I hear in the groups all the time how important it is for gym owners to ensure their all star kids are returning season after season. As someone who had a small program for years, I always cared very much about retention right around May. It was important for me to make sure my all star kids had a fantastic season, and at the time, I thought that meant we needed to win, get new skills and be in the position to level up the following season. I wasn’t altogether wrong, though I have some thoughts on how important “winning” actually is to retention (I know…some of you will fight me on that, and that’s OK. Make sure you listen to our NG podcast on this a few weeks ago. Dan did a great job of explaining his position on this, and I couldn’t agree more.) 

 

Today, I’m not here to talk about retention on your all star teams, but I will be doing that in the next few weeks. Instead, I want to talk about retention in your class program, because I hear people talking WAY less about that though it’s so incredibly important. 

 

Whether you love classes or you offer them because you know you should, class retention is just as important as all star retention. Here’s why: 

 

  • Your class kids are the ones who would ideally work their way through the all star funnel! If we’re losing them because they don’t love our classes, then we’re losing our chance to eventually sell them on our premier program. I love all star, and I bet most of you reading this do too. You may not love or enjoy classes as much, but I do! I love them because I realize those are the kids who love our sport, and how amazing it is that they love it but barely have experienced it! They’re our future! The biggest fans of all star cheerleading or gymnastics are in your gym just 45 minutes per week. If they’re rec tumbling kids, they probably love cheer and gymnastics as well. They may not understand how their beginner tumbling class plays into the other sports, but anyone who can love cartwheels as much as class kids would love cheer and gymnastics. 
  • You only get one shot (usually). Because our class kids aren’t on any sort of contract or committed for a season, they can come and go as they please. That means you only get one shot to do a great job at the front desk and on the floor. They’re often going to base their experience of your gym off their classes, so you don’t want to mess this up! You want them to leave every week saying how much they love your gym and can’t wait to return. You want them telling kids at school where they learned their cartwheels as they’re tumbling on the playground. You want parents saying how great your coaches are with kids and how they love your program. If someone who only attends 45 minutes per week can say that, what a testament that is to your ability to do a fantastic job!
  • They won’t be as easy to return. If you don’t do a really great job, they’re likely going to move on to another sport chalking it up to the fact that tumbling or rec cheer just wasn’t for them. It’s important that we’re doing an amazing job and building those connections in the short time we have with them. I learned years ago when we weren’t that great in our systems that one bad experience can mean a whole family disenrolls and you have an uphill battle at convincing them to return in the future. 
  • Class kids represent your program too! We give away a free t-shirt for our new members. That means I see kids all over town wearing our apparel. We want them to be raving fans of our program, because they’re ultimately representing us! We often think our all star kids who are buying all the proshop goods are the ones who represent us most, but often our rec kids are wearing their t-shirts to school just as much! In fact, as the ages shift slightly older for my elite teams, I can tell you – it’s not my senior kids wearing Twisters to school every day anymore. They’re wearing Pink and American Eagle. My 8-year old rec and novice kids would wear Twisters every single day if their moms would let them though.

 

If you’re not sure how your retention is, this is something we calculate for our Academy members. We call it the Length of Engagement (LEG), and it’s really important. It shows you how you’re doing with your retention in a factual way. Five disenrollments FEELS awful, but if your LEG is 28 months (meaning an athlete [on average] stays with you 28 months before leaving the program), well that’s pretty darn good if you have a big rec program. Don’t let the feelings stand in the way of making factual decisions. 

 

After we help our members calculate retention, we then move on to helping them grow their number. So, if you have a 7-months LEG, we’re going to spend a significant amount of time talking through your processes and helping you increase that.

 

If that’s something you’d find super helpful, book a call with Justin and let’s see if the NG Academy is something that can help you grow your gym!