What do you do when members quit?

How to turn member departures to your advantage

I won’t sugarcoat it – building a community can be a lot of work.

You spend hours talking to people and thinking about what they need. You invest time and money in building a platform, inviting people, and engaging them once they’re on board. It truly is a labor of love.

And after all that work, some of those members decide to leave! What a letdown.

Take a deep breath and don’t take it personally. Your community is an organic thing - it is literally made up of people. Living things aren’t supposed to stay the same. They evolve. They change.

We all grow and leave things behind in order to better ourselves, expand our knowledge, or make room for something new. Loss and change are not always negative.

Here’s all you need to figure out: are people leaving because they’ve gotten all they need? Or are they leaving because they’re NOT getting what you promised?

The first is a cause for celebration. The second is an opportunity for improvement.

Here are some proactive steps you can take to make your community a place people want to stay.

• Offer support: Use your short window between a cancellation request and the actual cancellation date to talk to those members. If departing members feel lost, frustrated, or overwhelmed, offer support and resources to get them back on track.

• Celebrate graduations: If members join your community for a specific transformation, it’s natural for them to move on once that transformation is achieved. While they may have started from ground zero, they’re ready to expand their horizons. Celebrate that!

• Create an alumni tier: You might get some of those graduating members to stick around by giving them unique opportunities to mentor, collaborate, and build the community.

• Assess needs and expectations: Use automated surveys and exit interviews to look for trends indicating whether the community is delivering what members expect of it. Adopt a test and learn mentality.

• Adapt for ideal members: When a person who doesn’t fit your ideal member profile realizes the community is not for them, their departure can be good for both them and the health of your community.

  Examine who’s leaving. If they match your ideal member profile, something’s wrong – those are the people for whom this place was built. If not, it’s okay to wish them well and let them go.

Last summer I wrote a piece for the Guild blog digging deeper into this topic. You can read it here.

Departing members shouldn’t make you feel panicky, frustrated, or discouraged. They’re your teachers, and if you listen to them, they’ll help you nurture a vibrant, thriving community.

You can do this,

PS. Feel like your community’s stuck in neutral – or reverse? Reach out to schedule an audit or a strategy session to get things moving in the right direction again.