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41 | Why you won’t find negative reviews of many online courses and programs
If you've been thinking about signing up for a popular course or program, you've likely tried Googling around to see what you can learn about it. If all you're seeing is glowing reviews - particularly if the reviews all seem strikingly similar - you may not be getting a full picture. In today's episode, I share more about why you often can't/won't find any negative reviews for these types of programs online.
If you're enjoying this episode, I also highly recommend listening to Episode 21: Questions to Ask Before you Buy a Program or Course.
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Transcript
Camille (00:00)
Well, hi there. Welcome to in the clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm a licensed nutritionist and registered herbalist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be interesting or helpful for other practitioners.
Camille (00:18)
Hi there. Before I jump into today's topic, I want to give you a little heads up. I am getting ready to start a creative activity and visibility challenge with some folks in my Monday mentoring group. I am participating in the challenge myself, even though I created the challenge, still doing the challenge. And the challenge is to show up and post something somewhere for 30 days, either 30 days all in a row or 30 days with some small breaks, like weekends in between.
Camille (00:45)
So as part of the challenge, I'm going to be posting podcast episodes for 30 days, probably not 30 days in a row, but there will be a lot of podcast episodes coming out over the next month or two. And these are going to be short like they always are. I'm probably not going to have the wherewithal to create a full blog post for each one. So I think I'll think I'll collect all the 30 day challenge blog posts in one place. But anyway, I wanted to let you know that the frequency of these episodes is going to be increasing for a little while, just in case you start to wonder what the heck is going on over here.
Camille (01:19)
That's what's going on. All right. So for today's topic, I want to share something that I actually get questions about a fair amount. When people are starting to think about joining a big program, especially if it's something that's more expensive, like a couple of $1,000 or something like that. It's a business growing type of deal where you're going to learn all about how to run a business or how to promote your practice or whatever.
Camille (01:41)
And again, some of these can be kind of pricey. And so obviously you do the first thing that you do when you're considering a large purchase, pardon me for most of us, which is you start Googling it. You start to see, what do other people have to say about this? You start to look for reviews. And if you've ever done this for some of the more common programs that are out there, especially the ones that have a lot of hype, they only start opening for enrollment once or twice a year.
Camille (02:08)
And you'll see lots of emails going out, and there's lots of social media posts and tags and things like that. And one of the things you might notice is that a lot of the reviews that are out there sound very similar to each other. And a lot of them may even have a very closely worded titles of the posts where they all almost sound kind of like they were written by the same person. And it turns out that one of the strategies that some of these larger programs use is they ask people who have already taken the program to write a review of the program and they give you suggested language. Sometimes they'll just give you a suggested title, sometimes they will give you more suggested language and they say, if you want to write a review, here's what we recommend.
Camille (02:55)
Of course you can modify it and tailor it yourself. So you might be thinking, well that's kind of weird, but okay, I guess they might not be posting it if they didn't really appreciate the program. But I want to tell you something else, which is that a lot of these people are being paid an affiliate fee for enrolling people in the program. Meaning if you read their glowing review and you click on the link, they will get sometimes 50% of the fee that you pay will actually go to that person as an affiliate fee and then 50% will go to the person who's actually teaching or running the course. So there is some incentive there for folks to start sharing, spreading the word and so forth.
Camille (03:36)
So of course they're going to write good review or they're going to use the already glowing review they've been provided and maybe fancy it up a little bit, tailor it a little bit. Sometimes they'll add a bonus that you get if you sign up through their link, etc. So it becomes very challenging to understand what people's true experiences with the program might be because they are promoting it as an affiliate, they're going to make money, so they want to make it sound as good as they can. Now, in some cases, this isn't necessarily nefarious. These people might have gone through the program and loved it and they really want to share about it.
Camille (04:06)
And it seems reasonable to give people some kind of fee or kickback if they recommended it and they're driving people towards the program. That doesn't seem totally unreasonable. However, something else that you might not know about some of these larger programs is that when you sign up for them, there's a lot of fine print that you sign agree to. When you sign up for both programs, and that's fair, that protects both parties. It tells you what to expect, what you're signing up for.
Camille (04:33)
What are the parameters? Can you get a refund? Who can access this? Can you share it with somebody else? Blah, blah, blah, all that is covered in there.
Camille (04:42)
And one of the things that's often buried in the fine print in those agreements that you must agree to when you sign up for the program or to start the program, a lot of times they will have what they call a nondisparagement clause in there. And what that means is, again, it can be worded different ways, but what it often says is that you aren't allowed to say anything publicly that's negative about the program. So if you signed up and you had a terrible experience and you found that the person who headlined the program, whose name was on it, and who is the one who sold it to you, actually never showed up in the program and they just had coaches teaching the whole thing. Or if you found that you never got any feedback, or it was a group of racist people that had terrible beliefs, or the content wasn't really worth it and you felt like it wasn't a great use of your time and money, any of those things. You would actually not technically be legally allowed to say those things in a public forum, such as posting on your blog or making a podcast episode about them or anything like that.
Camille (05:48)
And so what that means is that the people who didn't have a great experience, you're not going to find anything from them unless you happen to know somebody and you talk to them one on one, or you happen to know somebody who knows somebody and you can be connected with that person to get their experience. You may never hear from the people who had a terrible experience or the people who had a sort of mediocre experience where they said, well, these things were really good and these things were actually weaknesses of the program. These are ways that I thought it could have been improved, or you probably shouldn't sign up if X, Y, and Z applies to you. So it can be really hard to get a fair sense of who the program is for, what you might learn from it, et cetera, because you're not really getting honest reviews or you're getting honest reviews, but you're only getting part of them, only getting them from the people who liked the program, made it through the program, and are potentially also making money from sharing that they like the program and want you to sign up too.
Camille (06:48)
So I just wanted to let you know that this is a thing that happens because a lot of people don't realize that and they're like, oh, all the reviews I saw online were glowing.
Camille (06:58)
Everybody loves this program. Like, yes, that is true, because you can't see the ones from people who didn't like that. So if you're doing a program and you literally cannot find any reviews that have anything bad to say about them or anything from somebody who is like, yeah, that wasn't a really great program, wasn't good value, et cetera, you're probably looking at a program that has some of these clauses. Does that mean that you shouldn't take the program? Not necessarily, but I would be much more suspicious of that than a program where you found some reviews from people who are like, yeah, this didn't work out for me, and here's why.
Camille (07:33)
And there's always going to be people who aren't a good fit for any particular program. So you should be able to find at least a couple of people somewhere that didn't love it. Or you might be able to talk to people who have taken the program and get a feel for, hey, what was really great about this program, what wasn't so great? And do you think I should take it from people who are not making money from telling you one way or the other? All right, so anyway, just be aware of that if you're thinking about signing up for a big program, especially if it's a really popular one or one that a lot of different people do, be very conscious of the reviews.
Camille (08:12)
Think about the program. I actually have a whole episode about what to consider before you sign up for a program. I'll link to that in the show notes. Just be aware of that before you go signing up and think it through. All right?
Camille (08:23)
If you have any questions, let me know, and otherwise, I will talk to you really soon. Thanks for listening.
Well, hi there. Welcome to in the clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm a licensed nutritionist and registered herbalist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be interesting or helpful for other practitioners.
Camille (00:18)
Hi there. Before I jump into today's topic, I want to give you a little heads up. I am getting ready to start a creative activity and visibility challenge with some folks in my Monday mentoring group. I am participating in the challenge myself, even though I created the challenge, still doing the challenge. And the challenge is to show up and post something somewhere for 30 days, either 30 days all in a row or 30 days with some small breaks, like weekends in between.
Camille (00:45)
So as part of the challenge, I'm going to be posting podcast episodes for 30 days, probably not 30 days in a row, but there will be a lot of podcast episodes coming out over the next month or two. And these are going to be short like they always are. I'm probably not going to have the wherewithal to create a full blog post for each one. So I think I'll think I'll collect all the 30 day challenge blog posts in one place. But anyway, I wanted to let you know that the frequency of these episodes is going to be increasing for a little while, just in case you start to wonder what the heck is going on over here.
Camille (01:19)
That's what's going on. All right. So for today's topic, I want to share something that I actually get questions about a fair amount. When people are starting to think about joining a big program, especially if it's something that's more expensive, like a couple of $1,000 or something like that. It's a business growing type of deal where you're going to learn all about how to run a business or how to promote your practice or whatever.
Camille (01:41)
And again, some of these can be kind of pricey. And so obviously you do the first thing that you do when you're considering a large purchase, pardon me for most of us, which is you start Googling it. You start to see, what do other people have to say about this? You start to look for reviews. And if you've ever done this for some of the more common programs that are out there, especially the ones that have a lot of hype, they only start opening for enrollment once or twice a year.
Camille (02:08)
And you'll see lots of emails going out, and there's lots of social media posts and tags and things like that. And one of the things you might notice is that a lot of the reviews that are out there sound very similar to each other. And a lot of them may even have a very closely worded titles of the posts where they all almost sound kind of like they were written by the same person. And it turns out that one of the strategies that some of these larger programs use is they ask people who have already taken the program to write a review of the program and they give you suggested language. Sometimes they'll just give you a suggested title, sometimes they will give you more suggested language and they say, if you want to write a review, here's what we recommend.
Camille (02:55)
Of course you can modify it and tailor it yourself. So you might be thinking, well that's kind of weird, but okay, I guess they might not be posting it if they didn't really appreciate the program. But I want to tell you something else, which is that a lot of these people are being paid an affiliate fee for enrolling people in the program. Meaning if you read their glowing review and you click on the link, they will get sometimes 50% of the fee that you pay will actually go to that person as an affiliate fee and then 50% will go to the person who's actually teaching or running the course. So there is some incentive there for folks to start sharing, spreading the word and so forth.
Camille (03:36)
So of course they're going to write good review or they're going to use the already glowing review they've been provided and maybe fancy it up a little bit, tailor it a little bit. Sometimes they'll add a bonus that you get if you sign up through their link, etc. So it becomes very challenging to understand what people's true experiences with the program might be because they are promoting it as an affiliate, they're going to make money, so they want to make it sound as good as they can. Now, in some cases, this isn't necessarily nefarious. These people might have gone through the program and loved it and they really want to share about it.
Camille (04:06)
And it seems reasonable to give people some kind of fee or kickback if they recommended it and they're driving people towards the program. That doesn't seem totally unreasonable. However, something else that you might not know about some of these larger programs is that when you sign up for them, there's a lot of fine print that you sign agree to. When you sign up for both programs, and that's fair, that protects both parties. It tells you what to expect, what you're signing up for.
Camille (04:33)
What are the parameters? Can you get a refund? Who can access this? Can you share it with somebody else? Blah, blah, blah, all that is covered in there.
Camille (04:42)
And one of the things that's often buried in the fine print in those agreements that you must agree to when you sign up for the program or to start the program, a lot of times they will have what they call a nondisparagement clause in there. And what that means is, again, it can be worded different ways, but what it often says is that you aren't allowed to say anything publicly that's negative about the program. So if you signed up and you had a terrible experience and you found that the person who headlined the program, whose name was on it, and who is the one who sold it to you, actually never showed up in the program and they just had coaches teaching the whole thing. Or if you found that you never got any feedback, or it was a group of racist people that had terrible beliefs, or the content wasn't really worth it and you felt like it wasn't a great use of your time and money, any of those things. You would actually not technically be legally allowed to say those things in a public forum, such as posting on your blog or making a podcast episode about them or anything like that.
Camille (05:48)
And so what that means is that the people who didn't have a great experience, you're not going to find anything from them unless you happen to know somebody and you talk to them one on one, or you happen to know somebody who knows somebody and you can be connected with that person to get their experience. You may never hear from the people who had a terrible experience or the people who had a sort of mediocre experience where they said, well, these things were really good and these things were actually weaknesses of the program. These are ways that I thought it could have been improved, or you probably shouldn't sign up if X, Y, and Z applies to you. So it can be really hard to get a fair sense of who the program is for, what you might learn from it, et cetera, because you're not really getting honest reviews or you're getting honest reviews, but you're only getting part of them, only getting them from the people who liked the program, made it through the program, and are potentially also making money from sharing that they like the program and want you to sign up too.
Camille (06:48)
So I just wanted to let you know that this is a thing that happens because a lot of people don't realize that and they're like, oh, all the reviews I saw online were glowing.
Camille (06:58)
Everybody loves this program. Like, yes, that is true, because you can't see the ones from people who didn't like that. So if you're doing a program and you literally cannot find any reviews that have anything bad to say about them or anything from somebody who is like, yeah, that wasn't a really great program, wasn't good value, et cetera, you're probably looking at a program that has some of these clauses. Does that mean that you shouldn't take the program? Not necessarily, but I would be much more suspicious of that than a program where you found some reviews from people who are like, yeah, this didn't work out for me, and here's why.
Camille (07:33)
And there's always going to be people who aren't a good fit for any particular program. So you should be able to find at least a couple of people somewhere that didn't love it. Or you might be able to talk to people who have taken the program and get a feel for, hey, what was really great about this program, what wasn't so great? And do you think I should take it from people who are not making money from telling you one way or the other? All right, so anyway, just be aware of that if you're thinking about signing up for a big program, especially if it's a really popular one or one that a lot of different people do, be very conscious of the reviews.
Camille (08:12)
Think about the program. I actually have a whole episode about what to consider before you sign up for a program. I'll link to that in the show notes. Just be aware of that before you go signing up and think it through. All right?
Camille (08:23)
If you have any questions, let me know, and otherwise, I will talk to you really soon. Thanks for listening.
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