Client Intake Form

A VP-level client completes the intake form in exhaustive detail - multi-paragraph goals, a structured challenge list, and a thorough description of their strengths. The form reads like a deliverable.

Read the form before the session as preparation, not as an agenda. With high-achieving clients, the intake often reflects the performance they bring to everything, not necessarily the real starting point. The useful signal is not what they wrote but how they wrote it: whether the language is aspirational, whether the challenges are abstract, and whether the 'additional information' field was left blank or filled with more accomplishments.

Notice the gap between the Coaching Goals section and the Challenges section. If the goals are high-level and the challenges are tactical, the client may be presenting the version of their situation they are comfortable with rather than the one that actually brought them to coaching. Also notice if the Supportive Factors section is longer than any other section. Clients who lead with resources and strengths before fully naming the problem are sometimes managing how they appear to the coach from the first interaction.

Open the first session by reflecting the client's language back: 'You wrote that you want to...' and then pause. The client's response - whether they confirm, expand, or immediately revise - tells you how settled the intake answers actually are. Then ask about the most specific item in the Challenges section: 'Tell me more about what you mean by [exact phrase]. What does that look like on a typical Tuesday?' Specificity breaks the performance frame faster than broad questions.

A coach moving from 4 clients to 10+ is finding that each onboarding is different and their preparation for first sessions varies widely. Some clients get more focused early sessions; others spend the first meeting establishing basics.

This is a process consistency exercise, not a client-facing coaching tool in this context. The coach uses the form to standardize intake so their preparation is predictable regardless of who the client is. The value is in having a fixed baseline of information for every new relationship. Introduce it as infrastructure: 'This gives you the same starting data for every client so you are never going into a first session without knowing where the client is starting from.'

Over time, watch for patterns across forms that tell you about the client pool: are goals consistently vague, challenges consistently tactical, supportive factors consistently thin? Aggregate patterns across intake forms are often more useful than individual responses - they tell you whether your positioning is attracting the clients you expect and whether they are arriving with the readiness you are designing for.

After the first session, compare what the client wrote in the intake to what emerged in the conversation. The divergence between written intake and spoken session is the most important signal for calibrating the form's usefulness. If clients consistently write goals that shift in the first fifteen minutes, the goals question may need to be reframed. If the challenges section never matches what clients actually bring, the framing is too abstract.

A director who was recently passed over for a VP role has self-referred to coaching. The intake form reflects urgency and frustration, with goals focused on the promotion rather than broader development.

Read the intake without projecting a coaching arc before session one. The goals section will likely focus on the presenting event - the passed-over promotion - but the challenges section may hint at deeper patterns. Use the intake language as a contract-setting tool in the first session: 'You wrote that you want to get the VP role. I want to make sure we're both clear on what coaching can and can't do there, and then figure out what we're actually building toward together.'

If the goals section contains only outcome statements - 'get promoted,' 'be recognized' - and the challenges section names external obstacles - 'my manager doesn't advocate for me,' 'the decision process is unfair' - the client may be arriving in a primarily external locus. That's not unusual after a disappointment, but it sets a specific challenge for early sessions. Watch whether the 'supportive factors' section acknowledges any internal resources or whether it, too, points externally.

In the first session, start with the gap between what the client wrote in goals and what they are actually feeling. 'You wrote that you want the VP role. What is the thing underneath that that you most want from our work together?' The answer often reveals whether the coaching is about the promotion specifically or about something the promotion represented - recognition, autonomy, identity validation. That distinction changes the entire coaching direction.