The end goal of a business coaching journey is to discover your own path and help move you forward in your pursuit of personal and professional success. And although a successful coach has the tools and expertise to help get you from where you are to where you want to be, the client is ultimately the one that must do the heavy lifting.

It is up to the client to communicate where the client feels, where their passions and struggles lie to point the way forward, and it is the client that must ultimately take action and execute what is learned within each session. 

Asking the right questions—powerful questions— whether you are looking for the perfect coach or are already partnered with one, will help you gain the maximum benefits from each business coaching session.

Powerful business coaching questions have the ability to enhance your coaching session, sharpen your business insight, accelerate your upwards trajectory, and fortify the commitment to your coaching journey.

5 Powerful Coaching Questions to Ask Your Coach During Your First Coaching Session

It’s up to YOU to decide whether a coach will be the right fit to get you where you want to be.

It's essential to evaluate a business coach’s strengths, weaknesses, and work history; to ensure basic functionalities and see whether their values, coaching technique, and communication style align with your own.

You’re going to be spending time, money, and trust in this person, so here are 5 coaching questions to get the ball rolling and see if they have what it takes to help you reach your goals.

#1. What is Your Ideal Client?

A coach knows their strengths and weaknesses and what clients and businesses they are most equipped to help.

This is a good question to figure out where a coach’s passions lie and if you, as a client, are within the range of those ambitions.

A coach’s ideal client will spark their drive, but if you do not look anything like their ideal client, they might struggle to help you.

#2. What Does Success Look Like to You?

Some people’s definition of success is monetary profit, while other people measure their success based on how much free time they can get on the weekend.

Success is completely subjective but is a value that instructs the way we command our lives.

If your business coach’s definition of success is not aligned with yours, how do you expect them to help you reach it?

#3. Can You Describe Any Prominent Professional Failures?

While it’s helpful to have a business coach with their own share of professional and business success, it’s equally important to hire a coach who has failed.

Because EVERYONE fails at something at some point, that’s why you need a coach that knows how to deal with failure proactively.

How a coach has dealt with a failed business venture or a failed job is a great way to see how they will help you with any bump in the road.

#4. Exactly How Will Your Coaching Business Help Me?

This seems obvious, but it’s a question that will make or break a business coaching interview.

If a coach answers these questions with words and phrases you’ve heard before, it may sound like something you could very well do on your own.

But if the coach begins to list coaching techniques, business tactics, and modern approaches you have never heard about, then you will most likely benefit from their expertise.

#5. What Coaching Model Will You Follow to Help Me Succeed?

Figuring out if a coach has a system or coaching model they follow when coaching clients is a good way to separate the mediocre coaches from the truly gifted ones.

Ask the coach if they follow a specific formula or plan, whether they created it on their own or learned their strategy.

This will give you an idea if the plan sounds like something you can work with or not.

Now It’s Time To Ask Powerful Business Coaching Questions

A coach is not a mind reader; it’s up to you to communicate what direction you want to take, to voice your problems, and express your needs so that your coach can function properly and adequately support you.

These 5 coaching questions have the ability to come up with your next steps and improve goal setting, solve problems, focus on what needs improvement, and widen your perspective to promote the best outcome.

#1. What Are My Weaknesses?

You don’t want the answer to this question sugar-coated. To address and improve your weak spots, you have to be self-aware about each and every one of your deficiencies.

After a few sessions, your coach will most likely be very aware of those weaknesses and shine a light on them objectively and productively.

The objective is to address the gap, strategize to improve it, and enact change.

#2. Am I Stuck Within My Comfort Zone?

This is difficult to figure out on your own, but with the outside, objective perspective of a coach, you can get a better view of yourself.

A coach will tell you whether you are limiting yourself to what you feel comfortable with and will then give you tools, exercises, and tasks to help get you out of your comfort zone and think outside the box.

#3. What Should I Continue Doing?

In other words, you want your coach to validate and confirm what your strengths are.

Sometimes it’s just as important to reassure someone of their strengths and what they’re doing right as it is to let them know where they’re screwing up.

This will make sure that you will keep doing what you’re doing right while you're improving everything else.

#4. What New Skills or Business Areas Do I Need to Invest In?

This will answer where you have the most room to grow and improve.

Skilled coaches are usually ahead of the curb when it comes to new business trends and skills.

Whether you need to invest in more modern advertising or fortify your sales skills, a business coach should know you well enough to be able to address those gaps and tell you exactly how to fill them in.

Your coach should assess your professional and personal areas of opportunity to make sure you are taking every measure possible to reach success.

#5. Where Do You See Me Headed?

This is a good question to ask now and then when you feel like you are advancing in your improvement. It will tell you whether you and your coach are in the same headspace and validate your headway.

Or not; maybe your coach sees things differently, which can widen your perspective and give you a much-needed dose of reality.

Knowing where your coach thinks you're headed is absolutely essential to know where you stand in your progress and if you are on the right track or not.

Bottom Line

A business coaching relationship is a two-way street. It functions the best when there is two-way communication in which both people are asking questions so that the most important subject is breached within each session.

When a coach acts as a sounding board, listening to you, observing you, and then sharing everything they see—that’s when the most powerful business coaching takes place.

Business, executive coaches, or clients: what questions are the most powerful within your sessions?Join our discussion below: