Whether you’re moving to a new city and looking for a gym for the first time or just tired of feeling like your gym is screwing you over with their added fees for everything or even their monthly membership fees, there are some things you can do to make sure you’re getting the most from your gym or perspective gym.
When we first arrived to London, we spent 2 weeks looking for the right gym for us. It took us a while but using the tips I give in this post really helped us.
After visiting 7 gyms and trying 6 of them out, we finally had a gym that we actually wanted to join. The only thing was that it wasn’t at the price we wanted and they weren’t really offering us any “perks” for joining.
We had better offers from other gyms, one of which we wouldn’t have minded joining and the other we both refused to join, but I knew we could use them and what they were offering as leverage.
One gym offered us a lot of perks like a free bottle, towel, gym bag, ear phones and assessments while the other gym offered us a REALLY good price but no perks. Our gym offered a water bottle and a towel and an “OK” membership fee.
I love to haggle! I get it honest enough from my father. I can’t remember the last time I paid full price for something (insert some inappropriate joke here). What I decided to do with the above information was combine what both gyms were offering me in to “one gym” and use this new non-existant gym as my leverage at the gym we actually wanted to join.
I knew it wasn’t going to be possible for us to get EVERYTHING matched, so I picked and chose what we actually wanted and a good price range and what we got in return was astonishing.
We still had to pay the £20 initiation fee (which was still much cheaper than any other gym) and they couldn’t match the membership fee that the other “gym” was offering but what they could/did offer us was the month of October for half price, bag of goodies with some branded stuff such as a water bottle, earbuds, towel, a key chain for your gym lock and a gym bag which we actually needed because we didn’t bring ours with us. I think it all ended up being about £50 worth of free crap. We also get 2 free personal training sessions, a free swimming assesment, a physio assesment and health assesment. When everything was said and done, we were beyond happy with the end result. I think the gym membership may have even been a bit cheaper than the other gym we had as our back-up plan.
Speaking of back-up plans…
After me telling you all of this, there’s something you need to know and be prepared for if you’re going to try and use leverage… It doesn’t always work.
You have to be prepared to lose the initial offer you were made, maybe look foolish if they ask you which “gym” made you the other offer so they can make sure you’re not lying (which you quite possibly are), actually use your back-up gym or be able to swallow your pride when they shoot you down and say ‘OK, we’ll join anyway”.
I’ve done each and every one of these at different times in my life (not with gyms) and once you realize you really have nothing to lose, you get over it a lot quicker and can pull this move off.
Give it a try, the worst that anyone is going to say is “no”…
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