What We've Learned From Offering An ROI Guarantee
Last year at Place Digital, we reached a milestone we’ve been working towards for years.
We became so confident in the results we delivered (and who we delivered them for) that we were ready to offer an ROI Guarantee on our services.
I was thrilled. I knew that this was a major differentiator in the therapy marketing industry and marketing industry at large. Although some marketers might feel certain that they can deliver, very few back it up with their dollars.
I thought offering an ROI Guarantee would be simple, but it’s been anything but. It’s taught me a lot about how therapists grapple with scaling their practices, and I think you can learn something too.
Let’s get into it.
How our ROI Guarantee works
The Guarantee works like this.
We agree upon a client lifetime value (referred to as LTV; usually it’s $5,000 for private pay practices, but we are open to lower LTVs if the practice takes insurance) and track the estimated revenue you make through our work together in your CRM.
If the revenue generated does not equal your investment at the 12-month mark, we’ll refund you the difference.
But to guarantee the investment, we need certain assurances from our clients. These assurances include things like…
A minimum conversion rate of 10% (although 20% is the goal).
Precisely following our methodology (no picking and choosing parts).
Using our CRM regularly to track everything (this data is key to being accountable to one another).
… and more.
Why we offer an ROI Guarantee
Here’s why we offer it.
Because we 100% stand behind the results we can deliver. If a potential client has made it to the moment when we offer the Guarantee, we believe in the practice and that a partnership with us will take the practice to the next level. It’s kismet!
Working with us is a big decision. We want our clients to feel as confident as possible so they can focus on maximizing their investment and not wasting time and energy worrying “will I regret this?”
We want our clients to be successful. Our guarantee outlines best practices to get the most out of our work together, and most importantly, scale your practice.
Ultimately, we offer the guarantee because 1) we want our clients to be as successful as possible, and 2) trust is at the core of what we do.
When trust breaks down, that’s when we see worse outcomes in our work. So whatever is in our power to foster trust, we will do it. For us, the ROI Guarantee is the ultimate symbol of trust.
For some clients, the ROI Guarantee had the precise result we were hoping for: it was the last assurance they needed to move forward.
But for others, the ROI Guarantee resulted in more friction than it was worth.
How come the ROI Guarantee didn’t work for everyone?
When we present the Guarantee, we explain that its contents are the “boilerplate” version. If something in the guarantee won’t work at all for the practice, or the founder(s) knows that their processes would result in better outcomes, we customize the Guarantee to the practice. (Our intention isn’t to blow up all of your operations—it’s to outline best practices. We bring our experience with what works, and you bring yours.)
When some potential clients reeeeeally pushed back on the Guarantee, fastidiously poking holes in every sentence to an excessive degree, I was left feeling confused.
In my best moments, I deeply appreciated hearing from real-life founders and their experiences with operations and sales. I learned a lot about how group practices actually function, and I still do when going through the Guarantee with potential clients.
In my lower moments, I had thoughts like what do you want from me??? What else can I offer you to instill confidence in our work together???
I cannot overstate how rare it is for marketers to offer an ROI Guarantee. So at times, I felt at a loss; I didn’t understand how the Guarantee began to break trust down rather than build it up.
Here’s what I realized.
They didn’t trust themselves.
When investing with Place Digital, these founders weren’t only betting on us—they were betting on themselves.
That was the breakdown. The founders weren’t only investing in Place Digital. The founders were investing in themselves. And I suspect that the founders who were more critical (by comparison to other founders) didn’t trust themselves to rise to the challenge of scaling a group practice, so they shifted the spotlight away from themselves and onto all the wrong things. Exerting an excessive amount of control over the Guarantee made some founders feel like they had control over the future.
Ultimately, this proved that we probably weren’t a good fit. Why?
Our successful clients focus on results rather than method. They know precisely where they want to be in one year’s time, and they care less how they reach their goals and more about actually achieving them. They are ready to follow our advice, make changes, and delegate.
As corny as it sounds, we need our clients to believe in themselves, because if we offer a partnership, we certainly believe in them.
Deep down, I don’t believe that they were ready for success.
Interestingly, I’ve heard the same thing from multiple founders just this week.
“I know that if we work together, we will be successful. I’m just not sure if I’m ready.”
The truth comes out.
And I understand! We’re a big commitment. It’s almost like we’re walking down the aisle with a founder, and the founder gets cold feet. We’ve all been there.
They felt insecure about benchmarking.
The ROI Guarantee is also a benchmarking exercise.
The contents of the Guarantee provide an overview of what we see in successful practices. If a founder’s practice doesn’t measure up precisely, insecurity can creep in, further breaking down self-trust, which is then interpreted as a lack of safety in our working relationship. Meaning? We (Place Digital) are not to be trusted.
And sometimes, we just weren’t a good fit.
In some cases, the ROI Guarantee was the exercise we needed to complete together to arrive at the same conclusion: we weren’t a good fit. Whether it was practice’s operations or our particular way of working, it was a square peg and a round hole situation. And that’s okay!
Knowing that we weren’t a good fit before engaging together saved both of us time, money, and effort. So even if the ROI Guarantee ultimately “lost” us the sale, it was the information that everyone needed to make the best business decision.
So has offering an ROI Guarantee been worth it?
Yes, I think offering an ROI Guarantee is worth it (most days 😅).
It feels incredible to be completely assured in the work we do at Place Digital, and I want our clients to feel that assurance too.
Although I’m happy with the contents of it (it took hours and hours to develop), the Guarantee will continue to evolve as we meet the needs of our clients and learn more secrets to group practice success.
Truth be told, I love that it will evolve.
Why?
Because the contents of the Guarantee will become a data-backed roadmap for scaling a group practice exponentially, sustainably, profitably, and ethically for years to come.
Call me an enneagram type five, but I want to crack the highly specific conundrum of how to scale a group therapy practice without fail. So, every so often, my team and I like to ask ourselves this question:
If budget was a non-issue, what would we do for our clients to guarantee their success?
It’s a fun thought experiment, and it’s also the basis of our overarching marketing strategy and the ROI Guarantee. We want to work with our clients to identify what results in their inevitable success, and that’s why we call it a partnership.
The ROI Guarantee is just the start.
If you would like to work with a marketing agency that guarantees results in your practice, send us a message. We’ll assess your situation to see if a partnership together will result in what we promise. We guarantee it 😉
