Nov. 10, 2025

Powerful Business Strategies - Risk Reversal

A strategy that makes your offer compelling and that Business Owners should use more often. https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-adventures-of-pipeman--941822/support for PERKS, BONUS Content & FREE GIVEWAYS! Take some zany and serious journeys...

Show Notes
Transcript

A strategy that makes your offer compelling and that Business Owners should use more often.

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Take some zany and serious journeys with The Pipeman aka Dean K. Piper, CST on The Adventures of Pipeman also known as Pipeman Radio syndicated globally “Where Who Knows And Anything Goes.”

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Hi, you have done too, dear censure, Wow.

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For you your This is the pipe Man here on

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the Avengers Pipe Man W four c Y Radio with

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my Positively Pipeman segment and once again we're gonna have

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a resident expert talk about some powerful business strategies. So

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let's welcome to the show. Michael Barbarina from Next Step CFO.

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How are you?

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Thank you, Thank you Dean. Great to be here again.

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So today I want to talk about something that business owners.

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I don't know why they're hesitant, although I have three

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reasons later on why I think they're hesitant. But it's

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a strategy that works very well. It's because the customer

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doesn't want to look like a fool, doesn't want to

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make a mistake, doesn't want to be embarrassed with their spouse.

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But it's called a risk reversal. And what a risk

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reversal does is it transfers the risk from the customer

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to the seller and it makes it easier for the

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customer to say yes to your offer. So, and what

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happens is is business owners one of the things they

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think about is they think that they're going to get

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a lot of returns or that customers are not. You know,

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their customers are going to take full advantage of the

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business owner, because that's all customers do, is they take

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full advantage and they try to get as much out

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of it as humanly possible, even if it means you know,

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you know, returning everything and getting double their money back

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or whatever that risk reversal happens to be. That's not

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the case. And I can tell you my quick story

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when I was in the ski business. The problem the

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customer had the ski and is that they really never

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knew if the ski they were being sold was the

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right ski for them until they got it up in

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the mountain and tried it out. And so we implemented

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what we call the ski guarantee ski of the ski

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three times you don't like it, bring it back for

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a brand new pair, and keep bringing it back until

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we get it right. And the result was eight thousand

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pair of skis sold, a twenty five percent increase from

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the previous year, and only eight came back. Because all

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people wanted was a great ski experience, and all people

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want is whatever your product or service delivers, to have

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a great experience with it. That's it. Sure, there's going

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to be a couple of people who might take advantage

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of it. But you're dealing with the law of large numbers,

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which means your entire customer base. Out of your entire

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customer base, believe me, only a very small percentage, you're

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going to take advantage of the offer. And what I

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find is is when I present this to clients, they're

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really hesitant. But there's three reasons why a business owner

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resists doing a risk reversal. Number one, they're not confident

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in their product or service or their quality, which is

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a big problem if that's the case, because you have

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to you have to be in a position, whether relatives

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how confident you are about your product, that it's your

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obligation to your obligation to sell that product to that

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customer because you offer the best period for them. And

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if you're not that confident with your product or service,

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then I can understand why you're not doing a risk reversal.

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The other thing is business owners don't really understand the

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mathematics involved in the value of the long term value

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of a customer. And when you understand the long term

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value of a customer and you understand that the risk

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reversal is going to convert more of those customers into sales.

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Then not only do you have more sales today, but

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your future the future value of that customer is now

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in play, and you're going to increase the value of

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that customer. So it's incredibly valuable once you get a customer,

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because once you get a customer, there's a lifetime value

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component to it. They're going to order again and again

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and again. And because of that, the risk reversal is

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an outstanding strategy because you're going to convert more people

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to say yes to your offer. And then the third

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reason why business owners resist risk reversals is they're thinking

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like employees instead of strategic business owners. And let me

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tell you, when I presented my ski guarantee to my staff,

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I thought I was out of my mind because they

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had visions of thousands of pair of skis coming back

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and us losing a ton of money and it'll never

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work and boy, we'll lose our shirt. But that didn't

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happen at all. That the mindset of a business owner

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is number one. The competition may not be in position

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to do it. By the way, my competitives never ever

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copied me on that. They never did Wow, yeah, they

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never did.

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So.

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But but you know, the competition is going to either

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be slow to the draw because you're going to be

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first doing it, or uh, they're not going to be

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have the logistical positioning to do it. They might not

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have or the mindset themselves to do it. So uh

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that but that's thinking like a business owner, and thinking

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like a business owner is knowing that all you're doing

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is giving the customer a great experience because your product

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or service is superior. And if you don't think your

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product the service is superior, that's big trouble.

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That's why they didn't compete. When your competitors didn't follow

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suit with.

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You, I know they were they were afraid to do it,

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and they didn't know how great we're doing with it.

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Although you know, rumors do get out unfortunately they do

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a lot of and a lot of businesses they do,

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especially within an industry. But and so the fact that

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we were doing well didn't didn't drive them motivate them

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to copy it. And it was a simple thing to copy.

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It's not really It didn't really take much of a

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logistical thing other than how do you handle a return,

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which is kind of commonplace anyway.

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Well, that's why so many companies, especially when you see

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ads on TV or on the radio or you know,

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even a lot of speakers do it. You know, they

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always have that thirty day guarantee and they have that

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three day guarantee because they're thing that you're not going

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to return.

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Absolutely, there's no question about it. And that's but that's

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the big hang up that we business owners have. We're

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just thinking that all the customers going to do is

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utilize the ski because with my ski guarantee, they could

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ski the ski. I don't know how many times they

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could ski the t ten times and bring it back

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and I wouldn't know it right right, so uh and

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and they could and they could, and what they could do,

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what they could have done is every three weeks, every

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four weeks, bring it back and try something else, because

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skiers love to try different right skis, and so they

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could have done that. But all they wanted was the

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great ski experience with the skis that they had. If

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it was right for them, great, it made their experience better,

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and we did our job and there it is. Yeah,

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it's just it's just amazing how business owners are afraid

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to use that strategy, and it's an outstanding strategy you knows,

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the customers saying to themselves, I don't want to look

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foolish here, you know, or I don't want to have

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to explain to my spouse how I got taken. Yeah, okay,

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you know. So these are the things that are going

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through the mind of the customer. They want to make

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sure that they're not being taken and that uh, you

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know that the product is going to deliver what it's

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what it says it.

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Will deliver absolutely, So how do people reach out to

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you get more information on this and other things that

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you do to give them powerful business strategies.

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Well, what we do, Dean, we do something a little

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different than than most most companies. What we do is

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we we are always looking to update our book with

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you know, new and different ideas, and so what we

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do is it's called a book interview, and basically it's

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sixty minutes on Zoom, I present strategies for my book

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and then I asked the interviewe. I asked them, if

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is is someone that were to implement this strategy that

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I just presented, what impact would it have to a

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business in your industry? And then I documented for the book,

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uh and base and by the way, if I, if

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I like some of their quotes, I actually put the

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quote in the book along with their name and company

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name if they if they want that, and sometimes they

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are not. They want to be anonymous, but so I

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so it gives them a little exposure as well. But

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more importantly, they'll learn business strategies that their competition isn't doing.

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So uh by to ask for a book interview, just

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go to NeXTSTEP CFO dot net forward slash contact, fill

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out that contact form in the message section, write the

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word book interview, and I'll send you a calendar link

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to schedule. And as simple as that.

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Beautiful. I love it. Once again the wealth of knowledge

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that can help business people be successful and profitable. They

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need to make sure to tune in next this week.

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Also to the positively Pipemine's segment with you as our

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expert given some powerful business strategies. That next week we're

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going to talk about a cash collection strategy, So make

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sure to tune in and thanks Michael for once again

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being the expert that you are.

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Thank you to pleasure to be here, Thank you for

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listening to the adventures of pipemin I'm w for CUI Radio.