Peloton, Promises, and People Pleasing

People pleasing can feel necessary sometimes.

Especially when you’re in the early stages of running a business.

But, when does the urge to please ALL your clients become destructive?

It’s easy to keep your clients happy when you're starting out and your audience is small.

However, as your business grows, it gets trickier.

No matter what you do, there are going to be clients who don’t agree with you.

And sometimes, they won’t just be trolls on the internet.

They’ll be long-term, loyal, paying clients who decide to stop supporting you the minute you make a decision that doesn’t align with their beliefs.

Take Peloton, for instance.

Just a few weeks ago, Peloton announced that they were increasing the prices of their monthly subscription plan by $5 for the first time in seven years.

Now to us as business owners, this decision made perfect sense.

Peloton is struggling to maintain the massive momentum they gained as the pandemic hit in 2020. And higher prices is the most logical way for them to combat their financial struggles.

Plus, the $5 increase also came with a host of brand new features like 500 new monthly classes, 45 new instructors, and 4 new in-built products, just to name a few.

But long-time Peloton fans were NOT happy.

Reactions ranged from “I can’t believe we’re getting punished for buying the bike” to “your new sales strategy is just inconveniencing existing members”.

And suddenly, Peloton was being painted as some evil overlord looking to steal pennies off of their innocent clients.

And while the negative feedback you receive might not be at the same scale as Peloton, it’s important to think critically about client backlash.

How do you deal with long-term clients turning their back on you? How do you respond when constructive feedback crosses over to negativity? And why does this happen in the first place?

Those are just some of of the questions we’re looking to answer in today’s episode.

Here’s what you can expect from this one:

• How to deal with criticism when you’re used to staying in the edges
• The kind of feedback we’ve received in our own businesses
• Why female founders are always judged harshly for ‘daring’ to grow
• Our constant battle between leadership and humility
• Why opinions should be taken as neutral

And more!

If you’ve been losing sleep over those comments on your latest Instagram post, or want to know how to deal with criticism as it comes, this is the episode for you!

Once you’re done listening, find us on Instagram (@heymarvelous) and talk to us about a few comments that you’ve gotten from clients. How did you deal with them?

RESOURCES

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Peloton’s Price Increase Post

The Billion Dollar Loser - Reeves Wiedeman

Copina Tea

This Week’s Joy:

We’re both fans of tea (with Jeni even buying, no lies, 12 whole pounds of it recently) and Copina’s collagen-boosted ones are a godsend for our hair, skin, and nails!

This Week’s Hustle:

If you’ve been as fascinated by the insane rise and fall of WeWork’s Adam Neumann as we are, ‘The Billion Dollar Loser’ by Reeves Wiedeman is the perfect read to get all caught up.

This podcast is brought to you by the Marvelous online teaching platform.

Marvelous is an easy-to-use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Marvelous was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Marvelous.