St. Pete trainer starts Retention Desk to help local gyms keep members

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Oct. 22, 2026) Thomas Sousa, a St. Petersburg personal trainer with 16 years of lifting and a field sales background, has started Retention Desk, a service for independent gyms and fitness studios.

Each gym can get a free Retention Snapshot, a one page review of its public pages with three fixes, and a free win back campaign for members who drifted away. After that, each month a client gets a 90 day welcome journey for new members, built once and tuned monthly, one win back campaign, four member emails written in the studio’s own voice, and a results report with a list of members at risk. Everything goes out from the gym’s own email or member app. The service runs at $397 a month per location, month to month, with no contract.

“Independent gyms work hard to win every new member, and too many of them quietly drift away in the first few months,” said Sousa. “I started Retention Desk so a small gym can stay in touch with every member without adding hours to the owner’s week.”

Retention Desk works with gyms, CrossFit boxes, yoga, Pilates and barre studios, martial arts schools and personal training studios. More at https://www.theretentiondesk.com/.