New Year’s Resolution members are always a nice financial bump for fitness businesses during January and February. Every gym owner knows that they’ll have a full house during the first few months of the year. However, most also know the downside of the situation, these members tend to disappear after a few months. It’s been shown that the vast majority of NYE members don’t stick around for more than a few months. The question is, how do you turn NYE resolution members into long-term members. Most NY resolutions go out the window after the first week or two. People have good intentions that slowly disappear when life returns to normality afterwards. Have no worries! We here at FitnessTexter have developed three strategies that you can use to get these one-month-and-done members into year-long members.

Create Relationships with Your “Resolution” Members

One of the easiest things you can do to keep your NYE members from quitting the gym after a few months is getting to know them. More often than not, resolution members are given a cold shoulder by everyone else in the gym. Most of your regular members aren’t going to give them the time of day and are most likely a little angry that all the machines are being used. Instead of treating them like a no-value member that isn’t going to stick around, show them some live. Get to know their names and faces, where they’re from, their fitness goals, you name it. Make them feel welcome and they’ll have a much better time at your gym and also feel bad about quitting since they’ve created relationships with other members.

Distribute Progress Worksheets to New Members

There’s nothing worse than not seeing gym results. Everyone knows the feeling. You’ve been “working out” hard for the past few weeks and you just aren’t seeing anything noticeable. Well, that’s because the results are small and unless you keep constant track of your results, you’ll never notice them. It’s like trying to see your hair grow. It’s too slow and constant that unless you have a before and after picture, you’ll never recognize it. That said, make it a point to give out results and progress sheets to your members. Encourage them to take their measurements every week and monitor their progress. Seeing that you actually lost an inch on your waistline (even though you can’t see it), will make those members think about staying who were planning on quitting because they didn’t think they were getting results. You can easily whip together some simple progress reports in your favorite spreadsheet program as well.

Offer Discounted Membership for Months 3-6

Everyone knows that the New Year’s Eve Resolution members normally only stick around for a few months and then quit and go back to their regular lives. We know you might be against discounting memberships, but if you’re willing to offer up a small discount after their first few months, you might get them to stick around a little longer and ideally become long-term members. Create a New Years Eve special where the first 2 months are regular price and the following three months are discounted prices. This will encourage these new members to stick around after they get tired of the gym. During months 3, 4 and 5, hopefully they see enough results that they decide to make fitness a long-lasting part of their lives.

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