Today, I'm going to teach you how to retain your personal training clients. Not just for 12 weeks, but for a long time. Think over a year. In fact, at the time of writing my longest retained client is 18 years and with two more following closely at 17 years. 

If we take a moment to pursue all social media marketing as it pertains to fitness businesses, everyone is focused on client acquisition. Lead cost. Cost per click. How many trials you sold this month. 

What really moves the needle in the long term profitability of your business and you ability to finance new customer acquisition is having a long client life span. Our recurring revenue is the number one metric we should be concerned with and the longer our average client lifespan is, the higher this number will climb. 

What I often see holding coaches back. is an effort to rely too much on automation to retain their clients, or follow a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks' approach. Neither of these are optimal if you want to retain clients for the long term.

Building your business by 2 clients a week and retaining 90% of them is better than adding 6 a week and having to resign every 4 weeks. 

There are no real shortcuts to this, only real strategies that when applied diligently, will help you hold onto clients for a lifetime. There are the clients who will:

• Refer you other clients and help you grow your business
• Pay on time and not flake
• Get results that you can use to showcase as social proof
• Actually be a pleasure to work with rather than a chore

It's time to take action. Let's dive in.

1. Have a comprehensive intake and onboarding system

One of the biggest issues gyms and personal trainers have is losing customers in the first 4 weeks. This is always a function of poor onboarding or the service not reflecting what goal the client actually came in for. 

Quite often our client intake is rushed and an afterthought, when in reality it is the most important thing in the initial program design process and mapping out the clients goals. Your intake form can tell you about:

• their goals
• family members and names
• injury history
• likes, dislikes
• where they will struggle
• dietary preferences and requirements

As you can see, this is all fairly important information for the design of the program. I once read of very well respected and successful online coach charging $4000 for a prep program and recommending a client eat fish for protein, not once but twice when this client clearly stated they were a vegan! This type of service will have a massive impact on client retention and your reputation.

With onboarding, you want to ensure your clients have no doubts about how everything works, what they have to do, expectations they can have both of you ask a coach and themselves as a client and to have their questions pre-emptively answered. 

This is where automation can be incredibly valuable and save you a ton of time but it needs a human touch to be truly successful. Touch base with every client at least 1x a week in their first week (preferably twice) to ensure they have no doubts. Quite often all you have to do is direct them to the resources you already have available which has the dual benefit of making you look professional and highly organised. This builds immense trust early on. 

2. Map out your customer journey - both internally and with your customer

A lot of fitness business coaches talk about mapping out the customer journey so they know where the key touchpoint are for a particular customer. This is generally so the business owner knows when to convert the client, attempt to upsell or generate a referral.

What everyone misses here is the chance to go through the customer journey with the most important person - the actual customer. Clients love it when their coach takes a moment to sit with them, to map out their timeline and most importantly, what is coming next. 

If a client knows that you as a coach has their future training and results mapped out, it creates a commitment to the program for as long as it it lasts. This makes clients feel incredibly valued and also excited about what is coming: they feel that their coach actually believes in them and their potential, which is a rare thing. 

3. Personalise the accountability to the clients level and ability 

Accountability is incredibly valuable for creating a customer experience and helping people achieve their goals. For a lot of people it is the most important thing about working with a coach: someone to hold them accountable.

What most coaches do however is use the same accountability structure for every client across the board, which overwhelms some clients and leaves some underwhelmed. 

What we need to do is customise our accountability strategy for our clients level: this guide is here to help you identify the level your client is at. When this is done well, it allows clients to feel that the accountability is catered to their level of ability and will grow with them.

An example of this is with Level 1 clients, focusing more on tools like food journals and emotional management around food. When a client is aware of their emotional cues and eating and has a higher degree of knowledge around the macronutrients and energy density of certain foods, then they can go into macro tracking. This approach allows you again to go on a journey with a client and achieve more than just their aesthetic goals, it allows you to address them holistically as a human.

Just looking at this one area of strategy will improve your personal training business. However, as the late, great Kobe Bryant said:

"Jobs not finished"

See you next week. 

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 other ways I can help you:

1. Work with me 1:1 in a highly individualised environment, catered to your needs. Results guaranteed. Only for coaches who want to reach their peak potential.  

2. Learn from the best mentoring program around and get weekly coaching sessions.  

3. The MPC Mentoring Masterclass - Perfect for budget options and someone who just wants a taste of what mentorship can do for them.