August 16th, 2026
Fitness businesses urged to rethink how they turn enquiries into members
By Nigel Benton
Exercise /Fitness /Marketing /Education
Fitness sales and communication specialist Steve Jensen is encouraging health clubs and studios to rethink how they respond to membership enquiries, suggesting that the quality of the initial conversation can be more important to securing a new member than price
In a feature for Australasian Leisure Management, Jensen argues that today’s prospective fitness consumers have more choice, are exposed to greater volumes of advertising and have less tolerance for generic sales approaches. With prospective members able to contact several clubs or studios within minutes, salespeople who sound scripted, move immediately to price or fail to identify what matters to the individual risk quickly losing the opportunity
He suggests that while fitness businesses frequently attribute lost sales to membership pricing or cheaper competitors, the breakdown may have occurred considerably earlier because the salesperson failed to establish trust, ask appropriate questions or identify a compelling reason for the prospective member to act
Jensen advises that qualification can represent 80-90% of the membership sale, with effective qualification allowing the subsequent appointment, facility tour and membership presentation to be personalised around the prospective member’s requirements
SAC Quarterly Workshop to focus on improving fitness membership sales qualificationJensen will be sharing these insights at the next SAC Quarterly Workshop on Friday 28th August, with the online training session focusing on how fitness businesses can improve the way sales teams qualify prospective members
Titled The Art of Powerful Qualification, the live and interactive workshop will examine the Impact Training Qualification process, taking participants from their initial telephone conversation with a prospective member through to conducting a face-to-face Needs Analysis
The training responds to an increasingly competitive fitness marketplace in which prospective members have greater choice and can contact multiple clubs and studios within minutes. Jensen suggests that sales opportunities can be lost when staff rely on scripted conversations, move too quickly to discussing price or fail to understand the underlying motivation behind an enquiry
The workshop maintains that many membership sales assumed to have been lost because of price actually break down earlier in the process, when insufficient trust has been established or sales staff have not identified a compelling reason for the prospective member to act.
It suggests that effective qualification can make subsequent stages of the sales process more relevant, enabling tours and membership presentations to be personalised around what an individual is seeking rather than presenting a generic list of facilities and services
Among the approaches to be covered will be the 4W’s framework, which is designed to establish what results a prospective member wants, where they are experiencing challenges, why achieving the outcome matters, how long the issue has existed and when they want to make a change
Participants will also learn what Jensen describes as the Big HOW, which encourages prospective members to consider how their current situation affects areas such as confidence, energy or their ability to undertake activities important to them. The approach is intended to move the conversation beyond surface objectives such as losing weight towards understanding the individual’s underlying motivation for joining
SAC Quarterly Workshop: The Art of Powerful QualificationFriday 28th August
Learn How to:
Build immediate rapport, trust and value
Turn more phone enquiries into quality appointments
Conduct a Needs Analysis that feels like a conversation, not an interrogation
Use 4Ws+H, the ‘Big HOW’ and Linking In questions to uncover the real problem
Identify pain, urgency and compelling emotional reasons to join
Use body language and Red Brain and Green Brain communication strategies
Reduce objections, improve show rates and close more memberships
People will pay to have their problems solved, but first, your team must know how to uncover the real problem and establish why solving it matters now
WHEN: Friday 28 August 2026WHERE:
Click herefor more information or to register
Click hereto to read Steve Jensen’s feature The art of powerful qualification: why you may only get one chance to turn an enquiry into a member
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