Episode 316: How to Protect Your Studio From Client Poaching and Still Support Your Team

Why Client Poaching Isn’t the Real Problem in Your Studio (and What To Fix Instead)

Hosted by: Christa Gurka, PT, OCS | Fit Biz Strategies

If you've ever panicked because a client followed an instructor out the door… or you’ve worried that an instructor is “stealing” clients… this episode is going to flip that narrative on its head.

Inside our boutique fitness and wellness studios, client poaching feels personal — but it’s actually a symptom of deeper operational issues. And the good news? You can fix them.

In today’s episode, Christa breaks down why poaching happens, what’s really driving client loyalty (hint: it’s not what you think), and how to build a brand-first, team-centered system that keeps clients AND instructors loyal to your studio — not just one star player.

Whether you run a Pilates studio, private practice PT clinic, yoga studio, or any wellness brick-and-mortar, this is a MUST-listen as you head into 2026.

✨ What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why “client poaching” is not an instructor problem — it’s a systems problem
• The #1 hiring mistake most studio owners make (and how it leads to client loss later)
• How unclear onboarding creates blurred boundaries, confusion, and client attachment to individuals
• Why clients start identifying instructors — not your studio — as the “product”
• How to flip your culture from star instructors to one cohesive team
• What healthy studio ecosystems look like (and what broken ones look like)
• The systems Christa used at Pilates in the Grove to maintain brand loyalty
• Exactly what expectations, policies, and boundaries need to be in place
• How to create a culture where clients feel connected to the brand, not one person
• The essential contracts every studio should have (even with ICs!)
• Leadership questions to ask yourself before blaming an instructor
• Why 2026 must be the year you build or rebuild your foundations

🔥 Key Topics Covered

• Onboarding mistakes that lead to client attachment issues
• How to set expectations around communication, scheduling, and boundaries
• Brand-first language that reinforces “our clients,” not “my clients”
• Building a team identity using mission, vision, and values
• Systems that prevent instructors from becoming irreplaceable “stars”
• Leadership habits that reinforce consistency and clarity
• What to say when clients want to follow an instructor
• How lack of systems leads to drama, confusion, and turnover

📌 Why This Episode Matters

If you’ve ever felt:

• “My clients only want THAT instructor.”
• “I’m scared to lose revenue if someone leaves.”
• “I don’t want people texting my instructors directly.”
• “I feel like I’m losing control of my studio.”

Then what you’re really missing is the ecosystem that protects your business, creates brand loyalty, and sets clear expectations from day one.

This episode will help you rebuild your foundation so you can scale confidently — with systems that support your team, your clients, and the long-term value of your business.

🔑 Episode Quote to Remember

“Client poaching isn’t the problem — it’s the symptom. When you fix your systems, culture, and expectations, loyalty shifts back to your brand.”

📣 Want More Support Building a Sellable, Sustainable Studio?

Inside Fit Biz Strategies, Christa helps female boutique fitness and wellness owners build profitable businesses with systems, structure, and clarity — without burning out.

👉 Follow @christagurka on Instagram
 👉 Explore coaching programs at christagurka.com
 👉 Join the Female emPOWERED community for more conversations like this

Transcript

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies: 0:51

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered Podcast. Let me get my mic and everything set up, so I'm ready to go. So today's episode is, comes from a question that came up in one of our mentorship groups in one of the Facebook groups. About how to protect your clients from poaching or from instructors, and I'm using air quotes here, stealing clients when they leave or going to other studios, et cetera, et cetera. And so what I want to talk about today is I thought this was a really interesting topic and I wanted to say how. Why client poaching or sealing is really a symptom of another problem in your business. So today, excuse me, what I'm gonna talk about, we're gonna dive a little deeper into this and really examine where this comes from and what you can do to. Kind of rectify it, change it, improve it, going into 2026. So when a lot of studio owners look at. Instructors taking clients or clients being poached, they really look at it or as like, oh, my instructors are too well-liked. My clients only wanna work with them if she leaves, I'm gonna lose revenue if it feels like. The instructor is the problem and the instructor having access to the clients and then the client's wanting to go work with the instructor or leave when the instructor leaves. But what I really want to do in this conversation is just reframe this for you a little bit and, and really dive into the fact that client poaching client. Steals clients leaving is just the symptom. Your sim systems, your systems, your processes, your expectations are actually the cause of that. So here's what's actually going on underneath the surface when if you're experiencing this a lot, one you hired without clarity. You basically just need an instructor to cover one or two classes. You hired someone and you're like, okay, go teach. You brought someone on without clearly outlining the expectations about communication, boundaries, your mission, vision, and values, how clients are shared across the team, et cetera, et cetera. So you didn't ex. Extend, articulate these boundaries and these expectations from day one, which is problem number one. You assumed that people know, you assumed that they would act appropriately. You assumed that. They would even knew that this was an issue and they assumed that because you didn't say anything, what they were doing was fine. So there was basically no shared boundary when it came to this. And so this is how problems start. You, you fail to position your brand as the leader of the client relationship. So it's exactly one of the reasons that I didn't name Pilates in the Grove after Christa Gurka. I named it something entirely out of me because I wan from the very beginning. For the the clients to be the brand's clients. We were one big, cohesive community. All the clients were clients of Pilates in the Grove, not of Christa Gurka, not of Terry, not of Kelly. They were all clients of the studios. So it was very clearly articulated, articulated to everyone. That message, that branding, that mission and vision from the beginning. So if an instructor was ever oh, my client, my schedule, my people, I want you to recognize that that didn't start at Day a hundred that started on day one. And so we clear even myself, we'd be like. Our clients, our community, the schedule. Okay, so can you reschedule Jane? Not my clients, right? So what happened was you accidentally built a system that revolves around star players instead of a cohesive team. And that's okay. You didn't know any better. And this episode, hopefully what you'll come away with this is knowing better. And when you know better, you do better. So when we create. Companies and brands around individuals, what happens is clients think that the instructor is actually like the product instead of your studio. So let me give you a quick example. Something that came up recently was a studio owner was panicked because an instructor had asked her clients to follow her to a new space. I am. This, the, this instructors, two of them actually were leaving to open up their own location. And even though they had a conversation, obviously con, even though the owner and the instructors had a conversation about how to roll out this narrative, people talk and it's a very small studio. It's a very small town. And so what's gonna happen is some people might leave and then that also is a big. Fear driven, reactive, reacting situation for an owner in terms of loss. Right? And so one of the things I wanna say is you can't a hundred percent prevent somebody from leaving. You just can't, attrition will happen. But what you can do is create a system around how what the client is bought into is the community of Pilates in the Grove, for example, not just the instructor. Okay. So when there are no boundaries set during hiring, when there's no expectations set during hiring, when there's no, when none of that is articulated, Then it becomes a problem later. There are no guidelines about communication, scheduling, client relationships. You know, at this point clients have, personal text numbers and they're, they're talking directly with, with the clients, talking directly to the instructors, and it just creates a lot of, of, it just sets you up for an issue down the road usually. So what happens is we have to really look at the ecosystem of your business. In its entirety. And when the ecosystem is unclear, then people will create their own ecosystem. They'll create their own processes, they'll create their own understanding. So it's really about examining how you talk about your culture, your expectations, and leading from the front, and learn how to build systems where loyalty is to your brand. Like I said, not one individual person. So let's break down. We don't wanna happen. So let's break down when this goes wrong. Again, we said, weak onboarding. There's no clarity of communications. There's no expectations set. There's no explaining how the brand or the instructor client relationship works. There's no training on what language to use. There's maybe no contracts even put into place. There's no policies around boundaries. Instructors are giving their clients their personal phone numbers. Instructors are the ones that are supposed to be scheduling their clients privately, whether that be through dms or whether that be through text. There's no team culture. Instructors don't see themselves as part of a brand. They see themselves as independent agents. And so there's, and then, and then lastly, there might be no. Leadership narrative. maybe there's no, this person's a leader, this person is, setting the mission and vision, setting the brand identity. And so instructors just fill in the silence like on their own. So I've, I've heard this before. if you don't set the culture in your company, it will be set for you. So what does it look like when you flip the conversation to a healthy ecosystem? clear, clear expectations when you're hiring and onboarding. So things like, here's how we build brand loyalty at Pilates in the Grove. It's not around the individual, it's around the team. Here is our mission and vision. we, especially like one of the, core values at Pilates in the Grove was we over me. So it was very much a team oriented approach. We talked about how our, the clients are the studios clients, they're not individual clients. We refer internally as a team. So you can say things like, our team will take great care of you, or. I'm on vacation next week, but you know, Sarah's going to take all of my clients. So we did that very frequently so that we understand. And one of our kind of like taglines was like one team, one mission, one goal, right? And so, you wanna have that. You wanna have a team identity, you wanna have a shared mission, you wanna have shared expectations. You wanna have shared ownership of client. Success. Okay, so some of the. Systems we implemented in the studio to make this happen was all scheduling goes through the studio. We had full-time administrators, so all scheduling goes through the studio that way. You know, for my instructors, I was like, your role is to come in and teach a really amazing class, and the administrators can keep track of the schedule. All communication goes through the studio. make sure that your clients aren't texting you to cancel. They need to go through the studio directly. All payments go through the studio. Alright? So those are big things, and if you're thinking, I don't have an admin person, I allow my instructors to do it, then you have to have clear expectations and clear conversations around what that actually means. Remember, leadership presence sets the tone and sets the boundaries around how your instructors will perform. It's about being consistent. It's about following through, and it's about modeling the behavior that you want to see in your team. One of the things I did all the time, and I really, really encourage owners to do this, is use brand first. Languaging that makes clients, again, loyalty to you as a studio or a clinic. Okay, so. Whether you're a, a pelvic health practice or a studio, or a yoga studio, we as a whole team take care of our clients here. Okay. Our method works because we all teach using the same philosophy. One of the reasons it's great to have employees over contractors, okay. I'm unable to do that time, but let me introduce you to another instructor that will be a great fit for you at that time, right? This shifts the identity of your business from my clients to our clients. And again, this was a big thing. A we over me. core value where we really wanted our instructors leaning into how they can help each other out. We frequently subbed each other's classes. Oftentimes when we had clients that would come five days a week for privates, they switched instructors. And that was a very intentional decision by me from the beginning for many reasons. But one of it was to create band brand loyalty. Okay. The other thing you can do is obviously there are contracts that you can have, but, You can have non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements, even if the person's an independent contractor. So non-solicitation actively means that someone can't technically come and take clients from your business or take vendors. But more than anything else, it's really important that you articulate why this is important. Okay, this is really important to say what your expectations are. Good, solid people, they want clarity. They need clarity, okay? Contracts simply protect you and protect your employees, from and reduce drama. They protect you from, Ambiguous language. And he said, she said, I want you to think about things and you can even ask your team, team members if they understood this from the beginning, right? So. One of the things, this is where if you follow NLP or neurolinguistic programming at all is how can you put yourself at cause, so before blaming, and this goes as a great example for a lot of different things, but before blaming the instructor, blaming someone else, I want you to think, did I clearly communicate expectations during hiring? Did I train this person on our mission, vision, and values and our brand language? Does my studio foster team identity or is it really more of around star player identity? Did I wait too long to have a hard conversation? Have I created a system where clients are naturally loyal to the studio, not necessarily to one particular instructor. And if you didn't, then maybe you gotta go back and look at those systems. Maybe you have to do a better job of, onboarding people. Maybe you have to do a better job about talking about these things. All right. Maybe you need to have a better checklist when you onboard. Do you have your contracts and agreements in place? Do you have your studio identity and your brand voice and your mission, vision, and values and templates ready for client communication? Are you setting up expectations around texting or reaching out to clients directly? Are you having regular check-ins with your team? Are you able to address red flags early? My big thing was always if you think something is GR gray area, come to me and ask me If you think it's a gray area, then it might be a gray area, and so why not just come to me, have a conversation, say This is what happened. What do you think? Just put it out on the table is the best thing you can do as an instructor, as an employee, and it's the best thing you can do as an owner. If someone's I'm not really sure, just have say, come to me. I would love to discuss this with you so that we can both be clear on what the next steps are. So have that discussion with your team members. Right. But it really, really, it really does come down to you setting these expectations and then talking about them over and over and over and over. And I'm not joking over and over and over and over. Alright. It is really important that you stop looking at the, the. What you're thinking is a problem is not really the problem, it's a symptom. Okay? If we equate that to movement, someone could be having pain in their back, but their symptom is really that their hip doesn't move well, and if you just massage the back, the problem's never gonna go away. So if you think it's one instructor and she's a bad egg, or he's a bad egg and you got rid of them, but you didn't clean up the system of properly onboarding properly, talking about building a culture brand identity first, that. Issue is just gonna come back in another hire, and another hire and another hire, and you're just gonna continue to bang your head against the wall wondering why this is so hard, or wondering why you feel everyone's trying to screw you. Well, it's not. It's just that you haven't taken the time to create the right system and process in your business. So I'd love to leave you just with poaching clients. Isn't. Really all about your instructors. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. It's about the structure that you have in your business. So when you lead from a place of clarity and confidence and culture, you create a studio that no one wants to leave your not your instructors, let alone your clients, they're, they build a community and a loyalty to the brand itself, not necessarily one in particular person. Systems don't restrict creativity in, in, in other words, they actually really protect it. Systems give people clarity Systems, give people consistency, and that's what they look for in a job. Clarity, consistency, positive leadership from the front. So if you are worried about this, if you are worried about people taking clients, then what I would say a hundred percent is lean into this in 2026, make 2026 the year that you are gonna build your foundation from the ground up. And you are gonna build a brand first team centered ecosystems where your clients won't just stay loyal to you, but they'll stop thinking about individual instructors the product and really start seeing your studio as the place that they never wanna leave your clinic as a place that they never wanna leave. Your people, your admin. All of your therapists, and they know that you've created a system and they, they just feel great in this environment and they don't wanna leave this even if their favorite instructor left. So I really, really, really want you to think about this. The next time you're like, oh, someone didn't do what I wanted them to do in the business, and I don't care if this goes with them taking clients or telling them about the new studio they're going to, Not covering for other people or failing to show up on time. All of this starts with you as an owner having a fully built out system. A fill it fully built out system that gives your new team members and all of your team members the roadmap for how to do everything in their business, what's expected of them, how they're gonna be assessed in your business, who they can go to when they have a question. And then you have to put this on repeat over and over and over again so that everyone is clear and rowing in the same direction. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. It was fun to record. It came from a real life situation and I'm sure if you're listening to this, many of you have either heard about situations like this or possibly even experienced it yourself, and this is where as owners, we have to go back and be like, what could I do better to not have this happen in the future? So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Until next time, my friends. Bye for now.