Every operator knows the feeling: you had a bit of a lift in sales from Black Friday, but now you see the parking lot stop filling up. In the back of your mind, you’re thinking of ways to survive the holiday slump until January. Check-ins start to drop, and your regulars are gone for travel plans and parties. The hardest part is they all told you, “Don’t worry! I’ll be back in the new year!”
As a consultant, I tend to see two opposite reactions to this. First, the instinct is to spend your way out of it by running a holiday ad campaign, boosting a few posts, slashing the joining fee and slapping “Holiday Special” on the front window. Or the opposite, where operators tend to cut staff, cancel classes and programs just to limp into January where things will get better.
Here’s the problem: December is one the most expensive months of the year to buy attention. You’re bidding against every retailer in the country for the same eyeballs at peak auction prices. And the deep discount does something worse than cost you margin — it trains your market to wait for a sale. Do it two years in a row and you’ve taught your whole town that nobody should ever pay full price at your place. The opposite response has just as heavy repercussions.
Although December can be a challenging month, it’s still 8.4% of your year. You cannot afford to lose an entire month of your P&L just because things are “slow.”
So let me offer a reframe: December isn’t a slow month. It’s a chance to lean into the reason for the season and use that good will to win customers. Here’s the best part: your community will solve it for free, if you let them. And trust me, your Board will love it.
Pillar One: Borrow the Trust Your Town Already Has
I wear two hats. Most of my week is spent balancing the fitness business world with all of the additional responsibilities I hold as an executive pastor. Here’s what I know: December looks completely different from the other side of the church parking lot.
While your facility is quietest, the church is at its loudest. Christmas concerts, angel trees, food drives, coat drives and candlelight services draw people who haven’t walked through the doors since last Christmas. It’s the busiest, most visible month of the year for every congregation in your town.
Here’s what most operators don’t realize. Churches are short on exactly what you have plenty of. A pastor in December is trying to find drop-off points for donations, space for rehearsals, parking for overflow, and something to do with families that isn’t another potluck. You have a lobby, a parking lot, open hours and programming that’s sitting half-empty.
They have audiences, volunteers, and trust. You have space and something to do in it. The tradeoff is nearly common sense when presented properly:
- Host their angel tree or food-drive drop-off in your lobby. Every family who brings a gift walks through your front door.
- Offer a free family gym or swim night for a partner congregation. One evening, one email from the pastor, a building full of neighbors.
- Open your facility for their rehearsal, volunteer kickoff or holiday event. Your group fitness room is a perfectly good choir room on a Tuesday night and creates a fantastic shoe in for families that are likely beginning to consider heath since January is around the corner. Where do these families go when it’s time to join? Somewhere they are familiar with.
The cost is close to zero. The foot traffic and goodwill are enormous. A pastor who stands up on Sunday and says, “Thank you to our friends at the wellness facility the road” is worth more than any ad you could buy that week. That’s borrowed trust, and borrowed trust beats purchased ads every single time.
One word to my public and municipal readers, the principle isn’t about any one faith. It’s about partnering with whatever trust networks anchor your town. Find the groups people already trust, serve them generously and keep your doors open to everyone. This principle doesn’t have to be exclusive to one congregation. It can be replicated and offered to all groups giving you attention from thousands across your community.
Pillar Two: Host Moments Worth Photographing
Stop trying to create content and start hosting moments.
Don’t get me wrong, the 80-year-old member who is able to move well again because of your silver sneakers class is still an attention grabber, and people need to see that. However, remember that people talk about things that have meaning behind them, and a cause goes a long way. A few that work:
- Toy-drive bootcamp. Admission is one unwrapped toy. The pile of gifts at the front of the room is the photo. Every photo share on your favorite social platform gets an additional donation from your facility. It’s organic, it gets your community talking, and the organic strategy of the shares gets friends of members eyes on your facility and mission.
- “Reindeer Splash.” A holiday family swim with music, floaties, and a lifeguard in a Santa hat. It’s fun, gets attention, and is easy to connect to a local boys and girls club or big brother/big sister program to give activities without a cost to your community.
- Free Santa photos in the lobby. Parents will drive across town for a free Santa photo. Let them drive to you. Whether you believe in Santa or not, families love an opportunity to create the classic “toddler throwing a fit in Santa’s lap” photo. This can be tied into a local salvation army or toys for tots program, where your facility can make an end of year donation matching whatever is given.
- 12 Days of Fitmas. A daily challenge run on your own channels, with members posting their workouts and tagging you. I’ve always loved tying these to a local food drive where every workout completed, our facility will donate a canned food item to a local food bank giving members a reason to tag us every time!
Every one of these does three jobs at once. They produce photos your members share to their own networks, they give local press something to cover and they fill a sign-in sheet.
That sign-in sheet is the part most operators throw away. Don’t. It isn’t a waiver. It’s your January prospect list. Name, email, phone and one checkbox: “Send me info on New Year programs.” Every name on it is a neighbor who has already parked in your lot, walked through your doors and had a good time inside your building.
Pillar Three: Let Your Staff Lead What They Love
This is the sleeper, but it might be the most valuable idea here.
Instead of paying for holiday programming or handing your team a calendar of events they didn’t ask for, ask them one question: “What would you love to run this December?”
Then watch who lights up. Every team has these people:
- The trainer who participates in her churches toy drive every year and has toys in her garage just waiting for December to come.
- The aquatics lead who’s been dying to host an event and finally now has a place to talk about the idea.
- The coach with three kids who knows exactly what a tired parent would pay for and offers to run a parents’ night out.
Passion delivers a level of quality you can’t purchase. A staff member running something they care about will over-prepare, over-promote and personally invite half their contacts list. You can’t get that effort with a bonus.
There’s a second payoff that shows up a month later. People who get to lead something they love in December don’t go job-hunting in January. Ownership is retention.
And if you zoom out, this is leadership development in disguise. You’re not raising leaders by handing out titles. You’re raising them by handing out ownership. Give someone a small thing to own, let them win and you’ll find out who’s ready for a bigger thing.
The Payoff: A Warm Bridge Into January
Here’s what you have at the end of December if you run this play. You spent very little. You stayed visible the entire month while your competitors were either dark or overpaying for ads. And you collected something money can’t buy in January — a warm list of neighbors who have already been inside your building.
That’s the contrarian truth about the holiday slump. The demand never went anywhere. January proves it every single year, when the same people who disappeared in December come flooding back with resolutions. The only question is whether they come back to you, or to whoever bought the loudest ad.
When resolution season hits, you’re not a cold ad in their feed. You’re the place that hosted the toy drive. You’re where their kids met Santa. And you’re the organization their pastor thanked from the pulpit. Familiarity converts.
So, protect your pricing. Don’t spend December teaching people to wait for a deal. If you want a holiday offer, sell gift memberships and experiences instead of discounts. Gifts bring new people in at full value. Discounts just give away margin on people who were coming back anyway.
Let December’s goodwill do the converting.
Your Challenge: Two Moves this week
You don’t need a holiday marketing plan. You need two phone calls.
- Call one pastor or community leader and offer your lobby for their holiday drive. Speaking as someone who sits on the other side of that call, they’ll be grateful and they’ll say yes.
- Hand one event to one staff member who would love to own it. Ask the question, then get out of the way.
Do those two things this week, and when January comes you won’t be starting from cold. You’ll be the place your town already knows.
