Clients Leaving? My 9-step Playbook to Fix That.

If you are an online fitness coach, then being able to understand and deal with client cancellations is crucial to your success and making it long term. The most successful coaches out there are the ones that are able to A prevent client cancellations and drop offs, but B be able to move on from it afterwards. The average coach, however, has two to three drop offs and they crumble. It ruins their entire week and kills all of their momentum. What I'm here to do in this video is run you through the nine step process that I use myself to and that I teach to all of my students, which is how they're able to stay sane, continue to build their businesses and deal with client cancellations. My name's Adam Haley and I have helped over a thousand personal trainers leave the gym floor, go fully online and hit an excess of £5,000 per month. So this is the nine part framework that I teach to all of my students and it kind of has three main pillars of what you're going to do before a client drop off to prevent it, what you're going to do during it in order to try and turn it around, and then ultimately if a client chooses to leave, what you're going to do after it. So initially, let's run through the first three things that we can do in order to prevent even receiving that cancellation message in the first place. First up is internal marketing. Now this is something that I rarely see get spoken about. Most coaches assume that once a client is signed up and inside of the program that they should automatically be crazy bought in and check in on time every single week and turn up to every event that the coach puts on. And in the real world that just it doesn't happen. It's your job as a business owner to continually market internally to have your clients do the actions that you want them to take. For example, let's say that you decide to bring in a guest expert to do a virtual webinar for your clients. You would think, hey, I'm doing you a favor, I'm bringing in this guest expert. So you should give up an hour of your time during the week and rock up to this webinar because it's going to be amazing. The sad reality is that probably only 20, 25% of your clients will actually make it to this webinar. That's and, and the reason for this is because you haven't marketed to your clients. You're always going to have the 20, 25% that do everything you tell them and then you can have the 80% that just aren't that bought in? So you're going to want to hype this up within your client community. If you hold a WhatsApp group, you could email your clients. You should be teasing it on your Instagram stories and saying clients tonight 6pm we've got X coming on even your weekly check ins that you do with your clients. Again, you would expect them to do so every week without failing. But they don't. So instead for the clients that need it, you should be reminding them midweek. Don't forget you check in on Monday. Super excited to catch up with you. Because of X Y, Z if I think of myself with my London events that I run for our students, I mention it on webinars. Probably three or four months out, I start drip feeding and teasing the guest lectures. Probably about one to two months out I send emails about it. I get all of our coaches to reach out to each student one on one. I put posts in the community group. I continue to hammer it on webinars and I'm constantly giving them the reasons why turning up to this event event is going to be really, really useful for them. Even though I could sit there and go oh my God, I'm putting on this entire day for you. Why wouldn't you want to be in the room? But if I took that view or if I assumed that once I'd mentioned it once to the community that everybody saw it and knew about it, then I'd have a pretty empty event. So just to recap everything that you do in the business for your clients, whether it's client events, whether it's putting on virtual webinars, whether it's your check in process, whatever it is. Don't assume and don't take for granted that all of your clients are fired up. You, you need to sell it to them continually even when they are already on the inside of your program. So we've just had internal marketing. Next is your external content. I have had my own OTE students message me after I've put out a piece of content and go oh my God, so glad you just spoke about that. Going to be honest, I was already falling into the trap of xyz, but then I saw that piece of content. It's got me fired back up again. Even though this external content is put out over socials in order to try and bring in new leads and it actually warms up and nurtures all of my current students and reminds them of what a cool program they're part of. For example, let's say that it's December and you're posting content around, say, Christmas and so on, you should specifically address the conversation that's going on in pretty much all of your clients and prospects heads because it's going to benefit both. So for example, you could be talking about, hey, it's really easy coming in towards Christmas to just go, you know what, I'll pick it back up in January. But here's why you shouldn't do that. And not only is it going to be really helpful for your prospects, but your own current clients seeing this content will double question whether they should back off, whether they should send you that message asking to pause. And it'll have them keep turning up, keep checking in with you throughout that Christmas period. So I guess where I'm trying to go with this is listen to your current clients, what they say on their check ins, if you have realignment calls with them and so on, and put this into your external content. But then conversely, when you start putting out pieces of content externally that you think the same setup and you've got no idea when things are going to change and maybe you've been stuck at the same body weight for a few weeks, it's really easy to become stagnant and bored and just think, what am I paying for? Humans also tend to have recency bias, meaning that they could have made a huge amount of progress in the first sort of four, five, six, seven, eight weeks of a training block. But then the last one to two weeks, you know, they've been demotivated, they've eaten off plan, their body weight's gone up and they'll forget all of the progress that they had made. So the flow that you should follow on these calls should loosely follow this. Number one, search for the wins that the client has had over the past two to three months. Whether this is physique progress, body weight performance, whatever it may be, hype them up, give them a pat on the back and show them how well they've done. Secondly is to then re establish what their current goals are and whether they have any big milestones in the pipeline or even perhaps maybe they want to enter a challenge or a photo shoot, a Hierox, something like that. And then the final part will be starting to tease what's going to be coming. So what nutritional changes are going to be happening? What's going to happen to their training plan? Are things about to get more intense, less intense? Any supplemental additions? We do this to keep reinforcing just how far clients have come while working with us. And then also Mapping out what the next steps are. Adding this one thing into your coaching business could literally half your churn rate. Let's move on to the during stage. So this is that a client at this point has now sent you that message saying, hey, X, listen, I've been thinking, I can't afford it. My goals have changed. Insert, you know, whatever excuse. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to cancel things off. Here's what we're going to do to try and minimize the damage. First up, we're going to have a turnaround call. Now, it's really important that when we get the dreaded message that we respond and we don't react. Most coaches will reply immediately emotionally, and they'll react to the message and they'll be trying to say to the person that they're wrong, they shouldn't leave, blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead, let the message sit for a bit. Don't reply immediately. Come back to it with fresh eyes once, you know, the emotions have settled, and then just acknowledge what the client is saying. Hey, totally get it. You might be in a tight spot at the moment. Listen, why don't we jump on a call? Let's see what we can do to figure out. So basically, you want to suggest of the two of you jumping on a call out of goodwill and just seeing what you can do to put a plan in place to end the relationship, you know, on good terms on the call. You want to, again, similar to a realignment call, just highlight all the progress the client has made, double check with them that they're still really fired up to achieve, you know, whatever it is, and then try and get to the root of what's having them message you to leave. Is it genuinely financial? Is it a time thing? Is it that they're bored? Is it that truly they don't feel that supported? Whatever the root cause is, if it's something that you have some control over, then attempt to deal with it. Sometimes cancellation messages are actually more of a cry for help and it's the person just needing a bit more tlc. It might just take a bit of a, you know, putting an arm around them and saying, listen, I get it, you're really overwhelmed. I tell you what, why don't we strip out this and this and why don't we have touch points a little more often over the next few weeks? I can tell that you are still really committed to achieving X and right now things have just got a bit too much. Why don't I step up the support, but why don't we Pull back the expectations as well, slightly. You'll be surprised and often your clients will have a bit of relief and they're like, oh my God, that's actually, that's all I needed. I don't really want to cancel. So if you're not already doing it, you should start it from now. The next time you get a cancellation message, do not reply there and then give it at least one hour. Come back to them, acknowledge what they're saying and then just suggest politely, why don't we at least just jump on a quick call, let's see if we can put a bit of a plan of action so we can figure out what the next best steps are. On the call. Let them know that you enjoy coaching them. Remind them of the amazing progress that they've made. Remind them of the goals that you'd agreed on. Try and get to the root cause of what is really having them reach out and send this message and then see if you can genuinely deal with it and put a plan in place that, that moves around it and then they're back on track. Okay, so let's say that we've sent the message and either they're not willing to get on a call or they've gotten a call, but they're still adamant that they're not going to be able to afford your continued coaching at the current rate. One option is to drop them down into a community package. So this is where for example, it will be like, hey listen, I get it right now. You know, the cost of the coaching is perhaps a little bit much for you at the moment. With XYZ going on, we might not need to be doing a full, full, you know, check in every single week. Instead, why don't we just keep you in the community so you've still got access to everything that I drop in and everybody else and all of their wins. Why don't we maybe drop check ins to just once a month and why don't we do this and let's half your direct debit or let's do it at this rate. Essentially all we're doing here is making a bit of a re offer and trying to find something that matches kind of where they're at and what they need right now. So perhaps carrying on with the full coaching is out of their budget a little bit or perhaps they feel that they bit burnt out and they don't need the intense one on one support every single week. So instead why don't we strip out that part of it, give them access to the community Still. So, you know, if you've got like a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group or a school group, they can still see everybody else's wins. They can still get access to you in like a one to many capacity instead of one to one. Maybe you just check in with them once a month and then you just drop their direct debit down a little bit. The great thing about this is that they don't then exit the program completely lose momentum and then start sort of end up like too shy to sort of put their hand up and come back to you. You've left the door open. They're still part of the community. They're on almost like a bit of a low retainer. And then when they're good and ready, you can check in with them and then upgrade them back into full coaching. Now the last one that I'll mention as part of this during process is referrals. And this might not work for everybody's business, but I at least want to give you the option of this one. So my first coaching business, RNT Fitness, was built off of a solid foundation of referrals. The clients that we had within the program made referrals like crazy. So when somebody would want to leave, if it was purely a financial reason, sometimes we would use the referral process as a bit of leverage to keep them in and the conversation would go something like this. So from what I'm hearing, you still really want to achieve X and you're loving the process. They'll say yes, it purely is just the financial side of things. You know that XYZ has changed and again, they'll agree. Got it. Well, listen, I still love coaching you and I still want to achieve the goal that we have set out. Why don't we do this? I'm sure you are going to know people that would benefit from this service and my coaching. What I'm willing to do is every person that you introduce that signs up to me, I'm going to credit you an entire month's worth of coaching. Which basically means that you and I can continue to work together at the same level that we do in order to achieve xyz. And it won't cost you anything. Every single person that comes in is worth one month of coaching. Meaning if you make me two referrals, let's carry on crushing it over the next eight weeks. If you end up making seven referrals, that's going to be seven months of continued coaching. Now this isn't going to work for every client base. Some clients Just suck at making referrals. But if you do have a client base that does make referrals quite regularly and quite willingly, then using this as a bit of a drop down and are like, hey, how about you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Can work really, really well. Moving on to the final piece, which is what do you do after somebody is adamant that they're going to leave? Step one is the pity party, which is me just giving you the green light that it's okay to feel like crap. And if you've had a few drop offs in short succession, it's okay for you to feel that you've done something wrong, that the bubble's about to burst, or whatever else you're telling yourself yourself, just accept it, you're gonna feel a little bit crap. The key is that you give yourself one day to do it and that is it. Client drop offs are a perfectly normal part of a coaching service, but they still sting. Give yourself permission to have a bit of a pity party, whether it's an hour, two hours, whether it's an afternoon and an evening, whatever you need. But as soon as the next day comes around, it's go time. Now, once we've had the pity party, we can move on to two proactive things. And the first is, is to celebrate the client leaving. Let me tell you a story for a quick second. So back when I was coaching, I was working with a couple, so I was coaching the guy, I was coaching the girl. They were great clients, they were making great progress. We worked together for about 18 months or so and then I got a joint email from them basically saying, adam, we really love your coaching. As you know, super happy with the results. But as you know, we're really fortunate to be taking a six month sabbatical from work. We're going to use this sabbatical to go traveling. And as you know, the places that we're going aren't going to have gyms and they're probably not going to have the sort of food that we're going to need to be able to maximize our results during this time. We both want to come back, but it doesn't make sense to have two lots of direct debits going out over the next six months if we just know that our priorities are elsewhere. So I came back to them and I was like, guys, it's been amazing coaching you. I totally get it. Let's pick back up in X whatever the month was. Here's what I think you should do over the next few weeks in preparation for the trip and then here comes the master plan. I then went on Instagram stories and I celebrated these clients leaving. So I put up some posts saying two of my amazing rockstar clients have come in and dropped a combined X amount of kilos and they have crushed it. Super excited for them. They're about to go traveling through and I think it was like Southeast Asia or something like that. But what this means is that I have two coaching spots available to fill. These are going to go quite quickly and they're first come, first serve. If you've seen my results and you want to work with me one on one, this is the easiest way to do so I've got two slots, first come first serve. Just comment me below and what do you know, I filled both of their slots within 24 hours. Granted this isn't something that you can do after every single drop off. You can't do this every single week. But you know, every three months or so if you've got a big client of yours that has left, celebrate them, give them a bit of a shout out, plug them for the hard work that they've done and then let your audience know that you now have a free coaching spot available. And the very last thing within this nine step process would be having an exit survey in place. Now this exit survey is not going to change anybody's mind. It's not going to make you any money, but it's going to make you a better coach and it's going to prevent the next wave of drop offs. So assuming that you and the client have ended on good terms, I would send them a survey and ask them, hey, can you please, please fill this in? Absolutely. 100 honestly. And the questions that you'll want on there is like, hey, if you remember back to when you first started, how did you find your first seven to ten days on the program? You might even have a couple of multiple choice options. Crystal clear. Was slightly overwhelming. Didn't know what the hell I was meant to do. How did you find the communication style and response times working with me? What's one thing that if you were to ever return to the business that you feel that I should include? Ultimately the do you feel that you got the result that you signed up to me for? Yes or no. You should have around five to eight questions along this sort of theme and genuinely listen to the feedback that you get. Make changes to the coaching program and that will come full circle. We'll end up back at the top where you start preventing those drop offs. So let's Do a really, really fast recap. Firstly is to accept that client cancellations are just a normal part of a service based based coaching business. Secondly is to try and use a lens of before, during, after. So what are the things that I can do before a client sends that message? What can I do to prevent drop offs? This would be internal marketing to make sure that your clients are using your coaching program as much as they should. It's external marketing and showing your current clients, even though they're already with you, just how great you are. And then it's also having realignment calls throughout the program to keep reminding your clients of just how far they've come, but also how far they've got to go. The second part of course, is during the cancellation process. So what do you do once you've received the dreaded message? Remember to respond and not react. Remember to try and get somebody on a turnaround call. Remember that potentially you could make your program a little less intense and reduce the price a little bit, or that you could even strike a bit of a deal. And if they bring you in new business, that perhaps they can coach with you for free. And then the final pillar would be what do you do? What do you, once somebody has still said, yes, I would like to leave. Firstly, give yourself permission to feel a bit crap. It's normal, you're human. Secondly, will be to celebrate their wins sporadically with your best OG clients and see if you can actually turn it into an opportunity to sign up a new person. And then thirdly is to run an exit survey so that you can continue to improve and develop your program so that we come full circle and we start preventing these cancellations. I hope that this has been useful and that you've got lots and lots of notes. I hope that you implement everything that I've taught and if you want to know how to streamline your check in process so that you also manage to retain clients for longer, then I'm going to link that in the description below. Go check it out. You also managed to retain clients for longer, then I'm going to link that in the description below. Go check it out.