Keenan Cornelius Explains How To Keep Your Students As A BJJ Academy Owner

02 Feb, 2023

Are you a BJJ coach and/or academy owner? If so, then one of the biggest worries that you probably have is student retention.
That is: how are you supposed to keep your students motivated for training?

It’s not an easy task for sure, but there is one simple thing that you could start doing as early as today… That will have a massive impact on the number of students who keep training with you.

Keenan Cornelius shares more about it:

The way to build retention is, of course, first of all – try to focus on having a great product, one that is better than the other options available. And that is a lifelong quest, you know, you can never reach that perfection.

However, the best way to build retention – so that people don’t leave – is to build relationships with your students.

The word “relationships” can be a tricky one, Cornelius explains:

I don’t mean “become their friends” and I don’t mean “get very personal with everyone”. I think that is also a trap that many gym owners and instructors fall into.
And probably one of the most dangerous traps is to try and be everyone’s friend.

What I do mean is having your instructors and coaches be trying to hold your students accountable and try to inspire them and encourage them… And motivate them to continue training Jiu-Jitsu.

This means that, as a coach, you should be giving positive reinforcement individually, as often as possible:

Instructing your teachers – or yourself, if you’re the one teaching – to make sure that every student gets some attention and some appreciation.

And that could be through stripes, it could be just through saying: “Hey man, you did very good in class today.” It could be texting them if they miss a few days and being like: “Hey bro, I’ve noticed that you haven’t been in here. Is all good? We miss you, come back in.”

People really like that personal touch and it has to be something that is actively pursued and managed as a business owner.