9 months into productising, 60-odd active 1:1 clients, two coaches on the team. Weekly free group call the only community touchpoint.
What changed
Cut the calls to redirect hours into building a paid cohort. No replacement touchpoint between calls.
Result
Signups for the paid cohort were thin, and the free call attendance that had been feeding referrals died. Lost two long-term clients to other coaches in the same quarter.
Limitations
I can't prove the calls were what drove retention, only that they correlated with it. Could be six people who made the room feel alive and the other 40 were passengers. I have not tested a smaller version.
I run 1:1 wellness coaching here in Mombasa and I've been trying to productize for about 9 months. Last year we did weekly free group calls for the whole client list, 40-50 people sometimes. Engagement looked great on paper.
I killed them in January to free up my own hours for a paid group programme. Community engagement collapsed. People who'd been with me two years stopped showing up to anything. I expected a dip. I did not expect silence.
Turned out the free calls were the only place anybody saw each other. My 1:1 clients had no relationship with my other 1:1 clients, only with me. Now I'm trying to rebuild the room before I try selling into it again. Happy to hear where I went wrong.
