What do you know about your clients? More importantly, HOW do you know what you know about them?
The success of the work that coaches do with their clients must begin with a comprehensive assessment. It’s an essential first step in any health, business, or life coaching practice, and it benefits the coach just as much as it benefits the client.
The assessment gives your clients a chance to develop a greater level of self-awareness—getting clear on why they’ve chosen to work with you, the outcomes they want to achieve, and existing obstacles.
Clients can refer back to their initial assessment and compare the results they’ve achieved with where they started. This increases motivation and encourages them to continue working with you.
It adds more value to your services and improves your ability to keep your clients over the long run, which increases the lifetime value of each client.
3 Reasons Why You Need to Assess Your Clients
1. Create a Customized Program
Asking the right questions gives you the information you need to create a program that’s tailored to the needs of each client. This gives them a personalized strategy that leads to measurable results.
More importantly, it raises the value of the services you provide. Clients see that your coaching is unique to them, unlike other cookie-cutter approaches.
2. Set Yourself Apart From Your Competition
Listening to each client’s needs, goals, and challenges distinguishes your coaching practice from your competitors.
Listening is perhaps the most important skills you can apply as a coach. So the assessment can help position you as a trustworthy resource while further establishing your credibility.
3. Refer Out When Necessary
You might think that referring clients to other professionals is bad for business. But it places their needs before yours, which is actually a great way to grow your coaching practice.
How? You can’t solve all of your clients’ problems all of the time. You might need to call on someone with more experience or expertise in addressing specific challenges.
The assessment lets you determine if you need to refer your client out…and to whom. This moves them closer to their goals while helping you develop a network of allied professionals who can refer new clients to you in the future. So it’s a win-win for everyone.
Common Pitfalls When Assessing Clients
Lack of Commitment
I give clients intake forms that must be completed before we can get started. But some people may struggle to complete intake forms. They may complain that the forms are too long, or that they don’t have the time to complete them.
But this can actually be a good thing. Here’s why…
A person’s level of commitment can be determined by their willingness to complete the assessment process. If clients can’t bring themselves to complete a form, how willing are they to make the changes that will lead to the results they’re after?
This gives you an opportunity to revisit their commitment while also “weeding out” prospective clients who may not be ready to implement the strategies you give them.
Inaccurate Assessments
Questionnaires give you the information you need to create a program that gives clients lasting results. But that information must be accurate in order for your program to align with their needs.
Clients may lack the awareness needed to provide accurate responses. They might submit forms that are incomplete or inaccurate, which prevents you from having a clear picture of what they actually need.
Clients need to provide as much information as possible to maximize the return on their investment. Explain this to them, and remember to always frame the conversation around what they are likely to gain.
Your Own Bias
In science, research bias occurs when experimenters have pre-determined outcomes that they consciously (or unconsciously) hope to see as a result of their experiments.
Coaches and consultants can also fall victim to bias. This can be the result or past education and training along with the desire to confirm assumptions that they may have already made. But remember that each client is unique, and coaching must be individualized to their needs.
Coaches carrying the hammer must be careful not to look at everything as nails. The assessment process is meant to help you develop the strategies that lead to success for your clients.
Sometimes the results of those assessments may not turn out the way you expect them to. So make sure you avoid biases during your assessment.
Tips for Client Assessments
Having an assessment system in place is the first step to getting the best results from the work you do together. There are many ways that coaches and consultants can gather the information they need to create effective coaching strategies
Intake forms and discovery questionnaires are the easiest way to gather information as quickly as possible. These can be submitted through physical hard copies or digitally.
I transferred the questionnaires I use into Google Forms. This gives clients a convenient way to submit information, and they can be completed at home on their own time.
Health practitioners may need to perform physical assessments. I evaluate my client’s joint range of motion, muscle strength, movement patterns, and postural alignment. This takes time, but it’s critical to the coaching practice.
In-person or virtual interviews can also be included in your assessment process. Life coaches and business consultants may need to spend time with a client at his or her home and workplace to gather the information they need.
However you choose to assess your clients, what matters is that you have a process in place that’s consistent and standardized.
Before you begin working with a client, be sure to explain that this process must be completed first. Let them know what they should expect so that they aren’t surprised by the time you spend in this invaluable planning stage.
Take the time to review your assessment process. I periodically go through my own intake process—completing all the forms that I give to my clients—to make sure that they’re current and in line with the work I’m doing.
Your coaching practice will evolve over time. So you need to constantly review and improve your assessment process. You may need to add new elements while getting rid of those that are no longer relevant or useful.
What are some of the ways that you assess your own clients? If you’ve worked with a coach or consultant yourself, how did they determine what strategies to use in helping them achieve your goals?
The assessment is the most important step in coaching others. It demonstrates the professionalism, genuine concern, and skills that other coaches and consultants may lack. It gives your clients customized services that are more likely to deliver the results they really want.
And in coaching and consulting, when your clients succeed...so do you.
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