Churn Checklist: How To Get People To Never Stop Paying

🔥

Jul 10 (edited) in Other

I spent 5 days watching every Hormozi 1-day to learn how to decrease churn. Then I synthesized everything into a simple checklist for you to follow.

30 hours of content
60 of the biggest communities on Skool
$2,000,000+ combined MRR
14 simple steps for you to follow

Reducing churn is valuable. A community with high churn is like a leaky bucket - no amount of traffic will keep it full. But if you can reduce your churn from 10% to 5% your MRR will double EVEN if your traffic and conversion rate stays the EXACT same. This checklist lays out the exact steps for you to follow to significantly reduce your churn.

Ready to rock?

CONTENTS

Cancellation video
Activation point
Onboarding calls
Time unlock
Level unlock
Guru to community
Get members to save
Pricing tactics
Improve culture
Balance pricing
Community and calls
Target high-retainers
Reduce overwhelm
Talk to customers

☐ Cancellation video

You can now add a video to your cancellation page dissuading members to cancel. Resell them on why they joined the group, and what they’ll lose if they cancel. Go to Community → Settings → Subscriptions to add a cancellation video. If your video is compelling, many will decide not to churn.

☐ Activation point

An activation point is a specific milestone or action that indicates a member is getting value from your product during the onboarding process. Someone who doesn't reach an activation point is likely to churn. Ask yourself 'what's one thing early in the process that if done massively reduces churn?' For The Skool Games we found if someone gets 3 members in their group, they're likely to retain. For your group it could be getting someone to comment/post, reach Level 2, or get a specific quick win. Once you identify your activation points, optimize everything to get people there quickly.

☐ Onboarding calls

A smooth onboarding that helps members get value quickly will decrease churn. Onboarding calls are great at this. Use the calls to resell members on your group, help them reach the activation point, and show them how to get value from the group. You can even use this to sell them higher-ticket things. You can do these 1 on 1 to make each member feel valued, or in small groups to encourage connections to form. Everyone that implements this reports a significant decrease in churn.

☐ Time Unlock

Skool's new Time Unlock feature lets you unlock a course after a certain number of days a member has been in your community. This creates a strong incentive for members to stay, thus reducing the churn. You could unlock a valuable course, call, event, or anything your members would find valuable. The more enticing the unlock, the more likely they are to retain.

☐ Level Unlock

Level Unlock lets you unlock a course once members reach a certain level. Levels are given to members based on how many likes their posts and comments have received. The more someone engages in the community, the less likely they are to churn. Someone who has never engaged is very likely to churn. So incentivizing them to engage with a Level Unlock course decreases the likelihood of churn.

Many successful creators give free life-time group access for anyone who reaches level 7 or 8. This creates a strong desire to level up, but so few people reach that level you won’t have to give many lifetime memberships away. I give people a profile picture template at Level 3, so they can have a blue ring like me. Skool lets people visit the HQ at Level 7. Anything that creates a desire to engage will work.

☐ Guru to community

If the only reason people are in the community is for you, as soon as they stop getting value from you they will churn. If people are also in the community for other members, even if they stop getting value from you they will retain for the other members. Encouraging relationships to form within your community reduces churn. Create a ‘Meetups’ category. Get a Skool Map. Elevate micro-celebrities within your community. Start a community podcast. Manually connect people. Anything to encourage community will increase retention.

☐ Get members to save money

If a member can't afford your group, they will churn. Encouraging members to save money every month will create more budget to afford your group. Hormozi did that in this post. Feel free to copy and paste it into your group.

☐ Pricing tactics

You can do a lower price for founding members, then increase the price over time. People are less likely to churn because they’re paying less than others so feel they’re getting great value. People know if they leave and then want to rejoin they’ll have to pay a higher price. And it acts as urgency to get people to join now before the price increases. Now on Skool’s cancellation page, if you’ve increased your price, a warning will appear telling the member that the price has increased and they will have to pay more if they want to rejoin. This is a great launch strategy.

Or you can charge a higher price up front and then a lower recurring price. Due to the ‘sunk cost fallacy’, members are less likely to churn on the lower recurring fee because they paid a high up-front cost. You can do this with Skool’s one-time course purchase feature. Someone can join your paid group then you can upsell them to the high-ticket one-time purchase. Or you can put the high-ticket one-time purchase in a free community, then sell them into the lower-ticket recurring paid community.

☐ Improve culture

As well as results, people want fun. Wrap the broccoli in bacon. Add a category called "Fun" or "Banter" to let people know you expect them to have fun. It doesn't all have to be business talk. Let your personality shine through, and others will feel confident to do the same.

☐ Balance pricing

Increasing your price decreases conversion and retention. Decreasing your price increases conversion and retention. Find the sweet spot. It's easier to increase prices than decreases prices, otherwise your customers may get upset. So start low, then increase over time.

☐ Focus on community and calls

The classroom content matters little for retention. When someone has watched it, it no longer is valuable, so is not a reason to retain. You don't need a course before getting your first members. Focus on making your community and calls valuable, or provide regular ongoing training.

☐ Rotate pinned posts daily

This ensures every time a member logs in they quickly see high quality posts. It acts as a reward for those creating good posts. And shows the group 'what good looks like'.

☐ Target high-retainers

Who you target will massively affect churn. Look at who’s churns quickly, and who's stayed the longest. Find patterns. And then ONLY target the high-retainers in your marketing. In the beginning of GymLaunch Hormozi worked with personal trainers, health club owners, studio owners, and micro gym owners. He realized micro gym owners were worth five times more, so he only targeted them and said no to everyone else. Then within micro gyms he realized his most valuable customers all had one employee, a signed lease, and at least 30 members. So he niched down again to those people. This helped him rapidly scale. When you niche down you massively increase the likelihood of success so you can charge much higher prices. The more qualified the customer, the less they ask from you. To decrease churn, continue to refine who you target until you identify the high-retaining segment.

☐ Reduce overwhelm

The #1 reason people churn is overwhelm. More stuff ≠ more value. We switched from doing 2-3 weekly winner interviews, an opening ceremony, and a closing ceremony to one weekly Q&A call and churn decreased. Keep things simple. Give people exactly what they want. Don’t overwhelm people.

☐ Talk to your customers

All your business problems can be solved by speaking with your customers. Ask them what's the least and most valuable part of the community. Remove the least valuable parts, double down on the most valuable parts. Half of the churn battle is speaking with your customers and continuously improving your group based on feedback.

Conclusion

With churn there are no silver bullets, just golden BBs. Each tactic will reduce churn by a little bit. Put multiple together and you can reduce churn a lot.

Hope this was valuable.

Kirby

PS:

ACTION ITEM:

Pick 3 things from this list to implement immediately. Comment below which 3 you pick. Then report back how the change went.

PPS:

If you're curious 'what churn % is good', here's some rough metrics we've seen globally on Skool:

Skool Churn Metrics: