Fitness Business School – Change Your View on Retention

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in this episode, I wanna talk with you about why the way you are looking at retention might be all wrong. Let’s get to it.

Welcome to The Fitness Business School podcast – the show for fitness business owners who want to grow their income, increase their impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen til the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

So one of the things that I think is really important when it, you know, when, when we’re trying to build a business is, are ability to retain clients, our ability to bring people in. And it, it’s kind of a neat environment that we’re in. Now, when I got into the fitness industry you know, people would sell packages, it’d be, Hey, buy a six pack or 12 pack of sessions. People would pre pay. And in, in all honesty, the, the personal training world was probably a little bit more of an elitist thing, right? It was not as accessible to people who were maybe middle income. I know one of the things that, that helped me very quickly, not coming from a traditional health club background coming from, you know, outside the industry. I, I just, you know, I was very much a realist. I’m like, man, the average person, can’t just, you know, fork over $3,000 at a pop to pay for this or that.

So, so I looked it the way that, that so many things were sold, right? Like, I mean, even the way that we just navigate our finances, this, this idea of, Hey, we’ve got a mortgage payment or a monthly rent or a car payment. And even the gym memberships that were being sold were sold on a subscription. So I immediately said, Hey, let’s sell subscriptions and make these 12 month agreements. And I know that at the, that point, the two leading consultants in the fitness industry, now this was before I really even got into business coaching. They both told me I was crazy that it wouldn’t work. And ironically enough, I’ve seen them both tout the benefits of it later on. But I, I also think that sometimes the quote unquote, baby gets thrown out with the bath water here, and people have this kind of assumption that somebody should have this unbroken and perpetuity, and they’re just gonna stay with us forever. And we take it as a slight if they don’t. We you know, we, we think, okay, this person’s gonna sign up and you know, they’re gonna just stay with me in perpetuity. And so I don’t have to market. And, you know, I, I think in some cases, we’ve, we’ve become a little spoiled with that subscription model, knowing that so many other businesses, you know, they gotta market constantly because yesterday business doesn’t assure today’s business.

The real takeaway that I want you to have during this is if we think about lifetime value of a relationship, it doesn’t have to be unbroken. I look at my business and one of the coolest things that that has happened in my business is, you know, having done this, having been coaching business owners for like 17 years, I’ve had so many people, you know, work with me for a couple years and then they’ll to step away and then maybe they come back for a year or two, and then they step away. Or some people may have worked with me for eight or 10 years taking a year break and come back. And, and in my mind, it’s way cooler to think of somebody being an active client for, let’s say 10 out of 15 years, years, or eight out of 12 years, then them just being a, a client consecutively for like 24 or 36 months. I mean, you think about that, that lifetime relationship where you know, if you treat somebody well and you, you leave that bridge available to them to come back at any time there’s such a, a, a great opportunity there. And how does this happen? Well, I mean, I, I think it comes down to building this connection that really has two parts, right? There, there has to be a result component. You have, have to actually been able to help that, that person, if you’re to, to potentially get them to come back later, but then you also have to build a relationship with them and you can’t kind of burn the bridge in that relationship when they decide to step away.

Because we, we all kind of make our decisions for our own reasons. Maybe they stepped away because you know, that season of their life got really busy. Maybe they stepped away because you know, they, they were gonna be going on vacation. Maybe they caught, caught up in shiny object stuff or whatever else. But in most cases, it wasn’t like this personal affront to us. It was just, you know, what, they, they wanted to, to pause doing something. And if, if we’re wise about this, we, we make them feel still great about the relationship. We try to keep the relationship intact and we invite them back to it at any point that it makes sense for them. And that, that runs very counterintuitive to the way that, that most people handle somebody leaving. One of these subscriptions, most people in these subscription models now where, you know, we, we have somebody, they leave, we take it personally. And you know, we’re not, not at all warm and fuzzy when that moment happens, as opposed to saying, look, you know what, Hey, I’m always here for you. If you need anything, I’m, I’m, you know, I want you to think of me as your coach forever here. You know, here’s some stuff you can do at home. If you’re gonna be training at home, just making sure that they leave on a really positive note. So that should the, the interest in coming back or restarting a program, or maybe the thing that they, they, they went after didn’t turn out the way they thought, you know, that happens.

Now, we’ve been able to keep that, that bridge intact and they can come back. And that to me is one of the, the, the big opportunities when it comes to life, you know, this lifetime value, it’s not just retention being this unbroken thing. It it’s more about let’s retain the relationship. And if somebody needs to come and go because of the other things happening in their life, then, then that’s fine. We’re here for them when they need us, because that type of showing up for somebody is a, a huge separator. And you know, it, it is great for your business. I mean, it’s not just this, you know, thing where, Hey, I I’m, I’m being altruistic. I wanna be nice to somebody when they leave, you know, being a good person, being nice is a competitive advantage in today’s market. It, you know, too many people Tru read others like like transactions and, and they’re not. And you know, we’re not always gonna hold the same kind of status or level of priority in their life. Without interruption for 5, 6, 7, 10 years. It’s just not the way that, that people really function and operate.

So we have to lean into that, if we want to make sure that these relationships that we spent so much time and effort creating aren’t lost and, and they can actually bring people back into the fold, they can bring people back into your business. And, you know, obviously there’s gonna be revenue that’s associated with that, but it’s also gonna be great for your culture. And it’s also gonna be great for the, the social proof. And it’s gonna make it a much, much more enjoyable business to run. So I encourage you to think about retention a little bit differently. I encourage you to think, yeah, Hey, we wanna keep them as active paying clients as long as it makes sense, but when they step away, then our job is to retain the relationship you Do, That you get to see your business grow.

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