Chris Cooper's Blog, page 2

Affinity Marketing: How to Clone Your Best Clients and Keep Them Longer

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Referrals: The Retention Superpower You’re Probably Ignoring

I’m going to give you one of the biggest retention secrets I know:

If you want your clients to stay longer, ask them for a referral.

That might surprise you.

Most gym owners think referrals are only about getting new clients.

But the act of bringing in a friend, spouse or coworker makes your current client more committed to your gym. It weaves them into a web of relationships that’s hard to break.

In fact, asking for referral at the right time has been proven to increase length of engagement (LEG) in gyms.

Here’s why the tactic works—and how to do it right.

Why Referrals Build Retention

When someone recommends your gym, they’re putting their reputation on the line.

Evolution wired us to want to be part of the tribe, not the outsider. So if a client brings their spouse, friend or coworker into your gym, that client feels responsible for making sure the experience is overwhelmingly positive. They sell your gym on your behalf because they don’t want to look bad.

You know this is true. I’m sure you’ve told a friend about a great restaurant, movie, hotel, hairstylist or contractor. When you made the recommendation, you felt partially responsible for the result, right?

“Wow, that new deck is spectacular. I told you he did amazing work!”

Same deal in the gym.

Once a new person joins on a referral, retention numbers improve substantially:

A client is more likely to stay if their spouse is also training.Friends and coworkers reinforce each other’s commitment—“See you at the gym tonight?” and “Where were you last night?”Parents keep at it when their kids are in the youth program.And so on.

What used to be friction—“You’re late for dinner,” “You’re sweaty at work,” “Let’s pound beers and watch the game”—becomes support. When two or more people start moving in the same direction, momentum builds fast.

In short, a referral transforms family, friends and coworkers from obstacles into allies.

The Wrong Way to Do Referrals

Most gym owners get referrals wrong and miss a huge opportunity to shrink churn. Here are the biggest mistakes:

Waiting and hoping. Clients rarely bring people in without being asked to do so.Bribing. Discounts and giveaways attract the wrong people and make the referral feel transactional.Dumping the job on the client. Your members aren’t on your sales team. It isn’t their job to close the deal.

Referrals work best when they’re proactive and very personal.

The Affinity Marketing Cheat Sheet

At Two-Brain, we use a simple tool called the Affinity Marketing Cheat Sheet to generate referrals.

Here’s how it works:

1. List your best clients—the people you’d love to clone.

2. Map their circles. For each client, note family, coworkers, friends and hobbies. Use names wherever possible. (If you can’t do this, you should spend more time getting to know the client!)

3. Prioritize by affinity: family first, then coworkers, then friends, then hobby groups. The closer the connection, the stronger the referral.

This exercise gives you a list of your next best clients: the people who already trust your best members.

How to Ask for a Referral

The best time to ask for a referral is during a Goal Review Session.

Expect to ask for referrals in about two of five sessions—but you can increase the number by telling people at intake that you will ask for a referral if things are going really well in 90 days. That sets the stage for the ask right on Day 1.

In your session, ask the client about progress. If the client says they’re happy, that’s your opening.

Here’s the script:

1. Celebrate their progress.

2. Then say: “I’ve been thinking about the best way to say thank you for being such a great client. I know you said [NAME] has been curious about fitness. What if we invited them in for a short session with the two of us?”

3. Get contact info so you can offer a two-on-one appointment. Not a free trial or a random class. Offer a low-pressure, personalized workout with the referring friend.

4. Call or message the referral with the client present. Take the initiative yourself.

“Hey [NAME], it’s [NAME] from the [GYM] sitting here with [CLIENT]. She’s just doing amazing, and we’re so proud of her. We both thought it would be great if you’d come in and do a little workout with her next Tuesday. What do you say?”

5. If the person isn’t interested? No problem. Thank the client and pivot to asking for a story or testimonial. You still win.

6. If the person is interested, confirm the slot and supply any info or forms. On the day of the session, do a short, low-impact, fun workout so everyone has a great time. Then talk to the referred person about fitness—the session has now become a No Sweat Intro.

7. Thank the referring client.

Retention fact: She’s going to stay longer now that her husband is training at the gym, too.
Real Examples

Use your cheat sheet to identify who’s most likely to say yes.

Spouses: Invite the husband or wife in for a two-on-one session. Both now have a stronger reason to stay.Kids: Offer to host a birthday party or team windup at your gym. This is the only time we would suggest you offer a “free trial.” In this case, if kids try it and love it, they’ll sell their parents better than you ever could.Coworkers: Suggest a fun session together.Friends/hobby buddies: Solve a problem for a great client’s friend or beer-league buddy.
Key Takeaways

Remember: Referrals aren’t just for growth—they’re a retention multiplier.

Because referrals are so important, make referral generation part of your system. Be as deliberate as you are with ads, Instagram posts or sales calls.

You handle all that stuff, right? So take the lead here, too. Use names—the more specific you are, the more likely you are to get a referral. Make the call right away with the provided contact info and book the appointment yourself.

After you get a referral, simply thank and recognize your client. This is much more valuable than bribing them in the first place. “John, thanks so much for referring Sam. I got you this coffee card as a token of appreciation.”

Yes, a referral is a “+1” in the client department: You add someone just like your ideal client. But it’s also a huge retention booster. When you handle referrals the right way, they strengthen the bond between client and gym.

Don’t miss another chance to earn a referral and increase LEG. Start today.

Book a Goal Review Session, then ask, act and grow.

To talk about other ways to earn more clients and improve retention, book a call here.

The post Referrals: The Retention Superpower You’re Probably Ignoring appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Retention: The Difference Between Dying and Thriving Gyms

What’s the difference between a 3% and a 5% churn rate?

It could be the difference between life and death for your gym.

Retention has been my obsession for two decades, and I’m going to share what I’ve learned about it over 20 years—what to track, what works and why most gyms fail because they don’t keep people long enough.

Why Retention Matters More Than Leads

Here’s the reality: Most gyms don’t fail because of poor marketing.

They fail because clients walk out the back door.

Think about every client who’s ever come through your doors—dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands. Now imagine if each one of those clients had stayed just six months longer.

That’s six more months of revenue for your business, dramatically increased lifetime value (LTV), and greatly reduced pressure on your marketing, sales and onboarding systems.

That’s also six more months of results for each client—another half year spent investing time and effort to improve lifespan and healthspan.

Improving retention isn’t just good business.

It’s our duty as coaches to keep clients as long as possible to help them build the fitness habits that will allow them to live long, healthy lives.

The Math of Retention

Let’s get specific because there’s some dangerous industry BS going around. Here are two damaging suggestions:

There’s no value in pulling your churn below 3%.Your target should be 3% to 5% churn.

I have to tell you there’s a massive difference between 3% and 5% churn, and I’ll break it down with data.

Our 2024 “State of the Industry” report showed that the average coaching gym has 122 members.

At 3% churn, the average gym needs four new clients each month just to maintain its numbers. At 5% churn, it needs six new clients a month just to stand still.

More hard data: The average big group gym adds five clients a month but loses three, for a net gain of two clients.

So at 3% churn, an average 122-member gym is essentially treading water—and struggling to do so. If it has a bad month for retention or sales, it’s underwater.

At 5% churn, the average gym is shrinking every month unless its owner can find a way to close a lot of sales every single month. But even if that happens, people are leaving too fast, so the owner is chained to the hamster wheel as they burn through the market. Every client who leaves after three or six months tells 10 people, “That gym didn’t work for me.”

That 2% difference isn’t small. It’s the line between life and death for your business.

Gyms with churn rates above 5%? They’re in grave danger, and our data show that too many gyms are in this position (see below).

Accepting high churn rates will lead to the collapse of your business—and marketing can’t save you.

What would happen to these gyms and their clients if their retention rates reached 98% or better? (Source: Two-Brain’s 2024 “State of the Industry” report)
Why Marketing Alone Fails

I saw the limited effects of marketing firsthand back in the “challenge” days. Programs such as New You or Gym Launch promised a tidal wave of clients. And they delivered—at first.

Thirty people would sign up for a six-week challenge. They’d pay a premium. They’d sweat, they’d finish, and then nine out of 10 would vanish within three months.

Sure, you could rinse and repeat. But each round brought fewer sign-ups, worse leads, more defaults.

Worst of all, the constant flood of short-term clients washed away your best long-term members because your coaching attention shifted to newbies and you were always thinking about onboarding, not serving existing clients.

Your veterans left because they felt ignored, and your community eroded.

Within a year or two, a once-strong business could be in real danger of collapse because its long-term members were gone and the hamster-wheel marketing plan was producing quickly diminishing returns.

That’s what happens when you chase marketing and ignore retention.

Retention Is Sales Over Time

Here’s the mindset shift: Retention is daily sales.

Every day, you’re reselling each client on showing up tomorrow. They haven’t built the default fitness habit until they’ve trained for two years. Until that point, you must put in focused work to keep them coming back.

After that point, people are likely to keep training because fitness has become part of their lives. That’s a massive victory for you as a coach: Each person who hits 24-month length of engagement (LEG) is going to be healthier for life. For your business, 24-month LEG reduces pressure on your marketing and sales systems and increases lifetime value (LTV).

You simply cannot reach 24+ month LEG without great systems. Let’s break down what works at each stage.

Source: Two-Brain’s 2024 “State of the Industry” report
How to Keep Clients Longer
Months 0-3: Onboarding and Mapping

If clients leave early, it’s usually because buyer’s remorse kicks in before they feel part of your community.

Solution: Build a strong on-ramp system. Book one-on-one sessions. Text between visits. Introduce them to the group. Schedule a goal review at the end of their on-ramp. Don’t leave space for doubt.

Joey Coleman, in his book “Never Lose a Customer Again,” calls these the “admit” and “affirm” phases.

Admit—You’re getting them into your gym and you’re teaching them your system and the philosophy behind it.Affirm—You’re not giving them time to second-guess their decision and have buyer’s remorse.
Months 2-5: Map the Client Journey

This is where many “New Year’s Resolution” clients quit. Why? They haven’t built relationships or seen measurable results.

Solution: Map the client journey. Insert touch points—calls, texts, videos, emails. Do an early goal review. Introduce them to at least three other people in your gym.

Months 5–9: Deepening Connection

At this point, clients need a stronger sense of belonging. One of the best ways to do that? Ask for a referral.

When clients bring in friends, they advocate for your gym. They brag about the programming. They sell the community. They double down on their own commitment because now it’s tied to their social circle.

This is Coleman’s “advocate” phase.

Solution: Start doing goal reviews and ensure you know exactly when and how to ask for a referral during your meeting.

Months 9–12: Critical Year 1

If a client stays 12 months, they’re likely to stay 16. If they make it to 16, they’re likely to stay for two years.

Solution: Appoint a client success manager (CSM). This is a part-time role—maybe five hours a week. The CSM’s job is to check attendance, text missing members, send birthday cards, highlight bright spots and generate client engagement.

Remember this: Retention isn’t “everybody’s job.” That vague approach doesn’t produce results. Someone must be responsible for retention.

Year 1–2: Building the Future

Clients leave when they run out of future. They’ve hit PRs, they’ve lost weight—but now what?

Solution: Create gamification and ascension models. Martial-arts belt systems work because they create a clear next step. Functional fitness can borrow this: milestones, levels, challenges.

This isn’t about rewarding past success. That doesn’t stick. It’s about showing clients how close they are to their next achievement. That’s Lowenstein’s gap theory in action. And it works.

At this stage, it’s all about hope. You must show them a vision of the future and then provide a clear next step toward that vision.

Your Action Plan

Don’t address retention by trying to fix everything at once.

Here’s the order:

1. Build a strong on-ramp.
2. Map the 90-day client journey.
3. Add regular goal reviews.
4. Hire a CSM.
5. Build a belt or ascension system.

The big picture:

Systemize—Track LEG and identify weak spots.Optimize—Refine onboarding, 90-day plans, goal reviews and referrals, CSM duties, ascension paths.Automate—Only use software solutions and AI once the human systems are dialed in.
Retention Is Hope

Here’s the bottom line:

Retention isn’t about contracts. It’s about relationships and systems.

Retention, when you really boil it down, is habits plus hope, delivered consistently.

And improving retention is critical work.

If you can keep clients for at least two years, you’ll change their lives forever. And as a side effect, you’ll add tens of thousands of dollars in net income to your gym.

Anybody who tells you to accept 5% churn or to focus only on marketing is putting your business and your clients at risk.

To talk about a step-by-step tactical plan to improve retention at your gym, book a call here.

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Stop Bleeding Members: Why 3% vs. 5% Churn Makes or Breaks Your Gym

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He Cut Group Fitness—and Now His ARM Is $500+

Is your lowest tier of membership dragging your business down?

Is it producing results for clients?

What would happen if you got rid of this option?

These are fascinating questions, and the answers can dramatically change a gym business.

Kevin Munoz of Peak PT asked these questions together with his Two-Brain mentor, Peter Brasovan.

Here’s what happened.

In Chris Cooper’s guide “The Top 20 Battle-Tested Tactics to Raise Average Revenue Per Member,” he listed “cut clients below ARM” as a creative option.

DM Coop to request this guide!

It’s a bold tactic that requires careful analysis of your business model. Coop himself made the move back in the day by cutting his access-only option in 2012.

“We decreased staffing costs for open gym time, decreased cleaning costs and upgraded a few members who stuck around long term because they were getting real coaching,” Coop recalled.

Later, he got rid of his eight-times-a-month membership: “A half-dozen clients left. The rest upgraded.”

At Peak PT, Kevin’s ARM was around $300—which is a very good number. But he wanted to be great, so he worked with his mentor to make a plan to evolve:

Install an A+ on-ramp.Raise rates.Create a pricing binder.Sell with the Prescriptive Model.Cut the lowest service tier.

These are all strong moves, but let’s take a closer look at the last one, which requires a precise analysis of a gym’s business model.

Group Is Gone at Peak PT

Group training “was our biggest driver in terms of head count,” Kevin said. “So a lot of people were into that program. We had to close down the gym basically entirely because so many people were going to that class. It was the lowest paying and highest demand service level, so the margin on it wasn’t very high.”

And here’s the kicker: “People weren’t getting the best results, so they wouldn’t stay very long.”

Recall Two-Brain’s Five Pillars of Retention: results, fame, compatibility, consistency and referrals.

So if a low-value service isn’t helping clients accomplish their goals—if they don’t get results—that service is actually increasing churn, which puts pressure on marketing systems and onboarding staff.

Still, cutting a service used by a large number of members is scary.

To pull it off, you must adjust your business model and ensure your remaining offerings produce the metrics you need to generate profit.  

Could you say goodbye to 30 people and come out stronger?

Kevin took the plunge and whacked his group program after:

Reviewing his metrics.Adjusting his semi-private and one-on-one offerings to add value. Greasing up his marketing funnels.Supercharging his sales process.Ensuring his on-ramp would encourage long-term membership.Creating a clear plan to pitch his high-value programs to existing group clients.

The result: Kevin bounced back from his pruning to have his strongest year ever, and he made Two-Brain’s Top 10 leaderboard for ARM, which runs from $502 to $854.

Munoz is also relying on steady referrals from happy, high-value clients who are getting great results.

“Referrals are the biggest thing,” Kevin said. “If you get your ideal person, they probably hang out with their ideal people. You get them results, you show them the value, you tend to get a lot of referral business.”

Behold another Pillar of Retention: Satisfied clients who refer friends stay longer because they are invested in that friend’s success.

It’s clear Kevin’s snowball is rolling downhill because he made the right move at the right time for the right reason: He’s got very high-value clients who stay a long time and bring their friends to train, too.

Your Business Model

All this isn’t to suggest you should immediately cut your lowest tier of service.

Kevin runs a highly systemized, carefully constructed business that’s fueled by a precise four-funnel marketing plan designed to connect with a clearly defined avatar. He’s locked down the fundamentals and now has the freedom to work on optimizing his business with the help of a mentor.

“Tighten all these bolts so you have a working backbone, and then from there you can get creative with the things that you do in the programs that you launch,” Kevin said.

It’s great advice. He built a rock-solid foundation with the help of a mentor and then made a big move from a position of strength—and he won big time.

Should you make a similar move?

A mentor can tell you after analyzing your metrics and digging into your business.

Two-Brain mentors have a host of battle-tested ARM-boosting tactics they can use to help you earn more, and they will tell you exactly which one to use right now.

Maybe your service package is dialed in but your rates are too low. Or maybe you need to add PT instead of cutting a service tier. Or maybe your business would thrive with the addition of semi-private training or habits coaching.

A mentor can help you pick the right tactic—and the right tactic at the right time can launch your business skyward.

Just ask Kevin.

“After working with a couple of agencies, it seemed like Two-Brain was the most tactical, strategic, value-providing mentorship program out there. … We went with Two-Brain Business, and the impact was immediate.”

To talk to an expert about improving your gym business fast, book a call here.

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He Gives His Training Plans Away for Free—and Still Closes 80% of Sales!

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The Bumper-Plate Method for Huge Average Revenue Per Member

Quick money math for gym owners:

In 2024, the average big-group gym had 122 clients at about $168 each per month.  

That’s $20,496 in monthly revenue.

What if that same gym’s average revenue per member per month jumped to $205?

The monthly revenue would be $25,010—an extra $4,514 per month.

That cash is huge because it isn’t tied to:

Costly marketing campaigns.More space and equipment.Additional wear and tear on gear.Increased staffing.Additional classes.More onboarding.Increased retention efforts.More supplies, such as chalk, soap and toilet paper.

That $4,500 drops right to the bottom line—which is a big deal. You could use it to pay yourself another $54,000 a year, for example.

Going from $168 to $205 is a $37 jump—22%.

We don’t recommend gym owners raise prices by 22% all at once—a mentor will help you calculate the exact required increase and perhaps roll out a series of increases in careful steps.

But a rate increase is just one solid tactic to boost ARM. If you had a list of other great tactics in front of you, you could stack them like bumper plates to build to a much-improved ARM number.

Of course, we don’t recommend you use every single tactic ARM-boosting tactic under the sun. That causes overwhelm. The better plan is to use select tactics that really move the needle to improve your business and your life.

I’ll give you an example.

45-lb. Plates: Rate Increase, PT and Specialty Programs

If you wanted to move from $168 ARM to $205, you could start by increasing rates by 10%. This is a relatively safe number for most gyms, and if you roll out your increase with a mentor’s help, you won’t lose members.

By the way, I can tell you that your coaching is much more valuable than $168.

That 10% increase would add $17 and take you to $185. Gross revenue jumps to $22,570. You need just $2,430 to get to $25,000.

You have so many options, but I’ll toss out two great ones:

Start selling one PT session a month to clients who want to work on certain skills. Sell just 10 per month at $85 each and that’s $850.

Then run a specialty program priced at $200 a person. Sell to eight members and you’re over $25,000 with an ARM of about $205.

Want to go further? Here are more plates:

Get rid of discounts for all incoming members.Start offering habits coaching.Sell supplements.

And so on.

You see where I’m going:

Whatever your ARM is right now, the right tactics will improve it dramatically—and Two-Brain mentors have a huge list of proven tactics.

I’ve collected a host of them in an ebook to help you get started.

To get my guide “The Top 20 Battle-Tested Tactics to Raise Average Revenue Per Member,” send me a DM.

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They Used These Tactics for $500 ARM—You Can, Too

Check out the average revenue per member per month (ARM) in gyms in 2024:

Source: Two-Brain’s 2024 “State of the Industry” report

Now review Two-Brain’s most recent Top 10 leaderboard for ARM:

Our Top 10 gyms average $600 per member per month, and every gym in the Top 10 takes in more than $500 per client per month. Four are over $600, and one of them is over $800.

If you see these numbers and think “my clients will never pay that,” keep reading. I’ll give you 10 tips to increase your ARM today, plus insight from our leaders.

ARM-Boosting Tactics
Tactic 1

Increase your rates—and be worth it. A mentor can help you calculate the exact increase and create a rollout plan so you don’t lose all your members.

Tactic 2

Ask your high-value clients to refer their high-value friends and family.

Quote from an ARM leader: “We hope we get all of their family members and friends for life.”

Tactic 3

Add PT if you don’t offer it. If you do, prescribe it first in a way that solves problems.

Quote from an ARM leader: “We’re a semi-private/PT studio—we switched from group about 1.5 years ago. Most of what we do is what we’ve learned in Two-Brain.”

Quote from an ARM leader: “In the PT model, we are one on one for 40 minutes. It’s not a revolving door. We keep it personal and make an investment in each client. Relationship and education are huge.”

Tactic 4

Niche down—special expertise is worth more.

Quote from an ARM leader: “People who are looking for a female trainer focused on strength find me because there are fewer in my area, and Two-Brain has been encouraging me to post more online on my personal and gym accounts. I rarely get someone coming in that isn’t already sold. The social media has educated the prospect. The only ones who say ‘no’ do so around price, but because of some newer offerings, we can close them, too.”

Tactic 5

Add a habits-coaching option—or add other high-value services. Think beyond “group fitness.”

Quote from an ARM leader: “We have an emphasis on group and semi-private.”

Quote from an ARM leader:  “We are mostly one-on-one training but just added small-group and semi-private.”

Tactic 6

Bundle services into a high-value package and use an on-ramp as the intro.

Quote from an ARM leader: “We try to get people in for a 21-day on-ramp and get them resold in the 21 days. We have a 90 percent resell rate.”

Quote from an ARM leader: “Nutrition, accountability and private training are in the first offer. In the sales booklet, we value-stack everything. The monthly retainer is fairly low at $500 for our Basecamp program, but it’s an $1,100 value. When people see that, they tend to re-up.”

Tactic 7

Offer specialty programs—and consider targeting groups.

Quote from an ARM leader: “Through the summer, we’ve had some teams: For example, a cheer squad for $2,500, which we collected on one check. We’re working with some new teams—strength training over 35 sessions for 20 girls, which will be $6,000-$7,000. I learned to set the cost for 20 kids, and the coach gets the athletes to come. So we sell the class for X weeks to the team’s coach, and then it is on the coach to recruit the team members to fill the spaces.”

Tactic 8

Sell with the Prescriptive Model.

Quote from an ARM leader: “We do prescriptive selling for the No Sweat Intro, with Inbody measurements. We write a plan for their fitness and nutrition. We are totally OK with them walking out and getting that plan. We deliver a custom plan during the NSI, and they get a lot of value from the sales process. This encourages their confidence in us and boosts the know-like-trust factor.”

Tactic 9

Bill biweekly instead of monthly. Or every four weeks instead of every month.

Quote from an ARM leader: “We bill on a four-week cycle, and they get eight sessions per month, with two sessions a week.

Tactic 10

Put your gym in the right location—this is especially important if you’re thinking about opening a gym or considering changing addresses. If you’re locked into a lease, target the right people—people who can afford your service and see its value.

Quote from an ARM leader: “I think the fact that we’re located in NYC is probably a contributing factor. It’s an affluent neighborhood, and most people do not cringe at the price. Personal training in NYC is about $200 hourly for most places.”

ARM Boosting: A Complete Plan

Why is ARM a critical metric in gyms?

Because it’s a force multiplier.

If you have just 100 clients but they all pay $500 a month … well, you can do that math on that.

Or take your current number of clients and calculate revenue if each one pays $20 more per month.

What would that do for your business and life?

The best part? Increased ARM isn’t tied to huge marketing spends, massive expansions or anything like that. It’s tied to solving problems and showing value.

We have a step-by-step playbook to show you exactly how to do that.

To talk about it with an expert and take a step toward increased ARM, book a call here.

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10 Proven Tactics to Earn More Per Member at Your Gym

To watch this episode on YouTube, click here.

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Click to Cancel Vs. Caring to Connect

Fitness irony:

The CDC states that 40.3 percent U.S. adults over 20 are obese, yet the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing LA Fitness’ parent company because the gym makes it too hard for people to cancel gym memberships.

I’m joking: Ridiculous, overly complex cancellation procedures are clearly designed to bleed money out of consumers. They should be eliminated.

But I’ve always found it comical that governments seem very interested in helping people break commitments to gyms.

In late August, the FTC took aim at Fitness International LLC, which operates gym chains including LA Fitness.

You can read the full complaint here, if you have high tolerance for legalese.

Here’s a key line: “Defendants Fitness International LLC and Fitness & Sports Clubs LLC … operate nationwide gym chains that use difficult cancellation procedures to prevent consumers from cancelling their memberships and other recurring charges. As a result, defendants have illegally charged hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted recurring fees.”

The complaint alleges that getting out of an LA Fitness membership is like trying to exit some diabolical escape room: “Each of these cancellation methods is opaque, complicated and demanding—far from simple.”

The suit will play out in the courts, and I’d have to suggest Fitness International will be forced to change its procedures.

For you, microgym owner, this is a reminder that you should stay onside of all click-to-cancel legislation.

Resource: “The FTC Click-to-Cancel Rule: What Gym Owners Need to Know”

Yes, you should make it easy for members to cancel.

But you should make it exceptionally difficult for them to get to that point.

Your client journey should be so carefully planned, detailed and sticky that almost no one ever wants to hit the big, obvious eject button and launch themselves out of your coaching practice.

“I Never Want to Leave This Place!”

When a client wants out, it’s usually too late to do anything about it.

Sure, you can—now illegally—set up exit interviews and complicated cancellation procedures to give you opportunities to hold onto the person, but in almost every case, you’re really only delaying the inevitable and wasting your time.

It would be much more productive to invest your time in keeping your remaining clients happy so they don’t want to leave.

For example, at a Goal Review Session, you might discover that a client’s new work schedule makes it very hard for him to get to classes. His attendance has been poor of late, and he’s getting frustrated.

If left alone, he’ll probably cancel. And the FTC says you must give him an easy exit.

But what if you say this as part of your coaching service before he tries to cancel:

“Dude, I hear you on the work schedule! I have two fixes: Join a semi-private group I’m setting up at 9:45 on Wednesdays and Fridays or book PT sessions with me anytime that works for you.”

That’s coaching, and it will probably save the client.

LA Fitness, of course, isn’t in the business of coaching, relationships and client results. It’s essentially an equipment rental program that succeeds when long contracts produce regular payments by people who rarely show up to train.

You, however, sell coaching. To keep your clients, you must get the right people in the building and coach them to train consistently so they get the results they want. Along the way, you must celebrate them and show them that they are making progress.

If you do all that, your cancellation procedure won’t come up very often because only one member in 100 will need it, and that client will only hit the button because his company transferred him to another state.

The rest of your members will stay for years and change their lives with fitness. They win and you win.

Remember, clients should be able to cancel memberships with ease.

But you should make it very, very difficult for them to want to do that.

To learn exactly how to retain clients and increase length of engagement dramatically, book a call here.

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