Turn Strangers Into Coaching Clients With These 5 Essential Questions

Ever had a conversation with someone who seemed like the perfect client—only for them to walk away after you gave them your best advice? You answered their questions, shared insights, and maybe even coached them a little… but instead of taking the next step, they just say, “That was really helpful!” and move on.

Why does this keep happening? And more importantly, how do you turn these conversations into paying clients—without feeling pushy or giving away free coaching?

In this episode, I’ll share the five essential things you need to uncover to confidently guide potential clients toward working with you—without feeling like you have to “sell” them on coaching.

By the End of This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The real reason potential clients don’t take the next step (even when they seem interested)
• The five essential things you need to uncover to move a conversation forward
• How to naturally transition from answering questions to discuss coaching
• A simple framework to make your coaching feel like the next logical step

Next Episode Teaser:

Burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps up on you—until one day, you hit a wall. My next guest, Colby Wegter, knows this all too well. After scaling his marketing agency to seven figures, he burned out… twice. And the second time? It nearly cost him everything.

In our conversation, we unpack what really causes burnout, how to break free from overwork, and why sometimes making a mess is the key to moving forward.

Hit follow so you don’t miss it!

Chapters

• 0:00 Why some conversations feel promising—but don’t lead anywhere
• 2:00 The biggest mistake coaches make when answering questions
• 2:45 The first thing you need to uncover to move the conversation forward
• 5:45 The second key thing that helps a client see the need for change
• 7:45 The third insight that reveals whether coaching is the right fit
• 9:30 The fourth thing you must understand before presenting your offer
• 11:00 The final piece that makes a client ready to take the next step
• 12:00 How to transition from casual conversation to booking a call
• 14:30 Recap + final thoughts

Transcript

Stephen Box: 0:00

Imagine you're in a conversation with someone who seems like the perfect client and they ask you, what do you do? And you say, I'm a coach, and they start asking you questions or sharing things that they've tried in the past. Naturally, you get excited, right? This is your moment to show them how much you know. This is your opportunity to show them what a great coach you are. And you just know that it's gonna be an absolute no-brainer that they're going to end up signing up for coaching. So you start giving them your best stuff. You're giving them advice, sharing insights, maybe even coaching them a little bit there on the spot. And they seem really engaged, like they're really enjoying the conversation, but then the conversation just ends and they tell you how helpful. It was, and they go on their way, and you're just left wondering why didn't they take the next step? Why didn't they tell me they were interested in coaching? This isn't uncommon, to be honest with you. It's happened to me more than I care to admit, especially early in my career. I made some of these mistakes a lot. the problem is that most coaches genuinely want to help. And assume that answering questions build to interest. But the thing is, giving free advice doesn't move the conversation forward. And it's not because the person isn't interested in working with you, it's because there was no clear next step, they got a quick answer. They feel like you solved their problem. And there's really, I. No reason for them in their mind to make the connection that they need more coaching in order to get lasting results. And that's why today I'm gonna share with you the five essential things that you need to learn about a potential client that actually help you move those conversations forward without feeling like you have to prove yourself, without you having to feel salesy. These five things will help you to uncover what the person really wants. What's stopping them and whether coaching is the right next step so that when you invite them to take action, it makes sense for both of you. So by the end of this episode, you're gonna know. How to move those conversations forward without having to give away free coaching and wasting a lot of your time. Hey, if you are new here, allow me to take a second to introduce myself. This is the Coach Smarter podcast, and I am your host Steven Box. This is the place for health, fitness, and nutrition coaches to sharpen their skills. Stand out in a crowded market and build more efficient coaching business. And today we are diving into how to confidently guide conversations so that the right people take the next step to working with you. So let me give you the five things here real quick, and then we're gonna go back through and we're gonna actually break them down. So number one is what is it that they actually want? What is the outcome they're chasing? Number two is what fears are holding them back. Okay. Number three, what objections do they have? Number four, what process have they tried before or currently trying? And number five, what are their internal beliefs and how does that affect them otherwise known as their identity? What is their identity? So let's go back through these one by one and really break them down a little bit more. So number one, what do they want? Let's be real for a second. People rarely want coaching. They want an outcome. I. There's this whole conversation around features and benefits, and I see a lot of times with coaches when they're talking about their services, they'll get into this conversation about how many coaching calls they give and how long the coaching calls are, and how many text messages you get and all this other stuff. And that's fine to an extent, but the thing is, that's not what gets people to sign up for coaching, right? People. Really have a specific thing they're chasing after. so for example, if someone says, I wanna feel like myself again, and you ask them to define that, what does that look like? They're gonna probably say something like, I want to have good energy again. I used to be really energetic and outgoing and I don't feel like I have that anymore and I lack confidence'cause I don't feel good about my body. Or they're gonna say, I've had some health issues and I want to have better health. These are the things that they're chasing after, right? That's what they really want. They don't care how many calls they get. Yes. People are gonna ask you that stuff maybe at the end of a call because they just. Really are trying to justify to themselves, which I'm gonna tell you right now, if people get to a point where that's their biggest concern is how many calls you're going to give them, you haven't really done a great job, in selling your services very well. But for right now, for our purposes, we're not trying to necessarily sell them anything yet. We're just gathering information so that we know what their desires are. The way I like to do this is when someone starts sharing with me. So say as an example, someone goes, yeah, I actually lost some weight last year. Uh, but you know, I've ended up putting it back on. I might say to them like, oh, what was going on last year that motivated you to lose the weight? Yeah, So now I'm getting into what their desires are without it sounding like some weird sales pitch, right? Like I'm just, I'm having a conversation with them, based on what they told me. Number two is what fears are holding them back. Now, when I use the word fear, I want to make a differentiation here between fears and objections, which we're gonna talk about next. Fears. They might sound rational, but they usually aren't. They're usually based completely on irrational thought, right? So when someone says, oh, I just can't stick with, a program, but they haven't actually tried to stick with the program. That's not really rational, right? There's no logic there. There's no reason for them to think that they can't do that. Or when someone says, oh, I just, I worry that I'm gonna go get hurt in the gym if I start working out, I'm worried I'm gonna injure myself because I haven't done anything in so long. But the reality is they've never been injured in the gym. There's no reason for them to think that. So you need to understand what people's. Fears are. So this one's a little tricky to get out of people without it sounding weird, but the way I would like to think, the way I like to think about this is as I'm talking with someone and they're sharing with me the things that they've tried, what I take note of is what they haven't tried. And I like to ask them those type of questions. So I'll say as an example. Outta curiosity, is there anything that you've actually looked at trying that you decided against? Like you decided not to try it? so I'm not giving them any answers per se. I'm not just telling them, oh, have you tried this thing?'cause I'm like, oh yeah, I go try that if they've never even thought of it. But instead I'm saying, is there anything that you've considered trying that maybe you didn't try? And they'll go, yeah, I thought about doing X, but I decided not to do it. Cool. what stopped you from doing that? Like why did you decide not to do that? Now you're getting to that fear, right? And then objections are similar to fears, but they're usually based on some actual reality. So for example, that same thing of that person who says oh, I can't stick with a plant, or I can't stick with a diet, or whatever. That person believes that because in the past they actually have struggled to stick with that, right? They've tried diets in the past and they struggled to stick with it. So that question now becomes, what things have you tried that didn't really work out for you, and why do you think it didn't work? So now it's, you're getting to those objections. You're getting them to tell you what they did, why it. Didn't really work, at least in their mind why it didn't work. So now you're starting to understand what some of their objections are. And then the fourth one is, what processes have they tried now or before? And this is, maybe a strict diet or hardcore workouts or maybe, Habit stacking or whatever, right? whatever methods they've tried in the past, they either liked those methods but feel like there was something that was missing from them, or they completely hated it and didn't get any results from it. I want to encourage you here to do two things. Number one, when they share, don't give your opinion. Even if you have a very strong one about what they did. So for example, I'm very much like anti strict diet type person, but if someone comes to me and goes, I tried really strict diets and I saw some results with those, but they didn't last. I have to bite my tongue because my temptation is to jump in and go, yeah. They never do. They always fail, right? But I don't do it. I bite my tongue and instead I will say to them, cool. what parts of that do you feel like we're really helpful for you? Because some people, they're data trackers. They're like, oh, I counted my calories. And it was really helpful for me to be able to see what I was eating. And again. I could very easily go off on a tangent here and talk about how Cal counting is in inexact science and everything else, but I don't do that. Instead, I just acknowledge that this was something that they felt good about. I'm not giving them any real insight on my thoughts on this. I'm just listening to them and then. Once I know what they liked, what they didn't like about the previous processes, I have an idea of how my coaching fits into it. And then finally, what are their internal beliefs, right? What is that identity that they have? So for example, if someone's identity is, I'm really busy and I just don't have a lot of time. And I have a program that requires you to work out for an hour every single day. It's probably gonna be a pretty terrible fit, right? They're probably not gonna stick with my program. They're not going to enjoy it. So it is important for me to understand what some of their internal beliefs are and what their identities are. Because if I understand their identity, then I'd know if my program is right for them, or I know if we need to start to shift that identity. So hopefully that makes sense for you guys. So once you have these five pieces of information, the conversation kind of naturally shifts from, just this information gathering stage. Into an opportunity for you to share what you do. So the way I like to do this, I go, so in our conversation, just a few things you shared, I just wanna make sure that I understood what you were seeing correctly. it sounds like you really want to achieve whatever that desire is, some of the concerns that you have. Fears and objections are blank, whatever. Feel those feels. Fears and objections that you gathered in. And I know in the past you've tried this and you felt there were aspects of that worked and aspects of that didn't really work. What very well for you? maybe a program that kind of uses some of that stuff and not all of it might be beneficial for you. And, I know. At the end of the day, you really see yourself as this person who, whatever, right? whatever their identity is. And I usually, by the way, I didn't mention this before, but I always like to try, want the identity part. I always try to like, to get something positive out of this as well. so it's very important that you look at that. So say somebody goes, I'm just, I'm the kind of person who always struggles to stick with stuff because I'm so busy. Then I'll, I'll talk to 'em a little bit about, more about their busyness. oh, what kind of things keep you busy? is it just work? Is it like making time for the kids? what is it that makes you busy? And so maybe they go, yeah, definitely work. even more than that, my kids are in a lot of sports and I'm like, okay, cool. So You're the kind of parent who likes to be very involved in your kid's life. You like to show up for all their stuff and be there, right? So now that's a positive because now at the end I can go and it seems like you're the kind of person who really would value improving your health. So that way you can continue to show up for your kids and be a good role model for them. And they're like, yeah, absolutely. So like by getting that kind of positive out of their identity, I'm able to fill that in. So once I've done that, once I've gone through that, I can go, here's why I think what I offer would be a really great fit for you. And if it's something you're interested in doing, we can schedule a call and we can talk more about it. I can go ahead and actually schedule for that right now so that we can, sit down and have a more in-depth conversation about it, right? And you can use this in these random conversations. You can honestly even use what I just gave you on even a sales call. Somebody had booked a consultation with you, but the more you understand those five key pieces of information about this person. The more natural your coaching conversation will sound, and I'm gonna be honest with you guys, when you first start doing this, it's a little hard. You're not gonna get all five pieces of information each time, even once you get really good at it. There might be times where you can't get all five pieces. You just wanna get as much as you can though. But understand this is something you're gonna need to practice at. So before we wrap up today, let me give you a couple of takeaways. and before I do that, actually, if today's episode gave you some new ideas, or you have a coach in mind that you think would appreciate this, please send this episode their way. It's, just really easy to hit the share button and send it to them and. As always, I would love to hear from you guys. If you have a question or a topic that you'd love for me to cover. there is a link down in the show notes where you can send me a text and just send that over and I'll, definitely consider, doing an episode on that. Alright, so for those takeaways, number one, if you're giving away free advice, you're training people to take your insights and walk away. You're not training them to take the next step towards coaching. Number two. People don't invest in coaching because they get answers. They invest because they realize they need more than quick tips. Number three, the right questions help potential clients connect their struggles to your solution without you having to sell. Anything and make sure that you guys also join us on our next episode because I have a special guest, someone who knows exactly what it's like to burn out. Matter of fact, he did it twice. after scaling his marketing agency to seven figures, he hit a breaking point, took a little bit of break. Burnt out again. And the second time it nearly caused him everything. so in our conversation, he shares what really causes burnout, how to break free from the cycle of overwork, and while making a mess, I. Might actually be the key to moving forward. So if you've ever felt stretched too thin into wonder if this whole coaching thing is sustainable, you do not want to miss that episode. So hit the follow button so you do not miss out. And that is it for today. this is Stephen Box reminding you that coaching smarter creates a lasting impact for you and those you serve.