As a coach, you want your clients to be as successful as possible. The more successful your clients are, the more successful you will be. Not only will you earn more as a coach, there’s also a wonderful feeling that comes along with truly helping someone.
You’ll be asking your coaching clients a lot of questions throughout your time coaching them. Some of these questions will be standard – questions that you ask all of your coaching clients, no matter who they are. Other questions will be more ‘of the moment’ – questions that you ask spontaneously, or only of specific coaching clients.
What follows are 10 questions to give you some great ideas to start with. These 10 questions tend to get to the heart of the matter. These questions can get your clients thinking and help them inevitably become more successful.
Question #1:
What is the number one thing you’re worried about right now?
This question is important because it gets to the heart of what might be holding your client back. Many people will have an answer that’s related to financial concerns. Financial worries hold people back in so many ways – whether you are a coach for business or life coaching or whatever it is.
If people have financial worries, then it affects their health, their ability to work, their happiness, their drive, their motivation – everything. So, if you can figure out what the number one thing someone is worried about – whether it’s finances or something else, then you can often get to what is holding them back overall.
This may or may not be something that would come up anyway. However, if the number one thing someone is worried about is their finances but you are a business coach, it may be the case that the person is too embarrassed to talk about their financial concerns. That may not be the case – but you also might be surprised.
By asking this question directly, you are more likely to get a direct answer and you can then help your client move forward and go through their thoughts and possible solutions to the problems that face them.
Question #2:
What is your top accomplishment in life?
It doesn’t matter who you’re coaching – they should have an answer to this question. It might take them some time to think about, but they should have an answer. The answer can be very revealing. If they can tell you what their top accomplishment is and what they are proud of, it can give you some insight into who they are, where they’ve been, and where they want to go. It gives you a sense of the value they place on certain accomplishments.
Question #3:
What is your number one goal?
Goal setting is very important – that’s something you know as a coach. But, many people don’t pay any attention at all to goal setting. Even if they know it’s important, they don’t do it. They don’t regularly set goals or think about setting goals… and that’s something that sets successful people apart from those who are not successful.
By asking this question, you force people to think about their goals. Not only that, but you also force them to sort their goals and think about what’s actually most important to them. This can be a very valuable exercise. Make sure their goals are very specific and include a deadline to work toward.
Question #4:
What’s the most important thing you do in the morning?
Your coaching clients will often struggle with their daily routines and schedules. They feel like they’ve wasted full days or that they are not making progress toward their goals (which you’ve now helped them set). By focusing in on the most important thing they do in the morning, you can help them think about their daily routine and the things they do.
If they know already what the most important thing they do is, then that is a good thing. But if they’re fuzzy on this and if they don’t know if they do anything important at all as part of their morning routine, then that’s something to think about.
Question #5:
What’s the most important thing you do all day to help you achieve your goal?
Thinking back to their number one goal, ask your clients what the most important thing they do all day is in order to reach their goal.
Maybe they don’t know. If they don’t know, this is a good thinking exercise for the two of you to work on together.
Every day, they should be doing things that help them achieve their goal or goals. If they are not doing something every single day that will help move them toward their goals, then that is a problem. That is something to work on in your coaching.
Question #6:
What do you do every day that’s a waste of time?
We all do things that are a waste of time in business or life. Occasionally, it’s time to take stock of the things that are most contributing to your goals… as well as NOT contributing to your goals. This is something you can help your clients with.
As a coach, study the Pareto Principle—just 20% of your efforts lead to 80% of your results. There are bound to be things you can cut out… or at least focus less on. If they cut out these time-wasters and focus on the things that are most effectively helping them reach their goals, they’ll find success much more quickly.
Asking this question makes you much more effective as a coach. Most people don’t think about this at all and just go about their daily tasks as part of their routine without thinking about the ranking of their efforts and what leads to the best results.
Ask These Questions and Be a Better Coach
There you have it. Ask these questions and you’ll be a better coach. You’ll get people to where they need to be. You’ll stimulate thought and action in your coaching clients.
What else can you ask? Draw up a list of questions you’d like to ask as part of your coaching routine—with every client—as well as an individual list of questions that’s tailored perfectly to the individual. Ask follow-up questions as well. In some cases, you’ll want to ask the same question multiple times, at different points in the coaching. You’ll learn a lot about your client and your client will learn a lot about him or herself.
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