Keeping Clients Longer, with Anastasia Bennett

Episode 131– Increasing LEG with Anastasia Bennett This week I again ask you the same question: I have two affiliates in front of me, one with 40 clients and one with 400. Who has the better business? The answer is that you can’t possibly know because what matters is profit! At Two Brain, we measure only a few metrics which include Profit, Average Revenue per Member (ARM), and Length of Engagement (LEG). This week we dive into LEG by talking with Anastasia Bennett about peak moments, bright spots, firing the wrong clients, and smashing clicks! Anastasia brings a wealth of experience as she owns not one but two CrossFit gyms in New Zealand! Join as we learn more about LEG and Anastasia’s amazing story stemming all the way from Russia. First, I want to ask you four questions you can use to reflect on your gym and how it handles client retention. 1) What helps you to retain members? 2) How do you help our members stay motivated? 3) Why do your members come to your gym? 4) What process do you follow to retain members? Based on your answers above, you may need to work on your client retention approach and that is fine! The first key is to engage with members and encourage them to become part of your CrossFit family by prescribing the right classes and matching up your services to their goals. These type of activities can be accomplished by hiring a retention specialist or “Joy Girl” to reach out to clients on a regular basis and continually check in. Keeping in tune with your clients goals and ensuring they are progressing towards them is critically important. The next way to keep members engaged is to make them feel like family. Sending a client a birthday card, a Christmas card, or other thank you and rewards is a great way to thank members and make them feel like they are part of your family. This is a simple and inexpensive gesture, but goes a long way with your members. The third important way to connect with your clients is to recognize their progress and make them feel successful. Goal progression is key and recognizing these progressions goes an extremely long way with your clients. This is done through Bright Spot Fridays where we make our clients feel great about what they have accomplished! Client retention is critically important for a gym to be profitable. Use the topics and strategies of this podcast to begin implementing a retention plan to increase your LEG. If you are struggling or are unsure of where you are at on your entrepreneurial journey, I encourage you to head over twobrain.com, take our free evaluation, and then give me a call! Timeline: 2:45 – Introduction to Increasing LEG 6:36 – Anastasia Bennet Introduction 9:11 – Four key questions to ask yourself regarding LEG 11:46 – The importance of having a customer service and retention specialist 16:05 – Keeping members engaged by giving them rewards and making them part of your family 19:23 – The importance of knowing your clients motivations 25:26 – Is it possible to have more than one Joy Girl? 26:25 – Can the Joy Girl role be hired from outside of the gym? 28:02 – How to track a client’s progression and check in status? 28:54 – How to handle a bad behaving client at the gym 33:48 – Two Brain Stories with Jeff Larsh