Questions to Ask Before Signing a Coaching Client
Every wrong-fit engagement was preventable in the first hour. Here are the questions that surface the truth before the contract, for both sides of the room.
Every wrong-fit engagement was preventable. It was preventable in the first hour, in the discovery call, in the ten minutes after when you had to decide whether to send the contract. Something showed up in the room that you didn't want to look at, so you didn't. Six months later you were paying for it.
The way you protect yourself from that pattern isn't intuition. Intuition is what fails you when you want the money. What holds up is a small set of questions you ask every time. Some go to the client. Some go to yourself. The answers, taken together, tell you cleanly whether to sign.
Here they are.
Why the discovery call alone isn't enough
The discovery call is largely a conversation about the situation. What's going on for the client, what they've tried, what they hope for. This is necessary. It's also not sufficient for screening.
The situation someone brings to a discovery call is usually the presenting problem. Underneath it is the actual pattern, the actual capacity, and the actual reason they've come now. The questions that surface those three things are different from the questions that fill a normal call.
Hold them separately. Ask most of them in the discovery call itself if there's time. Ask the rest of yourself, quietly, in the twenty minutes after.
The five questions to ask the client
1. What have you tried, and what happened?
Not what have you read. What have you actually done. If they've tried nothing, they're at the beginning, which is fine but slower than they think. If they've tried five things and abandoned each after three weeks, that's a pattern that will repeat with you. If they've tried one hard thing and stayed with it long enough to know why it didn't work, they're ready.
2. Why now?
This one matters more than it sounds. The honest answer tells you what force is behind their decision. My partner said something over the weekend I can't unhear. Real. I saw your Instagram and it looked interesting. Weak. I've been thinking about this for two years and I turn forty next month. Real. The strength of the why now is directly proportional to whether they'll do the work.
3. What would you like to be true a year from now that isn't true today?
Watch for specificity. A client who can name a concrete change is ready to work toward it. A client who says I want to feel more aligned is describing a mood, not a life. Nothing is wrong with wanting to feel more aligned. It just isn't a project you can hold a container around.
4. What are you afraid this work will require of you?
This question changes rooms. Most practitioners never ask it. The answer surfaces the resistance early, before it starts sabotaging the sessions. If they can't name a fear, they haven't taken the work seriously yet. If they can name a fear precisely, they're already halfway there.
5. If we did the work and it didn't move, what would you conclude?
Listen carefully. That I wasn't ready is a mature answer. That you weren't the right guide is a client who has already booked their exit story. Both answers are useful. Only one leads to a good engagement.
The four questions to ask yourself
Ask these in the twenty minutes after the call, before you write the follow-up email.
1. Did I stop being curious at any point?
Discovery calls should feel like sitting across from someone whose situation you're actively curious about. If your attention wandered, if you had to work to stay engaged, something told you this isn't a match. Trust it.
2. Was I compensating?
Compensating looks like talking more than usual, over-selling the work, softening your normal price, promising things you don't normally promise. Every compensation is a signal that something in you already knows the fit is off and is trying to close the gap with effort. Don't reward that effort with a signature.
3. Would I be relieved if they said no?
The question sounds bad. Ask it anyway. If a small part of you would exhale at their rejection, that part knows something the rest of you is still negotiating with. Take it seriously.
4. Is there a version of me that could hold this well?
Sometimes the answer is yes, but not the current you. You're tired, you're overbooked, or their situation touches something you haven't finished with yourself. The refusal is about the capacity you can honestly bring right now, not about them.
What the answers, together, tell you
You're listening for three things across both sets of questions.
Capacity. Does the client have the psychological and practical room to do this work now? Someone in acute crisis usually doesn't. Someone stabilized but stuck usually does.
Stake. Is there real skin in the game? A client hiring you with money that stretches them a bit will show up. A client for whom the fee is a rounding error, or free entirely, will drift.
Match. Is this the kind of problem you actually help with? Not the kind you could help with. The kind you consistently do help with. Guides who take on every situation that comes their way build brittle practices. Guides who sign one out of every two calls build durable ones. (What you actually help with is usually narrower and stranger than your marketing suggests, which is what clients are really paying for anyway.)
If all three are green, sign. If any one is yellow, wait a week and revisit. If any one is red, don't sign.
What to say when the answer is no
You don't owe the client a diagnosis. Keep it short.
Thanks for the conversation. I don't think I'm the right fit for what you're working through, and I'd rather tell you that cleanly than pretend otherwise. Here are two practitioners I'd send you to instead.
Then two names. That's it.
If you find yourself softening the no because you want the money, remember what a wrong-fit six months costs you. The resentment. The slot that couldn't go to the right client. The quiet erosion of how you show up in other sessions. The clients who could have hired the version of you that wasn't already carrying a badly-fitting engagement. And if you signed one you shouldn't have, ending it kindly is the second-best move.
The smallest move
If you have a discovery call on the calendar, write the five client questions and the four self questions on a card. Keep it by the laptop. Ask them. Answer them. Sign only if capacity, stake, and match all come up clean.
The clients you sign this way are the ones who stay. They're also the ones who tell other people cleanly what you do, which is where a referral practice actually starts.
The whole shape of your year gets set by which clients you signed and which you didn't. The questions above are how you get the ratio right.