Simple & Shocking Mistakes That Cause Clients To Start Ghosting You

Are you struggling with clients ghosting you?

It’s all too common of a problem… 

You have a client that randomly stops showing up for their sessions. As a concerned coach, you invest some time into reaching out to them but they never respond. 

You have no idea what you did wrong or where things went wrong. 

Believe it or not, you’re not alone. 

We hear this from gym owners all the time! 

In this episode of Just One Thing, we discuss:

• Common mistakes gyms make that have a massive impact on their client experience. 

• The rule of “eight” and how you can immediately take preemptive action to avoid clients ghosting you. 
• How to engage clients that have fallen off with their training and aren’t responding to your inquiries. 

Plus much more! 

Ghosting can be a frustrating problem for gyms. After investing so much time in effort into your client experience, it doesn’t take much for it all to come crumbling down. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to diminish ghosting altogether. Naamly makes it super easy for you to take control of your client communication and experience. With the push of a few buttons, you can mass text your clients, schedule reach outs, and identify unresponded messages. Pretty cool huh? Start your FREE trial to immediately experience the benefits of centralized and organized communication for your gym. 

Watch The Full Episode

So hi Tom. Welcome back.

Yeah. So 

Sumit: I’ve been thinking for today’s session. I was going back and reflecting on the conversations we’ve had and the conversations I’ve had with training gym owners. And one thing came up and I just wanted to make that as the topic for today. You’re ready to jump in. And for my, for the benefit of my listeners, like the time you don’t give him any themes in front, you’re not, you just, you run the question like Tom, this is my question.

And then Tom does it on the flow, um, on the spot in the flow. That’s that’s classic vintage, Tom Plummer for you. So, uh, Tom, here’s the question. The question is I have clients who signed up, they’re paying me money and then the 

Thomas Plummer: disappear they ghost on me. They, 

Sumit: some of them. Set up appointments. Don’t show some of them don’t even come in.

Like, what do I do? How do I, how do I bring them back in? Because in my hearts of hearts, I know if they don’t use my service usage drives retention. And if there is no usage, they will fall off. So I’m in this goofy place. What do I do? Uh, I reached out to them, no response, um, silence. So I’ve done the initial work already.

What do I do from here on?

What percentage of my clients are doing that. So if it’s an outlier, if I’ve got 150 clients and one or two people just disappear like that, that’s probably an indication that the businesses okay. But I’ve just got it’s that person that’s a problem. But if I start to see and the magic number to me, that always scares me is temporary.

Okay. So if I’ve got 150 clients and all of a sudden, I see a pattern where people are kind of disappearing or something’s going on, you can’t fix anything by blaming them. So you have to always go look what what’s going on in my business. And, um, we, we talked about this once before and it’s, I think it’s powerful.

We always tell the clients the right thing, but we often don’t do the right thing. Um, so we tell them, this is what’s going to happen when you join my gym, but then when they actually get in there, that’s not the current reality. So I joined a gym, I’m a stressed out parent. Um, I show up for a four o’clock session.

It starts five minutes late. Our worse yet. It goes over.

So that’s the type of person that just, they walk out pissed and we never know what happened, but we told them one thing and did something else. We destroyed that client. So our, we have an owner that hires trainers, but he expects them to create their own workouts and stuff. So we have a trainer we brought in.

Initially, they were pretty good where there, all of a sudden they start to put in some of their, you know, their movements from what they believe or something, not following the protocol for the gym. And all of a sudden we have a very weak experience and this goes on for, you know, 2, 3, 4 times. And then, you know, I just walk away.

I quit. I just, I, I can’t go back.

So when people are ghosting you like that, there’s almost always something that    we did. So if we back up in essence, one always go back to the basics, make sure that what your business is, delivering all the structural stuff that you promised. So if I say I’m going to give help, a lot of guys, they, they look at their clients and the busier they get.

They just assume the clients have more experience than they really done. Very few trainers want to go slow as Mrs. Johnson wants to go. So they don’t have a very, they have a very, very loose or stressed out induction program. Meaning almost everybody has to go too fast, too slow. And they’re horrible with that.

So I say, I’m going to start at two. I’m going to end at two 50. Didn’t happen. Crushed in that case. Um, Instructors don’t show up. Instructors are badly dressed. Instructor, smell instructors are scrolling on their phone. Jim pass a policy, no phones in your hand while you’re coaching, but here’s a guy out there cause his kid’s sick and he’s looking in the middle of the group.

You know what? Screw this. I don’t need this, this, this gyms. Yeah, I think I I’m I’m out here struggling. The guy’s looking at his phone, the entire session. I’m just so he goes, he’s gone. I could keep going on and give the coaches, but they see it. The owners really know what they’re doing wrong, but they don’t want to deal with it.

And that’s, they, they, they know that that trainer screwed up. They know they screwed up, they know all this stuff. So you have to assume that most of the time you’re doing that. And then somebody, we talked about another. Show another one of our little talks here is if I contact them six days a week with fitness tips and, uh, you know, all kinds of nutritional stuff, I off I’m constantly in contact with them.

They tend to overlook stuff a little more because they’re still part of the family because I’m touching them every day without wanting something. Um, another reason people ghost is, oh my God, you’re asking me for what again, you know, you’re trying to upsell me. This sell me this. You know, you’re trying to beat me up.

I’m a one-on-one trainer now a client, and you want, you want me to sign up on a subscription for water? Really? You know? So I just, I get done with you. I ghost you. I’m gone and they, they just quit. They, they may honor their agreement. They may not, they won’t take your call because they’re pissed off and they go away.

The weird side of that. Is the trainers are really afraid to call a guy because he still made a payment. Oh my God. If I call them and upset them, he already quit that they’re not going to make payments. So that’s your business plan as you hope the guy makes payments, even though he pissed you off and just giving you bad word of mouth in the community.

I’d rather go to the guy and say, look, sir, you know, you were a good client. What happened if I have to leave a message it’s going to be, I assume, as Tom from the gym, you know, you, you haven’t been in a couple of weeks and I’ve left a couple of messages. I know inadvertently somehow we must have hurt you or done some damage here.

Would you please give me the courtesy of at least letting me know where we went wrong? You know, something like that. If you’ve got a problem, you’ve got a complaint. If we did something wrong, please call me. Um, you know, if you’re that upset about something in here, then, you know, let’s talk about I’ll terminate your membership immediately, but let me know, because I want the guy to call because they want to learn.

Ghosting is a sign that the business is normally in trouble.

Outlier. One small client will just run away, but 99% of the time or more, you drove them away. Because somewhere in there you failed the client and you need to learn from. Fair 

So 

Sumit: I’m calling the guy. I, I genuinely care. So there, there are two camps here, right? One camp is like you said, I’m scared that, uh, if I do this too much, he just might cancel and I’m going to lose money.

And we’re not talking about that. Like, I think most of our listeners are seasoned campers. They mean good, the right stuff. They mean, well, they, they want to take ownership of this did call a couple of times. So I, I did what you told me to. I made that call. I said, Hey, I’m sorry, it looks like we failed you somewhere.

You’re not using us. You cannot come in, call us, tell us how we can do right by you, because I want to take. And 

it’s still radio silence. What do I do next? 

Like what, what’s my next play now? I don’t know. I’m out 

of, 

Thomas Plummer: I don’t know what my next card is now. Finished the sequence one. Um, send them a very detailed email, you know, always, you know, would emulate a less than one page letter and just state, you know, Hey is a valued member of the gym and I noticed you sift away.

If there’s something personally, I can help you with. Now the other side of this is that sometimes we have to phrase this letter because sometimes they have a legitimate reason to slip away, but they’re embarrassed. Divorce is a big one. Um, so they, that the woman’s got divorced. She’s pressured going through some tough times in her life.

And she says, I can’t put up with the gym, but it’s hard for her to tell you that. So when you phrase this letter, say, look, I, you know, you’re, you’re a valued member of the gym. Um, I’ve left some messages. If there’s something that I can help you with, if there’s a situation. At the gym that if somehow we hurt you or damage you, I’d love to know that if there’s something personal going on, please let me know the best you can, because I don’t want you to lose any time.

I’ll freeze all the time that you need. We’ll do whatever you need to because you’re a valued member, but please reach out. You have to open that door and let him know that. And, you know, and I’m in this for the long haul. That’s what I’m saying. It’s a gym owner. I’m not in this for the bag, one client for a payment this week, I’m in this to create wealth retire in 10 years, pay off my house in 10 years, I’m in this for big reasons.

So if I look at her and she says, I am devastated, I’m in the middle of the divorce. It’s the ugliest thing ever. I’m fighting for custody of my kids, you know? And all of a sudden you kind of go, Ooh, okay. Which then the owners won’t do this, but they, they have to lean in and go, how may I help? What do you need from me at the gym?

And here’s, but when you do that, then always get the options because she may not see them. So how may I help? What do you need? And by the way, if you, here’s a couple of these that have one, if you miss time, you’re going to, or three month. You can make it all back. You know, if that’s, if you want to keep making your payments fine and not, if you need to cancel your membership now, because of just the stress, I will do that immediately.

And because, you know, it’s legit because she’s on the phone crying, you know, this is a burndown, so you, and because I’m going to get her back, she’s going to be part of my plan. But also more importantly, when she’s talking to her sister and two of her friends sitting in drinking wine, I want her to go, you know, the guy from the gym called.

He was so nice. You know, I just, I, I can’t believe, I wish that everybody that I did business with was as gentle as this person. So when you send that letter and you have to assume that one it’s us, but two, maybe they have an issue, but we need to hear the issue because I can’t help her until I at least know there’s a problem if I send the letter up by email.

Yeah. And then I sent it, old-fashioned honest to God been there, done that before snail mail letter. And because I know she’s probably going to get that because it’s handed right. And if they still don’t respond, just you’ve done everything move on at that point, in that case do not cancel the contract because you’ve given her everything because she may just be paying, thinking she’s coming back.

Just let it go. Okay. And if she goes, you know, Hey, well, I, I dropped out three months ago. Well, I owe you three months, you know, not money, but even three months of time, you can make it up. Well, I, I quit. You didn’t tell anybody I have nothing in writing. So this is a contract at that time, I will go a little bit hard ass because she failed on her part.

We get a contract. She didn’t do it now. Will she go up bitch and moan? Yeah. But Hey, you know, they’re, her friends are gonna look at her. Like, why didn’t he just cancel it? She’s the idiot factor moves to her. Not to me. I love the idiot 

Sumit: fact that that guy that’s going back into my code book of Tom. So this is cool.

Okay. So first I send up, I call second is I dropped that email. Third is snail mail. Give me the time. Like what walk me through, how soon am I sending first time now, as soon as I noticed it, I’m going to send it. Um, when is the next 

Thomas Plummer: thing going out? Um, I, if I’m a good owner, I’m searching for that person every month.

There’s the, the, the layer, the layer that you do, like the numbers is the magic number of eight. Um, if it’s been validated, uh, by several research groups that the most notable was a group out of, uh, England that did research of 967 people that quit gym. And they, the only common denominator they found in all their stories was that every single one of us working out less than eight times a month.

So there’s kind of a magic formula that when you come eight times or more, you’re more likely to stay longer and pay longer. So that’s why I love tools in my zone and stuff where I get instant feedback on the number of workouts. They’re doing, things like that, where I can figure out what the guy kind of doing your software does a brilliant job of, of, uh, coaching gaps.

Uh, but I don’t think a lot of guys use your software yet for that tool where they look at it as that I want that trigger of aid to come my way, because I want them to know. So, yeah. So I’m going to run a report each month who dropped down under eight?

So things like the eight is kind of a big number because it gets it just me a, that is what if a guy walked to the hat, he had a giant red cone on his head. And it says last workout quitting today. Would you talk to the guy and you go, well, yeah. You know, probably probably would, well, he did wear red cone.

He did give the indication he dropped the low weight and that’s the same thing as the giant red column he gave, he told you he’s quitting. And you just didn’t hear her and you didn’t see him because you’re not tracking the right data the later, always before the layer. And so in this case, I I’m going to track all those people, but if I’m doing.

My infrastructure properly. We’re, I’m contacting them six days a week. They are have access to online support and even online training, which every training gym has to be in that these days still in this way, it never will end. And online training is a great option for the guy who can’t get to the gym that day.

I don’t have that connection anymore because I’m only seeing you like once a week or something. I’m not coming on my off days. I don’t, you didn’t give anything else to do. I’m not, you don’t have boxing or any of these off day alternatives cause you’re 1500 feet.

[00:22:14] And then all of a sudden we wonder where the guy went, what you wore his ass out, repetition fatigue. We’ve talked about several other segments. So it’s, this is not a hard business there. There’s basically the real rules of business apply to them. But trainers work so hard to try to think that the rules don’t apply to us.

Anytime you look at your business, it’s, it’s, it goes back to the fundamentals.

When your businesses are performing fundamentalists, when people are ghosting you is fundamental. So in the gym eight times or more, what did I do to run them out to the issues I need to deal with? How can I solve this problem? There’s always a business solution, not an emotional solution. Perfect. 

Sumit: I think.

You ended it beautifully. I think that should be a wrap for this particular episode. And as you were saying that you gave me inputs about what my next question is going to be. So for that one, I’m going to end this here and I’m going to crystallize my thoughts a little bit better. And come back to you with that next question then.Thomas Plummer: Okay.

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