Here’s a quick recap:
Reason #1: It’s double the work
Drumroll please, here’s Reason #3!
Reason #3 Why I Don’t Love Free Trials
It makes for a crappy student experience and jeopardises your retention.
What always irks me with the energy of a trial experience is that it’s rooted in hesitancy.
The student knows they are testing it out. They’re trying on if they like you. Their foot is only halfway through the door.
This need to woo them means that the teacher has to give extra attention to the trial student, giving them extra love during the class and chatting with them once it’s finished.
This takes the teacher’s focus off the paying students.
That’s not good for retention.
And if you’re getting a lot of trial students come through the door, it jeopardises your team’s ability to connect deeply with your paying students.
In my book, every single decision you make in the studio has to support retention.
With a constant stream of trial students, your teachers energy is always slightly siphoned away from the class.
Your current students also miss out because the energy of their group is always changing. There’s flux.
It’s hard to really bond a group together when there’s new people in the room all the time and you never know if they’re going to be back next week.
Here’s what I believe it should feel like: when a new students walks through your door, they need to know they are part of your family.
I want them to instantly feel like they belong.
I want them to walk through the door not evaluating to see whether you are a match, but rather, being welcomed as one of the family.
You can lead new students to a trial experience or you can lead them direct to enrollment.
In my experience, the latter ticks every box.
I share a bit more on how to transition from Free Trials in a recording of a training I did recently.
If you’d like, you can access the replay here (the bit about Free Trials starts at the 28 minute mark)
Click here to learn more about the pitfalls of Free Trials >>
