![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GGFit-GuyGriffiths-copy.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA free PT session, no joining fee, or free month offer will all damage your business in different ways. Getting a subsequent sale, upsell, or referral is harder, and member retention also suffers. Our analysis of members who pay no or very low joining fees always shows shorter length of membership, engagement, and lifetime value, when compared with members who join without an offer.<\/p>\n
And yet the fitness industry continues to churn out offers, especially in January (our best month, but not because of the deals). Free PT and guest passes are handed out like sweets at Halloween, without any conditions, and no value attached. It\u2019s unsurprising that members churn again and again. If you want to know when half-term or other school holidays are, check the prices on the CenterParcs or RyanAir websites. They don\u2019t drop their prices \u2013 they double them!<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not saying guest passes or introductory PT sessions are bad news, you just need to put a value on them. Ideally you will also show the results that other members have achieved through these sessions; the member benefits (rather than features).<\/p>\n
A high-end boutique club we worked with recently used to give new members 3-5 FREE PT sessions in their first month. The value was over \u00a3250 worth of PT appointments. So, we changed all sales and marketing collateral (removing the word FREE, and adding real member testimonials) to promote the value, and a \u00a31 swear box was put behind the front desk for any staff heard using the word FREE. Sales increased, take-up of the introductory PT sessions soared, and retention and follow-up sales improved considerably. The swear box collected less than \u00a320, so that worked too!<\/p>\n
Some clubs offer to pay for a PT session for certain members at the end of month one. Again, this is not a free session, but the club\/manager\/salesperson \u2018paying\u2019 for a \u00a350 session (or whatever is your headline, single session rate). Ideally, the PT will be paid something to deliver these sessions, not headline rate, but a token amount. The point is that you\u2019re telling the member that you\u2019re paying for their PT, and the PT will deliver a better session if there is an actual transaction taking place.<\/p>\n
These paid for PT session improve retention because more members understand their own goals better, know what they\u2019re doing, and have another friendly face in the club that they can talk to. There\u2019s also a much better chance of the PT upgrading from a \u00a350 session to regular monthly sessions, or a block of 6 for \u00a3250, say, rather than starting from free and trying to build the value of the session from nothing.<\/p>\n
A final note on fitness challenges, referral rewards, and member of the month. A prize of a free month\u2019s membership, or free PT has little or no value to most members. The best rewards can be redeemed instantly in the caf\u00e9 or are donated by local businesses. If you must give away a PT session, make sure it has a value attached. Rather than giving a free month for every referral, members who refer friends go into a draw for a year\u2019s membership worth \u00a3600. Although there\u2019s less chance of winning, we\u2019ve seen a much better return from this promotion, as the perceived value is much higher.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really easy to \u2018sell\u2019 free stuff, but it will hold back or even break your business. Put a value on all your offers or rewards. What would you prefer; a free PT session or for me to pay for you to receive a \u00a350 PT session?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Guy Griffiths<\/strong> is a coach and mentor to independent gym owners and personal trainers. His mission is to help more people to be fitter and healthier by turning clubs into highly successful businesses with super loyal members. Guy\u2019s book Stick Around (strategies to keep your gym members motivated) has 4.9 stars on Amazon, and he is a regular speaker at industry events. Find out more at ggfit.com\/fitpro<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The best things in life are free, according to Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[435,488,2353,2354,741,248,2355,2356],"class_list":{"0":"post-8138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news-features","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-fitness-industry","10":"tag-free","11":"tag-guy-griffiths","12":"tag-personal-trainer","13":"tag-pt","14":"tag-pt-session","15":"tag-upgrades"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8138"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12351,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138\/revisions\/12351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}