Coaching Intake Form Template

Coaching time is expensive because it is undiluted, which makes spending session one on biographical throat-clearing a small tragedy. This intake moves the getting-to-know-you hour into an asynchronous form, so the first live conversation starts on the real material: what needs to change, and what has stopped it from changing so far.

The order is the design. Preferred name comes first, because coaching is a first-name relationship and a form that opens like tax paperwork sets the wrong contract. The focus-area select hands the coach a frame before a word of prose. Then the branch: answer yes to "have you worked with a coach before?" and a follow-up appears, asking what worked and what didn't. That conditional question, a show rule built in the Logic panel, is the highest-yield field on the form. Coaching veterans arrive with formed expectations, and learning whether the last relationship died of vague goals or clashing styles tells you how to open. First-timers never see the question and never wonder about it.

Ninety days, not someday. The change question is time-boxed on purpose. "What would be different in 90 days" produces answers a coach can work with: a conversation had, a decision made, a habit running. Open-ended aspiration questions produce mission statements. Paired with the obstacle question, you hold both poles of the coaching arc before you meet. The weekly-hours select replaces the usual one-to-ten motivation scale, which everyone answers with an eight. Hours can be falsified; motivation is theater.

What belongs inside the container, not the form. No wheel-of-life audit, no values inventory, no childhood history. Deep instruments work inside the coaching relationship, delivered with context, rather than cold on a signup form. Payment and scheduling mechanics stay off too. This form starts the relationship, and logistics ride separately.

Coaches who send it, edits that fit. Executive coaches send it between the chemistry call and session one. Life and career coaches attach it to their programme welcome email. Group-programme leads clone it per cohort and read the whole cohort's answers in one CSV export before the opening circle. To fit your niche, swap the focus-area options for founder burnout, leadership pipelines, or postpartum return-to-work, and add a scale block if your methodology scores readiness. Answers here are personal, so tell coachees what the form guarantees: respondents need no account, and only you see responses. Sharing the link inside a private community? Add a password in Settings for a second gate. Keep email notifications on, because the moment a new coachee finishes is the moment to send the first session invitation, while the decision to change is still warm.