don’t see it or they don’t realize, um, until they go try to log in and they can’t, or they finally do see that email, and it may have been six months ago or whatever. Um, but I think that would actually be a great system to, to kind of implement then, is if someone’s trying to buy something from you or even if [00:37:00] it’s like a freebie from a bundle.

Sorry, you still owe me money. You know,

Ruth Poundwhite: I wanted to add to this because I used to. This was obviously way back, ’cause I had a business for agents, but I used to like payments would fail ’cause I didn’t move money around or whatever. And I used to think it didn’t matter like that I didn’t tell people, like I, I dunno why, but I just wanna to anyone listening who thinks it’s okay and it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t cause a problem.

Eventually it’ll go through. Please communicate. So I was that person and I realize it does matter and it does make a difference. Um, I had a situation where I ran a summit back in September last year, and it was like. An unprecedented number of payment plans, and this is a payment plan, you know, on a fairly low cost offer.

And yeah, unprecedented amount of payments were failing and no responses, and I was just getting absolutely sick of it. I don’t normally complain publicly about this stuff, but I went in my Facebook group at the time, don’t have a Facebook group anymore at the time, and I was like, right. [00:38:00] Please know it is not okay.

If you notice a payment failing for a fixed thing, it’s not a membership. Please, bro, be proactive. Don’t ignore it. Don’t ignore the emails. And you’re right, Liz. People don’t always see ’em. So there are always genuine reasons, but if you see that failed payment in your bank app with bank statement. Please be proactive.

We are never angry when someone contacts us and explains or asks for a, a different payment plan. You know, we can talk about it. Maybe we won’t be able to offer it. Maybe we will. But when you don’t, when you don’t reply, it’s such an admin burden and, um, you know. This probably down a whole other rabbit hole, but there are reasons why we charge a bit extra for payment plans as well.

And it’s, and it’s all of this stuff. So please, if you are like I used to be, don’t be like that. Um, just communicate really and we’ll work together. So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll stop ranting about that now. [00:39:00]

Jordan Gill: Well, I would also like to share, I know that, um, again, all of us have our, our different attorneys, but I remember when I was running my like big group program, um.

Had like three different attorneys, which was a nightmare but helpful. Um, and one of my attorneys has like. Basically a blacklist. And so she is an attorney for a lot of people across the industry. So then when something came up, so if a student was trying to do something, pull one over, I’d be like, Hey, can you check this name and email on your blacklist?

And if they aren’t on there, then she actually adds them and adds a little note about what’s going on. And so again, there are people who go and bop and do this across a bunch of people. And um, because she has so many clients. In the space, she’s able to crosscheck and also have evidence of patterns. If someone tries to come at people crazy, ’cause she’s like, nah, I already have three other clients that you’ve done this for, [00:40:00] and evidence of such.

So also if you’re like, oh, I can get away with this and whatever. Not that everybody has the same attorneys, but. I thought that was very helpful and was a, a big selling point for me of going with her. ’cause I was just like, I, I don’t do well with unwell. Okay. Like, I just really don’t. And like

Kate Kordsmeier: people talk, so like we have a mastermind, you better believe that we name names sometimes when we go, oh my God, I just got screwed by this person.

And people will say, who is it? And we’ve all gone and then block listed those people from our list, deleted them. And like, I want nothing to do with this person. So I’m sure everybody here is lovely and would never do anything like this. Totally. But tell your friends

Jordan Gill: Right? Save your friends.

Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah.

Liz Stapleton: But, but do not post it publicly.

’cause you could get

Kate Kordsmeier: in

Liz Stapleton: trouble with data privacy laws.

Kate Kordsmeier: Correct. Just in your little groups you can chat about.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah. Just like

Faith Mariah: in secret.

Liz Stapleton: Don’t be, we can

Kate Kordsmeier: gossip.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah. [00:41:00] Sorry. You know, me, I,

Faith Mariah: I had a pretty big like mindset shift around some of this stuff. It used to be a really big energy leak for me, and I’ve always offered payment plans.

We offer interest free payment plans. I have a two week like no questions asked, refund policy. And so I always feel like we’re being really generous and so when people, I felt like were not being generous back and making us like chase them down and being non-responsive, it could, I would. In the beginning of my business, it felt really personal to me.

Like it was like, this is my work. How could you, how could you do this? And now I’m like laughing ’cause I’m just so detached from it Now I just feel like I. I have the policies, the team sends the emails when the payments fail. Like I know some people are not gonna finish their payment plans, and I’m like, that’s okay with me.

I think the thing that really helped me as far as like getting triggered and like my nervous system reaction to all of that was like. Padding at my fricking savings account where I don’t need that money. [00:42:00] Like, so it’s like, do I, of course I need money for the business, right? But I’m also a marketer. I, I believe in my ability to go make other money if I need it.

Right. And I wrote my email about this, that when Matt and I had our Airbnb. Our property manager contacted us and said, Hey, these people had booked, you know, for this really big weekend, and they just got to the house and they want a refund and blah, blah, blah. We didn’t have to give them a refund, like at all.

Like they were not entitled to any refund. And I just told Matt, like, give ’em their money back. I’m like, it’s just not worth dealing with. And, and him and the property manager kinda like, what? And I’m like, they’re gonna be in our home. Like, they’re gonna be around our neighbors like. Uh, it’s just not worth it.

They could leave bad reviews. They could slander. I’m like, just give them their money back and like send them on. And I think that’s been a big, I don’t know, just sometimes it’s just not worth dealing with to me. And I’m like, I’ll just go get the money somewhere else. And like, I just cut ties with people energetically.

And sometimes giving the refunds too has been a way of like closing things out for me that [00:43:00] actually feels good, right? So it doesn’t always have to feel like. Your boundaries are being pushed over or anything like that, it can feel like, yeah, this is a relationship that needs to end, um, and I’m happy to give you this money back and not be connected to you in any form anymore.

Um, and so those are just some mindset things that help me as someone who is. At different times been very in a codependent relationship, I would say, with my business like, and have been able to just kind of feel, I really don’t feel dysregulated by it at all anymore. It’s like some people are gonna pay, buy and pay the whole thing and some people are gonna buy and not pay the whole thing.

And it’s all good to me. Like I know we have the processes to deal with it and I know I have the ability to go make more money if I need to. And I know I have plenty of money sitting in the bank account.

Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry, Liz, go ahead.

Liz Stapleton: No, I was just gonna say, this leads perfectly into the question of what mindset shifts have helped you to handle these better.

And I think that’s a great example. Kate, go ahead.

Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah. Oh, I’ll just, um, second what Faith just said, and I had [00:44:00] a, another difficult kind of experience in business that wasn’t about a refund, but some of you might know. I, I sold a business in 2021 and. The buyer of that business had access to a lot of my accounts, of course, as we were doing things.

Anyway, to make a long story short, she ended up stealing over $25,000 from me over the last couple of years, even as recently as 2025, and some of it was, anyway, I don’t even need to get into all of it, but it was horrible and I. You know, contacted her. I talked to the Mastermind about it a ton. I spoke to three different lawyers trying to figure out what my options were, and ultimately I kind of came to the same decision because of the mindset that Faith did, which was, this is not worth my time and energy.

I can go make $25,000. Faster and easier than I can chase this money down and claw it back and go after this woman who I think is a horrible human being, [00:45:00] but also is a human being. And I don’t know why she’s doing this or what’s going on with her, but she’s a mom. And I don’t know, I just like changed my mindset a bit to just be like, what am I?

Like, what if she doesn’t have the money? Like, and I’m trying, and what I’m gonna take like from her kids. You know, food like to pay me this money, like no, I’m just gonna, I’m at a certain point the energetic leak and how negative and scarce it made. My mindset was just like, this is not worth it. I gotta just walk away.

And yes, there were like justice warrior, part of me was like, this is so unfair. I can’t believe I would do the, just let it this happen. But ultimately it was totally the right call and I more than made that money back.

Ruth Poundwhite: I think you handled it amazingly, Kate, and my question to you is, because that’s a lot of money, like it’s not just like one refund request.

That’s like a huge thing and and it’s that sense of justice as [00:46:00] well, right? Did, I’m guessing you had to process that, like anger or shame. I think shame as well. All of those feelings you had, you had to feel those feelings. Not that you should have been ashamed, but I know that you had feelings around like, how could this happen?

You gotta process and feel those feelings, right?

Kate Kordsmeier: Yeah, definitely. And it wasn’t like a one time thing where she like quickly stole 25 grand. There was multiple SI scenarios and ways that she did this. So that was kind of like the lump sum at the end of it. But um. Yeah, when I, one of the situations was somewhat like, I mean, it was a mistake on my part.

My Kartra account was still linked to my old PayPal, and I didn’t realize it. And so all of my sales that were going through PayPal were getting deposited into her account, and she knew it. She knew, oh, I have $8,000 this week that I didn’t have before and I don’t even sell this thing. And you know, whatever.[00:47:00]

But I, I mean, I had a panic attack when I first realized that it was happening, like an immediately just total shame attack of like, how could I have been so negligent? How could I have missed this? I can’t believe I did this. I was so mad at myself. Um. And it took, yes, lots of, I mean there was definitely like therapy that was needed.

There was a lot of talking with y’all. I mean, I went to Lunch with Destiny and we really like talked about a lot of the, okay, what are the practical things that you could do here and how realistic are these and what’s, you know, what are the outcomes? And like weighed the options and um. Yeah, it was definitely a lot to process and I appreciate you saying I handled it well ’cause this didn’t feel like I was handling it well.

But yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite: I feel like I put you a bit on the spot there, like grilling you about it, but I do think it’s, it’s such a, it’s, it’s amazing to share how you really felt and how like it, it, it is hard. It’s really hard [00:48:00] sometimes. Sometimes it feels like this business we’re in is harder than other jobs, although I’m sure it’s, it’s a lot easier than a lot of other jobs at different times as well.

Um, but it’s really helpful just to hear, you know, everyone goes through this stuff and I’m sure you’ve learned like really important lessons. I know I’ve learned lessons from all of the times when I’ve had not a situation at that level, but when these things have happened, I’ve always learned something about myself or about my policies or about what I could do differently next time.

Um. So, yeah, but just thanks for being open and I hope it’s helpful for everyone here listening as well, and to know that we blame ourselves sometimes when we really shouldn’t, but let’s not blame ourselves for blaming ourselves like it’s a human aspect.

Liz Stapleton: Yeah, so sometimes the best you can do is figure out how to prevent it from ever happening again, update your policies if need be, which I’ve definitely done that, where it’s like, I’m gonna make this crystal [00:49:00] clear ’cause apparently it wasn’t before.

Let me update, um, you know, and then kind of move on. As much as it sucks, uh, but sometimes that’s the best solution because. Uh, especially as business owners, like I’m a solopreneur. I don’t have any VAs, I don’t want any VAs. You know, I know some of you do, but like you already have so much on your plate, it doesn’t matter.

Like, there’s already so much to do. To have to carry that as well is just, you know, just sucks. I mean, sometimes you have to kind of stand your ground, right, Kate, you know, we’ve talked about that, but sometimes it’s the best thing is just make sure it doesn’t happen again and move on.

Kate Kordsmeier: I wanna say one quick thing and then I feel like we have to turn this over to destiny for what would Destiny do?

Mindset. ’cause she’s our, our resident bulldog. But I’ll just say about the like beating yourself up because I do think, and this can happen, like you get a refund request and maybe it’s even legit. Maybe you’re like, dang, that wasn’t as good as it could have been. Or like, Ooh, I wasn’t clear about that, or I missed this, or whatever it is.

Like we all make mistakes and I [00:50:00] think that. Yeah, I, at first I really beat myself up and I was so like ashamed that I had missed it. And then ultimately I was like, of course you’re gonna miss some things. Like some balls are gonna be dropped, like you’re one person and you’re managing a whole life and a whole business.

And like once I just kind of put it in perspective of just like, of course stuff like this is gonna happen, it’s shitty and I wish that this person wouldn’t have taken advantage of my honest human mistake, but. Here we are. And you know, so we, we’ve referenced this a couple times, but we do have, and the stickers, what would Destiny do?

And Destiny has beautiful boundaries. And I think what why we all love it so much is because Destiny is also one of the kindest, most generous people that we know. And so it’s not like. We’re saying, oh, like stick the asshole on on them, because Destiny has this wonderful way of holding the boundaries and being kind.

And so I feel like you need to share some of your mindset, destiny. [00:51:00]

Destini Copp: I, I don’t know if I’m perfect here for sure, but I, I think I’ll just talk about a situation that happened to me this week because it’s just fresh in my mind. And then I’ll talk about the mindset that I really had to go to because I was getting very, very angry from this, but I, it was.

Basically, I was going into my bus Facebook business manager for my ads and we were running ads for our event that we had this week, which was an eco creative summit for hobby school. And people are crazy. I don’t even know how to say that. People are crazy. So I was reading some of these comments on this ads and it was things like.

One of the images was basically talking about how you can take things around your house and do crafts with them, and there were some pictures of like the tubes, like for paper towels or the tubes from like toilet paper in there, and there was like comments on there. You can’t use that. There’s fecal matter on that and.

Stuff like that. It was just, [00:52:00] or why are you using AI generated images on your ads for and claim to be, you know, eco-friendly? And I’m thinking to myself, oh my gosh, I’m gonna freaking lose it. And then people were saying stuff like. Um, and this was related to when they sign up for the event. On the next page there’s a trip wire offer, and they were, they were basically calling it pressure sales.

You know, you know, why are you doing the pressure sales on me? You know, you said this was a free event and those, and I went and actually looked at who, who was saying that? And the comment center was the other freaking businesses. And I’m thinking to myself, okay. I gotta figure out how to respond to this.

So I had to like calm myself down, change my mindset. And some of them I responded to, some of them I didn’t. And sometimes I just said, okay, it is a free event. You don’t have to purchase the VIP pass. But we are a business and we are here to make money. And a lot of people love having our VIP pass ’cause they get [00:53:00] lifetime access to the workshop.

So I would go in there and I think there were like two comments like that. Those type of things are going to come up when you have a business. So you really just kind of, I had to regulate myself because I was getting very angry and then I was like, okay, I’m gonna respond to some of these, some I’m just going to ignore, and then I’m gonna close this and walk away from it.

And that’s how I handled it.

Ruth Poundwhite: I also, knowing you destiny, like. You are doing so much in your life and your business, you do not have time for it, right? I mean, none of us have time for it, but like you don’t have time to mess around. And it is like FA said earlier, such an energy drain. Even if we are doing other things, when it’s there in the back of your head and you’re stewing over it, it just gets in the way of so much, and you can never, ever please everyone.

You just can’t.

Destini Copp: And that’s the, that’s the important point here. You can’t please [00:54:00] everybody. I’m like, some of those comments on these ads about a free event. I’m like, these people have more time on their head. I don’t know. They’re, they, they’re obviously, um, less busy than I am to come up with some of this, so.

Liz Stapleton: Uh, well I think we’re gonna call it there. Um, so let’s go ahead if you guys wanna each share sort of what gift you have. Uh, Kate, I’m gonna start with you just ’cause that’s where you are on my screen.

Kate Kordsmeier: Okay, great. Um, I know we didn’t even get to talk as much about like all the herm, uh, hermits were the hermits, all the trolls, and, uh, just negative comments and how, how much that can drain you too.

So we’ll bookmark that for next time. Um. So my freebie is, um, y’all know I’m the social free girl, so, um, I created a free tool that you can enter kind of your bio and pick a stage of business that you’re in, and then you’ll get 10 custom [00:55:00] prompts just. For your business. They’re hyper specific about how you can grow your business without social media, and these prompts are really cool.

You can put them into Claude and like it will generate different assets for you that can help you in your social free business. Or if you’re not social free and you just wanna rely on it last, it’ll give you some ideas too.

Liz Stapleton: All right, destiny.

Destini Copp: Yeah. So going back to the what would Destiny do? I did create a CLA skill for you.

Basically what I did, I had to pull a lot of different scenarios based on how I specifically handled those scenarios. So you can download that Claude skill in the links in the document.

Liz Stapleton: All right? Yeah, and I did share that link in the chat. I’ll share it again in just a moment. Uh, Ruth.

Ruth Poundwhite: Sorry, I just busy typing in the chat.

Um, I have an AI sales toolkit to help you take some of the cognitive lo use AI to take some of the cognitive load out of stuff that you need help with. She was selling and it will help [00:56:00] you figure out what that is. And there’s a link in the document.

Liz Stapleton: Alright, faith.

Faith Mariah: My offer is called the coaching files, and it is a replay from a coaching call from an event I did a while ago.

If you are feeling stuck in your business and need some outside perspective or somewhere to bounce ideas around, we do that in my community and so you can watch the call and if you need help, reach out.

Liz Stapleton: Uh, and Jordan just shared her Instagram in the chat. And then my gift is I actually put together a little mini ebook on winning payment disputes, uh, that walks you through kind of, uh, how to handle them.

I even have like. Photo like evidence that I’ve shared, obviously have redacted any personal information, but as an example. So if you’re not sure what to put in your evidence while dealing with the dispute, that book will help you. Um, and it is also in the doc. So thank you all for joining us today. We are the weird hermits and we run these round tables every other month.

And if you have ideas for topics, I provided the link in the chat where you can submit them [00:57:00] because we love not having to come up with the topic ideas ourselves. Um, but yeah, and hopefully we’ll see you guys at the next one. Thanks everyone.

Destini Copp: Thank you. Bye-bye