Your January Rush Checklist: 8 To-Dos Before New Clients Arrive

Last Updated on 5 December, 2025

January and February bring the biggest surge of the year for gyms and fitness studios. New resolutions, renewed motivation, and a wave of signups often arrive at once. 

That rush can turn into major growth or unnecessary strain. A little preparation now helps you avoid the chaos and make the season work in your favor.

This checklist walks you through the essentials and shows how WellnessLiving can support you at every stage so you are not scrambling when demand spikes.

Key Takeaways

• Clean up your schedule now so January bookings run smoothly.
• Prep staff roles and permissions before traffic spikes.
• Launch intro offers early and automate the promo rollout.
• Optimize onboarding and booking to make it easy for new members.
• Use WellnessLiving’s reporting and automations to stay efficient and boost retention.

1. Optimize Your Schedule, Offerings, and Policies

Your schedule needs to withstand the first wave of January demand, so it should be accurate and structured before clients start booking. A clear schedule helps new members commit quickly and avoids confused inquiries during peak hours.

Here’s what you can do to prepare:

• Review recurring sessions for accuracy
• Confirm instructors and rooms are assigned correctly
• Turn on waitlists to manage full classes
• Add high-demand time slots if you have capacity
• Confirm all sessions display correctly in online booking and your app
• Review your business policies, especially policies that impact booking and scheduling.
• Activate CAASI, if you haven’t yet (see point 7 for more details!) 

WellnessLiving keeps your schedule organized with real-time availability, automated waitlists, and clean booking tools across your website and the Achieve Client App, or the White Label branded app for your business. Your staff and clients see the same accurate information everywhere. 

Steve Mancinelli, General Manager at REDCON1 Gym, put it simply in their case study: “WellnessLiving prevents front desk disasters by streamlining bookings and check-ins.” When your schedule and booking tools run smoothly, your team can handle January traffic without bottlenecks or confusion.

2. Confirm Staff Readiness, Roles, Assignments, and Permissions

Your staff must be fully prepared before traffic increases. Clear responsibilities and knowledge of daily workflows help keep operations consistent when check-ins and questions spike.

Here’s how you can ensure your staff is ready:

• Review instructor and front desk responsibilities
• Ensure each staff member has correct system access
• Confirm staff coverage for peak times
• Ensure everyone has downloaded the Elevate staff app and knows how to use it. Check that they know how to manage check-ins and cancellations without issues. 

WellnessLiving’s staff management features

With staff management tools, role-based permissions, and the Elevate staff app, WellnessLiving keeps your team organized and aligned. Everyone knows exactly what they can access, which reduces confusion when the rush begins.

3. Prepare Strong Intro Offers and Seasonal Promotions

January clients respond well to straightforward, low-friction offers. If your promotions are planned and visible before the rush, you can capture early interest from people who are ready to say yes. 

Here’s what you can do to prepare for promos:

• Create intro memberships or modest first-month discounts
• Set a clear promo window for your seasonal offer
• Draft messaging before January hits
• Highlight your offer prominently on your website and social channels
• Schedule emails or notifications announcing the promotion

WellnessLiving lets you build memberships and intro offers, schedule automated emails and SMS notifications, and surface promotions in the app and online store. If your business has its own branded app, you can plan for push notifications, too. Plan your campaigns early and run them on a schedule.

If you want a ready-made set of seasonal promos you can deploy right away, check out our 12-Day Holiday Revenue Boost Sprint, a simple marketing and booking plan designed to fill classes and build momentum before January.

4. Review Onboarding and the Booking Flow

New members expect a smooth start. If registration and booking feel simple, they are far more likely to follow through on their first visit and stay with your studio.

Here’s how you can tighten your processes:

• Review your registration process, forms, and waivers
• Make sure clients can book and pay online without assistance
• Review your welcome emails or texts
• Confirm instructions for first classes are clear
• Ensure your website guides new clients to the right steps

WellnessLiving centralizes online registration, bookings, and purchases in one system, which makes it easier for new clients to complete each step from signup to first visit. To make sure your clients understand the process, you can consider making a quick demo video like Mattix Music School did. 

If you want a deeper walkthrough on building effective welcome and follow-up emails, see this recent guide on email marketing fundamentals.

5. Prepare Your Check-in and Access Systems for High Traffic

Check-in volume increases sharply in January and February. Optimizing and testing this flow in advance prevents backups at the door and keeps classes running on time. Here’s a complete guide to all WellnessLiving check-in options to help you choose what’s best for your business. 

Here’s what you can do to keep check-ins running smoothly:

• Test kiosk and mobile barcode check-in
• Confirm attendance tracking matches bookings
• Review how your team handles walk-ins and late arrivals
• Verify membership rules trigger correctly at check-in
• Ensure signage and guidance near the entrance are clear

WellnessLiving offers fast check-in options, including mobile barcodes, key tags, and kiosk tools. This reduces front desk congestion and keeps classes running on time.

6. Set Up Retention Guardrails Before the Rush Begins

Most new members need structured touchpoints to stay engaged. Preparing those systems now keeps retention initiatives running even when your team is busy.

Here’s what you can do to strengthen retention early:

• Create renewal reminders and follow-up messages
• Build a short welcome sequence for new clients
• Activate a rewards or loyalty program
• Ask your team to follow up with lapsed clients using the Clients at Risk Report
• Plan your first two member touchpoints after a new client joins

WellnessLiving’s automations, loyalty tools, and milestone reminders help you stay connected with members even as the season gets busy. With the Isaac AI Churn Risk Report, you can also see which clients are statistically most likely to leave in the next 30 days and trigger targeted outreach before they disappear from your schedule.

7.  Add CAASI to Handle New Member Questions and Lead Volume

January brings a flood of questions from leads and new clients. Many of these come in outside regular hours, when people are researching memberships, pricing, and class options. If those questions are not answered quickly, potential members often move on.

CAASI, your AI Front Desk and Wellness Concierge, enables you to provide 24/7 support to visitors with instant, human-like answers and guidance to book. 

Here is what you can do to prepare with CAASI:

• Activate your CAASI trial in WellnessLiving
• Add the CAASI widget to your website 
• Make sure your schedule, services, pricing, and intro offers are up to date in WellnessLiving so CAASI shares accurate information
• Add common January questions to your FAQs, such as contract terms, freezing memberships, and beginner-friendly options
• Ask key staff members to review the CAASI dashboard to track conversations and get real-time notifications

Instead of scrambling to keep up with calls and messages during the January rush, your website can greet every interested visitor, guide them to the right option, and pass qualified leads directly into your system. Studios using CAASI report more completed bookings, steady daily lead capture, and fewer repetitive questions for staff.

8. Ensure You’re Tracking the Right Reports 

Higher attendance means more transactions, more operational load and and more data points to show what needs your attention. Tapping into the power of WellnessLiving reports to monitor performance can help you deeply understand what’s happening in your business.

Here’s how you can make sure reporting works for you: 

• Review all available reports and ensure you set up what you need 
• Customize reports with the details and time ranges you want
• Update staff permissions to ensure key team members can access reports that are important for their role 
• Consider creating role-specific dashboards for team members to ensure follow-ups on critical info like lapsed clients, unpaid visits, or expiring purchase options

With integrated payments and detailed reporting dashboards, WellnessLiving gives you total visibility across billing, attendance, membership trends, staffing, and more. Everything connects in one system so you can track trends and numbers with ease. 

Farm Girl Fitness, a hybrid indoor and outdoor studio in Ontario, used these tools to double their revenue after switching to WellnessLiving. In WellnessLiving’s CEO Tour video, founder Jessie Thomas explains, “Our reports are everything for us. It allows us to understand what’s going on in our business.”

Get Ready for Your Busiest Season

The January rush doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. With the right fitness studio and gym software, it becomes your biggest opportunity for growth. 

WellnessLiving gives you the tools to handle higher traffic, streamline operations, and keep new members engaged long after the New Year motivation fades.

If you haven’t streamlined your operations with WellnessLiving yet, now’s the time to act. Enter January fully prepared: Book a free, no-commitment demo and see how WellnessLiving can support your studio through every step of the season.

→ Book your free demo today and start the year strong.