Best Life Coaching Intake Forms, Templates and Questions

Nothing is more exciting than landing a new coaching client, which marks the start of a new development journey. Plus, it’s a sign that you’re scaling up the practice you’ve worked so hard to build!

But as your business grows and your coachee list gets longer, keeping track of everybody’s details can become a headache if you don’t have a system. We’ll show you how to capture critical client information and navigate the onboarding process with a life coach intake form that ticks all the boxes.

But before you dive in, don’t forget to start your Quenza’s free coaching toolkit trial and get ready to design your own practice-branded intake forms!

How To Perform A Coaching Intake Session

An intake session is the first step you and your client take together on their coaching journey, laying the groundwork for everything that follows. It’s your first chance to build trust and learn about who they are so you can establish a solid relationship that will shape your work together.

So you want to get it right first—but what does that mean in practice?

A life coaching intake form can be customized in the best way for you to learn about your client’s background, goals, and expectations before you begin an engagement.

Regardless of whether you’re an in-person or online coach, intake begins at your very first touchpoint with a new or prospective client. If you’ve already established that you’re a good fit with a screening questionnaire or similar tool, the first thing you need to do is get to know:

1. Who they are as a person: Both for your practice admin (name, age, address, etc.) and to inform your work (e.g. their strengths, interests, and expectations from coaching)
2. Where they are right now: Essentially, this is why they’ve sought out your services as a coach and
3. Where they want to be: This allows you to ask relevant questions and shape your sessions as they progress.

There are a few critical skills to have if your first touchpoint is a live online or in-person session, which our guide on Conducting Intake Effectively covers in-depth.

However, it’s a good idea to provide your client with a digital intake form before you meet.

This helps you standardize your intake experience—which is a lifesaver as you scale up and gain more clients—and saves you both time when you kick off your initial session. Even better, you can store all your clients’ information automatically and get a complete, organized overview of their profile when you need it, as shown below.

4 Life Coaching Intake Forms and Templates

So what kind of information should a digital intake form collect?

It’s important to include a section for background information on your coaching intake form, not least because it helps you create a consistent and complete system of profiles for each of your clients.

These details will vary depending on your policies and how you run your practice, but typically include:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• Contact Information
• Billing Information

After you’ve collected this information, your intake form can be customized in the best way for you to learn about your client’s background, goals, and expectations. Quenzas’s Pre-Coaching Questionnaire uses separate sections to gather this information, as shown below:

With this Pre-Coaching Questionnaire, you can expand on the existing “Your Current Life” and “Your Goals” sections with your niche- or practice-specific fields.

Intake Form For Health Coaches

Things will probably look a little different for you if you’re a health coach, as you’ll very likely need to collect at least a few sorts of details on a client’s habits, fitness, and diet.

This example from Elevate Wellness is broken into a few sections:

• Goals: including fields such as “What do you expect from me, as your coach?”
• Change: e.g. “Have you tried anything in the past to change your habits, health, eating and/or your body?”
• Environment: e.g. “Who does most of the grocery shopping?” 
• Time: e.g. “On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel about your schedule, use of time, and overall busyness?”
• Stress/Recovery: e.g. “On average, how many hours of sleep do you get per night?”
• Health Markers: e.g. “Please list any medications and/or supplements that you are currently taking.”

Template For Business and Executive Coaching

Are you looking for ideas for business coaching or executive coaching intake forms? Here are a few examples:

• T. Kahler Coaching Intake Form
• Encore Executive Coaching Intake Form
• Business Needs Assessment Intake Form from Kyosei Coaching

Helpful Forms For Career Coaches

You might also find the following career coaching intake form samples useful:

• Antelope Valley College Career Center Intake Form
• Wisconsin School of Business Career Coaching Intake Form
• Kennesaw State University Career Coaching Intake Form

Best Intake Questions and Questionnaires

The best questions for a customized intake form will of course be a factor of your unique coaching style, niche, as well as who you’re working with—your clients.

Any questionnaires you use should be as concise as possible without leaving out any essential information. Think about gather practical details that will help you deliver your unique brand of value.

Any questionnaires you use should be as concise as possible without leaving out any essential information, so it’s worth thinking about practical details that will help you deliver your unique brand of value.

Structuring your forms into sections can help you organize them while allowing your clients to easily fill out the digital paperwork.

Using Quenza’s Pre-Coaching Questionnaire as a guide, some sample sections might include:

• Goals: e.g. What are your major objectives or gains that you wish to achieve from coaching? What do you expect to achieve in life due to hiring me as your coach? What would you like from your coach during your sessions?
• Current Life: On a scale of 1 -10 how happy are you with your life right now? What is most important to you in your life and why?

Depending on the particular approaches you use, the following might also be useful:

• Strengths: Quenza’s Strengths Interview, pictured above, asks questions such as “At what times do you feel fully engaged?” and “What did you do as a child that you still do today, only probably better?”
• Values: The Completing Sentences To Clarify Values Exercise includes questions like “Regarding money, my family taught me to be…” and “The main thing I want from my career is…”
• Motivation/preparedness for change: Quenza’s Preparing for change: The DARN-C Acronym has a few examples, e.g. “How would you like things to change?” and “On a scale of 1 (not able at all) – 10 (very able) how able do you think you are to make the desired changes?”

At the end of the day, there’s no one checklist of what should be included on a coaching intake form; that’s up to you as a practitioner. But if you’re looking for guidance as to what questions might be valuable, an extra step that you can take is to ask your clients directly with a Coach Evaluation Form.

Most Helpful Solution For Your Coaching Practice

It’s not hard to assemble a PDF coaching client intake form, but most experienced coaches will know that paperwork can accumulate fast along with your client list.

If you’re already delivering your life coaching solutions digitally with Quenza, it only makes sense to send online intake forms from the same platform you use to manage everything else.

With Quenza, you can not only share your intake forms directly with clients, but you can also:

• Design your own forms
• Brand them with your custom logo
• Track whether they’ve been viewed, started, or completed in real-time, and
• Collect and store all your clients’ responses automatically, so they’re easy to access at any time.

Let’s take a closer look!

Performing Intakes with Quenza: An Example

In a nutshell, Quenza includes everything you need to simplify your intake process in three simple steps.

1. Design Your Intake Forms

With Quenza’s Activity Builder, you can use drag-and-drop tools to design a brand new, completely bespoke form from fields like drop-down menus, checkboxes, free-text boxes, and page breaks as shown:

If you prefer to customize a template, Quenza’s giant library of Expansions is full of ready-made Activities that can easily be edited to save you time.

You can also upload your own practice logo onto all your forms using the Quenza White Label feature:

2. Share your forms with clients

Simply click ‘share’ on your completed and saved form to deliver it securely to your client through the Quenza app, where they’ll be able to:

• Complete their form
• Refer back to their results at any time
• Return it to you, and
• Download it as a PDF for their offline copies.

You can even nudge your clients through the app to fill in uncompleted coaching forms before your first session!

3. Track engagement

If you’re sharing intake forms for group coaching, Quenza’s live results tracking gives you a convenient overview of both how individuals and the group as a whole are progressing:

Click here to take a closer look at how Quenza Groups can work for you.

The Importance of Client Preparedness in Coaching

Ensuring that clients are well-prepared before starting their coaching journey can significantly impact the effectiveness of the sessions. One way to enhance preparedness is by providing clients with pre-coaching questionnaires. These forms can gather information about the clients’ goals, expectations, and any previous coaching experiences, helping the coach tailor sessions to meet specific needs.

Another essential aspect of client preparedness is setting clear expectations. Coaches should communicate the structure, frequency, and duration of sessions upfront. This transparency helps clients understand what to expect, reducing anxiety and ensuring they are mentally ready to engage fully in the coaching process.

Providing clients with preparatory materials like articles, videos, or exercises related to their goals can also enhance their readiness. These resources can offer valuable insights and stimulate reflection, enabling clients to come to sessions with a deeper understanding of their challenges and objectives.

Lastly, initial consultations or discovery calls are crucial for assessing client readiness. During these calls, coaches can gauge the client’s commitment level, clarify any doubts, and establish rapport. This initial interaction sets the tone for the coaching relationship, ensuring both parties are aligned and prepared to work effectively towards the client’s goals.

Leveraging Data from Intake Forms for Personalized Coaching

Using data from intake forms to personalize coaching sessions can lead to more targeted and effective interventions. Intake forms provide coaches with detailed information about the client’s background, goals, and challenges, enabling a tailored approach that addresses specific needs and circumstances.

One way to leverage this data is by identifying patterns and trends in the client’s responses. For example, recurring themes or concerns can highlight areas that require more focused attention. By addressing these patterns early on, coaches can develop customized strategies that resonate with the client’s unique situation.

Additionally, intake forms can reveal the client’s preferred learning styles and communication methods. Understanding whether a client prefers visual aids, hands-on activities, or verbal discussions can help the coach design sessions that maximize engagement and comprehension. Tailoring the coaching approach to match the client’s preferences enhances the overall effectiveness of the sessions.

The information from intake forms can also inform the creation of personalized action plans. Coaches can use the client’s stated goals and challenges to develop step-by-step plans that align with their aspirations. These customized plans provide a clear roadmap for progress, making it easier for clients to stay motivated and track their achievements.

Finally, regularly revisiting and updating the information from intake forms ensures that the coaching remains relevant and adaptive to the client’s evolving needs. As clients grow and their goals shift, the intake data can be a valuable reference point for adjusting the coaching strategies and maintaining alignment with their current priorities.

Final Thoughts

Fortunately, coaching intake is generally much easier than it can be in therapy or mental health settings. But don’t overlook the potential of a well-designed form to revolutionize your onboarding process completely.

One of the biggest favors you can do for yourself and your clients as a life coach is to use your intake forms strategically. Put some thought into the unique ways you create and deliver value, and see if you can’t use your form to capture the information you need to make that happen ahead of time!

Keen to get designing your first form? Start your free Quenza trial today for instant, unlimited access to all the tools you need!

Frequently Asked Questions