Looking to 10x your client retention in 2024?

• Read time: 5 minutes

Welcome back, coach!

Welcome to another edition of Coach’s Corner! Today, we’ll unlock a crucial strategy that will help you level up your coaching game and get better results for your clients. Let’s dive in!

Play of the Week: NASA Level Retention

This week, we’re focusing on client retention. Here’s why it matters:

Quick background:

Mark Rober is a former NASA engineer turned massively popular YouTube creator with over 20 million subscribers. But before finding fame online, Rober was obsessed with human behaviour and motivation.

He spent years studying what separates those who stick to their goals like health and fitness from those who constantly quit and relapse. And Rober discovered one surprising fundamental driver behind lasting commitment.

It's not more motivation, better programming, or even superior willpower. According to Rober's research, the #1 predictor of whether someone follows through on their goals is…

Their belief that they are fundamentally a "striving" type of person vs. giving up easily.

See, most people get caught in self-perception traps. If they view themselves as someone who quits diets all the time and can’t stick to a program, that negative identity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But Rober found you can actually reshape how clients perceive themselves by changing the way you communicate with them as a trainer.

Key Benefits:

• Increase adherence

• Boost client results

• Improve client retention

How to Apply It Today

Let’s break it down into actionable steps that you can implement right away:

1: Use Specific Language

With specific language patterns and framing, you can make striving for big goals feel core to who they are as a person.

Rober calls it "encoding an identity script." which I’ll admit sound pretty cool, but personally I think this actually boils down to building belief in our clients.

By specific language I really mean inclusive language. Which means being a little less prescriptive at times, and leveraging the fundamental desire that all of us have to be included.

2: Live Examples

For example, when a client shows some warning signs of things going off track instead of saying "I struggle with always staying consistent too".

You'd frame it as "For people like us who know how important this is, we make sure we find a way make it happen."

Or I’ve found this works best by sprinkling it in BEFORE there’s any warning signs. Especially with clients you’d least expect.

For example, if I was a coaching a menopausal woman (which I do a lot as it so happens) I’d be dropping things like “It’s not for everyone this lifting stuff is it? But people like us know how important it is to be strong”.

And of course, I’ll do this while cracking jokes at the same time, which makes it seem a lot more natural. “Somebody has to be the strong & fit mother that leads by example, I guess it may as well be you!”.

** This isn’t about being completely toxic of course, if a client has an issue don’t completely ignore it, use empathy and help them through the problem!

3: How it Works

Simple tweaks like this encode an empowering new identity of being a "striver", not a quitter. And it massively increases follow-through.

Whether we care to admit it or not, many of our clients choose to work with us because in some way they aspire to be like us (little do they know how f*cked up many of us are right?? 🤣).

By voicing that we consider our clients to be like us, we are challenging their pre-existing belief that they can’t do it, that they’re someone who ultimately loses motivation and quits, and we’re building the belief that they’re someone like us, someone who stays consistent and someone who makes it a lifestyle change.

I’ve found this works incredibly well for all forms of coaching, because it is so simple.

For 1-1 coaching, it’s a matter of making these references throughout your coaching sessions. Simply changing the way you frame what you’re already going to say.

For group coaching, it’s a matter of framing your message to the group and emphasising inclusive language.

For online coaching, it’s about using it during your check in calls or messages, but again it’s the exact same method every time.

Bonus Tip

Here’s an additional pro tip: write down a list of phrases or things that you already say repeatedly to clients (if you can’t think of any, ask your clients because there are absolutely things they think you say “all the time”). Take that list and re-write these phrases in ways that are inclusive and speak your clients being ‘like you’, ‘one of us’ etc.

Coach’s Corner: Advice from the Field

This week, Ryan shares his experience using this strategy.

Their take:

"Mate this is fucked. I had a client message to cancel about 2 days after our call, and it was because they were busy at work. So I jumped on a call with him and it was going nowhere until I said the thing about ‘people like us know what’s important’ and literally from there he completely flipped".

Quick Hits

Need a fast rundown? Here are three key takeaways:

• The #1 predictor of whether someone follows through on their goals is whether or not they belief they are the kind of person who follows through on things 🤯

• With specific language patterns and framing, you can make striving for big goals feel core to who they are as a person

• Use inclusive language and connect them with the positive behaviours they want

See you next week, and remember: Success is built on consistency and execution!

Keep levelling up,

Max Waldron

P.S. Want to dive deeper into coaching secrets? Tune into my podcast where I chat with the best coaches in the industry! Listen to the latest episode here and get inspired!