The Death of Payment Plans: Introducing Afterpay!
Sep 25, 2023
All right, friends. Buckle up. I have an exciting announcement to share. Today, we're going to be talking about Afterpay and the death of payment plans in my business…which is not a bad thing, by the way. This is actually a good thing for you and for me.
I'm very excited to share what Afterpay is and what payment plans are going to look like going forward, so let’s jump right in!
What is Afterpay?
So, Afterpay is now enabled on my Kajabi account. It’s a great new feature that I'm so excited to offer…honestly, probably a little too excited!
If you aren’t familiar, Afterpay is a “buy now, pay later” option. You've probably seen it on certain products that you've ordered. You may be familiar with the name. But it wasn't a payment option in Kajabi before, so up until now, I actually tried really hard to find ways to get any kind of financing for my programs that wasn't a payment plan administered by me personally.
In short, Afterpay is a third party that will play the part of the “lender” in this situation to give you payment plans. Their costs are lower than anything that I could realistically offer you. Their time frame is longer if you choose to pay interest. It's shorter if you don't pay interest, but the idea that you can have any kind of payment plan with no interest is still incredible to me.
Why I’m Cutting Out Payment Plans
The reason I needed to track down a payment plan option that wasn’t run by me personally is that payment plans are a nightmare for the people who are offering them.
It’s risky to open up the doors to a product when somebody can default on their payments. In my own offers, I've dabbled with payment plans here and there, but I could never figure out how to make them make sense for me and for the client.
I've structured these payment plans in many different ways, trying to find a way that would work to prevent defaulting while also being fair to the people who hold their obligations, but it just never worked.
I don't think that it's fair to let people into programs, only for them to default when they’ve already had access to something that somebody else honored their commitment to in order to access it.
Now, in my coaching business, my default rate is really, really low compared to other coaches I know. It's very low for the industry, because my ideal clients tend to come in and take their commitment seriously. They tend to operate with pretty high integrity, and I don't think that's so much of a shock when you consider the way that I market is with such integrity.
I'm always giving you space to make your own decisions. I'm always being real with you about what you're going to get behind the scenes in my programs. If there's anything you're not getting, I'm telling you ahead of time. If you've ever purchased BABs or LIBBY, you know that you have to go through a pre-screening process where you have to acknowledge that you’re aware of what you are and aren’t getting.
Integrity attracts integrity. In fact, integrity tends to repel people who are disingenuous. It scares them off.
That said, I have had people who have purchased and defaulted, and then all of a sudden, they just disappeared and ghosted me entirely. At that point, you end up trying to follow them and get your money, or figure out what happened, and it's a bad feeling.
Not only that, but it's very distracting. Yet you can't look away, because you can't make that part of your business model.
This is a business. At the end of the day, I can't allow people to come in and default on payments and then disappear. And yes, I can turn off their access to the program, but how much did they get through in that time?
Even when people do follow through, it's just a lot of admin work for me to handle myself. I'm explaining that so that you can understand why payment plans in this industry typically cost more, and why offering them is hard.
But at the same time, I've always wanted to offer them, because I don't want the barrier to be high for something where my goal is to teach people a new skill they can monetize for life. I don't want there to be some crazy-high barrier to the person who needs it the most: the person who may be in debt with bad credit, the person with a low-paying job, the person who doesn’t have a lot of time or resources, maybe even the person without a lot of family connections…all of these are examples of people who could use another way to get into the program.
So, without further ado (drumroll, please!)…introducing Afterpay!
Your Afterpay Options
Let’s use BABs as the main example here.
If you go to apply for BABs, you're going to get the link to the pay-in-full price. I have changed the text underneath it, so it should say, “If you're interested in payment options, click Afterpay at checkout.”
I also link out to my 0% Chase card. I do still think that the 0% Chase card is better than Afterpay payment plans if you can qualify, but if you apply for the Chase card and you don't get it, Afterpay becomes your next best bet if you know that you can make the payments.
Once you click on the Afterpay option, you’ll be shown a couple of different payment options. There are zero interest plans that have you make four payments over the course of two months—that’s one payment every two weeks—and then there are longer options that have some interest. I'm not sure if these are the same for everybody.
So if you're interested in Afterpay, go through, fill out the application, click the link, click Afterpay, get to your options, and then if you want to reach out to me, I would love to know what you're seeing. I’d love to know if the options vary or if they’re standard.
Currently, I’m going off of the information that the first person to choose Afterpay sent my way.
The first thing that they were offered was the no-interest plan. But if that’s too tight for you, that's fine. Your next option would be low-interest payments.
From what I’ve been told so far, these come in six or twelve month plans, and it tells you very clearly what the interest and the APR is.
For BABs, the total interest for the six-month plan would be only fifty-two dollars. So in total, it would be the base price plus fifty-two dollars divided by six.
The other option was to pay over twelve months. That plan does double the interest, but the rate itself is only 1% higher. The total interest for twelve months would be $109. So that’s the base pay-in-full price plus one hundred and nine dollars divided by twelve.
I have never been able to offer something that low when doing payment plans myself. That is very low for the industry.
Afterpay Is Still A Last Resort…But Now You Have That Resort!
All of this to say that going forward, I'll be using Afterpay. My first recommendation is still to save until you've got the money; my second recommendation would be to use a 0% Chase business card. (You can find the link to that application when you apply for either one of my programs!) And then, if you can't get approved for that, your third best option would be Afterpay.
With Afterpay, I would recommend the shorter, no-interest option if you can make that work, or at least the lowest interest that you know that you can make on a payment plan. If it was me, that would be the order that I would approach it.
Currently, you can choose to use Afterpay for BABs, my workshop bundle, and my Kajabi templates. I will be looking at some of my other offers and turning it on for whatever makes sense. If you have your eyes on a specific offer that Afterpay isn't on for, let me know.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! And if you do use it, let me know what your experience was like!
EPISODE RESOURCES:
If you’ve been eyeing my Kajabi Website Templates, good news–they’re now available with Afterpay! Head here to snag them and set up your payment plan: katieferro.com/offers/zpL3TZR3/checkout
If you’ve been wanting to binge my workshops, now is your chance. You can purchase my Workshop Bundles using Afterpay now: https://www.katieferro.com/offers/umpWWCYd/checkout
If you're looking for more tips for bookkeeping, insight on how to become a bookkeeper, and how to say hello to a more confident business model, enroll in Become A Bookkeeper (BABs). (Now available with Afterpay!)
To learn about the programs and get a peek behind the curtain, head to www.katieferro.com/6-secrets.
Learn how to take your bookkeeping skills and turn them into a business that allows you to replace (or surpass) your corporate salary, be present for your life, and profoundly impact your clients without selling your life in the process by joining Life by the Books (LIBBY).
Get access to my monthly Tech Talks: www.katieferro.com/tech-talks
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