The U-Haul Story

By Jay Williams, TwoBrain Mentor
Ask a box owner about members who leave and they’ll tell you the U-Haul story.
“We only lose people when they move away”
Really? Your biggest competition is U-Haul?
The “U-Haul story” is what you tell yourself based on incomplete information.
You get behind in tracking your numbers, and you don’t want to dig in and find out what’s really going on, so you tell yourself that you only lose members when they move.
As the owner of a box in London, I get that people move…
But not all of them…
Think about it…If your favorite member leaves, you’d probably throw them a going away party, work out with them in their last class, or post about them on social media, right?
But what about those ones that slink away with an email, never to be seen again?
Sorry to break it to you, but those people probably aren’t moving.
The same goes for people who say “it’s too expensive” or “I’m injured” or a variety of other excuses people give when they leave.
There is truth in every one of these stories, but as a business owner, it does you no good to accept any of this at face value.
If someone’s leaving because they fell out of love with you, hated a particular coach, or disagreed with your new policy, wouldn’t you want to know?
I would.
There’s truth in numbers…so here’s an exercise for you.
Get a list of all the members who have left in the last three months, order them by date.
Write down why you think they left next to their name. If you don’t know, leave it blank.
Now…here’s the hard part. Pick up the phone and call each one of them. Tell them you’re doing a quick survey and want to confirm one or two things with them…and ask them the following:
1) What made you decide to join us?
2) What made you decide to leave?
3) What could we improve going forward to help folks like you?
Write notes, and categorize their answers on why they left. Put the answers on your list and calculate the numbers.
DO NOT use these calls as a sales pitch to try and get them back. This is an exercise to improve your business.
What percentage left because they were moving? financial reasons? injury? other?
With these numbers in place, you can tell yourself the REAL story of what’s happening to your members, and make REAL change in your business on the things you can control.
Need some ideas on what changes to make? Check out

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