Why Your Program’s Greatest Weakness Might Be Your Biggest Selling Point

The Achilles' Heel Strategy

Achille’s Heel 😀

Too many coaches and course creators think they need to paint a rosy picture to get people to buy.

They hide the challenges, gloss over the time commitments, and promise easy results. But here's what I've learned after years of running high-completion courses: honesty works out better than hype.

Let me share a counterintuitive approach that actually increases both sales AND student satisfaction.

The surprising power of negative expectations

There's a fascinating study that changed how I think about selling courses.

Researchers tested two different ways of recruiting people for a customer service job online. The first approach was typical—highlighting benefits, describing general responsibilities like answering phones and helping customers solve problems.

The second approach mentioned all that good stuff, BUT also included the worst parts of the job: "Customers are going to get mad at you. Some will hang up on you. Some will yell at you."

Here's what surprised the researchers:

The same number of people applied for both versions of the job. You'd think the honest version would scare people away, right?

But here's the real kicker: The people who were told about the negative aspects stayed on the job significantly longer and reported higher job satisfaction.

This tells us something powerful about human psychology. When we set accurate expectations—even negative ones—people are more prepared, more committed, and ultimately more satisfied.

How a real estate agent used negative reveals to sell "unsellable" houses

I heard about a real estate agent who specialized in properties other agents couldn't sell. Here's her brilliant approach:

She'd show clients several normal properties first. Then she'd bring them to an amazing house with a major problem part. She'd say something like:

"This one doesn't quite meet your standards, but since we're in the area, let's take a look. Before we go inside—before you potentially fall in love with this house—I want to show you the one area that might be a dealbreaker."

She'd show them the worst feature first. Maybe a damaged room, a problematic backyard, or some other major flaw.

Then she'd give them a choice: "If you see this feature and don't want to see the rest of the house, we'll walk away and only consider the other properties."

Here's what often happened: After seeing the worst part first, couples would discuss it and often say, "Well, we've seen the worst thing about the house. We might as well look at the rest since we're here."

Not all of them ended up buying it, but she was able to sell houses that other real estate agents failed to sell.

Why? Because as they toured the rest of the house, they were mentally problem-solving around that one flaw. They'd think things like: "We could fix up that room," or "Maybe we could get the money to repair that backyard issue," or "I bet there's a way to close that sinkhole."

They were justifying to themselves why they could buy the house WITH that feature, rather than being shocked by a dealbreaker at the end.

How I apply this Achilles’ Heel insight to course creation

I run a coaching course every year that requires significant time from the participants—about five hours a week of daily exercises, sometimes more.

That's our "Achilles heel": It takes a lot of time.

So what do we do? We don't hide it. Instead:

• When marketing the course, we tell them how much time it requires

• Once they are in the course, we ask them how much time they think they'll need to spend (you can't assume everyone has read everything)

• We then correct any misconceptions well before the course starts

The result? We get incredibly high completion rates.

But here's the thing—sometimes the Achilles heel is actually your biggest selling point.

When your weakness becomes your strength

In our case, those daily exercises and daily feedback aren't just requirements—they're the secret sauce that makes the course so effective.

We used to do weekly exercises with weekly feedback. The completion rates were lower, and the level of mastery was significantly less. Switching to the five-days-a-week model transformed our results.

So now we can authoritatively say: "This is the best way we've found to teach this material. Here's what it requires of you to make that happen."

The time commitment becomes proof that we can deliver results, because we have a mechanism most other courses aren't willing to implement.

The psychology behind why this works

I suspect the reason both job postings got the same number of applicants is that people already knew customer service could be challenging. But when the employer was honest about it, applicants were mentally prepared.

They stayed longer because their expectations matched reality. No surprises, no disappointment.

When you're honest about the challenges upfront, you can also:

• Prepare people for success

• Help them problem-solve around obstacles

• Wrap the hard parts in support systems

For our course, we tell people about the time commitment, then explain how we make those five hours enjoyable and productive:

• You get feedback within hours of submitting work

• You're part of a supportive community

• People form lasting friendships that continue years after the course

We wrap the hard thing in a beautiful support system. But we can only do that if we're honest about the hard thing first.

What this insight means for your courses

Here's the thing: there will always be something challenging about any worthwhile venture, whether it's time commitment, practice requirements, or the mental effort needed to change old habits.

Don't hide these challenges. Lead with them.

When you do negative revelations:

• You attract people who are genuinely ready for the work

• You reduce surprise dropouts

• You build massive trust from day one

• You can design better support systems around the real challenges

The goal isn't to scare people away—it's to ensure the right people say yes for the right reasons.

Remember: if people need what you're teaching, they'll still buy it. The customer service study proved that. But they'll be more satisfied, more committed, and more likely to succeed when you set accurate expectations from the start.

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Still here? Fantastic! What do you think of the ideas in this article? I’d love to hear from you.