Why I often DISinvite coaching clients at renewal time

In one of my programmes, around 60% of the clients renewed at the end of twelve months.

Now, depending on how you look at business, you might assume that means I lost 40% of them.

But I don't see it that way.

Because I personally DISinvited several from continuing.

Not because I disliked them.

Not because they were bad people.

And not because I didn't want the revenue.

I disinvited them because keeping someone inside a coaching programme isn't automatically the same as serving them well.

Sometimes the work is complete.

Sometimes the fit has changed.

And sometimes a person has consistently shown that they don't want to participate at the standard the programme requires.

Thing is, recurring revenue can make it very tempting to ignore that.

It's easy to keep accepting the payment, lower the standard and tell yourself that retention is proof of success.

But if someone isn't engaging with the work, isn't using the support and isn't contributing to the quality of the group, what exactly are you retaining?

A client?

Or simply a payment?

For me, a strong coaching community isn't built by keeping everybody forever.

It's built by creating clear agreements about how people participate and then being willing to honour those agreements when renewal comes around.

Even when saying "No" costs money.

So look, renewal rates can tell you something about a programme...

But they can't tell you whether the right people stayed, whether the wrong people left or whether the coach had the courage to protect the standard of the room.

Sometimes a disinvitation is every bit as important as an invitation.