If you came directly to this article, please make sure you’ve already boned up on “How To Measure Your Retention Rate” so that you have great context as you read this article. If you’re good to go on that math and what retention even is, let’s press forward.
In this article, I want to talk about what big things impact your gym’s – or your coaching – retention rate on an ongoing monthly basis. I think you’ll see retention rather differently after you read this article!
When you look at retention, it’s important to understand that you are going to have clients who leave (churn) no matter how hard you work and how effectively you execute. Because of that, I believe it’s critical to view retention in 3 buckets:
Even if you are outstanding at building relationships and getting results for your clients, there are still some pieces that are out of your control. The reason we begin with this category of retention is that we want to get as much percentage of your client churn in this bucket. If you only have churn that comes from things that are out of your control, that means that your gym is doing everything it can to retain your clients.
When it comes to what you can’t control that leads to churn, you’re looking at things such as:
Whenever there is something out of your – and often out of your client’s – hands, that is client churn that you can’t be upset about because you didn’t do something that lead to clients leaving. It doesn’t mean you will be happy when clients leave, but it should be less concerning to you.
Client churn that you can’t control is the main reason that you should never expect to retain 100% of your clients on a bigger picture basis
Learn how to improve your client retention here.
Because it always depends, there are some things you can think about when it comes to things that are partially in your control. Some of those partials are:
Because these things are partially in your control, you always need to be mindful of how you’ll support your clients prior to, during, and after these types of life events happen to your clients. It’s up to you to provide an outstanding environment for your clients to feel supported. If you do, you’ll see your retention move up
When you lose clients because it’s “your fault,” it can sting. And, from my experience, where gym owners and coaches get into the most trouble is when they screw things up that are in their control. When clients leave, it is very often based on a poor client experience. It’s not usually one instance, it’s multiple or numerous small things that “pin prick” clients into ultimately leaving.
Here are some things that are in you control that can lead to retention issues:
Certainly, there are other things that lead to retention issues, but these are the major players, broadly, when you’re looking at what will inevitably lead to higher client churn.
Now, how do you actually improve your client retention now that you have the foundational understanding of retention in the first place?
I always like to write articles to give you as strong of a foundational understanding as I can. I don’t think it’s appropriate to blindly give you “answers” unless those answers have no way of changing in the future. If I can help you see broad principles and frameworks with which to learn about and make better decisions, and then if I can help you build habits to improve your coaching business, both you and I will be in a beautiful place!
If you want a quick reminder about how to measure your retention on both a monthly, annually, and rolling averaged way, click here.
If you want to continue moving forward with our retention conversation and learn about how you can improve your gym’s or coaching retention, click here.
Learn how to improve your client retention and overall business practices with this free Coach’s Toolkit.