If your Jiu Jitsu academy isn’t growing, the answer isn’t more leads. It’s that students are quietly quitting.
The fitness industry data backs this up: 50% of new gym members, including Jiu Jitsu students, quit within their first 90 days.
Most academy owners I talk to say they’re signing up between 7 and 10 new students every month, but they’re still stuck in the same range of students they were 6 months ago, or even longer. They don’t have a marketing problem. They have a math problem.
Students are quietly quitting, no one’s noticing, and over the months and years those numbers come back to bite them in a big way. The issue is that when you became an academy owner, nobody ever taught you what to look for in the health of your business.
This post will show you what five numbers to look at to determine if silent churn is what’s actually killing your growth.
The reason most academies plateau has a lot to do with not identifying the problem of students quitting, also known as churn.
Just because someone signed up doesn’t mean they’re going to stay forever. A new white belt is literally one bad class or one bad experience away from quitting and never coming back.
That’s why you have to pay attention to what those numbers are doing on a weekly and monthly basis, so you’re not reactive, you’re proactive.
If you sign up 10 new students a month and lose 10, your total never moves. That’s how you stay stuck at the same headcount for half a year, even though new students keep walking in the door.
More leads are not going to grow your academy, because it’s like trying to add more water to a bucket that’s already leaking. It’s leaking as fast as you can fill it.
So the solution, as cliché as it sounds, is to fix the leak in your bucket before you try to add more water, aka students.
Most academy owners don’t see it this way, but it costs five times more to acquire a new customer (student) than it does to keep a current one. Most people tend to undervalue the students they currently have, and overvalue paying for leads and the opportunity to get new ones.
The best academies out there keep their current students as a priority first, and then market to get new ones second.
Here are the 5 numbers that tell you whether silent quitting is killing your growth:
The churn formula:
Churn rate = (Students who quit ÷ Total students at start of month) × 100
For simple math: if you started the month with 150 students and 8 quit, you’re around 5% churn. If you can keep churn below 5%, ideally 3 to 4%, you’re in good shape and you can start focusing on other things like lead generation.
But until churn is consistently under 5%, more leads aren’t worth pursuing. And it’s especially not worth hiring an agency at that point.
Here are three simple things you can do to start improving your retention today.
| Bad signal | Good signal |
|---|---|
| You only check the bank balance | You check 5 numbers every month |
| You don’t know your churn rate | You know your churn rate weekly and monthly |
| New students replace quiet quitters, headcount stays flat | Headcount climbs because churn is under control |
| Students disappear, you find out 2 months later | At-risk students get a text or call within the week |
| You spend on ads to fix the leak | You fix the leak first, then scale acquisition |
Q: What is silent churn at a BJJ academy?
A: Silent churn is students quietly quitting every month without you noticing. They simply stop showing up, they don’t send you an angry email, and they don’t quit to your face. But after a few months go by, you’ll notice your headcount is in the same place, and they’re no longer training with you.
Q: What’s a healthy monthly churn rate for a BJJ academy?
A: A healthy BJJ academy keeps monthly churn below 5%. Ideally you want it in the 3 to 4% range. Anything consistently above 5% means retention is your bottleneck, not leads.
Q: How do I know if my BJJ academy has a retention problem or a lead problem?
A: Look at your monthly churn first. If your churn is below 5% and you’re not growing at the rate you want, it’s a leads problem because you don’t have enough people moving through your sales funnel. If churn is above 5%, it’s a retention problem, and more leads will only burn cash.
Q: How long does it take to fix retention at a BJJ academy?
A: For most academies, the churn problem can be fixed within 30 days. But it depends on how much time the owner has to implement new systems. Realistically, expect 30 to 60 days.
Q: Should I run paid ads for my BJJ academy if my retention is bad?
A: No. Running paid ads when your academy has a retention problem is like putting a bandaid over a pothole. You’re going to feel that bump every time you drive over it. Get your churn below 5%, fix the leak in your bucket, before you try to turn on the tap of lead flow.
If this post resonates with you because you’ve been trying to grow your academy, but it seems like no matter what you do, you end up back in the same place month over month and year after year, you’re in the right place.
If you want help getting unstuck, you can click the link below and book a free 45-minute BJJ Growth Plan Call. We’ll look at what’s going on inside your business and make a plan to fix it.
No pressure, no obligation. Just direction from a guy who’s been there before.
