Retention Tactics: Recognize and Address the Red Flags Part I

Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. This is the podcast for you if you are wanting to create or already running peer groups. It's what we call PACs, Peer Advisory Councils. They might be known as mastermind groups, CEO peer groups, all the same. But this is the podcast if you want to run better PACs, that you want to be better at being a moderator, you want to up your game, learn advanced techniques, hear from myself as well as guests, what works, new concepts, trends, techniques. Also learn content, things you could take back to your meetings, different ways to do different things to solve problems that we all have when we're running groups. It will increase your retention, reduce your attrition, get you more members, make you more money. This is the podcast for you. I'm Tina Corner Stolz. The host. I've been doing this since 2005. I built a territory of 10+ groups, sold for a multiple, started Ellis Council, Leader Exchange Council, in 2012. We are a licensing model. We are the leading educator in the peer advisory council space. We have the podcast. I have a licensing program with certification. I've written 2 books. So today, when you hear this episode, each and every week it's a new podcast where we dive deep into a topic for 15-20 minutes. One week it's me doing a deep dive on all the experience and insights from not only today with our entire licensed partner community or the past, um, what I've learned along the way, but we also have guests that are out there doing groups today that share their insights and new concepts. So let's get started with today's episode.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm your host Tina Corner Stolz, and today's episode is about member retention, the importance of it. And we're going to talk about today the top red flags for you to have an understanding of so you can head it off at the pass when you can see it coming, because you can see it coming. And then what can you do when you do see it coming? And we're going to deep dive into this topic over a couple of episodes, but today I want you to first have a takeaway about the importance of doing things that will increase, right, your members staying for extended periods of time. Because the fastest way to a declining income stream is to lose a member. It's no different than the fastest way to increase your income is to gain a member. But in regards to retention, unless it's for a good reason such as they sold the business, they might have died unfortunately, they moved out of the area if you're doing an in-person group, then there is a problem that has to be fixed in the member experience if you are having attrition, because you should never be surprised by someone terminating. It is rare. Now, there are exceptions. An example of that might be when the member themselves are surprised because something happened, like, you know, there is an acquisition. I can remember a situation where one of my members in the group suddenly was approached by a PE firm, and they actually from the moment they were contacted to the moment that the transaction happened was less than 30 days. It was phenomenal about how quick it was. Okay, you know what, I can't do anything about that. Very happy for the member, happened quickly. And that is what I would call a legitimate attrition. It's going to happen. What we're talking about today are the ones that shouldn't have happened. Because you are out of touch with the member and you're not paying attention to the red flags. So I want to today talk about those red flags. I want you to reflect upon if any of them are present with any of your members today, and you're going to walk away with some ideas on how to act on them really quickly. All right, this is one thing you never push off, because the moment that your gut tells you you know, I don't know, I think something's off, is the moment you need to act. The longer you wait, the more chance you can't fix it, right? So why is member retention important? First and foremost, because first of all, it is the number one way for you to preserve your revenue, because it is the number one way by the fact that when you have attrition, not only do you lose revenue, but it can trigger so many other things. I've seen this multiple times when I have, um, professionals running groups on behalf of my organization, and as soon as suddenly one member goes, two member goes, it is a trend that is hard to stop. But it has to be stopped because there is a danger point of too many members leaving at the same time. And that danger point is, is that it puts the number of members in the group at a lower number and it causes them to question the value they're receiving, and it puts you in the hot seat to suddenly have to go find the right fit members, which is more than one. Okay, so member retention is super important for growing your business because it not only measures how successful you are at acquiring new members but how successful you are at satisfying your existing members. Now, of course, you probably know statistics on this, but I am going to rattle a few of them off. and those statistics as to far— as far as what retaining members can mean to you, that a 5% increase in member retention can increase your revenue by 25 to 95%. Now, this is per an HBR article, The Value of Keeping the Right Customers. And the point is, is that when you increase your retention, it saves you time for not only having to protect the rest of the members and being sure that they are fine but the time and effort to replace with a new member. So there's an opportunity cost there because you have not only all of the sales time to replace the member, but then onboarding them, integrating them in, and it takes the time away from your existing members to get to know a new member. So when you think about all that time with that, It is a lot, which is why retaining existing members can save you lots of time and money. And that is why another statistic from the HBR article is it's 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new member than it is to retain. Now there's also the, what I call intangible, the loyalty factor, because a retained member will buy more often and spend more than newer members. So what do I mean by that? So the longer your members are with you, the more that they see that they either can ask you if you would love to do some work with them— consulting work, coaching work, whatever it might be— they're more apt to refer you because satisfied, loyal members, right, are going to be happy with their experience of being in the group. So they are the ones who most likely will bring in new members That rarely costs you anything, right? Saves you lots of time when you get a wonderful referral. So of course it might seem obvious why you want to retain members, but when you really start to look at the numbers, it's a motivating factor, I hope, for you to really buckle down and make sure that your retention rate is as high as possible. And then granted, it does start with that you bring on the right members. So Today I'm not going to talk about the, you know, techniques for bringing on the right member. I just want you to be aware of that. Number one, we're going to talk a little bit later in another episode about how you calculate your retention rate and how important it is for you to take a look at when a member leaves, for you to have a spreadsheet or some sort of tracking that you debrief why a member has left, and you try to get the most honest answer you can from them, and that you look at trends on what you're missing which is causing members to leave. And it does start with, should you have brought them on anyway? So assuming they are a right fit member and they are leaving is really what I'm talking about today. Okay, but it does start with the member experience. And part of the reason here is, is that when you have a member turnover, it impacts your other members, right? Because when one member leaves, all the others silently evaluate their participation. One less member decreases energy in the room, diversity of opinion and wisdom. It does negatively impact their experience. And again, we're talking about a member that you didn't want to leave. I'm not I'm not talking about a member that you have to transition out because they aren't a right fit. That is a different learning for you. I'm talking about when a member comes to you and they say, I need to leave, and you're like, uh, I'm bummed because I don't want them to go. They are a good member. So with that, a couple of things. Red flags. That lead to turnover. I'm back to your dashboard that you should keep every single month is your 30,000-foot view of member behavior trends. A member will give you the vibe. They will tell you through their behavior that they are at risk. Okay, so What am I talking about? I'm going to give you top 10 red flags when it will tell you a member is close to leaving. Number 1, and this is not necessarily in the order literally of most important or the most frequent because it will vary, but here's your top 10. Ready? Could be obvious, but they have cash flow problems. I can countlessly remember how many times I've had members that suddenly are bringing up their COPES— challenges, opportunity, problem, or ideas— and it's cash flow problem, and it's a cash flow problem this month, this quarter, annual, and it's a significant cash flow problem, right? So they are struggling and it's not getting better, and that is a red flag. You may say, well, what can I possibly do about that, right? Well, it may seem really obvious now that you're listening, is it's got to get processed in a and you got to stay on it about how this member can make significant changes to turn the cash flow around so they are not in a predicament. Because if they don't, you know what they're going to do? They're going to have to leave the group because they can't afford it and they're stressed and they can't afford the money and they can't afford the time. And that's why they're going to have to leave. So when you start to hear and see it on their check-in, etc., about cash flow, it's got to get addressed by the group. Seriously, deep down, pull up the sleeves, get in there with that member to get that solved and then back on track. Ready? Number 2: absent. Now, I always use this as a gate— absent 2 meetings in a row. So there's a trend of being absent, there's a trend of them not making the meetings a priority, and you truly have to understand why to see if it's legitimate or not legitimate. Now, what's legitimate? That if you know you were making the meeting a priority and then whatever thing happened couldn't be avoided, that you had to miss the meeting even though you didn't want to miss the meeting, but because of whatever it is you had no choice. What are examples of legitimate reasons? They're sick, right? Can't come, they're sick. That's legitimate, right? Another legitimate could be for two meetings in a row. I can remember members who were going through acquisitions and they were traveling because it was a timely situation and they can't control the, the cadence of the acquisition, so they happen to miss a meeting. Those are examples of legitimate. Not legitimate, you know, I'm behind, right? Um, a customer called and I have to go to this meeting, you know. Did they really? Couldn't, you know, what if they had another customer meeting? They would have been able to say, that customer, I'm sorry, I can't already have another meeting. Can we at all possible meet at a different time? Now back to, there are exceptions, but it's your role in being the leader of the group to figure out what is truly legitimate and not when somebody has missed 2 meetings in a row, right? Now, what do you do if people have missed 2 meetings in a row or more and it's not legitimate? You address it up front and you talk to them. You gotta go get in front of them and you gotta talk about, let's talk about what's happening, let's talk about time management, figure out and even deep dive in deeper why it is that they're choosing those activities over going to the meeting. Because usually what's happening is they're not seeing the meeting as valuable to them over these other things. And what is going to make the meeting more valuable to them? What's happening as to why they don't desire and prioritize the meeting? Right? And if you look at that, you will probably see red flag number 3, that they haven't been bringing up challenges, opportunities, problems, or ideas, what we call COPIs, to the group. And if they have, they haven't been meaningful ones. Like, if you truly evaluate the last X number of meetings and you reflect as to what they said, with their value that they receive for that day, that it's been what I call wimpy reply, right? Not really substantial in regards to what they should have been walking away with as their takeaways. They're setting weak commitments. They are not bringing up really true important issues to the group. And then as a result, if they're number 4 red flag, not engaged, they're going to start to become absent. So of these last 3 red flags— absent, looking like they're not engaged, I'm going to come back to that one in a minute, and no copies— really, no copies, not engaged, comes back to, they're probably going to be absent. And they become absent as the last step, usually, before they terminate, right? Rarely do I ever, and have ever seen somebody have an unbelievable meeting with the feedback they've gotten from their peers, and then they exit the next month, unless it was a situation that they were not in control of. It's not that they're going to terminate because You know, I haven't gotten value, right? So not engaged, what does that look like? It's pretty self-explanatory. I'm sure they're looking at their phone, they lit, they're late, they leave early, they're just not saying much in the meeting, they're not contributing. Um, that's not engaged, right? They are different than what they used to be. So think about your members today, those of you running groups. Do you have anyone who has said, I have a cash flow problem, revenue problem, profitability problem? Somebody's been absent multiple meetings. Anyone that feels like, looks like they're not engaged. And somebody who's not processing copies, that it's been months, months, right now. You know, if you've listened to other episodes, my whole point about no copies is that a best practice is every single one of your members articulates a COPE whether they believe that needs to be processed or not. Everyone articulates one. It's not who has a COPE today, it's what is your COPE today. And this is extremely important for retention reasons because it's important for you to hear what's on top of mind for them. With their copies. Of course, red flag number 5: selling a company or a major event is impacting their role. Maybe red flag number 6 is they're transitioning to a new leader. So maybe they were the founder, they're kind of doing a chairman-like role, and they're just taking a step back, and maybe the new president or the new CEO isn't a right fit for whatever reason for the group, but there's this change going on. That's kind of a legitimate one, but the point is it's a heads up you're going to have a turnover and you need to start to replace it, right? And selling a company can take forever, or it can be like my earlier example of like less than 30 days, which is just still crazy to think about. But it's going to happen, and a lot of times you don't know. Sometimes it can happen and the members still stay involved because they have transitioned to the new firm and they still want to be part of the group. So sometimes selling the company, depending upon how the transaction and the terms of the deal are, is that you could still keep the member. The point is you got to keep your pulse on it to understand what's going on with the process and what it is that the offer looks like and what your member really, really wants. Red flag number 7: they are missing your one-on-ones. If you're doing one-on-ones, they're not returning your phone calls. If it's phone calls, if you're having quarterly, what we call QASs, quarterly achievement sessions, they're missing those. They're not scheduling them. So point is, they're disengaging from interacting with you. That is a red flag. Why is that? Right? So what do you do about that? We're back to the same thing. If they're absent and not engaged, you gotta get a call with them, a meeting with them, a coffee with them, and say, you know what, I understand we haven't been able to connect. I mean, this is really important because I feel like, you know, you're looking at your membership and it's in question, and I really want to talk about the value you're receiving. Like, bring it right up in front and center. Because a red flag number 8 is if they are stressed and they have time management problems and challenges. So I'm back to when you see something they are struggling with as a leader, you gotta get them to process it as a co-pee so it gets fixed, because if not, that is a red flag and they will leave. And of course, red flag number 9, a personal crisis, family death, an illness, I've seen where members a lot of times in this scenario might start with a leave of absence where they're like, you know what, my parents— I can recall this vividly, a member who had a set of parents that were in another state and they both declined in health at the exact same time, and they had to go down there and spend a lot of time getting them settled, moving into assisted living, etc., and that took months to do. but then as a result, they realized that this was more long-term issues and they had to leave the group. So a personal crisis, particularly if there's a family death, a daughter or a son or a spouse, can be something that causes people to retreat and not lean in to the group. And so when there's a personal crisis It is so important you get them to lean into the group and not lean out. And there's so many strategies you can do with that. You can assign a member to, you know, reach out to them for a coffee and lunch, maybe, you know, a few members, like one member a month for a while. Um, you can do something special for that member to show them that the group cares about them and they are there with them. This is when everybody has to really Show up, stand out, show compassion in a very meaningful, genuine way instead of saying, you know, our prayers are with you, let us know if there's anything you can do. That isn't going to make a significant difference for someone when something like this has happened. So personal crisis, you got to be aware of not doing the, oh, we're so sorry, we're here for you. You got to take steps like this is your best friend. And what would you do? You'd show up at their doorstep. You would be there, be present, and you would do things for them whether they asked you to or not. Red flag number 10, they're not taking any advice to the group. There's no progress. And this goes back to they're going to have a hard time articulating the value that they're getting at the end of the meeting. So this is part of— you could say, well, it's going to look a little bit like not engaged. That's absolutely correct. But I can tell so many times when there is a member who's like bringing something up and they're just like, yeah, they don't do anything about it. They maybe don't feel like they like the advice of the group or they're saying, you know what, no one here can really help me with this. And that's when I ever hear that comment, then I say, how do you know that unless you bring it up? How do you know that someone in the group has not been there, done that, or know someone who's been there, done that, can help you if you don't ask. So don't judge. So make sure your members are not judging, because that will turn into a red flag if they are. So a lot today just in those top red flags. And the biggest thing, if I could have you take away, is when you feel it, act on it. Have a call. Talk about it and get the members through it, because it's so much better not just for them to stay in the group and you lead them through this hard time than it is to just let it go and let them leave when that's really not helping them at all. So a lot of takeaways today. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Mastermind Mastery. And I'm going to pick up this topic about retention in the next episode, and we will see you then.

Hello listeners, and this is a quick promo because we have our national conference, Live Exchange 2024, coming up in October in St. Petersburg, Florida. One day you can attend for a mere $500. And interact with your peers, others that are running groups, network with them, find out best practices, all those challenges that you're having, get insights that can help you personally in addition to hearing a phenomenal list of speakers. I will open up that day with some insights in regards to moderating and it will turn it over to Vern Harnish who, if you do not know him, you know, he's the one who founded Entrepreneur Organization. He understands peer groups extremely well and he runs Scaling Up. You will take away phenomenal information that will help you run your groups, not only to scale your own practice, but to help your business owners in those groups with the content Vern is going to share. You will also hear on two other subjects, one about the importance of Preparing your members for exiting the business, whatever that transition may be, and how do you do that. You will also hear about making change. How do you manage change? How do you facilitate change, which is required in today's environment? Again, content you're going to be able to take back to your groups and use yourself. And last, we're going to end it with, of course, Soldier and 12 Strong. So if you don't know that story, that is the 12 soldiers that went into Afghanistan on horseback prior to us invading Afghanistan. You will hear their story about leadership and how they have transitioned that into a phenomenally successful bourbon brand called Horse Soldier. And you You will hear how they have scaled that business, and we will end the conference with bourbon tasting. Again, a very packed day. I encourage all of you, if you are serious about your own personal development, I will see you and I will love to meet you personally October 18th in St. Petersburg, Florida. Go to our website and you can get all the details, see the details of the agenda, and register. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery, and to get access to today's episodes, not only the show notes, but any tools and resources, encourage you to— not only will you find them in the episode show notes, but also you can go to the website www.lxcounsel.com. So, LXCounsel.com, and you will find a plethora of articles tools and content and tools and resources and worksheets and things like that that can be helpful to you in creating and running successful PACs. I want to leave you with one thing that we end and teach to do in every single meeting, and that is the very last thing is to ask, what is your takeaway from today's episode? I encourage you to give that thought. Take advantage of the time you just invested in listening to the episode and what can you do to move one step closer to the vision that you have and the goals that you're trying to achieve with your groups.

So again, take a step back.

What's your key takeaways? What can you actually act on? And I leave this with one note. And those of you that have read my book, Your Seat at the Table, you know that I ended the book with a story about my mentor. He always, when he met people had a pebble in his pocket that he passed to them when there was knowledge shared. And so I ask you today to think about that pebble concept and to pass what you learned today on to someone else, which could be your members, or take it internally to yourself and act on it. So now go do something with those takeaways.