More Than a Class: How to Become the Habit Members Can't Cancel

Here's the deal: most studio owners pour time and money into the top of the funnel. New leads, new intro offers, new members. But if half of those new members quit within 90 days, you're filling a leaky bucket and going backwards.

In this episode, Jackie Murphy breaks down why retention, not acquisition, is what makes a yoga or Pilates studio sustainably profitable. You'll learn the six retention plays that turn a brand new member into a years-long member: why the first 90 days decide everything, how to stop selling classes and start selling transformation, and how to become so woven into a member's life that canceling never crosses her mind.

This isn't about being the best workout in town. Great workouts are everywhere now. It's about becoming irreplaceable. If you've ever signed up 40 new members and still felt stuck, this one is for you, y'all.

TIMESTAMPED OUTLINE

• [02:44] The unlimited membership confession (and the guilt trap it created)
• [03:54] Why retention beats acquisition every time
• [06:16] The retention data every studio owner needs to see
• [08:56] Play 1: The first 90 days decide who stays
• [12:12] Play 2: Stop selling classes, start selling transformation
• [15:59] Play 3: Become way more than a class
• [16:45] Play 4: Build a community that lives off the platform
• [18:00] Play 5: Become the daily habit
• [19:30] Play 6: Track the one number that matters
• [20:25] Your three-step retention action plan for this week

KEY TAKEAWAYS

✓ Half of all new members quit within the first 90 days. That window is where the habit is made or lost. 
✓ Every additional visit a member makes in a month cuts her chance of cancelling next month by 33%. 
✓ Stop selling classes. Start selling transformation. The number of classes is the prescription, not a quota. 
✓ A structured onboarding (orientation plus three follow-up touch points) can keep 27% more of your members. 
✓ Without an emotional bond and a community, you're just a great workout. And a great workout is replaceable. 
✓ Nearly half of Gen Z says community, not the workout, is the number one reason they stick with fitness. 
✓ Show up in your member's daily life, not just on the mat or the reformer. That's what makes you uncancelable.

PULL QUOTES

"If all you sell is the class, you've already started to lose that person." 
"Every class they take, every visit is a vote to stay." 
"Stop letting the number of classes be the product and start letting it be the prescription." 
"You're no longer a line item. You're part of who she is." 
"When community spills out of your four walls and into their real lives, you've created the deepest stickiness there is."

FAQ

Why is member retention more important than getting new members? Acquisition without retention is a leaky bucket. You can sign up 40 new members, but if they quit within three months, your studio goes backwards. Keeping the members you already have is what makes a studio sustainably profitable.

Why do so many new studio members quit in the first 90 days? 
It takes around six months to wire in a fitness habit, and most people quit in month two or three, right before it locks in. The first 90 days are when the habit is either built or lost.

How do I improve retention at my yoga or Pilates studio? 
Build an onboarding system that drives frequency, sell the transformation instead of the class, and show up in your members' daily lives outside of class. Frequency builds the habit, and the habit keeps members for years.

How many visits per month keep a member from cancelling? 
Members who make four or more visits a month stay an average of seven months longer. Every extra visit in a given month cuts a member's chance of cancelling the next month by 33%.

What does "stop selling classes" mean for a studio owner? 
It means positioning your classes as the prescription for a result your member wants, not a quota she has to hit. When she's focused on the transformation, missing a class or two doesn't make her question her membership.

Work with Jackie Murphy

• Say Hi on Instagram @studioceoofficial
• 3 Marketing Mistakes Yoga & Pilates Business Owners Make:
  https://www.jackiegmurphy.com/evergreen-3mm-organic
• Join The Studio CEO Program: https://www.jackiegmurphy.com/studioceo

Transcript

The One Question That Reveals Retention

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm gonna ask you one question, and the answer to this single question can tell me so much about the health of your studio. Here it is. When one of your members hits a genuinely hard season, a brutal month at work, a new baby, a divorce, a stretch where life is just heavy, what do they do? Do they cancel or do they show up more? Sit with that for a second because if your members cancel when life gets hard, it means you were just a class to them, a nice to have. The first thing to go the second the calendar gets tight. But if your members show up more when life gets hard, if your studio is the thing that they cling to when everything else is chaos, then you've become something completely different. You've become their anchor, their people, their daily habit, something that people cannot imagine living without. Members do not stay for the classes you offer. They stay when you become more than a class. You become a habit woven into their actual life. Let's talk retention. It's the entire game. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to new heights without earning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights, and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning.

Welcome And The Unlimited Trap

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Hello and welcome back to the Studio CEO podcast. I am Jackie Murphy and I help Yoga and Pilates studio owners become the studio CEO. Quick confession to get started. This was really prevalent when I opened the first and second studio I helped open, but for years I sold unlimited, like that was the grand prize. Unlimited classes. Come as much as you want. And I genuinely thought that is what I needed to talk about in order to make people want to buy. And let me tell you something. What I actually did was create a group of members and students who felt guilty if they didn't use quote unquote their package or their membership enough. And just a heads up that making people feel guilty is not going to help your retention rate in your studio.

Retention Beats Constant Acquisition

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Today we're going to talk about focusing on retention. We can so easily focus on getting new students and new members in the door and not spend enough energy on the thing that actually makes a business sustainably profitable, which is keeping the students and the members that you already have becoming so woven into their lives that canceling their membership or leaving literally doesn't cross their mind. That's the retention game we want to play. Retention is the whole episode. We're going to talk about why it matters more than anything else that you do. Here is the belief that I have talked to so many different owners that they're running on. A healthy studio means getting more members. A healthy, growing studio. I need to focus on new students and new members. So we focus on acquisition. How many new leads did we get this month? How many intro offers were purchased? How many new members did we have this month? And we chase growing that number, pouring our energy and our money into the very top of the funnel. New leads, new promos, new, new, new. And I have to say there's so much nuance in this because you do always need to be filling your pipeline with people who didn't know about you, who find out about you, want to come for the first time, and who want to become members for the first time. But it's the wrong thing to focus on when you obsess of when you obsess about acquisition and not retention. We have to be able to balance both, or all of what you're building is a big leaky bucket. You can sign up 40 new members, but if they all quit within three months, you can still go backwards as a business because people are slipping out the back door.

Why Members Quit So Fast

SPEAKER_00 6:16

The data here is very clear. Industry-wide, 67% of memberships go largely unused. Only 18 to 20% of members come in regularly. Half of all new members quit within the first 90 days. That is gonna feel like a hamster running on one of the hamster wheels, paying a small fortune to replace people so consistently because people are exiting out the back door within the 90 days. Here's the part you may not want to hear. People can leave a business because they only ever saw it as a class to them. A class is the easiest thing in the world to cancel. Great workouts are literally everywhere now, online, at the park, at a studio, like you name it, there is a great workout right down the street. There is a studio that operates similarly to yours just down the road, or a Peloton class that can pull up on their phone or a YouTube video that's free. And I'm not saying this to say doom and gloom, we're all screwed. What I'm saying is if all you are is a great workout, the place where your member happens to show up right now to work out, you are in that moment a commodity and more replaceable than what you want to be. This is what we want to move away from and will be key to move away from for the end of 2026 and into 2027. The whole game here is to stop being just a class that your students take and to become something that is irreplaceable, more than a class, a daily

Onboarding That Builds Frequency

SPEAKER_00 8:56

habit. Let's talk about exactly how really diving into retention six different ways. Number one, within the first 90 days, because we just learned that's when a lot of people are going to drop off. That is where the habit is either made or lost. Half of your new members quit in those 90 days. So that window is incredibly important. Research says it takes around six months to actually wire in a fitness habit. And most people who quit do it in month two and three, right before the habit would have locked in. So those first few weeks, those first few months, they're not casual. They are so vital to your profitability and for you to build a community. And the numbers on frequency are so interesting. Members who get to four or more visits a month stay an average of seven months longer than ones who don't. When a new member hits eight or more visits in her first four weeks, she's dramatically more likely to still be there a year later. And get this: every single additional visit a member makes in a given month cuts her chance of canceling the next month by 33%. So every class they take, every visit is a vote to stay. So what are you meant to do with that? You want to really focus on building an onboarding system that drives frequency on purpose. So don't just say, hey, you're a member, here's the schedule, see you soon. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to become embedded in the habit of taking class. There is a study by retention researcher named Dr. Paul Bedford. About a thousand members in a structured onboarding, an orientation plus three follow-up touch points produced 87% retention at six months. So this was a thousand members, they had a structured onboarding process, they had an orientation, and then had three follow-up touch points. And 87% of those people were still there at six months versus 60% for just like a standard, you're welcome in and start taking class. So this could be you. You could essentially keep 27% more of your people from just intentionally following up and walking people into a habit. So if nothing else, you want to focus on that. Do you have an onboarding email sequence? Are there touch points built in? How often are you telling people to practice? Okay, play number two for retention. And this

Stop Selling Classes Sell Transformation

SPEAKER_00 12:12

is a big one. This is what I learned. Studio one and two, stop selling classes. This is so much more important now in 2026. We have to stop selling classes and start selling transformation. Here's the trap that a lot of people get stuck in. We have made or assumed that our service is the product and it is defined by a number of classes. You get eight classes a month, unlimited classes, three classes a week. But again, the number of classes is a commodity. And in this market, nobody is going to keep paying you for class after class after class after class if they don't feel embedded into your community. So if all you sell is the class, you've already started to lose that person because they're thinking, if I don't use this package enough, then it's not worth it. And we want to flip that in their minds. We want to start to sell the transformation. And when your students are focused on the transformation or the result or the community they're a part of missing a class or missing a few classes per month doesn't mean that they're considering canceling because they know that they're there for the result, not necessarily there to tick a box a certain number each week. So how do you do this? You one have to get clear on the results. We have so many podcasts about that. Track their progress. We got podcasts about that too. You have to really understand that your job is to make this person feel like their experience in your business is unique and that you are working with them to help them become the person that they want to be, to help them achieve a result that they want to have. And build a relationship with them. Know their name when they go on vacation, what they do. That is where you go from feeling like a commodity to someone to feeling like an integral part of their life. Bottom line, stop letting the number of classes be the product and start letting it be the prescription. Three classes a week is not a quota that they have to hit in order to feel like they got their money's worth. Three classes a week is what you're saying, hey, this is the best way I would prescribe you to take action to achieve this result, to get stronger, to get out of pain, to feel like yourself again. And when you connect the number of classes or sessions to her why, her outcome, the frequency is gonna stop feeling like pressure and start feeling like, oh, I just do these things to achieve this result. If I do less of those things, it's just gonna take me longer to achieve the result, but it's still important that I show up. The frequency is the thing that's gonna build the habit and lock and retention. The outcome that they're going after justifies those visits. The visits build the habit, and the habit keeps the member in for years. So here is something you want to be able to answer is what is a member going to achieve in the first 90 days? We want to answer that question, and that will help us stop that revolving door. Okay,

Make Your Studio Uncancelable

SPEAKER_00 15:59

play number three become way more than a class in boutique fitness. A great workout is necessary. It is where people start these days. What's gonna make you uncancelable? Is that a word? Is how you make people feel. You don't want your members to walk out thinking, I did Pilates today. You want them to walk out thinking, I'm stronger. I feel like a stronger version of myself. I'm someone who takes care of myself. These are my people. Let your studio become a part of her identity, her mental health, her friendships. And all of a sudden, you're no longer a line item. You're part of who she is. And what is clear about this is without that emotional bond, without that community piece, without that identity piece, that's when you're replaceable. Play number four, which ties into that. Build community that lives off the platform. This is how you know your community is thriving. Watch what your members do when they're not in your building, when they're not at class. Are they in a group chat together? Are they going out to get drinks together? Are they grabbing coffee together? Do they show up to each other's birthdays, baby showers? Nearly half of Gen Z now says their community is the number one reason for sticking with fitness, not the workout, the people. When community spills out of your four walls and into their real lives, then you've created the deepest stickiness there is. Because now they're not bonded to your class schedule, they're bonded to each other and you are the common place where they found each other. Play number five. Become the daily habit. A class happens, I don't know, they're getting there two or three times a week if they're busy. But a habit is daily. So if you only exist in the member's life during the time where she's on the mat or on the reformer, then you're competing in this tiny little window of her week and you disappear the rest of the time. Show up in your member's day, even when those members are not in the building. Get into her daily life on purpose. This is why your social media is so key. Or an email list is so key, or a membership community platform. It's so key. You could send a morning video in the community app. You could write daily check-ins or prompts. You could do a 30-day challenge online. You could have a member-only feed on Instagram where they're talking to each other. A lot of my studios have an email from the owner to the members that goes out weekly. I say my studios, a lot of my clients have emails that go out from the owner to the members weekly, and the members love it. They thrive on it because all of a sudden they're there's thinking this person cares about me outside of being a number in a class. I'm connected in a deeper way. I know that they're caring about my whole life, my energy, my stress, my sleep, friendships, my mornings, not just coming to class. And when you can be a part of that every single day, they're not going to cancel. They're going to want to stick around. And then finally, last thing that you have to do, track the data. Keep an eye on the one number that all of this rolls up into retention. How long does your average member stay? That is your real scoreboard. Build on everything we just talked about. And retention should increase. A hard season will make your members lean in, not out. They don't want to cancel on a habit. They don't want to cancel on their people. They don't want to cancel on their own transformation. They want to prioritize that over everything else.

Your Three Actions This Week

SPEAKER_00 20:25

So here's your action this week is number one, map out onboarding. Think about your onboarding system. Number two, answer the question what did the last 10 new members achieve in the first 90 days? And start to talk about that in your content and your marketing. Build that into your onboarding sequence. And third, get into their daily life. Show up for your members outside of class, however, you want to do that. This is where you're really going to start to build the retention engine and it will make you uncancelable. This is what we do inside the studio CEO program. I'd love to hear how you're going to take this podcast and put it into action. So send me a message on Instagram. I'm at studio CEO official. I'll see you next week. Go be the CEO.