Lots of great comments, thank you for all the kind words. I'll be responding to most of them in this post and I'll mention yours by name. Lesa - That's exactly the problem, business owners must find ways of creating value and experience to get you back at full price instead of having you wait for the next discount. Jimmy - Most small businesses don't have real marketing or sales training or experience so they make a lot of mistakes as they learn. There may be better ways to get new business but I wouldn't say always. Done properly a sale or a discount or a groupon can be very effective and ultimately profitable. You have to go back to the process I laid out in the end to make it effective. Lorraine L - I don't think there is anything wrong with buying group coupons as a consumer but often what you experience is the case after they have the first rush through the door. Hopefully your experience will be good and they won't have reached the bargain shopper total exhaustion stage! Sam - The problem with supply and demand is that it is caused by humans not a mindless logical machine. Much of what we attribute to supply and demand and price has been proven again and again to be impacted by human bias and human psychology. Most recently that was demonstrated in the credit markets and the housing market. Unfortunately, people make decisions not markets and people are driven by emotion and their psychology and they are irrational. An overwhelming number of psychological studies around pricing reinforce that. John H - Unless they get their product for free I have yet to see any case study or talk to any retailer who had enough of a lack of redemption to make it a break even possibility. It's possible theoretically but when you take into account refunds etc., those unredeemed coupons are often a wash. Kitty - Groupon actually does send out a series of videos and has their salespeople discuss what to expect and even gives a small overview of what to do. They are currently working on developing more training for the business owner as they have more and more public rantings about what Groupon did to their business. Chester - Funny! Darrin - Great job on retention! And, I've watched your business grow as you use the programs, you are focused on doing things right, good work! Phillip - I only slightly disagree with you. Upselling done wrong is stressful. Proper upselling and recommending is welcomed and wildly effective. But if you approach it like the proverbial used car salesperson and push, push, push, it doesn't work at all. Pressure sales in any form, upsell or not doesn't work that well anymore and buyer remorse is very high. Breathe always upsells whether they discount or no and no one complains because it is gentle and based on the focus and needs of the customer. I completely agree with your last paragraph. The problem becomes people believe that they are being overcharged in a category when they see the category discounting all the time and so the price expectation is lowered dramatically. We should do a teleseminar or something together sometime, drop me an email or give me a call and let's get something on the books!

Jessie - I agree that organic reviews are good but YELP is still a widely unknown resource except to those who do know of it. I'm going to do an interview with the YELP staff soon and get their response to all of this. They'd have you believe that they can tell which reviews are "organic" and which are not but in practicality they cannot tell. It doesn't make sense to have people do reviews that are not accurate by any means, but reminding customers to do a review remains a good idea. Thanks for the feedback and watch for the interview, I'm sure it will be enlightening for all of us! Dave

Erica - It is always good to err on the side of caution but YELP doesn't specifically disallow it. This is from their website for business owners. While we understand that there is a temptation to solicit reviews from your customers, it is not something we encourage. The most successful businesses on Yelp have had their reviews come organically. This is for a couple of reasons: 1. Potential customers can sometimes have an adverse reaction to a business that looks like it has solicited reviews. 2. Quite often those solicited reviews will be screened out (see above) based on the activity level of those users within the Yelp community. If you do ask your customers for reviews, please be prepared for the review number fluctuation that might follow. Also, keep in mind -- success on Yelp is primarily measured by the number of people who view your page and thus walk in the door or set an appointment, not the number of reviews you have. Yelp users are savvy: they care about quality -- not quantity -- when it comes to your business reviews. You can do a few things to gently let customers know that they can feel free to review your business on Yelp: 1. If you've already been reviewed, we suggest posting some of the Yelp reviews in your store so that customers know to find you (and review you) on Yelp. 2. Set up a Yelp for Business Owner's account and fill out your "About this Business" section so you'll be more discoverable on Yelp. -end paste from YELP- The key is to let people know that you are on YELP, to educate them about the tool and encourage them to not only review you but businesses they regularly frequent. You can put the YELP sticker in your window for example and more subtly encourage people to review you or to ask what YELP is. In no way should people solicit reviews that are not accurate representations of their business. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of every business owner to be sure that they manage their reputation appropriately. Thanks for the great post!

Thanks to all who have left comments so far, I appreciate your input. Let me be really clear. As I mentioned in the post, It isn't my purpose to say whether or not James Ray is guilty of anything, that is up to the authorities. I'm interested in demonstrating how groups are persuaded and how otherwise rational, logical people become sheeple, which in this case can and did turn deadly. It is important to understand so that we avoid much larger tragedies like the Guyana/Jim Jones tragedy or even a repeat of genocide like the Holocaust. It is also important to understand so that you can recognize the signs and make sound decisions for yourself. Do I use sales and marketing? Of course, but I only sell things that have solid scientific, psychological underpinnings and not psuedo-science or promise things like teaching the spiritual enlightenment of Samurai warriors. Just because you can say something that causes people to be fooled doesn't mean you should. Keep the comments coming! Dave Lakhani