How to Ethically Fire a Client with Ben Pickard

[00:00:00] Hello, my friend on today’s episode, I’m with coach Ben Pickard, and we are talking about what happens when clients leave your gym, what processes and procedures you need to have in place to ensure they have a really thoughtful and kind exit ramp. From leaving your gym. And we also talk about what happens when people have to leave not of their own volition, when you might have to fire a client because they’re really not the right fit, maybe even disruptive to your culture.

And so we cover both scenarios in today’s podcast. So if you want to learn how to create the best possible exit for your clients this is a great episode for you. Keep on listening.

Welcome to the Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help gym owners unleash the full potential of their business. I’m your host, Michael Kehler. Join me each week for actionable advice, expert insights, and the inside [00:01:00] scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym. Get ready to unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry.

Let’s begin.

Hello, fitness, business nerds. What’s up. Welcome to another episode of the business for unicorns podcast. I am back with Ben. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, sir. Yeah. Having a great week so far. Yeah. I mean, it’s only Tuesday, so we’re doing great. We’re recording on a Tuesday. So how bad could it go by now, before we jump into today’s topic, which is the clients who are terminating and how to handle it, I want to just give a quick shout out we’ve talked about before on this podcast, but I’m going to shout them out again.

It’s our friends at Kilo. Kilo is a place where you can go and get it all for your gym. They will build your website. They have backend automation that helps you follow up with leads that come through your website. They will have backend automation that helps you with texting and emailing your clients.

They also have expanded their services in the last year to also have a whole system for scheduling and billing. It [00:02:00] really is. a one stop shop for most of the software you need to run your gym, and they offer some great perks for unicorn society fans and business unicorns fans. And so go click the link in the show notes, use kilo.

com and go check them out. If you need a new website, you need help with automations and technology, follow up with your leads. We use them at Mark Fisher fitness. We use them at business for unicorns. So I’m not just here telling you about piece of software that we don’t use. We actually use it. We believe in them and they’re a great team over there.

So go check it out. Click the link in the show notes and let’s move on with today’s episode, which is, as I mentioned, all about clients who want to leave. And we’re going to talk about both clients who want to terminate for very good reasons and clients who maybe you want to terminate. So we’re going to talk both about very natural flow of clients and ebbing and flowing from your gym.

We’re also going to talk about those clients who you might need to kick out the door in a very kind and professional way. So first, Ben, do something, give an overview. We have a playbook [00:03:00] for this, obviously, and we have a few steps that we think about. We think about creating a system for clients who are leaving.

Just going to walk us through, like, how do we think about this as a process? Okay. Yeah, the first step is to formalize your termination process, like how do people quit? What happens? Who do they have to notify? A basic process of who does this information need to get to and then what can they expect?

Exactly. Do they email you? Do they text you? Do they have to tell you in person? Do they fill out a form? Just what the heck is your process? And I think for many of you listening, and I say this with all love in my heart, you just don’t have one. People can terminate in 1 million different ways and you really want to try and focus and narrow that in so you have more kind of control over the information.

But yeah, sorry, keep on going. That’s absolutely step one. Step two is we strongly recommend setting up a termination interview or an exit interview with that client. Not everybody is going to Be willing to do this for a variety of reasons, but it’s always worthwhile having a [00:04:00] termination interview, which we’ll talk a little bit more.

And then the third step is as you’d probably expect, there’s things that you need to do on the backend, such as make sure they’re charged a termination fee or not, or their payments ended when you said they were or their membership stops, so they can’t book in those to put a bluntly admin shit that needs to happen as well as.

Things that need to be told to the member as well as to probably team members. You want your trainer to know that person’s no longer coming on Tuesday at 9am and they shouldn’t be expecting them. Yeah, 100%. I think so many gyms that we talked to put a lot of energy and effort into onboarding clients, which makes sense.

That’s really important, but they sometimes forget you have to put some energy and effort into offboarding clients to make sure they have a positive final experience with you. So they’re going out into the world saying as many positive things as possible about how they left. And also if they leave, well, they’re more likely to come back.

So that kind of off boarding process, it really matters. So let’s go back up to the first step, Ben and say, so when it comes to formalizing your [00:05:00] process for terminations, what are some best practices here that we recommend? Yeah. Everybody on your team needs to know. What they should say, because oftentimes it’s going to be, especially if you’ve got a GM or the owner, you’re the owner and the client knows you’d like the money and membership person they need to talk to.

Sometimes people will be like a little uneasy about it. So they might just tell a trainer and be like, Hey, I think this is going to be my last month. Your trainer needs to know what they should say to the client as well as what they should do next. You also want to make sure that you remind the clients of your policies.

I always just assume good intent, or at least I try to assume good intent. Sometimes I still get frustrated, mad with people, at least in the moment, but I’m not going to yell at them. If you went over, if someone’s been a client for a couple of years or even a couple of months, it’s very likely that they don’t remember all the shit that you told them in the, uh, consultation.

It’s also probable that they don’t know what your policies are. So you want to make sure you have a way to remind that client in like polite way that isn’t getting under their skin. [00:06:00] That it’s, Hey, we need X amount of notice to cancel, or this is what our cancellation fee or. Here’s what you can expect.

Um, and then the last step of this is to actually set up the, the exit interview. This is the time to be like, Hey, Michael, thanks so much for letting you know, you want it to end at our gym. We asked for four weeks notice. So the way it’ll work is you’ll have four more payments because your contract or your agreement went until date, your cancellation fee is going to be X.

Why don’t we set up a, I’d love to set up an exit interview so we can get some feedback from you as well as make sure you’re set up for success when you go on to do whatever the thing you said you’re leaving for is, um, Yeah, I think that’s exactly it, Ben, right? A big part of this is making sure there is a process, your team, if you have a team, is well trained on this process, they know what your policies are, and they know how to drive them to a next step, so that they can, in the moment, whether this is an in person conversation or they get an email, they can reply with the right information about what the policy is for how to terminate.

And they can drive people to scheduling their exit interview and [00:07:00] knowing exactly how that happens. And as you did so beautifully, Ben, really selling them on the exit interview, letting them know, this is not a sales conversation to try and change your mind, though. We do think you should try and change their mind.

This is really a conversation where we want some feedback from you about how your experience has been. And we are, we do want that. And we also are going to help them create a plan to make sure that they have some way of taking care of themselves moving forward if they’re not coming to our gym. And so those things are all true.

And we’re also going to offer them, hopefully some options to stick around if that’s with it’s in the cards, given their situation and it’s okay. So that’s step one is have a process, make sure your team is trained on it. And then really the second step is the exit interview. So you want to just walk through what is an exit interview and what are some components of this conversation?

Yeah. An exit interview is a chance to do a lot of really important things. As you mentioned earlier in this episode, it’s really set the stage for the door is always open and. A beautiful exit, especially I come with the gen pop world and clients will terminate memberships for a variety of reasons. [00:08:00] Some of them are super legit.

Like I’m moving to Mexico or somewhere that’s not geographically convenient for them to still come to your gym. But sometimes those reasons are like. I’m just stressed or life is crazy or I’ve got this acre pain, which might’ve even been the acre pain they came to you to get help with to get stronger.

But it might just feel like shit in their life is completely fucked and it’s unmanageable and they’re overwhelmed. And this is a really good chance to level with them and really get a feel for where their head is at. Because in my experience, oftentimes those people are like, Hey, we need to quit for this reason.

They don’t actually know that you have like other items on your shelf. I can’t go to that restaurant because I’m just not feeling pizza tonight. Oh, did you know, we have like burgers and pasta and all sorts of other delicious things that you enjoy. So there’s this get to really know what’s going on and peel back the onion of what’s happening as well as it’s a chance to get feedback from them.

So you can continually improve if you, your feedback is positive and they’re leaving for different reasons, get a frigging testimonial, get a Google review, get a Facebook review, get all the good things. And I [00:09:00] think last but not least, like I mentioned at the beginning, but it’s important to set the stage for.

What’s going to happen next? Maybe they are moving to Denver. That’s Denver is far from me. That’s why I picked it. And you might be able to make magic with them and be like, Oh, I know this awesome gym owner in Denver. Would you like me to connect you with them to see if their gym might be a good fit?

What a better, I can’t think of a better way to leave a positive impression in that person’s mind. Cause you never know when they’re going to need you back or talk to somebody. And even taking out like the selfish reasons, it’s the right thing to do if you really want to help people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you nailed it.

I think there’s so many great reasons that this conversation should happen every time, right? That this is not an optional conversation, but you really require people to go through this process to leave because it does help them leave with a clear plan for how they’re going to keep. Taking care of themselves helps you, um, continue to end the relation and the relationship on a positive note where you can, you hopefully it feels like a win, even [00:10:00] though they’re leaving, right?

They’re leaving in a way that makes it easy for them to come back. And you do also expose them to, to other ways they can work with you. If they didn’t know, oftentimes at MFF, we hear all the time, people didn’t know they could downgrade their membership and just come a little less people didn’t know they could Freeze their membership and come a little less.

People didn’t know that we still have an online option you can do if you can’t come in person. People didn’t know, they just didn’t know these things. And oftentimes when they get into the conversation, yeah, work just got busy. I just need to slow down, but it’s probably only for a few months. I want to come back.

Those are people we should absolutely try and get to freeze instead. Those are people, even some people who come to us with financial hardship, we’ll offer them a chance to downgrade or even just give them a discount for a few months. But I think the point is in this conversation, you want to do everything you can to make a really gentle off ramp for them and give them options to stay.

Do whatever you can to get them to stay. It’s so much easier for you to keep someone than to try and get a new client, as we all know. And so I think there’s really having this be a practiced conversation, like you would a [00:11:00] sales conversation and really be good at the executing on this conversation is I think a real priority for all of us.

Anything else you would say about the exit interview? Nothing new. Just don’t skip this step. You’re going to find all sorts of reasons why you don’t have to do it. They’re busy. It’s awkward. Yeah. This is one of those moments where I’m just like, fuck your feelings, do it anyways, get some reps in. You’re going to be glad you did.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And I can treat it like a sales conversation, create a real script and talking points for yourself. You have a beginning, middle, and end. Even if the conversation is only 10 or 15 minutes, it’ll be worth it for you to have a real process where you can gather testimonials and get feedback and offer them alternative solutions.

Awesome. We’ll leave it there. We can keep talking about this one all day, but let’s keep on going. So step three is maybe not the sexiest step, but it really is making sure you close all the loops on the backend. So what are the kinds of things that are in step three here? One of the most important things is to do what you said you were going to do.

I think there’s no better way than to leave a sour [00:12:00] taste in somebody’s mouth and to say, Hey Michael, thanks so much for your business. I just got all this awesome feedback. Your last payment is on this date for this amount of money. And then you like. Or something goes wrong and then Michael’s charged the wrong amount of money.

Like not everyone’s going to jump to is this person intentionally deceiving me, but especially if somebody is leaving due to maybe not being a good fit for due to like their life being stressful in so many other ways. You want to make this, like you said, this is nice and gentle off ramp and like, it’s really important to do the things that you’re going to do and not make it more challenging for them.

So it’d be things like terminate their membership on the date you agreed upon if they need to change memberships, like do that type of thing, putting it on freeze, but it’s doing the things you said you were going to do. And then, don’t skip this step friends, don’t skip it, send them an email that’s very clear about all of the stuff that you agreed upon and what you did.

Because it’s important. I’m assuming that everyone is communicating as clearly as they can and we all have good [00:13:00] intent and their clients have good intent, but oftentimes, I’ll say, Hey, Michael, your last day, your membership is May 30th and then there’s some conversation about some other stuff and for some reason they had it in their head that it was May 20th and there wasn’t another payment who knows what’s going to happen.

Put it in writing. This isn’t just to avoid. litigious situations is to make sure that the expectations are clear on both sides and keep that positive experience going. Yeah, 100%. I think that those are all fantastic. And probably most of you have to do all of those, some of those things during this process.

I think the other probably less popular, but important tasks are things like you might have a tagging system in your email database. You might need to tag them now as a function. Former client instead of a current client. You need to update your team on the fact that this person left and maybe terminate their programming if they have, if you have some individualized programming, so there might either be other housekeeping, but I want you to think through what all those things are that have to happen when someone leaves.

Cause I think when we don’t do that, it can really mess with our. [00:14:00] It messes with our count of current members. It can really muddy the admin processes. You don’t clean house as people leave. And so I think it is an important but unsexy step here. So we covered the three big steps, which is have a clear termination process.

Make sure that process includes a great exit interview, a well practiced, well structured exit interview, and then make sure you have a checklist of some kind and SOP of some kind that cleans up the backend and make sure that the You have a really successful off ramp for your clients. Let’s turn the page and talk a little bit about the less fun version of a terminating client, which is one that you have to terminate.

Uh, start with saying this over the course of how many 13 plus years of Mark Fisher fitness, I can probably count on one hand. The number, and we’ve had thousands of members at MFF, I can count on one hand. So I don’t think there’s any more than five, maybe Mark, if you’re listening to this, you’ll let me know if I’m missing some people in my mind, but I certainly didn’t have all the [00:15:00] conversations, but there’s not that many people who you have to fire.

But I’ll say this as my first tip here, when there’s a client who, you know, Just right away, it was just not the right fit. They walk in and they bring the energy way down. They’re really rubbing people the wrong way. They mistreat your staff. They refuse to follow the rules. They’re impossible to wrangle.

They won’t respond to phones, emails, texts, any of those things. And you’ve already tried to address it. That’s probably someone you want to try and fire fast, right? If someone is really disrespectful, rude. Sometimes even offensive. This is the kind of stuff that as stewards of our culture at our gym, we have to jump right on top of right.

I often, when I’m talking about culture, we’ll use like a gardening analogy, right? Our job is like to attend the garden, create the conditions for all the plants and flowers to thrive. This is like having an infestation of some insect. I hate you. This is a, maybe a fraud analogy, but I’m going to run with it.[00:16:00]

Some insect that, you know, is just going to eat all your crops. For example, we had these, like, Japanese beetles. I thought it was just like one or two of them a few years ago. And they literally ate, like, a whole plant bed in my house of stuff. And it was just because I let that one fucker show up. He ruined it for literally everyone.

Um, and I think that that’s what happened. Same thing is true with people. I think there’s something to that old analogy of a bad apple, not to say people are bad apples, but they’re just the wrong fit that they’re an apple in an, in an orange orchard. And I think we have to recognize that real horticultural today, I’m really going to Scott, I’m going to stop now, but I think the point has been made here, right, that I want to normalize the fact that it’s not going to be frequent or But when it happens, and we’ve had in the last two weeks, I mentioned this before we started recording, I think it’s been two unicorns that he members who are like, this person came in to my gym and was like a dick from day one.

And they were like, how do I fire this person? And I’m going to start there and just say, it’s okay that you had to fire people. She probably do it fast and it probably won’t [00:17:00] happen that often. let’s talk about how. So when you think about having to do this at your gym, Ben, what are the kind of best practices or process that you, you try to follow?

Yeah. Well, the first one, like the pre firing process is to make sure that you address the behavior or the thing with them in a safe environment. I don’t mean safe from like a, are they going to punch you in the face, but I guess potentially make sure you’re physically safe from a safe environment that like, who knows what’s going on in that person’s life, make them feel comfortable, make them feel heard while still being like clear and direct with what’s expected of them.

Because Let’s say they’ve done this thing a couple times and you and some other clients or trainers or whatever have picked up on it. You’re now all harboring feelings and those feelings have built up in you. It’s very likely that person doesn’t have a clue. They have no idea what they did. No idea if they have.

I’m not that you’d fire someone for bad BO necessarily, but if they have bad BO like they probably don’t know no one’s Oh, yeah, I smell like a real bad dumpster today and [00:18:00] they’re pumped about that like they don’t know So if you’re at like a seven or eight on the agitated scale and they’re have like a zero because they don’t have a clue You can’t come in super hot guns blazing and be like, this isn’t a good fit.

Get out of my gym. It’s Hey, Michael, can I talk to you for a minute? Why don’t we step into the office? I noticed this and this behavior. And I just wanted to mention, I didn’t know. I don’t know if you’d noticed this, but it seems to be coming off in this way. Can we talk about that and set some expectations here?

Yeah. Have a loving conversation. Cause you never know what’s going on in their life. And I would say as much as it’s uncomfortable. Lean into it as early as possible. If you let it go for months and months, it’s just not fair to another human being, just like you would do with your team. It’s not fair to bring up shit that happened in January, in the spring.

What I’ve heard you say is you’ve been harboring resentment for me for the last four months, and there’s no way that they’re not gonna be embarrassed about that. It’s just gonna, they’re gonna be in, Fighter flight mode, likely flight mode from the get go. And I know none of us listen to this podcast or trying to [00:19:00] make any people feel worse about themselves.

So step one is a lean into it early and address it with care and compassion in a safe space. Yeah, I agree, Ben. I think this is one of the hardest things to do because when most of you did not get into this business, because you want to have difficult conversations with other adults about their Poor behavior, right?

But I think your point here is well taken, is we got to give them a chance, right? If they don’t know what they’re doing is pissing other people off, and oftentimes they don’t, then we got to clue them in and give them a chance to make a correction, right? But I think this is often, depending on how bad the Behavior is this is probably like one chance.

This is probably, it doesn’t always, you know, depending on what it is, it doesn’t need to be three strikes. This is a chance. And there is a model we use for giving this kind of feedback. The acronym is S B I, and it stands for situation behavior impact. So often when you’re giving this kind of feedback to a client, you want to think about walking them through those three things.

So I would say something like Ben, I’ve noticed when you come into a start of each class, you’re often [00:20:00] about 10 to 15 minutes late. Then when the class starts, you usually don’t do any of the assigned exercises for the day and tend to make up your own workout. And the impact that kind of has on other folks is that it kind of confuses some of our other clients and our trainers find it a little frustrating because they’re not sure how to help you.

What’s your experience been when you come into class and happens, right? And so I gave the situation. Which is the start of each class and throughout the class, the behavior coming in late and making up your own fucking workout and the impact does impact both on our clients and on our team. And then I get a little curious about what’s that like for you?

And what I’m trying to do is open up a possible blind spot for them to say, you might not know that this has a negative impact on others. Let me share this with you. And then throughout that conversation, we can pivot them to, okay, what can we do differently? Certainly want to try and get you here on time.

If we can certainly want you to try and do the assigned workouts. Cause that’s what you’re paying us for. We want to make sure you stay safe and get results. And so [00:21:00] we’re going to try and drive them to be a little bit more. What’s the word I’m looking for compliant, right? With the way we do things around here and we’re going to give them a chance.

Hey, let’s try this for the next few weeks and see if we can’t get you to be more on time and try our workouts. If you need some modifications, let’s talk about that. And we’re going to try it for a few weeks. And if they can’t. fall in line, so to speak. If they can’t fit in, so to speak, in a way that is more productive for everyone else around them, then we have one more conversation to say goodbye, right?

But I don’t think this is a moment where you need to give them lots and lots of tries. I think the one exception here is, I think there are people who obviously come into our gym who have different needs. physical needs, mental, emotional needs, who might have some disability disorder or some handicap.

And for those folks, obviously you want to use your best judgment here, but if you know that they do have some extra, they need some extra time to learn, extra time to adapt, some extra modifications, that might be a multiple conversation situation. But if that’s not the case, this is like a one and done.

If you can’t show up [00:22:00] on time and do our workouts and you can’t communicate some other need that we can fill for you, we’re just not the right fit. Yeah. And that’s something. To add onto what you were going to say, there’s something that you would tell them of when you’re using that SBI acronym, you’re not going to be like, great, you’re going to change that.

Okay, perfect. Everything’s fine. You’d mentioned awesome. And this is, can be hard because you got to be direct with them. You’re basically saying this is your strike, but it’s like, Hey, that’s great. I’m glad we can do an agreement here. Cause I wanted to make sure that if that’s not something that can happen on a regular basis, I don’t think we’re going to keep working together.

Does that sound reasonable to you? Yeah. Like you’re not being like, bitch, if you don’t do the thing, yeah. Fucking out of here. You’re not running a dictatorship here. You’re trying to. Meet people where they’re at while still work within the framework and boundaries that you established of good training But if you don’t tell them that in that first meeting Then if you come out of the gate super hot in the second meeting like they’re assuming you might not Communicate it clearly then they’re gonna be like holy shit.

Like why am I getting in trouble for this? These people are jerks Yeah, I think that’s exactly you have to [00:23:00] make it clear that this is something that will have to change We’re gonna give it a few weeks or a touch base again But if this doesn’t work out that we might just not be the right fit and that’s okay We’ll help you find one But, and I think you can do it in a very direct and kind way.

That’s the goal here, but ultimately I think regardless of the scenario, if they cannot behave in a way that, that is positive for other people around them, they have to go, and I think you just reiterate, Hey, the thing that we really need around here is people to show up on time and. Follow our workouts or ask for an appropriate changes.

And it doesn’t seem like you’re able or interested in doing that, which I understand you’re right to not do that, but just means we can’t work together anymore. So let me help you find a place. It’s going to be better fit for you. I’ll refund this last month. I’ll refund the last two months of your membership here, right?

So you can use that money to go find a new place. Let me connect you with a gym down the street who might be a better solution. And I’m doing everything I can to make it a great off ramp, even for someone who I’m firing. Right. I’m trying to make it as good an off ramp as possible. So even someone like this will [00:24:00] maybe go out in the world and say nice things about us.

Right. Can’t always be the case. Sometimes it’s going to be a go F yourself door slam, right? But let them be the jerk. Let that, let them be the one with the short fuse and that’s unreasonable. We’re the one who’s trying to make it work and trying to give them all the support they need. Right. To get, to achieve the goals they say they have.

And so I know that’s my hot take on the actual firing. What would you add to that? I got some advice from a mentor ages ago, so I’ll keep the story brief. Yeah. I was like four months in business, like in my infancy, I’d only been a trainer out of school for a couple of years up to this point. So I got some reps in and I was good, but like I hadn’t leaned into a lot of the customer service stuff that we’re talking about today.

And I had a client who was referred from like, My not just my favorite clients, but people have been like the most supportive with me. They’re also very well known in the community and they refer to somebody and. The person was total dick, like to the point where they would show up [00:25:00] 15 minutes early to a session.

And then if I wasn’t, I was renting space in another gym, so I wasn’t like always on the floor. Like I didn’t have that many clients, but they show up 15 minutes early for a session. If I wasn’t there to be right there at that moment, they would walk out and phone me and be like, Hey, I’m here for our session.

Like where are you? And like, like sometimes I was in the bathroom, so many breaks anyways, long story short, we made some changes and that person was like really unhappy. And I remember calling the clients who referred him to be like, I thought I let them down and you might’ve experienced listeners. You might’ve experienced something too.

And a really key person in your organization or for somebody, they’re not trying to send you bad people, but maybe that person wasn’t a good fit. They were just trying to support your business. And anyways, I was talking to the person who referred him was also a long time mentor of mine. And he was not unhappy at all that with me, which was great to hear.

So it’s the lesson there is it’s not always as bad as we think it’s going to be, but the advice he gave, and he works with a lot of customers on big ticket items. Was, it’s always better for a client to feel like [00:26:00] they fired themselves. And that ties beautifully into what the language you were using around, like, like you’re talking about it being a good fit.

You’re not saying, I don’t want you in my gym. Get out. Yeah. You’re not saying person. It’s just the behavior isn’t working. Yeah. You’re talking about, I don’t think you’re the best fit and here’s why, why don’t I help you get to this thing? That’s probably better for you because then you’re trying to get them to come around to the idea.

Like, yeah, I think you’re right. Maybe this isn’t the right fit. I didn’t realize these things were happening. Any reasonable human can be like, cool. Can we try that thing? You’re terminating them, but they’re essentially like agreeing with you and deciding to quit. And you’re making it very easy for them to do that by offering refunds and getting your contracts and all that type of stuff.

But it’s a lot less confrontation than they’ll like, then we don’t want you here anymore. Yeah. Now, eventually it might have to get to that point. I’ve had to do that once with the client and only once in 10 years. But if you can frame it in a way where like, how do you make it as easy as possible for them to quit?

Because then they’re leaving On their own terms, and they feel autonomy in that decision. As soon as you tell [00:27:00] somebody they can’t have the cookie, they want it more, even if they didn’t want the cookie. You want to be like, I don’t think this is the right cookie for you, but this other cookie place down the road has your favorite flavor.

Yeah, 100%. I think that you can absolutely do that in conversation, even with the simple questions like, can we both agree this isn’t working? Just getting them to agree that it’s not fun for them. I mean, if they’ve, if this is the second time they’re like in, in the principal’s office, getting a talking to like it’s, they’ve got to be pretty clear that it’s not working for everyone.

And they don’t want to keep doing that. No one joined their local gym to be sitting down with the owner in trouble. And so they don’t want it to keep going any longer than you do. Listen, some people will dig their heels in. Some people are. Don’t mind the drama. They’re going to ratchet it up and, and make your life a little bit harder.

But most people will usually go with some quiet dignity if you give them a chance. And so I think that’s pretty good roadmap. All right. I think your story is a great place to end it. I think there’s a great example of, of a way to act with real integrity here and still maintain a culture and an [00:28:00] environment that is great for your other clients and for your team.

And we hope for all of you that this second half of this podcast is not that relevant to you. Most of the time, right? Most of the time you’re going to find people who are a great fit and you don’t need to fire. And once in a while you’re going to find someone who’s just not the right fit and doesn’t recognize it on their own and you’ll need to lovingly nudge them out the door.

And so we hope that doesn’t happen much, but when you do, we hope this podcast was useful. Thanks for a great conversation as always, Ben and, and listeners go check out Kilo, kick the click the link down the show notes and go give them a, go give them a checkout. They’ll make your website and so much more.

Have a great rest of your day, Ben. Nice. You too. Take care. Bye bye.