Episode 349: The Clients You Don't Want (And Why They're Costing You More Than You Think)

When the Wrong Clients Are Costing Your Business More Than You Think

Not every client is a good client—and keeping the wrong ones can cost your business far more than lost revenue.

In this episode of the Female emPOWERed Podcast, Christa Gurka breaks down how misaligned clients quietly drain your time, team morale, culture, and profitability. From clients who constantly ask for discounts and policy exceptions to those who create tension for your team, these relationships can become an expensive hidden cost in your business.

Christa shares how your pricing, positioning, messaging, and onboarding can act as filters to attract clients who value what you offer—and help the wrong-fit clients self-select out before they ever become a problem.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why misaligned clients cost more than the revenue they generate
• How low-priced intro offers can attract bargain hunters and price-sensitive clients
• Red flags to watch for during intro offers and consultations
• How clear positioning helps attract your ideal clients
• Why consistently making policy exceptions can damage your culture
• How difficult clients affect team morale and your best customers
• When it may be time to respectfully tell a client you’re no longer the right fit
• Why protecting your client roster is an important part of building a scalable, valuable business

Your business doesn’t need to be for everyone. The goal is to build a community of clients who value your expertise, respect your policies, invest in their results, and align with the culture you’re working so hard to create.

Ready to build a stronger, more sustainable business?

Learn more about the Fit Biz Accelerator, Christa’s 12-month coaching and implementation program for Pilates, boutique fitness, physical therapy, and wellness business owners:

ChristaGurka.com/accelerator

Connect with Christa

Website: ChristaGurka.com
Instagram: @ChristaGurka
Podcast: Female emPOWERed Podcast

If this episode resonated with you, share it with another studio, clinic, or wellness business owner who needs to hear it.

Transcript

Speaker 1:03

Hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered podcast. I'm your host, Christa Gurka, and if you're new here, I'm so glad you found me. I'm a physical therapist, Pilates instructor, and former studio owner who built my company, Pilates in the Grove, from a 500 square foot space to multiple locations, four at its height, crossed the seven-figure mark in revenue, sold in 2025 and was able to walk away with, seven figures in my pocket, which was great. And now I spend my time helping other boutique fitness and wellness business owners like you do the same thing, build a business that's profitable and sustainable and give you real, actionable, tangible advice on what you can do inside your business. Now, I hope that the volume on this is not terrible. At literally just as I sat down to hit record, the landscapers came, so they're blowing, but I just need to get this done, so hopefully it's not crazy annoying in the background. Hopefully. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. So today's episode, we are gonna talk about, what to do when clients misalign with your mission and vision. So we always talk about the right clients, getting the right clients in the door, but how do we weed out the clients that are actually not for you? And this really goes back to episode 337 where we t- spoke about how to not compete on price and how you don't want to compete on price with your competition because it's a race to the bottom. And what happens when you compete on price is you start to attract bargain hunters and most of us in this industry, that's not what we're looking for. We want people that have discretionary income. We want people that are gonna stay loyal. We want people that are not going to balk at, paying $100, $200, $300 for something. We do not necessarily want the price shoppers because almost Price shoppers are almost never your best clients. And today what we're gonna do is go a little bit deeper, because it's not just about pricing, it's about attracting the people you wanna attract, and then detr- detracting, is that a word? The people that you don't want to attract. So how are we attracting the wrong kind of clients inadvertently in our messaging, in our branding, in our ads, in our social media, in our emails? Because not every client is a good client. and you might be like, "That seems backwards. Isn't the client always right? The customer always right?" And actually, no. And at Pilates in the Grove, one of our core values was customer commitment, and part of customer commitment was, I don't believe the c- customer is always right, but I do believe they're always deserving our, of our respect. And sometimes the most respectful thing we can do is invite them or offer them a different solution to their problem, which may be a different facility, a different service, a different business altogether, okay? So I want to make the case today that misaligned clients are actually costing you more than just money. They're costing you energy, time, team culture, whether you have two spots open on your schedule or 200 spots open on your schedule. And the sooner you learn this and understand it, the faster you can make adjustments and tweaks in your branding and messaging. So s- let's start with just the intro offer. Clients who haggle over your intro offer It's a red flag immediately. Clients who cancel the intro offer, it's a red flag. Clients who pick apart your instructors on the feedback form already, who send you texts or even DMs asking if they can make- if you can make an exception to your membership policy, that client is not just annoying, right? They are expensive. And a, in a boutique studio, in this environment where every session, every reformer, every hour is a finite resource, turning away the wrong clients is actually super beneficial because it makes room for the right clients. And so what we're gonna talk about today is how to identify the clients you actually don't want, how to build systems that will filter them out before they even get into your door, and how to protect the culture you've worked so, so hard to build within your team and within your customers without ever having to apologize for having standards. How does that sound? Sound good? Great. Let's get into it. Okay. I really enjoy giving you some of this actionable, tangible information because I think it's really beneficial when you look back and, peel back the layers of your business. So one of the things I wanna talk about is every misaligned client that you keep, the same way every misaligned staff member that you keep, is costing you Things, not necessarily money, that you aren't measuring. Okay? They're taking up a reformer, a treatment room, a mat, an hour of your best instructor's or therapist's time, and they return a fraction of that energy, loyalty, and revenue. So when you string together a schedule, a business full of the wrong fit type of clients, you end up burned out, your team ends up burned out, you end up resentful and wondering why your studio feels harder to run all the time, especially as you're getting busier, because your business is filled with clients that don't really align with your mission and vision and your values. All right? So let's talk a little bit about how to spot these misaligned clients before they even become problems, how to build in filters into your pricing and onboarding so the wrong people self-opt out, what red flags to watch for in your intros and consults and things like that, and why protecting your client roster is one of the most important things you can do to protect your culture as you grow. And I'm sure that you can actually take a lot of these things and relay them into, keeping misaligned team members. Okay? So what do these misaligned wrong clients actually cost you besides the obvious, which is money, okay? So I want you to first reframe how you think about these clients. Okay? Most studio owners only think about this in terms of frustration. They're annoying. I hate them. I can't even want them on the schedule. But what about, these are the people that are rude to the front desk, the people that argue about your cancellation policy, the one who leaves us two-star review because you didn't offer them a discount, people that no-show all the time. And yes, those people obviously are the real problems. They are also easier to get off of the schedule. What I wanna talk about are the cost that is not as visible. Similar to what we've been talking about when we talk about the small little decisions that compound into six-figure losses, misaligned clients are one of those quiet, invisible drains on your business So let's take a Pilates studio, for example. So reformer or what we call opportunity cost, all right? If you have a misaligned client in a prime time slot that is blocking a higher value retained client who would maybe stay for three to five years and make your life a whole lot easier, that's a cost. What about the instructor emotional labor? Your team has to work harder to manage these difficult clients, and that energy doesn't just disappear. It affects how they show up for everyone else in the room, and maybe this is a way you might be losing your best team members. Okay? What about what I like to call the retention ripple effect? Your best clients are watching how you tolerate the difficult ones, and they notice that, the same way your best instructors are t- watching how you tolerate the difficult instructors. Okay? What about your owner bandwidth? How much of your mental real estate is occupied by handling a handful of clients who are always the problem? And what about that comp and discount creep? We started tracking this at Pilates in the Grove right before I left, like the amount of comps and discounts we were giving, and looking at how we were dis- p- disproportionately, What am I trying to say here? Sorry. Let me speak English. How we were disproportionately allowing comps and discounts to the misaligned clients who were asking for exceptions, refunds, and special treatment. Did that make sense? So basically, how much time, energy, and money we were losing to these clients because it, they were affecting our team morale, they were affecting other people in class. People maybe didn't wanna be in the class at the same time they were, and they were always asking for refunds or special treatment. So let's take this now into a math problem. I know you love the math problems. So s- let's say you have a client who is on a membership paying you, I don't know, $200 a month, but they no-show very frequently, couple times a month. They've asked you for, to not charge them several times for that no-show 'cause they always have a reason. They're com- and then when they do come in, they complain about cost or something like that, or they complain that the front desk person was rude, or they complain that they don't... there's no parking. And then your team and your front desk, I'm sure you've remember these situations happening, they always get, a little anxious when they know that this person's on the schedule and coming in. We really shouldn't feel anxious in our own business. We really shouldn't Taking a little sip of coffee. so has this happened to you? Do you remember... I bet you all of you listening right now can think of that one person. So on paper, this pay- person's paying $200 a month, but what is the actual cost, the emotional labor tax on your team? The opportunity cost if that spot could be held by a client who is referring people to you, who never cancels, who's never a headache. The admin time handling their complaints, the comp you had to give them last month because they complained about the cancellation fee again, and the real possibility that your best team member is dreading that hour that they have to work with them Which affects everything, right? And again, I think that you can take this exact thing that I said and put it towards what is the emotional cost and the opportunity cost of keeping team members that are not aligned with you. And I'm sure we can think of team members right now, and I'm sure that you can think of clients right now. Okay? So how are you maybe inadvertently attracting these kind of people to your business? We're gonna talk a little bit about the, your pricing offers and your positioning as your very first filter to look at because you don't have to wait until someone is already in your studio causing problems to figure out they're misaligned. You can start by making sure that your pricing and your positioning are doing some of that work for you, because letting people know who you're not for is equally as important and rewarding and pays off as announcing who you are for. Okay? Now, I have spoken before about the dangers of ultra-low intro offers or free discovery sessions or 50% off your eval. And if you think about it, there's a very big difference between how you get someone in with a pricing offer and how you get someone in with a value offer, right? So when you go with a real low price offer to get them in, what you're going to do is attract low... People that are price conscious. You're gonna attract bargain hunters, and then what happens is when you're gonna convert them to your actual pricing, it becomes very difficult, right? Or then they do, even if they do convert, that pricing is always a problem, and you're always gonna be butting heads. Okay? When your positioning, your messaging, your language, your branding is vague and generic, you're essentially, what you're doing is putting out a sign that says, "Everyone welcome." And everyone welcome means misaligned clients come in all the time. It is really great to say who specifically you are for and who specifically you are not for in your messaging. If we look at the pricing component of that, a $99 intro offer for, say- Three classes or four classes, depending on the type of studio that you have, is very different than $29 unlimited for seven days. Okay? What it does is it filters in people who value the service and filters out people looking for a discounted price, which is why I'm also a big believer that first class free, I don't love it, because again, you're at- attracting bargain hunters. When you have an intro offer that's $99 and say let's... The next phase up is 129, 99 to 129 is great, is a good... They're pretty close and the person usually won't blink. 29 to 129 is a big jump. It's what is that? More... It's like almost 100% jump over. I can't do math very well in my head. Okay? So again, with a low intro offer, you are going to invite low bargain hunting people, and I know the pushback, the thought is, people don't wanna spend $99 to test it out." Pe- the kind of people you want are the kind of people that would spend $99 to test it out, and there are plenty of people out there that want high quality, high touch and a little bit more of a high price point, okay? And they don't wanna be in a studio with people spending $29. So they are there, right? That is... You just have to make sure your pricing and your messaging is attracting those type of clients. I am telling you, there are people that are spending on a daily basis four and five figures on material things, handbags, people that are spending four figures a month on car payment. there's lots of people out there that will spend $199 a month to do fitness They will. Okay? And that's where your messaging and your marketing and your pricing are really important. Okay? So it really helps you attract the right kind of people into your business. All right? Now, let's... So we talked about messaging, we talked about pricing, now I wanna talk about positioning as a filter. Okay? Specificity in your messaging filters people in and out, right? Specificity like semi-private Pilates for women over 50 is not for everyone, and that's the entire point. Okay? So if you run a private or a semi-private studio, lean into that because there are people that don't want to go to big class studios. Okay? When you are specific, the person, the right person reads that and is "Oh my gosh, yes, that's me. That is exactly what I'm looking for." And the same way in ads we wanna do negative keywords, negative matters, so we don't... We want to negative out kids in our... Kids. Keywords in our ads and our messaging that are like affordable, low cost, cheap. We want to use words like expert, personalized, results-driven, investment instead of cost. I like investment instead of cost. Okay? Now, have you heard about, the red ocean strategy versus the blue ocean strategy? So it's a strategy, it's a business term. And it's like the red ocean is shark-infested and everyone's, fighting for the same business, the same messaging, but the blue ocean strategy is what sets you apart, and you swim, out of the shark-infested waters. so I think I talked about this, episode 337, where I talked about carving out your own lane instead of fighting in the same saturated water as everyone else. And this is what happens when you niche down. Your niche is your filter. Your niche is the inner tube that's gonna take you from the red ocean to the blue ocean. When you are known for something specific, the wrong fit client will self-select out before they even call Okay? So let's now talk about red flags that you can tell right away that these people could be problems down the road, okay? And things to watch for before you even say yes to these type of clients, right? So you've worked on great pricing, positioning. Even when you've done that st- thing and messaging, some misaligned clients will ultimately get through. Okay? So how do you start to see the red flags, okay, on intake, on an intro offer, on their personality when they come in? So let's talk a few things about some very specific ones. If pricing is the first thing they ask, they may, not always, but they may be price-sensitive. So one of the questions I like... There's nothing wrong with asking for price. They should definitely ask about price. that is a factor for everyone, but it shouldn't necessarily be the first thing. And if it is, the q- follow-up question I always use is, "Great question. May I ask you a question about your pricing question?" They say yes. I say, "Are you asking about price because you have a budget, or are you simply curious about the price?" Because someone in a budget, and if you already ha- They're like, "I can only spend $99 a month," and you don't have that type of package, then you, better to have that conversation right out of the gate. Okay? people that immediately ask for exceptions, "Oh, can I have a different rate? Can I have a different trial offer? Can I use the buy one get one free with my daughter and I get one and she gets one?" p- these people, I feel like they're already looking for an exit before they even walk through the door, and they're all telling you already how they're going to act when they become clients. Okay? I love this one, the drop-in name com- as leverage, and people used to do this all the time and say, I know the owner. I'm a friend with Christa." And then what started happening as I started removing myself more and more from the business, people would start being like, "Oh, I'm a f- good friend of Christina," which they were saying was me, and I'm like, "If they don't even know my name, they're obviously not a good friend." And my team would laugh at that, or they'd come in and be like, "Oh yeah, Jet Set's... they do this intro offer." And I would say, "That's awesome. That's great. We don't do that offer. here's why." and it's the same way, like when staff people come in and they're like, "I need $100 an hour." "That's fabulous. That doesn't work here at Pilates in the Grove, and here's why." Okay? So you don't wanna be compared to a lower price competitor. You don't. Gucci doesn't compare themselves to Target, and they shouldn't. Okay? So- that is something you can look for. If they're already starting off with asking for, pricing discounts, exceptions, it's also why it's really clear to set expectations ahead of time. Un-- how would I say this? Unverbalized expectations or n- un-- non-articulated. Basically, if you don't say your expectations, they're leading already to later resentments. Okay? So if people don't know this ahead of time about your cancellation policy, about your pricing, they will eventually lead to grievances because people are like, "I don't know. I didn't know." So make sure people know about your cancellation policy in everything, your auto emails, your-- when you call them, when you talk about them, when you schedule them. And it-- and you can say, "We have this cancellation policy because we re-reserve this time slot immediately for you." And if you get people that push back on your process, right? Then they may not be the most aligned clients with you. Okay? Usually, aligned clients appreciate structure. They are often relieved to be in a place that has structure and has standards and clearly articulates that. Okay? And dealing with people that are always trying to push the envelope is exhausting. Okay? Trust your gut when it comes to this, right? Trust your gut. So I did talk about this previously, and I usually come back to this a lot, about how people who ask for discounts are often the hardest ones to serve. They complain the most, and they give you the most headache, and they also are generating the least amount of revenue and loyalty for you. So if you're seeing those type of people, then don't be afraid to say, "This might not be the best place for you." Or, especially if they are not following your policies, you have to address that early on. Okay? and I wanna be clear here. Turning away a client is not unkind. It actually is kind, and it's honest, and saying yes to someone who's not a good fit and then spending the next six months managing that friction is not serving you, and it's not serving them well either. The most aligned thing you can do for a misaligned p- prospect or a client or the wrong, I'm doing that in air quotes, client prospect team member, is to be honest that your place of business might not be the best fit right now, and you can refer them to a different place that might be. Okay? This also really protects your culture as you grow. Setting the standard and holding that standard is the piece I really want to land today because I think it is a most important and most overlooked Part of this whole thing that we're talking about, okay? Everything we've talked about, pricing, filters, positioning, messaging, red flags, it ultimately leads back to one thing, protecting the culture that you are bu- are building. Okay? It's, back in episode 333 was when I talked about the hidden cost of tolerating mediocrity on your team. It's the same thing here. I wanna bring those same ideas to your client roster, okay? Because a culture is not just who you hire, it is who you let in the door as well, which is why your core values should align with your clients as well as your team. The clients in your studio are part of your community, and the community you keep is the community that you're creating and is the lesson that you are giving to everyone about how you will, what treatment, what behavior you will tolerate. Your best clients are watching how you handle your most difficult ones, and when someone repeatedly violates your cancellation policy and gets a pass, your aligned, your good, your loyal clients notice. When someone is rude to your team and nothing happens, your team notices, which is again, why I say the customer is not always right. They always are deserving of our respect, even if that is a respectful way to ask them to leave. Tolerating the wrong type of client sends a message to your high-value long-term clients and also sends a message to your high-value, high-value long-term team that your policies don't actually mean what you say, and that erodes trust, okay? It's if you have kids and you're like, "If you don't stop doing that, you're not going to the party," and they keep doing that, and then you let them go to the party anyways. Your kids will eventually learn that Mom or Dad doesn't mean what they say, right? And so this is what happens to team and client rosters. If you have a policy that you never enforce, they're just gonna be like, "Oh, they never enforce a policy, so I can do whatever I want." Okay? Your instructors, your practitioners, your team will perform differently in a room full of people who are genuinely invested versus a room where one person is always resistant, is always disengaged, is always difficult. The energy in your studio or clinic is a real business asset, and protecting it at all costs is part of your job as a CEO The way that we lived this at Pilates in the Grove was I knew early on that we were not the right fit for everyone, and that was a feature really, not a bug. We attracted people who valued expertise, quality, customer service, who wanted clinical level attention, and who in- were willing to be active participants in investing in their health. And the community that built itself around that position was one of the things that the buyers who eventually bought my business valued most when I was selling. The culture in itself was an asset, and the fact that over the two or three years prior to me selling, I was really leaning into this culture and making sure that the leaders on my team understood it, they were living it daily, every client that came in was following it, every new staff member that came in was following it. And the more your business can run on that type of energy of aligned people, whether they be client- clients or staff members who love what you do, the less energy you spend managing friction, which is exhausting. And then the more energy you have left to invest in your growth, in your team, in your own evolution as a leader, 'cause if you're constantly putting out fires and managing friction and difficult people, you have nothing left And that is the feeling you get when you're just like, "I am spent. I'm emotionally drained." Okay? So what I really want you to do now is start thinking of, if you have one or two people, you're probably in a great place. We all have one or two people. But if you're like, "Oh my gosh, my roster is filled, and if 90% of them left tomorrow, I'd be fine," then you really need to go back and look at your pricing, at your messaging, at your positioning, okay? And you really need to understand your non-negotiables that are behaviors for disqualifying someone. For sure, like anyone who's verbally unkind to a staff member, non-negotiable. Anyone who's repeatedly manipulating our policies and trying to get one over on us, non-negotiable. Anyone who undermines the culture of what we've built at our business, non-negotiable for me. Okay? So I want you to really think about, like not every team member's a good team member, and not every client is a good client, and keeping the wrong ones isn't neutral. It's expensive, not just in money, but in your culture and your mental ba- bandwidth, and in your emotional capacity. Okay? The clients you want are out there, and they are looking for exactly what you offer. The clearest path to finding them and keeping them is to say no to the clients who are never aligned with your business in the first place. Lean into your pricing, your positioning, your messaging as filters, and be willing to say no to the wrong clients All right, my friends, that's what I got for you today. If this episode landed for you and you're sitting there thinking about the one or two clients, the 5, 10, 15 clients or team members or situations in your business that you've been- that you know are quietly costing you more than you realize, I want to invite you to take that clarity and do something with it, okay? This is the exact type of stuff we do, we work on in the Fit Biz Accelerator. We look at real numbers, and we audit what's actually working in your business, your roster, your pricing, your messaging, your positioning, your team, your schedule, your offers. And I, along with my p- coaching partner, Felicia Alexander, we help you build the systems that are right for your business. So not only... This is not a cookie cutter program. It's very specific and very individualized to your individual clinic or studio, and we then help you implement, okay? 'Cause that is the hardest part. It's you read, but then you don't do anything about it. So part of this program, part of what I designed in the program, is we create and then we execute, okay? Because without execution, none of this really matters. It's a 12-month program because it takes this long to implement and execute all of these strategies, and enrollment right now is open for our next cohort, unless we have filled the last five spots that are available. So at the time of this recording, at the time I'm recording this, which is in June, I think it's gonna air in July, we may be filled already. But what I want you to do is... And the reason we cap it is because I cap it intentionally 'cause there's a lot of one-on-one time with me. I work cl- very closely with every single business owner inside, and I want the right people, the aligned clients in the room to be the right fit because I want everyone in the program to get the most out of it, okay? So if you're interested in seeing if there's still a spot available, you can find all the details on my website christagurka.com/accelerator, or go ahead and DM me over on Instagram and let me know you're interested in the program. And as always, if this episode resonated with you, the best thing you can do to help me is share it with another studio that needs to hear it, and it's also paying it forward to help that other studio member. until next time, my friends, I hope you have a wonderful day, a wonderful evening, a wonderful weekend, whenever you're listening to it. Keep going. Keep doing. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. And until next time, my friends, bye for now.