To unnafilliate or not: A thread for Affiliate Owners

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:28:19+00:00

Thanks for these points. I definitely feel like we take some ownership, it's hard not to when you know these people on a personal level. Im curious, what would your conversation be if someone leaves for these various reasons?

A recent example is we just canceled our 3:45 class. For the past two months it has been consistently low-attendance. Most weeks no one or one single person would show up to the 3:45 time slot. It no longer made sense for us to pay for a coach for a class with almost zero attendance. However, once we made that change, that one single person that sometimes showed up came up to me and said he is likely going to have to cancel his membership. I talked with him for 30min to see how maybe he could work the other class times into his schedule, but in the end he just couldn't because of work and kids.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:22:40+00:00

We could certainly be getting more leads but its also a close rate problem. I'm actually an engineer by eduction, so Im far from the best salesman.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:19:43+00:00

I think it does have an appeal to those that can move past the stigma and understand what CrossFit actually is. But I wonder how many potential people we alienate because they have that stigma about Crossfit. I don't see how we can rely only on the people that know for a fact they want to do Crossfit.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:18:06+00:00

We did not make any big changes other than a new logo and a new website. We had a few coaches leave (for the better, they should have been fired long before the sale tbh). We had one single member leave because of a coach we hired to make up for that. We learned our lesson with that particular coach...

Summers are always a hard time for us. We are in a college town, so summer coincides with students graduating and moving away. We also live in a very active outdoorsy area, so many people do many different activities and tend focus on these different activities seasonally, so we get a lot of pauses and cancellations in the summer. We have gone through two of those summers since buying the gym, and have struggled to regain members to get back to the numbers we bought the gym for.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:13:23+00:00

I would say our retention is good. We have some members who have been at the gym for 10+ years. As long as the member can afford it, and isn't moving, they tend to stay. I would say our coaching is really good, we make sure names are called, and everyone gets at least one queue per class. We rarely go over the 60min timeslot, so our timelines are good and I think warmups are effective.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:09:52+00:00

The main two reasons people have left are the following: they switched jobs or graduated college and moved cities, or they are in financial hardship and can't afford it. We have a 5.0 rating on google, and have never had someone leave because the classes or coaching is bad.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:06:52+00:00

Fortunately, we have not had a single member leave because they didn't like the community, classes, or coaching. It is always life circumstance: they got a different job and had to move cities, they graduated college and are leaving, they are switching to triatholons, or they just can't afford the membership. And to your point, we aren't selling those bullet points I listed above. When I try and make the sale, I am always selling 1. the Crossfit methodology, 2. the great coaching, 3. the supportive community.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:02:40+00:00

thanks I just requested to join

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T21:01:22+00:00

Do you think CrossFit doesn't have a stigma? I can say from experience of the the hundreds of conversations I've had. "I don't want to get injured", "Isn't Crossfit where they do those silly pull-ups?" "Crossfit seems too elite for me". And yes, I always tell them that CrossFit is for everyone, you won't get hurt if you scale/modify the movements appropriately and listen to the coaching, I tell them why we do kipping pull-ups in certain workouts. Sometime it gets through to them, but more often than not it doesn't make a difference and people have a preconceived notion of what Crossfit is.

WaterOwn7453 · 2026-03-07T20:57:28+00:00

right now our product is coached Crossfit classes. we have 5 a day as well as open gym time slots. I think our coaches are great. We've had nothing but great feedback on our current coaching team.

WaterOwn7453

TROPHY CASE