It’s January, a shiny new year, a new page on the calendar and a great time to try new things, besides that pricey gym membership and those foul tasting protein shakes as you try to keep to your new years resolutions.

While you’re trying a new workout regime, add joining a Salesforce User Group to your list of resolutions in 2016.  Here are 5 reasons why!

5. User Group meetings will typically highlight new features and review portions of release notes.  This is essential to keep on top of changing features in Salesforce as releases happen three times a year.  Many of these features will be shown and provide some guided hands on opportunities.

Bonus: This helps with passing your maintenance exams if you’re certified!

4. Opportunities to network with other users, Salesforce employees, ISVs and consultancies.  The upside here is that you’re likely going to use products or seek services from companies where you’ve been able to interact with their employees and learn more about them without a sales pitch. In addition, this could also lead to increased exposure to job opportunities

3. User group meetings are run by volunteers that work with Salesforce as opposed to working for Salesforce.  User group leaders tend to have a similar perspective to attendees and are able to understand and plan for topics that are of interest to user group members.  Also, user group leaders tend to be unbiased and will give an accurate and honest review of features.

2.  The user community is growing quickly with user groups all over the world and for specific segments.  You can attend a dev, admin, non profit, business, industry focused and women in tech user group.  It’s really easy to find a user group near you.  Click here to find a group near you.  Some groups meet virtually if you can’t find a local group.

Bonus: By networking and knowledge sharing in the broader community, you’ll have a ready made batch of friends when you attend Dreamforce!

1. You won’t find a better group of people that are willing to help at a moment’s notice with any question or issue.  Most User groups are run by Salesforce Community leaders and/or MVPs that are very knowledgable about all things Salesforce and responsive to requests to specific topics.

Bonus: Meetings also involve free food and sometimes drinks as well.  If the greatest group of people ever doesn’t do it for you, the free food definitely will!

So there you have it, 5 VERY GOOD REASONS to join a user community today.  If all else fails, let’s go back to the bonus for reason #1. FREE FOOD!