The Dopamine Button

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W O R KS H O P
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O N L I N E
Creators
Contents
COURSE
7 DAY WO R KS H O P
Discover how to use The Dopamine Button to create experiences

that result in more sales, less refunds, higher student success and
more repeat sales and referrals.
3 The Dopamine Button
5 Applying the Secrets of the App & Game Industry
9 How A NEW Breed of Online Course Presses The Dopamine Button
13 Constant Wins
21 Future Self
31 Unstoppable Momentum
39 Case Studies
41 Case Study: Josh Turner
45 Case Study: Jennifer Holbus
49 Case Study: Drs Arjun & Shobha Rayapudi
53 Case Study: Patti Dobrowolski
57 Experience Cards
I’m Marisa Murgatroyd and, like many New and
Experienced Course Creators, I used to struggle with...
• Getting people to buy my courses
• Keeping people engaged enough to finish my programs
• Preventing refunds
• Getting referrals, repeat sales and upgrades
But those days are GONE!
I went from struggling in the early years, to generating $23,192,404.73 in online course
sales, helping 9,708 students to over 10K students AND growing a thriving business with
clients all over the world... all while having a really great time fulfilling my purpose and
passion.
And it all started with one MASSIVE discovery involving a VERY TINY part of our brain.
THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 1

In this Guide, I share with you what the Dopamine
Button is and how you can use it to launch online
courses that get more sales, more student success,
less refunds and more referrals & repeat sales.
PLUS I’ve gone DEEP into my students’ strategies to give you behind-the-scenes access
to 4 real-life Case Studies that reveal exactly HOW people just like you and me are
using the Dopamine Button in markets as varied as Healthy Eating, Social Media
Marketing, Affiliate Training, Process Improvement and Vedic Astrology, to create
MEGA-Successful Online Courses. You ready? Let’s get started!
Marisa Murgatroyd
CEO, Live Your Message & Creator of The Experience Product Masterclass

The Dopamine
Button.
Grow Your Online Course Sales by Activating the
“Reward Center” Inside Your Customer’s Brain
The Dopamine Button is a small part of the brain that acts as the “Reward Center.”
When this button is pushed, the body gets a shot of dopamine. Dopamine is the
natural chemical that makes us feel joy, happiness and pleasure.
Simply put, it’s what drives us to take action and KEEP taking action, because as
humans, we’re hard-wired to move away from pain and towards pleasure.
BIG NEWS: This small part of your brain actually holds the key to not just growing your
online education business in today’s world, but creating a totally new kind of online
course that you’ve never heard of — one that will get 10-30 times MORE student success
than a traditional online course.

By Using The
Dopamine Button…
• I quickly turned a small group of 128 students in a low-ticket course... into
$710,411 in value in our business — WAY more than ANY other program I had
ever launched
• Since then, EVERY course I’ve launched has been a Million-dollar online course
• Leading to over $23MM in online course and program sales
• And THOUSANDS of customer success stories!

Applying the Secrets of the
App & Game Industry
The App & Game Industry has known about
The Dopamine Button for a long time.
They know how to press it at willl, which lights up our reward center and instantly
floods us with dopamine... and it works!!
The App & Game Industry is Now Worth $742 Billion Dollars a Year!
Pokemon Go - $832 Million Dollars in a SINGLE year!
Fortnite - 80.4 million ACTIVE users
Duolingo - 42 million MONTHLY users
Tinder - 57 million DAILY users
Facebook - 4 million likes a MINUTE
Instagram - 1.7 million likes a MINUTE

Think about the last time
you posted something
Bing...
on Facebook or
Instagram. Every time Bing...
you get a like…
Bing...
It triggers the reward system Win...

Win...
in your brain to release more
happy chemicals...
Win...
...and you feel more and more engaged! It feels
great, doesn’t it?
Your brain’s reward system is being hijacked. Those

little micro-rewards are dumping dopamine right
into your system… and you want to take that same
action again and again and again.

MOST Online Courses
Fail to Press the
Dopamine Button
The way the majority of Online Courses have been traditionally created does
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for your reward center. Not only DON’T they hit
The “Dopamine” Button...
They hit the...
OVERWHELM
BUTTON
BORING
BUTTON
TOMORROW
BUTTON
NETFLIX
BUTTON

Only 3 out of 100 people will complete your
course (if you design it in the traditional way),
leading to more refunds and less sales.
Not happy with that? Check out the next page to see what you can do instead...

How a NEW Breed of
Online Course Presses the
Dopamine Button!
After years of creating “traditional” online courses that got so-so
results, I started analyzing the App & Game Industry to figure out
exactly what they were doing behind the scenes.
I wanted to understand how THEY got people so engaged and taking so much
action. And I wanted to see if it was possible to apply their techniques to the ENTIRE
Online Course industry — in a digital product, program or course.
I became OBSESSED with ONE question that turned out to be life-changing…
Could Online Courses Press the Dopamine Button, Too?

Could Online Courses Drive
App & Game-Industry-Level Results?
When you implement the 3 simple

brain hacks into your Online Course
While most online courses drop their that trigger your customer’s reward
students into a Give Up Cycle, Experience center, you create POSITIVE
Products use the Action > Reward Cycle behavioral “addiction” that keeps
most commonly seen in games to drive them coming back again and again,
engagement, completion and success, until they finish your program AND
which leads to fewer refunds and more achieve their goals!
repeat sales & referrals!

I discovered 10 ways to
press The Dopamine Button
that make an Online Course
as successful and motivating ®
as an App or Game… And ®

The Experience Formula
was born!
You’ll discover all 10 in our 7-Day
Online Course Creators Workshop.
But let’s start with these 3:
DOPAMINE BUTTON 1
Constant Wins
This is a powerful idea straight from the world of Apps and Games, where
every little thing your students do — every button press, every action, every
power-up, every enemy they defeat — is rewarded in some way.
DOPAMINE BUTTON 2
Future Self
This helps your students imagine who they’ll become through your course
each step along the way…
DOPAMINE BUTTON 3
Unstoppable Momentum
This gives your students a deep feeling of certainty that NOTHING will get
in their way. It helps them feel unstoppable — in total uninterrupted flow...

NEW “Experience” Products
vs Boring “Traditional” Online Courses
DOPAMINE GIVE UP
BUTTON BUTTON
Vs.
NEW “Experience” Boring “Traditional”

Products Online Courses
The Dopamine Button The Give Up Button
30 - 90% Completion Rates 3-7% Completion Rates
Lower Refunds Higher Refunds
Viral Product Referrals and Repeat

Silence
Purchases

Constant Wins.
Reward and validate your customers when they do something —

no matter how small — so they always feel like they’re making
forward progress.
Regular and consistent wins build confidence, motivation and momentum... one step at
a time.
This isn’t so much a single button, but buttons you add to each step of your course that
give your student JUST enough dopamine to make it to the next step.
Because small, simple wins escalate into big results.
This is the Core Experience most commonly associated with gamification.

What Constant Wins
Feels Like...
“Being involved in an Experience
Product is like being in the matrix
of a game with Constant Wins
all day long that keep you very
engaged to keep going!”
- Joanna Martin
“I was straight away hooked

by the Constant Wins. I built
Momentum and felt really good
about my progress...”
- Chantal Couve

Real-Life
Examples.
Micro-Rewards a.k.a POINTS
Apps & Games hijack the brain’s reward system by creating micro-rewards, where every little
thing you do — every button press, every action, every powerup, every enemy you defeat — is
rewarded in some way.... so the dopamine keeps flowing.
You can do the same thing in your course by making it possible for your students to earn points
every time they take an action. We call these Experience Points (or XPs)...
And racking up XPs feels great!

Many games use Experience Points, so they may sound familiar to you. When someone collects
an XP, you can reinforce the win in 4 different ways:
• kinesthetically, since your customers physically check off a box
• visually, since they see the check box appear and watch their XP counter tick upwards
• audibly, as they hear the cha-ching sound
• and emotionally, as they feel like they’re making progress toward something they
REALLY want to achieve.

You can add micro-rewards to your
course in 4 specific places:
#1 - The Small Stuff
Start building momentum FAST by making your

students’ usual “housekeeping” tasks feel like wins,
rather than chores.
We call these “pre-actions,” and when you assign a point to each pre-action, your
students can quickly rack up 3-6 points within minutes of signing up for your program.
You can assign points to things like:

• Adding all upcoming live training dates to their calendar
• Blocking out 30 minutes a day to do your course
• Joining the program Facebook Group and introducing themselves
• Completing your intake survey
• Preparing their space
• Buying any needed supplies
• Inviting a friend to join them in the program
• Or whatever makes the most sense for your course.
With micro-rewards you can make even the most boring tasks feel like wins.

#2 - Your Foundational Content
The second and primary area where we recommend adding

points is in your foundational content.
These are all the calls, trainings and actions your customers make on their journey from
Mission to Mission Accomplished. We recommend assigning 1 XP for every training
or call your customers attend live or watch on replay, and 2 XPs for every action they
take based on the content of that training or call.
This signals to your customers that taking action is twice as important as consuming
content.
#3 - The Bigger Milestones
Not all wins are created equal! And the reward system in our
brain has us hard-wired to want bigger, faster, better, more.
So I recommend you find opportunities to create that feeling of winning more than just
1 or 2 points at a time.
I like to add “point bumps” or celebrations. It’s a special full-screen animation that
appears when my students take certain actions, à la Ms. Pac-Man or the Asana
unicorn.
You can use “point bumps” and celebrations for milestone moments in your course...
such as completing modules or achieving the big goals of your program.

#4 - The “Unexpected” or “Easter Egg” Moments
In software and web design, “Easter Eggs” are hidden surprises

you find inside a program or web page that delights people
when they find it.
When you build moments of planned spontaneity into your products, your customers
never know what will happen next.
This activates the most addictive element of Constant Wins (also known as Variable
Rewards).
As you can imagine, your customers may start to get a little bored with earning 1 point
for watching a training and 2 points for taking an action…
So why not reward them for additional things along the way, so they never know
when they’re going to get a surprise win?
You can also do this with “point bumps” or surprise animations that feel random,
rather than just reserving these for the bigger milestone moments (which could become
predictable)!
Don’t let the tech stop you!

We give all our students
the technology they need
to do this, and we even
build your membership site
for you.

Real-Life Results
Create a transformative experience for your students by adding Constant Wins. Not
only will they stay engaged and reach their desired goals, you’ll Grow Your Initial Sales
Quickly and make the money you need to create the impact you desire.
Judy Bradt
“My experience in Experience Product Masterclass – of setting a goal and moving
towards it with small steps and Constant Wins – showed me how I could create a
similarly transformative experience for my clients.”
7 days of implementing just urgency ideas, EPM DOUBLED my personal best efforts of
online course marketing – helping me bring in almost $16,000.”
By applying what you learn and keeping your clients engaged — giving them
the constant, quick wins they need to keep going — they’ll see real results, real
transformation and will continue their relationship with you...
Driving Repeat Sales
Cindy Howes
My student Cindy Howes found herself working on how to experiencify her 1:1
executive coaching clients’ transformations. She applied The Dopamine Button to one
client, who stayed engaged and then signed up for another 6 months of coaching with
Cindy.
Cindy credits using the Future Self and Constant Wins experience with producing
transformation in her clients AND, as a result, in her business.
Get Excited About Your Business Again

With a renewed focus on what your clients and students want and need and the ability to deliver
it in a way that will experiencify it with Constant Wins, you’ll never approach your work the same
way again.

Morgan Leigh
“I had reached a point in my entrepreneurial work where if things didn’t radically
change in terms of generating new students, then I was going to be headed back
to working in the community as a therapist which I did NOT want to do. I now have
the tools I have been needing to achieve my goals in ways that I couldn’t even have
imagined was possible. And even bigger in terms of success is that I have a new
lease on life and I am soooo excited I can hardly stand it sometimes!”
Deliver REAL Value
Stacey Aaronson
My student Stacey Aaronson built all 10 of the Core Experiences into her Online
Course, and felt the excitement for both her students AND herself...
because the engagement and actions her students took helped them reach the Finish
Line and achieve REAL transformation as a result.
When you create a super engaging course — with fun incentives and Constant Wins
built in — you’ll overdeliver on your promise… making a real impact on your students’
lives.
Make Your Customers Feel Good About Themselves
Mark Burns
“I started EPM with no business niche or ideas. I have been struggling to find the
right fit for an online business for me. I’m an introvert in real life but can easily jump in
online to help out someone I don’t know with website issues. EPM helped realize that
I could be a great web/tech coach and create the right course with Constant Wins.
When I realized the experiencification parts of EPM would allow me to connect with
solopreneurs and their fears of tech and make them feel better about themselves and
get back to working on their business instead of in it, made me feel well ‘Excited’.”
No matter your niche, there’s an audience that NEEDS what you have to offer. You just need to
deliver Constant Wins that fully engage them and get them to their desired “after” state… aka, their
transformation.

Future Self.
Future Self is the clear and compelling vision of who

your customers will become through your product.
Afterall, people don’t buy information, they buy transformation.
This is WHY they’re doing it, and the better life they create for themselves through
buying and completing your course.
It’s well-known that the WHAT and the WHY come before the HOW.
Without a clear vision of WHAT they’re doing and WHY it matters, most people
struggle to motivate themselves to follow through, which means they give up before
they see results.
You can get your students’ Dopamine Button firing when you help them imagine a new
reality for themselves that reinforces the core promise of your course.
The Science
of Imagination.
Our brains don’t know the difference between
imagining something and actually doing it. As
far as the brain is concerned, it’s the same thing.
Studies show that when someone can CLEARLY imagine achieving something specific
in great detail, they’re 34% more likely to do it.
That’s WHY the world’s top athletes — the ones who win the gold medals — picture
themselves winning before each competition.
Imagine activating this effect in your marketing and product delivery, so your students
know without a shadow of a doubt that this is what they HAVE to do?
What would that clarity of vision and commitment do for your sales and your customer
success?

Future Self in
Pop Culture.
Have you ever wondered why so many sci-fi movies
have hologram decks where people of the future go
to unplug?
It’s because the film writers know that in the brain, thinking, hearing or listening to
something has the same effect as experiencing it first-hand.
So theoretically, we don’t need to go anywhere to feel like we’ve just taken the best
vacation of our life.
Now this sci-fi world is coming true with virtual headsets like the Oculus, which “trick”
your brain into feeling like it’s exploring the world without leaving your living room.
During the height of the pandemic, Oculus became a $617MM company, selling
over 1.9 million headsets.
People lose themselves for hours in books, TV, social media, video games and virtual
reality... because they feel like a portal into another world.

Show Vs Tell
The science is clear. When you
paint a Future Self Vision for
your customers, they’re WAY
more likely to buy and complete
your course.
However, most people make the mistake of simply
talking about the transformation, which does
nothing for the imagination.
For you to activate the part of your customers’

brains responsible for imagination, you have to
SHOW the transformation by:
• Using words that evoke the 5 senses: touch,

sight, hearing, smell and taste
• Creating exercises or experiences that have

people visualize new possibilities in detail
This is known as “dimensionalizing,” and it’s the

equivalent of giving your customers an Oculus
headset that shows them what their future could
look like... when they work with you.

Real-Life Examples
Real-Life Examples:
Market Your Course With a Future Self Vision
If you think marketing is just about attracting customers, it’s easy to resist the marketing
process because it feels “sleazy” or “self-serving.”
But when you understand what marketing REALLY is, it goes from feeling like a necessary
evil to being something you (and your customers) actually enjoy. Marketing, at a deeper
level, is the process of helping someone create the mindsets, beliefs and conditions they
need to make a change in their life.
You’re not just priming the pump for a sale, you’re priming your customers for the
result they want through your course and creating momentum before they buy.
So, when they do hit the buy button, they feel empowered and poised and ready to take
action in your course.

Start Your Course With
a Future Self Vision
The very first thing you ask your students,
clients and customers to do matters.
Rather than having them do a bunch of “housekeeping”
or read a long email with instructions, what if you
got them straight into action by painting a Future Self
Vision of exactly what they want to do, be, feel, have,
overcome or achieve through your course?
Add Mini-Future Self

Visions Everywhere
Future Self isn’t just a single Dopamine
Button that you use in your marketing or
at the start of your course.
It’s something you can use for every single action you
ask people to take.
When someone has a clear vision of what their life will

look like by taking this action, they’re WAY more likely
to take it.

Real-Life Results
99.99% of the time, information-based products, programs and
courses don’t take enough time to paint the most detailed picture
possible of their customer’s future selves…
And it’s a big reason why they struggle to get people to buy. When you identify a clear Future
Self for your customers, you can...
Make More Sales
James Mayfield Smith

“I took this idea and went back to my prospects who didn’t buy. This opened
their eyes to the Future Self possibility of joining the program. I enrolled 3
more paying customers for an extra $1,494 (and $149 Superbux) that I
would not have earned otherwise!
I am re-launching in January and expect to earn $15K-$20K for this second

launch.”
When you know exactly WHO you want to serve and identify WHAT pain
points you can solve, your ideal clients will open their wallets.
Julie Moran
“When I learned how to position myself in my clients’ shoes, I identified a
huge potential client group that I hadn’t previously even considered. I now
have a client who wants to purchase my first short course for 12-15 of his staff
and depending on how that goes, he may purchase the whole program for
his staff!”

And when you use clear and compelling copy to SHOW
potential clients who they’ll become AFTER… you bring your
message to life and start seeing results even before you launch.
Julie Claire Guenette

Julie’s message was constantly falling flat whenever she tried to take her
business online.
When she started using Future Self Vision in her copy, she honed her message
and hooked them on the vision of who they would become when they used her
programs to leap over the hurdles they faced.
“I now know how to talk about my services using the Future Self Vision as a
honing tool to hook them on the possibility of who they can become once they
get over the hurdle they face.
With deep soul healing this is not always easy to put into ‘grounded’ words! I
finally started reaching out and I ended up upselling 3 out of 6 women I spoke
to into 1:1 work at 997$ each. I haven’t even launched the program and I’m
already working with them individually!”
Inspire People to Invest in Themselves

Become who you’re meant to be. By saying “yes” to you and putting your whole self into this
experience, you can undergo a business-changing — and life-changing — transformation.
Sarah Madras
“I invested in the person I am destined to be. I invested in my growth. I invested in
uprooting limiting beliefs. I invested in learning to live my life in flow, to have faith,
to trust the universe always protects me, and that I AM UNSTOPPABLE!!! I will be
forever grateful for this experience for my business and self.”

Real-Life Results
Bring Your Marketing to Life
Flip the switch on your marketing and sales and reap the benefits no matter what’s
happening around you.
Fredrik Eklöf
“With Covid-19, my leadership & gender consultancy and speaker
business came to a full stop. It became obvious that I needed to start
actively marketing my business and move it online. For six pandemic
months, I learned how to deliver my services live online and gathered a
lot of knowledge about online marketing strategies. But I was not able to
put it all together and give it the focus and attention it needed.
Marisa’s system flipped the switch for me so that I now see what MY way
of marketing and sales looks like: A clear Mission and Future Self.”
People don’t buy information… they buy transformation. When you get crystal
clear on WHO you serve and HOW you’ll deliver that transformation… your
marketing comes to life.
Marie-Elizabeth Mali
“My biggest takeaway was making the problem, the results, and the
Future Self super grounded and clear so that people can see themselves
in both. I feel more confident to deliver a great program and also to talk
about it with people. I’m more clear than I was before about who I am as
a coach, who my ideal client is, and the results I deliver.”

Give Your Customers Crystal Clarity
Christine Rosas
Christine’s biggest gain from implementing strategies in The
Dopamine Button was the confidence she found in herself, in
her message and how she delivered it.
She found it easier and easier to talk about her business and
programs both online and in person, and promoting her
services started to feel like second-nature.
“Sure I could’ve offered a package and most likely ticked

Mission Accomplished. But it wouldn’t have matched who
I’ve become through this process. Excited for the future and
honoring the Future Self I’m creating today.”
Your Future Self allows you and your tribe to visualize exactly what you will become
and how you will succeed once you complete your Mission.
Naz Rajan
“Experience Escalation was that missing link I had been
looking for, that made all I had learnt before, finally make
sense and fit in, and work so perfectly, to help me design,
build and launch a product that would not only work in a
way that fit my vision and core beliefs, but also would be
designed to maximise the engagement so that my tribe would
then benefit from my product and programs.”

Unstoppable
Momentum.
The state of unlimited possibility ®
grounded in real world action

created by ramping your
students up from small simple
wins to larger and larger wins.
It’s not enough to win for the sake of winning, your customers
need to feel forward progress and momentum toward the
greater mission of your course, which we’ll focus on in Part 2 of
the Online Course Creators Workshop.
As we’ve seen, most online courses ask students to work, work, work before receiving
a reward, which usually ends up leading to work, work, work, give up. And that’s
catastrophic for both your students and your business.
So while integrating Constant Wins allows you to set up a cycle of action-reward,

action-reward, action-reward, Unstoppable Momentum is all about sequencing
these wins to ramp your students up from small, simple, easy actions that escalate
into big results by building their confidence, skill and momentum one step at a time —
starting with their first win and working your way up from there!

The $400,000 Skill.
Have you ever had a moment when you wanted to achieve
or do something, and you had a deep feeling of certainty that
NOTHING was going to get in your way?
You were in uninterrupted flow... with unstoppable momentum. You look around, and
hours, days or even weeks have gone by, and you’ve achieved something amazing.
You may even feel completely transformed in some way thanks to that experience.
A great example is a DJ who ramps their audience up into a frenzy, where they almost
lose themselves in the music — simply by sequencing songs in just the right way.
They’re practicing the Core Experience of Unstoppable Momentum... and guess how
much they can earn by mastering this skill?
Well, the best DJs in the world get paid up to $400,000 a set because of the
Unstoppable Momentum they can create for a whole group of people at the same
time!
That’s the power and VALUE of a well-designed experience and, with The Experience
Formula®, you can actually engineer this kind of feeling for your students so they
become unstoppable achievement machines intent on transforming their lives,
becoming more and doing more.

The Science of Momentum
Research shows that when you face challenges that are 4%
greater than your current level of skill, you get into the Flow
Channel where you feel both stretched and confident at the
same time...
You get in The Zone. You build skills and momentum fast, and you start doing things
that would have been impossible for you before.
Imagine what would be possible for you and your students if you could ramp up
your skills by 4% a day? Day after day. 5 days a week. Imagine the momentum
you’d feel. In just 30 days, you could increase your skills and confidence by 80%.
In 12-weeks, you could make a 240% leap.
I see my students make this kind of gain ALL THE TIME by starting with small simple
wins that escalate into big results.
But if you drop people into the deep end — where they’re challenged far beyond
their level of skill, they won’t feel like they have what it takes to keep going. No one
wants to tackle an impossible challenge or play a game they can’t possibly win.

Real-Life Examples
The Make or Break Moment
You want to start building Unstoppable Momentum in your course from Moment 1
of Day 1. This is the make or break moment in most courses where you either kick off
the feeling of Unstoppable Momentum... or begin the slow, creeping overwhelm and
frustration that leads to those 97% failure rates we’ve been talking about.
While people judge a book by it’s cover, they judge a course by the first training.
So, if you already have a course, let me ask you what happens immediately after
someone buys? What does your student’s first experience look like?
And if you’re about to create your first course, what could it look like?
How can you design an experience that challenges all your students no more than 4%,
regardless of their current level of skill and experience?

Before & After
My student Henry had created a course to help musicians get their
music featured on TV shows. The first step in the process was to fill
out a bunch of paperwork so they could get listed for consideration
by the TV studios.
It was about 2 hours of paperwork followed by... waiting. And his students were dropping
like flies. Talk about delayed gratification!
So I recommended that instead of sending them straight to the paperwork, he redesign his
onboarding sequence.
So new students start their experience with a session on creating their “Dream 50” List.
Now within minutes of signing up for his course, they’re led through the process of visualizing
exactly which 50 TV shows they’d most like to be featured on — any one of which would be
a huge win and make their entire investment in his course worthwhile.
However this could still be a challenging step for students who are coming in with no
experience, so I suggested that he make this exercise completely full-proof by compiling a list
of all the TV shows that accept submissions by amateur artists, organized by genre. Now all
they have to do is go through the list and choose 50 shows.
The beauty of this first session is that each time they select a show, feels like a Micro-Reward.
Plus each show they select feels like they’re imagining a new Future Self as a published
musician, while reinforcing the Mission of his course — to get their music featured on TV.
That’s how these Dopamine Buttons start to stack up from Moment 1 of Day 1 to create
Unstoppable Momentum towards Mission Accomplished.
Now Henry’s students were engaged and taking action right out of the gate.

Course Sequencing
It’s not enough to start your students strong on Moment 1 of Day 1.
If you want to maintain the feeling of Unstoppable Momentum, you
need to keep ramping your students up from small simple actions to
larger and larger actions and rewards, so they can make those huge
leaps.
Think of your course like that $400,000 DJ set that almost effortlessly builds and builds to a
fevered pitch — where everyone is dancing and moving to the same beat — before rolling to
the close.
This is what’s known as the 3 Act Structure, and you can find this structure in books, movies
and music, which are all crafted to keep people reading, watching or listening to the very
end.
The best DJs create Unstoppable Momentum by:

• introducing an idea or style
• building on that introduction with tension and lead up to a dramatic climax
• rolling “down the hill” of the arc’s energy at the end
But few people apply this to courses, which is one of the reasons for the step fall-off.

Real-Life Results
When you create Unstoppable Momentum... you can...
Change Lives
Marla Evans
“Now I understand how to create Unstoppable Momentum in my classes.
I understand the importance of developing and reinforcing the Future Self
Vision in order to keep clients focused on their goal. I’m making a conscious
effort to include Constant Wins in every class. And I’m incorporating all the
other Experience Escalation techniques into my classes.
So far I’ve only delivered my bonus pre-module and first live class. Before the
course even started I received the following note from a participant:
‘I received the bonus module and I am working on it. I was surprised at how
Activity 2 ‘Your Future Self’ is really helping me to clarify the changes I want
to make.’
So using the techniques I learned here, lives are already changing and class
hasn’t even started!”
Antonia Daniek
“It was quite a sprint and I had several weeks of silence within me, and then
I picked it up again. Finally I am out there in the World, speaking my truth,
sharing my wisdom, making an even bigger difference, creating an impact
I am truly passionate about. Now I feel an unstoppable momentum. Step
by Step. I do it! Whatever it takes. And this translates into every area of my
business. Thank you so much.”

Change Lives
Danilo Tambone
Danilo is a Scrum Project Management Instructor in Milan who integrated
The Experience Formula® into a workshop for 15 IT & Software Development
Professionals and was amazed by the response he got.
“The results? At the end of the two days, each of them told me goodbye with a big
smile and ‘Congratulations for the course’!
Not a simple ‘Thank you,’ but “’Congrats.’ I stared at them, unbelievingly. I then
realized that I had made a vibe shift, and I was really embodying the principles
that I had learnt during the Masterclass.”
Uplevel an Existing Program
Karen Tankersley
“I have been an online course creator for about 5 years and have about 15
courses that I sell to school teachers on how to improve their teaching and relate to
their students in more effective ways. I have a lot of experience in this area having
been a school administrator and School Professional Developer for the past 15
years.
During Marisa’s training I realized that although the course had meaningful
information, and I tried to change it up by using several modalities, it could be a
lot more fun by designing in some points of Unstoppable Momentum. I am now
designing a totally new course and using what I have learned in the EPM course to
make the modules more focused on the module mission and future self vision.”
Kathleen Case
“I have already done this program 5 times since 2015 in person and 2021 is
to be the first time it will be virtual. I signed up for the course to learn how to
make the virtual format and experience amazing. I adapted the curriculum to
include all of the elements of Experience Escalation, including Mission, Future
Self, Bird’s Eye View, Constant Wins, Normalizing Challenges, Peak Emotional
Experience, Feedback Loops, Community, Unstoppable Momentum, and Mission
Accomplished.”

Case Studies.
How Online Course Creators are Using The Dopamine Button to
Create “Experiences” that Result in More Sales, Less Refunds,
Higher Student Success and More Repeat Customers

The following case studies show how other people, just like you, have been able to use
The Experience Formula® to create highly profitable, massively successful online courses.
These Case Studies will give you inspiration for YOUR online course, regardless of your
niche, your experience level or whether you’ve created a course before or not.
It includes actual sneak peeks INSIDE their high performing courses — the real-life ways
they are using The Dopamine Button to create EXPERIENCES that result in more sales, less
refunds, higher student success and more repeat customers and referrals.

Josh Turner
How to DRASTICALLY Reduce Refund Rates By
Making These Specific Tweaks
Even though he had his front end marketing “dialed in,” LinkedIn
Marketing Expert, Josh Turner was losing customers during the
Refund Period of his Online Course.
See the specific tweaks Josh and his team made to their course
that reduced their refund rates by 63.5% (that’s more than
$40,000 in previously lost revenue being SAVED from walking
out the door each launch!)

• Already an industry heavyweight with thousands of students and clients, Josh
Turner and his team didn’t have a problem selling their HIGHLY popular
Appointment Generator Course
• But they had a couple of KEY areas where people were “dropping off” after
they’d purchased
• FIRST - Onboarding people and getting them activated to dive into and USE the
training was an issue
• SECOND - 10% of students were requesting a REFUND during the Refund

Period
• That’s when they discovered The Experience Formula®
• Using The Experience Formula® they created a points system to give people
Constant Wins and to create Unstoppable Momentum which resulted in 97%
engagement in the course.
The Results!
Course The Appointment Generator - $1,997
Customer Satisfaction Increased Testimonials by 62% - more happy customers!
Customer Engagement 97% of students engaged in the Course
Slashed Refunds Refund Rate REDUCED from by 63.5% (saving $40,000

a year)
Completion Rates Introducing The Experience Formula® helped to DOUBLE

course completion rates
More Upsells Higher completion and satisfaction meant significantly

more people going on to buy higher $ Coaching and
Done For You Services

“More people taking the program; more people
getting engaged; more people getting results — ®
once we implemented The Experience Formula !”
Josh Turner
Turning Happy Clients Into Referrals

• One of the ways Josh and his team created wins and motivation for
course students was to issue points for completing activities
• Once a person got to a certain level of points they unlocked access to the
LinkedSelling Referral Program
• This strategy resulted in 800 NEW Referral Partners the very FIRST time
it was launched
• This also resulted in 15-20 substantial Referral Partners offering long-term

benefits
• This Word of Mouth has resulted in more than $500,000 in sales —

that’s FREE MONEY — apart from simply making the program available
to people once they hit a certain level the team didn’t have to do anything
more to get these extra sales

Saved $40,000 by
slashing refund rate.
Happier, more engaged

& successful customers
added >$500K in
referrals!

Jennifer Holbus
How This Mom of Two Went from Sleeping on
the Floor to Making $250,000 in 6 Months
Even though she had a successful job for a big corporation, after a
move to a new city, Jennifer Holbus found herself cash-strapped and
unable to afford furniture or winter clothes and being forced to sleep on
the floor.
Despite suffering from Social Anxiety, Jennifer was able to use The
Experience Formula® to dramatically change her circumstances,
generating $250,000 in 6 months and becoming her own boss.

• Jennifer Holbus is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt expert in process
improvement and productivity (the highest accreditation possible).
• Despite suffering from severe Social Anxiety, which makes it difficult for her to be in
groups of people, Jennifer enjoyed a successful corporate career, mostly working
from home.
• When her new boss insisted she come into the office Jennifer knew it was finally
time she started her own business on her terms taking her vast expertise and
applying it to online courses, programs and consulting.
• Now, she has the freedom to show up when she wants to and for whom she
chooses AND she gets to work from home ALL the time, also taking months off at a
time to spend with her children.
• By creating “Experiences” for her students and clients, Jennifer has become an
in-demand trainer and consultant, generating $250,000 within 6 months of
completing the Experience Product Masterclass.
The Results!
Online Course Six Sigma Training & Certification
Income $250,000 in 6-months
Her Own Boss Now Jennifer can hire trainers to show up when she
doesn’t want to.
Playing to Her By having her qualified trainers do much of the training

Strengths delivery, Jennifer can stay behind her laptop and off the
cameras because that’s where she’s most comfortable.
Completion Rates Jennifer has the freedom to take time off when she needs
to and work from home, making time for her children.

“I struggled with my business until I found the
Experience Product Masterclass. And then I said to
myself ‘This is it!’”
Jennifer Holbus
Interactive Simulations
Create Engaging Experiences

“I started my own biz
on my own terms. Now,
I have the freedom to
show up when I want
to and for whom I
choose to.”

Huge Win!
30 New Students!
Drs Arjun & Shobha

Rayapudi
From an Established Live Event to an Online
Course PROFITABLY
How a married couple with zero online experience made over $24,952 in
online course sales the very FIRST TIME they made their offer (and how
they made an extra $63,046 since by making ONE small tweak!).

• Drs Arjun and Shobha Ryapudi have a PASSION for helping people take
charge of their health, break free from disease and drugs, and change their
destiny through better food.
• Previously they’d hosted LIVE in person “Gift of Health” Programs in their

hometown, Newfoundland, in Canada.
• They wanted to shift to an Online Program to serve more people BUT their live
events were SO interactive, with people trying more than 60 foods onsite, they
didn’t know how they could transform that experience online.
• That’s when they discovered The Experience Formula®.
• They completed the Experience Product Masterclass and within just a few short
months they had their first Online Course ready to go.
• They’ve been so successful so quickly with their online course that Arjun has
been able to go half-time as a surgeon and devote more time to healing people
with his chef’s knife instead of his surgeon’s knife!
The Results!
First Course Gift of Health - $997
Course Release 25 Students and $24,925 in Sales
Next Release 30 Students and $29,910 in Sales
Next Program 6 Month Mentoring - $1,997
Upsell to 60% Uptake From Gift of Health Course Students. An

Mentoring ADDITIONAL $29,955 from the SAME Students!

“Being able to help people all over the world and
do it all from home has been a huge blessing for us.
We love it!”
Dr. Arjun Rayapudi olbus
60% Uptake in Their Higher $ Program

• By adding another higher $ 6-month mentoring program to their offer,
Drs Arjun and Shobha tapped into the real power of an Experience
Product.
• Because they are creating a course people LOVE, they are also getting
MASSIVE uptake on their next step...
• With a MASSIVE 60% of all students deciding to move forward!
• This is a key benefit of an Experience Product — when people complete

your online course they are much more likely to buy from you again
and again and refer their friends to buy from you as well.
ZERO Refunds!
• Arjun and Shobha are creating such a powerful experience for their students
• Getting them engaged and winning from the very first day
• This has meant they’ve had ZERO refund requests — another massive benefit
of having an Experience Product — so all that money has stayed in their
pockets.

From LIVE
in person events
to online courses.

Patti Dobrowolski
What This Keynote Speaker & Course Creator Did
To Instantly SPIKE Her Income by $9,000 in Just
ONE DAY
See how this TEDx & Keynote Speaker & Author went from idea
→ to FIRST EVER Online Course → to $200,000 in JUST 18 months
(and invented a whole new revenue stream for her business, creating
stability, growth and FUN in the process!).

• Patti Dobrowolski is a change activist and visual thinker who already had a
successful business as a speaker, author and consultant.
• She came to a place in her business where she felt “stalled out” and bored and wanted
to do something different.
• She knew she’d created a process called “Draw Your Future” which she thought “could”
possibly become a program, even though she’d never monetized it before, and only
given it away online as a freebie for friends and colleagues.
• Using The Experience Formula®, Patti was able to map out, create and launch her Draw
Your Future program, which was her FIRST EVER online course.
• She quickly saw the opportunity to create a companion course “Wizard at the
Whiteboard” and a Certification Program.
• Patti made $140,000 in her FIRST YEAR as a direct result and dramatically stabilized
her business by adding in NEW income streams IN ADDITION to her Keynote and
Consulting revenue.
The Results!
First Course Draw Your Future Certification - $1,500
Next Course Wizard at the Whiteboard - $297
Her Own Boss Adding a high $ mentoring offer boosted revenues further,
giving Patti a $9,000 SPIKE in sales in ONE day!
Revenue in 18 months Over $200,000
Referrals More than 75% of her 732 classroom sales have come
from student referrals because they LOVE the course
EXPERIENCE
Growing Impact & DOUBLED her email list AND just landed an opportunity
Reach that gives her reach to 1 million people!
“Your audience is specifically out there waiting just
for you. You don’t want to be anybody but yourself.”
Patti Dobrowolski
Loving Your Business Again!

• Patti was bored and “stalled out” and wanted to know “what was next”
• Creating Online Courses and Mentoring Programs has reignited Patti’s
passion for her business
• AND opened up BRAND NEW streams of income
• Creating a STRONG, STABLE business she LOVES
Creating A Series of Products Your Audience Wants

To Buy Again and Again
• Patti says, “I started to really see how that audience of mine just kept
building on itself. The same people would come back for workshops again
and again. If I did a five day challenge they would all show up!”
• In addition to her Signature “Draw Your Future” Online Program, Patti
also created “Wizard at the Whiteboard” which serves as an intro to her
Signature course.
• She also created a high-dollar Mentoring offer that instantly SPIKED her
sales and created deeper connection and referrals from her students.

$140,000 in Sales in FIRST Year!
“Realized my First
Course could be
expanded into
Certification and I
could create a lead in
course as well.”
Massive SPIKE
in sales.$9,000 in
ONE day in May!
“I have never monetized or tried to

teach people how to draw. But when
I met Marisa and discovred The
Experience Formula®, EVERYTHING
changed!”

Experience
Cards.
It’s one thing to read about The Dopamine Button
and it’s another thing entirely to feel it.
Experience what it feels like to activate the reward center in your brain by completing
one of the exercises on these 6 experience cards. Each exercise is designed to take
less than 10 minutes.
Now for the fun part:

Post what you did and how you felt on our FB thread for a chance to win one
of our famous “Live Your Message” t-shirts! For bonus points include a screenshot or
photo of what you did and take a moment to check out what other people did! :)
NOTE: Submissions must be posted by 9pm PT on Oct 8 to qualify. Winners will be

announced on our Viral Product Checklist Workshop on Oct 9 @ 1pm PT!

Win on Win on
Facebook Instagram
Post this viral message to your Facebook feed and Post a picture on Instagram of something you
see how you feel when you get more interactions thought was the height of class when you were a
and comments then you may have ever gotten kid (such as Grey Poupon, Andrews mints, shrimp
before. cocktail, you name it) with this caption:
“What is something you’ve done that you’re fairly “Topic: Things you thought were the height of class
confident you’re the ONLY person on my friends when you were a kid. I’ll start...”
list to have ever done? Given the wide range of
people I know, I think this’ll be interesting... “ See what feedback you get and how you feel
when it comes through...
Give the Gift Win with a Health

of Dopamine & Fitness App
Send a note of appreciation via an email, text or If you’ve had trouble fitting exercise into your day,
voice message to someone you don’t speak with download the Seven App on your phone (www.
on a regular basis, such as an old friend, an old seven.app) and follow their 7-minute workout.
colleague, a guru, your next door neighbor, your
doorman, mailman, your favorite author. The app guides you through 12 simple exercises
for just 30-seconds each with a 10 second break
Let them know what you appreciate about them between each exercise. Their graphics and sound
and why. Keep it simple — just two paragraphs. effects make you feel like you’re winning with every
Then sit back and feel how good it is to make 30 second burst...
someone’s day. Who knows, you may even get a
response.
Win with a Time Choose Your

Tracker App Own Win
If you struggle with focus and productivity, Identify the #1 thing you want to complete today...
download the Forest App on your phone (www. it could be big or it could be small, but it needs to
forestapp.cc) and set your first time block. be something that you can complete today.
See how you feel when you complete your first time Decide in advance how you want to celebrate
block and watch your tree grow! your win and make sure you do it!

About The Author.
Marisa Murgatroyd started her career as an artist who was
told by her father that she had no marketable skills.
She figured out how to build a multi-million dollar business anyway and has shown over
10,000 students how to succeed online — many of whom also felt like they had “no
marketable skills”.
As the Founder of Live Your Message & Creator of the Experience Product Masterclass,
she’s on a mission to reinvent online education around the world so results and engagement
become the norm and not the exception.
Marisa has personally sold over $23M in online courses and programs that have student
success rates 10-30 times higher than the industry standard. She does this by creating what
she calls “experience products” instead of more traditional online courses and information-
based products.
An Experience Product is an entirely new framework for creating online courses that combine
the most powerful elements of gamification, behavioral design, adult learning psychology,
and innovative curriculum design to create an engaging experience that works with the
brain’s natural chemistry of motivation to get people “hooked” on taking action and getting
results. Or as she likes to say, “I get people so excited about changing their lives that they
stop dreaming and start doing.”
Marisa has shared this new approach to product creation at top industry events including
Traffic & Conversion Summit, Mindvalley Momentum, Evercoach Summit, LaunchCon and
the Conscious Business Network.
Most recently Marisa co-founded Xperiencify, the world’s first fully gamified membership site
software, to make her methodology available to more online course creators. She lives in
Topanga Canyon, California with her husband and business partner Murray.

GET STARTED WITH SESSION 1:
The “Dopamine Button”

How to Grow Your Online Course Sales by Activating
the “Reward Center” Inside Your Customer’s Brain
Save your seat now to discover how to:
• Create “binge-worthy” online courses that your customers can’t help but
LOVE (just like the course creators in this swipe file)
• Tap into brain chemistry to hyper-motivate your customers towards the results
they want and slash refund rates by 70-80%
• Embed the “dopamine button” in your online courses to drive 10-30x more
student success (that turns into radically more repeat sales and referrals)
• And much much more…
SAVE YOUR SE AT NOW
OR visit www.liveyourmessage.com/hacks

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1

Want to go even deeper into the Dopamine Button?

Register for our FREE Online Workshop!

SAVE YOUR SE AT NOW

Discover how to use The Dopamine Button to create experiences

3 The Dopamine Button

5 Applying the Secrets of the App & Game Industry

9 How A NEW Breed of Online Course Presses The Dopamine Button

41 Case Study: Josh Turner

45 Case Study: Jennifer Holbus

49 Case Study: Drs Arjun & Shobha Rayapudi

53 Case Study: Patti Dobrowolski

• Keeping people engaged enough to finish my programs

• Getting referrals, repeat sales and upgrades

But those days are GONE!

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 1

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 2

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 3

• Leading to over $23MM in online course and program sales

• And THOUSANDS of customer success stories!

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 4

Pokemon Go - $832 Million Dollars in a SINGLE year!

Fortnite - 80.4 million ACTIVE users

Duolingo - 42 million MONTHLY users

Tinder - 57 million DAILY users

Facebook - 4 million likes a MINUTE

Instagram - 1.7 million likes a MINUTE

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 5

It triggers the reward system Win...

Your brain’s reward system is being hijacked. Those

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 6

They hit the...

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 7

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 8

I became OBSESSED with ONE question that turned out to be life-changing…

Could Online Courses Press the Dopamine Button, Too?

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 9

When you implement the 3 simple

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 10

as an App or Game… And ®

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 11

NEW “Experience” Boring “Traditional”

30 - 90% Completion Rates 3-7% Completion Rates

Lower Refunds Higher Refunds

Viral Product Referrals and Repeat

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 12

Reward and validate your customers when they do something —

Because small, simple wins escalate into big results.

This is the Core Experience most commonly associated with gamification.

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 13

“I was straight away hooked

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 14

And racking up XPs feels great!

• kinesthetically, since your customers physically check off a box

• audibly, as they hear the cha-ching sound

THE DOPAMINE BUTTON 15

Start building momentum FAST by making your

You can assign points to things like:

• Blocking out 30 minutes a day to do your course

• Joining the program Facebook Group and introducing themselves

• Completing your intake survey

• Preparing their space

• Buying any needed supplies