To do this, we need to move past the surface issues and get to the real root causes of the issues. Here are some questions to help you do that. (Note, since there are many different kinds of coaches, we’ve tried to include fairly generic questions that can be switched from one coaching topic to another, but not all of these questions will be easily "transferable" and you might need to do some customization to make them work.

Question 1: "Tell me about the result that occurs when you perform that activity… and tell me about how you would prefer it to be."

This question is good for a number of different coaching topics and industries. This question helps to explore the gap between intention and result. Your job, then, is to identify the elements in the gap and help your client to solve them. An example of use might be when someone asks you to help them improve their sales because they can’t convert their prospects.

Question 2: "Talk me through a typical process with particular emphasis on what you’re thinking about during that time."

This question might seem a little more like a psychologist’s question but the purpose here is to help you identify incorrect thinking (or distraction or procrastination) during various activities. You might need to work with the person to actually perform the activity. An example of use might be someone who comes to you because they have procrastination issues or are pulled in many different directions.

Question 3: (Part A) "In a perfect world, what would your business look like?" (Part b) "How would this activity impact it?"

The "part A" of this question prompts your client to think revisit their long term vision for the company (or begin to articulate it if they have not done so in a while). The "part B" of this question is much more specific to the project or situation you are coaching them through. It ties your client’s current coached activity to their long-term vision (or highlights if there is not a fit).

Question 4: "Put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a moment and describe how they perceive this aspect of your business."

This question, which is for business-related coaches, obviously, prompts a client to get out of their own narrow mindset that has probably shaped their thinking for too long and to start thinking about their customers. This is also a good question to ask about vendors and employees, too, if that is the area you are coaching them on.

Question 5: "If you were to suddenly receive unlimited funds and time but could ONLY apply it to this situation, what would you do?"

This question helps you to prompt your clients to think about where they should be really investing their resources in a given situation. For example, business owners on a budget might not always invest in the right things or the best things because they focus on the cheapest option. This question helps to draw out what they feel the better investment is.

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He described his efforts in great detail. They included a number of very good practices including Twitter, website work, blogging, and more. In frustration he pointed out that he had done all of this sales and marketing work and was getting new clients. He was getting so many people coming to his site and his blog from various sources and they were calling his office to ask questions but none of them had become clients.

That’s when I broke the news to him: He had done a good job marketing his work. However, he was missing a critical component – sales. Marketing is an activity that involves positioning, branding, broadcasting, and announcing who you are and what you do. Selling is an activity that involves taking people who have responded favorably to your marketing and "closing the deal" so that they become clients.

For most people, marketing is a fun, energizing activity that is easy to do a lot of. It feels like you’re very productive. Selling, on the other hand, can feel demoralizing to many people and is an activity that is often low on the list to-do list. Selling doesn’t have to be the negative effort it feels like, but it often is.

As soon as we discovered the situation for this new coach, we outlined a regimen that balanced marketing AND sales. He could continue doing the excellent marketing efforts that he performed, but he needed to have a series of steps that followed up with those who came to him through a marketing channel.

First, he needed to understand what ground they had covered through is marketing channel and what questions they still had. So we outlined some of the most frequently asked questions he received on the phone.

From those questions we were able to put together a profile of the person who was inquiring. This helped us to know where they were in the process. Since many were asking about rates and availability, for example, we could safely assume that his marketing was doing a good job of convincing them of the value he offered. But since some people were asking more about what he offered, we had to also build a profile for those who wanted more over-the-phone information.

Knowing those two profiles helped us to know what needed to happen next to convince them to become customers. The first profile – those who were asking for rates and availability – needed to be prompted to try out the service and see the value of his coaching. The second profile – those who were asking about his services – were contacting him a little earlier in the process and needed assurances that his services were a good fit for them.

Then we created a bit of a phone script. Nothing elaborate or "mechanical" to deliver, but rather a few bullet points that he would definitely want to cover, depending on which of the two profiles called him.

And, most importantly, I encouraged him to ask for the appointment. This might seem strange to coaches who have never been in sales but if you ask any salesperson they will tell you that ASKING for the order (or the appointment) is a key to getting the sale. Failing to ask will result in lost sales. That’s because potential customers need to be taken by the hand and guided through the interaction and asking for the appointment is the way that guides them to the sale.

In your coaching practice, are you marketing yourself aggressively but lacking customers? Perhaps it’s because you aren’t selling enough.

Contemporary VA

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