Release Clients That Don’t Align

The idea of purposefully “firing”, ‘releasing’ or ‘letting go’ of  personal training clients can be a scary prospect.

Getting rid of a client means losing money and the additional hassle of having to source a new one.  And as you know, getting a new client is harder than keeping one.  But what if hanging onto a client is hurting your business?

For many PT’s the idea of ‘firing’ a client is uncomfortable.  It means having an uncomfortable conversation, and losing the financial value of the client.   Of the two, the fear of losing money is probably the most significant.

In every part of your PT business transactions are being made.  The most obvious being the exchange of money for your services.  The less obvious, and therefore less considered transactions are the exchanges of your emotional energy for theirs.

But that doesn’t make that any less valuable.  Your energy is highly valuable.  Clients expect for you to be a source of inspiration, motivation and education.  Each of these requires you to GIVE of yourself from your energy bank.

Some clients treat you like an energy ATM and suck you dry of all your energy stores.  Other clients will willingly deposit energy back into your ATM.

The clients who are willing to deposit into your energy bank account are the ones who are more likely to be your ideal client.  The ones who don’t – well, they’re going to fall into ‘unideal’ category.

That means every exchange you have with an unideal client who doesn’t meet your client requirements is COSTING you.

 

Letting Go Of Clients Image

 

I’ve taken on clients because I needed the money despite knowing that they were going to be a punish (I was operating from a place of neediness and scarcity at the time).  I knew they weren’t my ideal client; they didn’t fit my client profile nor tick the boxes in my client requirements.  But I over rode my intuition and disrespected my boundaries anyways.

I received money but it cost me.   My integrity, and emotional bank account took a hit.

Spending time with a client who isn’t your fit is exhausting – the pretending, ‘smile and nodding’ and taming the resentment is costly. Which is why you need to let them go.

Ultimately it’s a lose-lose situation for both parties.

Here are 3 big reasons to consider letting those clients go:

 

1.   It’s not fair on them.  Keeping a client ‘just for the money’ is deceitful.  It’s an unbalanced relationship; one where the PT holds all the power and is doing something for themselves. This is not being client centric; this move is all about the PT.

2 . You’re preventing the ideal client from coming in. Physically and energetically.  If a client has booked a spot then no one else can claim that time.  From an energetic stand point, if you keep accepting less than ideal clients you are essentially telling the universe that you are willing to accept “less than” in your business .  If you want to work with ideal clients then you must have a criteria that they meet.  If they don’t meet this then the don’t get to work with you; you can pass them on to someone else.

3.  Being scared of letting a client go for fear of losing money is extremely scarcity based. This will infiltrate all of your business leading to scarcity lead actions >> eg discounting prices, “competing with other trainers”, taking on every client without vetting them, relying on others for your leads etc….

None of these points are conducive to running a successful, thriving fun business.

Remember you are the boss.  You are in charge of how your business runs, which means, if there are clients that no longer align with you and your business then release them.

Create space for your perfect clients to come into.

Release away …. ? ?

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