How to Get Repeat Customers for Your CPR Classes

In this follow-up to our marketing episode, Dave Kotz dives into what really turns a one-time CPR student into a loyal, repeat customer. Spoiler: it’s not just about the curriculum—it’s about how you deliver it. From professional polish to timely follow-ups and discount strategies, this episode walks you through building a base of customers who come back every two years—and bring their friends.

Whether you’re just starting your CPR business or looking to boost client retention, this is your roadmap to long-term success.

You’ll Learn:
Why it’s your personality and professionalism—not just the content—that keeps students coming back. Dave explains how small touches, like using great equipment, injecting fun into class, or even brushing up on your stage presence, make a big impact. He shares retention techniques that actually work, including when to follow up with students, how to communicate updates in the field, and why automation is your friend. You’ll also hear how to use discounts and loyalty programs to reward repeat students, and how building a sense of community keeps your alumni engaged. Lastly, we cover why Google reviews are pure gold—and how to collect them consistently.

Quick Story:
Dave shares a touching tale of three former students—now nuns—who’ve flown in from across the country just to keep recertifying with him. Why? Because they trust his teaching, love the experience, and value the consistency. That’s what building loyalty looks like.

Action Challenge:
Pick one follow-up system to implement this week. Whether it’s a basic spreadsheet, an email template, or a CRM tool—start the retention habit before your first students hit that two-year mark.

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Thanks for tuning in to CPR to CEO—where boots-on-the-ground experience meets boardroom strategy. Whether you're saving lives or building empires, we’re here to help you breathe life into your leadership journey. If today’s episode sparked something in you, share it, review it, and keep the momentum going.

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🛑 Disclaimer: The insights, strategies, and stories shared on CPR to CEO are for educational and informational purposes only. We don’t guarantee wealth, business success, or life transformation by applying anything from this podcast. Your results depend on your work ethic, decisions, and unique circumstances.

Stay safe. Stay sharp. See you next time.

—Dave Jacobs Kotz

Transcript

0:05

Hello everyone. It's Dave Kotz again here at CPR to CEO today. I really wanna talk to you about another kind of follow up to our marketing talk that we did last time, and this is how do you turn your one-time students into life long clients? And it's really the same theme when you deliver quality product- when you are an excellent instructor, you use an excellent equipment, your customers leave with an excellent experience, they want to come back. It's infectious. They return. They bring their friends. Quick story time for you. This is from a class that we just did this weekend, and while it's not a CPR class, it was a lifeguarding class. This was a lifeguard instructor re-certification class. We had three students who have now come back- this was, I think their third, possibly their fourth time as lifeguard instructors. They have to recertify every two years. It's a group of young ladies that started with us when they were maybe 21, 22 years old. Some of them may have been a little younger. They were in the convent. They were studying to become nuns. They are the most wonderful human beings you've ever met in your entire life. I love them dearly. They were excellent lifeguard instructors students. They are now phenomenal lifeguard instructors, and they have returned every two years to us- to me, to do their recertification. And while that seems, you know, oh, that's great. Everyone's like, nice job. You have to understand, they came from all over the US to do this. One came from Florida. Others have come from Texas. We get students, not just these three nuns, but others that come from around the country, even the world, to return to us to do their classes. That is the best feeling ever. When they come back to you and they say, I wanted to come back to you because I learned from you. That's how you know you have really got your act together. It's a wonderful, wonderful feeling. That's how you drive a successful business moving forward. So that's my story. How do you turn a one time student into that lifelong customer? Again, it's professionalism, engaging your personality, delivering that excellent product. I don't wanna say anybody can be a CPR instructor or a lifeguard instructor, or anything else. You know that's somewhat true. But what differentiates you from all the rest of the instructors out there is your personality and your ability to deliver a quality product. CPR is fairly simple. We're gonna push on the chest, we're gonna breathe in the mouth. The lesson plans are all available. We all teach from that same lesson plan. What differentiates us again is how you deliver it. Do you make that course? Fun. Do you make it interesting ? Within the confines of that lesson plan and that curriculum, you have to differentiate yourself and make that course more interesting. That's the challenge. It's not necessarily easy, but let your personality shine. Don't be shy. I find the best training for this kind of regress back to high school and college. If you were on the debate team, if you were in the high school theater program, the college theater program, and I was, uh, that is the best training for you to be able to engage with other people. If you haven't done those things, consider it. Consider taking a public speaking class. Consider taking a debate class at your local community college or getting involved with the high school debate team. It will be one of the best experiences of your life, and it will drive your business towards success for the future. So. Again, now specifically, how do we take that customer and bring them back again and again? You have to offer a couple things. Obviously, there's an initial certification course. That's how you get them in the first place. So whether it's an initial course, maybe they've come in for recertification. What you have to do is communicate with them. Hey, your certification lasts two years maybe in 21 months, 22 months, you're gonna communicate with them again. Hey, your certification comes up in in two months. Have you considered when you're recertifying? Here's a list of classes that we offer that you could take to update your certification. Click here to view that list and sign up right now. You can continue to communicate with those customers, not specifically, but in more of a mass situation using a newsletter or an online, uh, social media presence. Talking about trends in the industry, what's happening, what they be new in that class. New things in CPR. Uh, the newest one might be left lateral uterine displacement for pregnant people. Uh, so that's a new technique that we've started to use about two, three years ago now. Talk to people about that. Keep them up to date on it. When they see that you are up to date on the latest trends, that gives them encouragement that you know what's going on and it holds you out as the expert. That's what you wanna appear. You need to be both the expert and the passionate delivery mechanism that makes it interesting and fun for them to return to you. Maybe you have a loyalty program, so if you come back, you have a discount for your next class or your recertification class. That's a great idea. Some people implement this very, very well. Others don't. It's certainly something to consider; that might get a great impact as well. You know, if, if you come back, you're gonna get not the new student price, you're gonna get the returning student price. You can create your own alumni association. So great ideas we've discussed here. We've talked about your professionalism, your engagement, you, and that might be you as an individual instructor or it might be the atmosphere that you've created for your business. Depends on, on how you've scaled so far. Are you still an individual provider or have you grown and now you have multiple instructors? That's a tease, I guess, what's coming next week. So think about that. Think about how you're gonna grow the business that's next. Returning customers, get them back. Loyalty programs. Discounted fees. Communication. Those are great ways to get returning students, but mostly just be successful, be you. Be passionate. Deliver quality programs, and people will want to come back for you. I'll leave you one other thought when you have your programs, do you encourage your students to leave you a review? Whether that's on Google or any other platform. Um, We do. We use a, a company called Tap Five and they, that helps them leave a review. It's a little stand that you have at your business. Obviously, when you say, Hey, we have 113 five star Google reviews, that helps too. So think about that. Now to continue the tease. Next episode we're gonna talk about scaling your business. So you're gonna go from a single provider, you teaching all the classes- how do you go to the next level when you have one extra instructor? Two extra instructors? Three or four till you get to the point where you're teaching multiple classes per day in multiple cities. That's the objective. We're gonna grow the empire. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to like, share, and subscribe that way and then the notification bell. That gets you notified when the next episode comes up. Thank you so much for participating here at CPR to CEO. We look forward to seeing you in the classroom. Thanks again.