As holiday greetings fill mailboxes and we read letters from friends and family scattered around the world, it’s difficult not to experience, at least once, the feeling that yet another year has quickly passed.

At the beginning of 2011 we challenged you to take your new members on a different journey. Knowing that every January there is a significant increase in new memberships, we used the example of Courtney who was featured in a Wall Street Journal article. Courtney joined a gym to improve her fitness level. Instead of achieving her goals, she ended up leaving cycling class early because it was too difficult, and felt additional frustration and confusion with the equipment on the main floor. Chances are Courtney is no longer working out at her gym. There are many more members like Courtney who have come and gone in 2011.

If you have let yet another year pass without changing the journey for your members, at least half of the new members who join your gym in January 2012 will stop exercising within a few months. Another year and the story still won’t change for you. The faces will be different, but their experiences will be similar.

You already know the consequences of the revolving membership doors and you already know the benefits of members who join for the long-term. We’ll issue the same challenge to you in 2012 – In 2012 take your members on the Members4Ever journey. You’ll spend less time negating the “outs” and more time building on the “ins” of members passing through your doors.

Best wishes for a safe and healthy 2012,

Sharon Hurst

Fitness Club Consultants

717.569.5396

sharon@fitnessclubconsultants.com

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” – George Bernard Shaw

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Like editorial clock-work, headlines such as, “A New You in 2012,” “Top Fitness Trends in 2012,” and “Run Your Best Marathon in 2012″ have started appearing in the January issues of magazines. Soon, newspapers and television news shows will join in on the New Year’s resolution bandwagon. It happens every year, and every year you can count on new members who have made resolutions to “get in shape,” or to lose weight, finally.

There will be great tips and ideas in those articles and stories on how to transform our lives. There also will be competing information that confuses more people than it helps. For many people who are not in the habit of daily exercise, it all feels overwhelming and many just give up within weeks of starting.

Too often many of us in the fitness industry fall in to the same mindset as the editors of magazines and newspapers – we concentrate on fitness, and sometimes, fitness only. We talk up great group fitness classes. We sign new members to personal training contracts. We sell fitness. And yet, fitness may not be the goal of many of your new members. It almost sounds counterintuitive. Fitness club should equal fitness – maybe, and maybe not.

If you stop selling fitness and start listening to your members, you might just learn that fitness may be a nice side effect of coming to your club, and not necessarily a top goal. Success comes in different shapes and sizes, and in different ages and abilities. Success to one member may be that there’s a safe, warm place to walk. Success to another member may be that blood pressure medicine isn’t necessary any longer because the member learned that canned vegetables are high in sodium. Success to yet another member may be that there’s a place to sit and have a cup of coffee with friends. None of it has anything to do with “fitness,” but it does mean success to many people who join health and fitness clubs.

By taking the time to truly listen to your new members, you will discover that success is defined differently by every single person who walks through your doors. By fast-tracking members into group fitness or personal training, you might be missing out on the key to their success. That key to success is what will keep that member coming back week after week, month after month, and year after year – and it might not have anything to do with group fitness or personal training.

We can help you find that key to success for each and every member in 2012 on his or her own terms. That’s how you define success.

Contact Sharon at Sharon@fitnessclubconsultants.com or 717.569.5396 for more information on Members4Ever.