New Client Intake Form Question Builder for Coaches

Most coaching intake forms collect the wrong information. They ask for a name, an email, and “what are your goals?”, then the coach walks into the first session knowing the client wants to “feel less stressed” or “grow the business” without a single concrete detail to work with. The real goal is hiding one or two questions deeper.

This prompt fixes that. It builds coaching intake form questions that surface what the client actually wants, what they’ve already tried, and what they’re quietly afraid of, so your first session starts at depth instead of small talk. By the end of this page you’ll also understand why the prompt is built the way it is, so you can adapt it to any niche.

When to use this

• You’re onboarding a new client and want the first session to start with substance, not setup.
• Your current intake form is a generic template you copied years ago and never trusted.
• You’re launching a new program or package and need an intake that fits it.
• You keep discovering the “real” issue in session three and wish you’d known it in session one.
• You’re moving from email back-and-forth to a proper form in Google Forms, Typeform, or your client portal.

The prompt

Copy this whole block into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:

You are an expert coaching intake designer and client-onboarding strategist. You have run thousands of intakes and know how to write questions that surface a client's real goals, not the surface-level ones they lead with.

Before you build anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any context below is unclear. Otherwise, proceed.

CONTEXT
- My coaching niche: {{NICHE}}
- My ideal client: {{IDEAL_CLIENT}}
- My coaching format and length: {{FORMAT}}
- What a great outcome looks like for these clients: {{OUTCOME}}
- My tool for delivering the form: {{TOOL}}
- My tone: {{TONE}}

TASK
Build a new-client intake form I can send before the first session. The form must:
1. Open with one short, warm intro paragraph (2-3 sentences) that sets expectations and tells the client roughly how long this takes.
2. Group questions into clearly labeled sections (for example: The Basics, Where You Are Now, Where You Want To Go, What's In The Way, Working Together).
3. Include 12-16 questions total. For each question, mark the type in brackets: [short text], [long text], [single choice + options], [scale 1-10], or [multi-select + options].
4. Include at least 3 questions that surface the REAL goal beneath the stated goal (for example: "If we solved this completely, what would actually change in your day?" and "What have you already tried, and why didn't it stick?").
5. Include one question that uncovers the client's hidden fear or hesitation about coaching.
6. Include one logistics/scheduling/commitment question and one consent or expectations question.
7. Match my tone and speak directly to my ideal client. No jargon, no corporate filler.

CONSTRAINTS
- Every question must earn its place. Cut anything generic that any coach could ask without thinking.
- No more than 16 questions so it stays under 10 minutes to complete.
- Do not invent facts about my practice; if you need something, ask in the clarifying questions.

After the form, give me:
- A 1-line "why I ask this" note for any 3 questions a client might find surprising.
- 2 optional questions I could swap in for a more advanced or longer engagement.

How to customize it

Replace the six {{VARIABLES}} before you send it:

See it in action (full example)

Here is the exact prompt, filled in for a career coach. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:

You are an expert coaching intake designer and client-onboarding strategist. You have run thousands of intakes and know how to write questions that surface a client's real goals, not the surface-level ones they lead with.

Before you build anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any context below is unclear. Otherwise, proceed.

CONTEXT
- My coaching niche: career coaching for mid-career women in tech
- My ideal client: senior individual contributors weighing a jump to management
- My coaching format and length: 3-month package, six 60-minute sessions over Zoom
- What a great outcome looks like for these clients: a clear, confident decision about their next role and a plan to get there
- My tool for delivering the form: Typeform
- My tone: warm, candid, no fluff

TASK
Build a new-client intake form I can send before the first session... [rest of the prompt unchanged]

And here is the complete output the model returns:

A few clarifying questions first: 1. Do you want the form to capture practical scheduling details (time zone, preferred session days), or do you handle that separately? 2. Should I include a budget/investment confirmation question, or is that already settled before they reach this form? 3. Do your clients usually come from referrals, or cold from your content? It changes how much context I assume.

(Assuming: scheduling yes, investment already settled, mixed referral/content. Here is the form.)

---

Welcome, and thank you. This short form helps me make our very first session about you, not about catching up on the basics. It takes about 8 minutes. Be as honest as you can; there are no wrong answers, and nothing here is shared with anyone.

Section 1 – The Basics 1. What’s your name and the best email to reach you? [short text] 2. What’s your current role and title? [short text] 3. What time zone are you in, and which days/times generally work best for sessions? [short text]

Section 2 – Where You Are Now 4. In one or two sentences, what’s going on in your career right now that made you reach out? [long text] 5. How satisfied are you with your work today? [scale 1-10] 6. Which best describes where you are? [single choice] (a) Considering a move to management (b) Already a manager and unsure it’s right (c) Wanting to grow without managing (d) Not sure yet, that’s why I’m here

Section 3 – Where You Want To Go 7. Imagine it’s the end of our three months and it went better than you hoped. What’s different? [long text] 8. If we solved this completely, what would actually change in your day-to-day? [long text] 9. What’s the stated goal you’d put on paper, and is there a quieter goal underneath it you don’t usually say out loud? [long text]

Section 4 – What’s In The Way 10. What have you already tried to move this forward, and why didn’t it stick? [long text] 11. When you picture making the change, what’s the first worry that shows up? [long text] 12. What, if anything, makes you hesitant about coaching itself? [long text] 13. On a scale of 1-10, how ready do you feel to act on what we uncover? [scale 1-10]

Section 5 – Working Together 14. What helps you do your best thinking: being challenged directly, talked through gently, given homework, or something else? [multi-select] (Challenge me directly / Talk it through gently / Give me clear homework / Hold me accountable between sessions / Other) 15. Is there anything I should know to support you well (health, neurodivergence, big life events, anything at all)? [long text] 16. Our work depends on honesty and showing up. Are you able to commit to attending and prepping for all six sessions over the next three months? [single choice] (Yes / I have concerns I’d like to discuss)

---

Why I ask 3 of these (in case a client wonders): – Q9 (stated vs. quiet goal): People lead with the socially acceptable goal. The real one is usually one layer down, and naming it is where the work starts. – Q10 (what have you tried): Their past attempts tell me what NOT to repeat and what they already believe about the problem. – Q12 (hesitation about coaching): Surfacing the fear early turns a silent objection into something we can address together in session one.

2 optional swap-in questions for a longer or more advanced engagement: – “Who in your life will be affected by this change, and how do you think they’ll react?” [long text] – “Looking back 12 months from now, what would make you regret NOT doing this work?” [long text]

That is ready to paste into Typeform. A quick read-through to match your exact wording and it’s live.

Why this works

Four LLM principles are doing the heavy lifting. Learn them and every prompt you write gets sharper:

1. Role priming. The opening line (“You are an expert coaching intake designer who knows how to surface real goals, not surface-level ones”) tells the model which slice of its knowledge to use. “Write me some intake questions” pulls from generic form templates; an expert role pulls from how skilled coaches actually probe. Always assign a role.
2. Specificity in, specificity out. The form is only as good as the context you feed it. Telling it your niche, your ideal client, and what a win looks like lets it write questions for those people. Hand it “I’m a coach” and you’ll get questions any coach could have copied off the internet.
3. Constraints are quality control. The numbered task rules (“12-16 questions”, “mark each question’s type”, “at least 3 questions that surface the real goal”, “one hidden-fear question”) aren’t decoration. Each one removes a common failure mode, like bloated forms or surface-level questions. Telling the model what NOT to do (“cut anything generic any coach could ask”) is as powerful as telling it what to do.
4. Ask before assuming. The “ask me up to 3 clarifying questions first” line is the single biggest upgrade to AI output. Instead of guessing about scheduling or budget, the model asks, and you avoid a form built on wrong assumptions. Keep that line in almost every prompt you write.

Do this now

1. Copy the prompt above into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
2. Replace the six variables with your real niche, ideal client, format, outcome, tool, and tone.
3. Send it. If it asks clarifying questions, answer them honestly; that’s where the quality comes from.
4. Paste the result into your form tool, read it aloud once in your own voice, and tweak any wording that doesn’t sound like you. Then send it to your next new client.

Pro tips

• Name your real outcome precisely. “A confident decision about their next role” produces sharper questions than “career growth”. The richer your {{OUTCOME}}, the deeper the form.
• Keep the hidden-fear question. The question that surfaces a client’s hesitation about coaching often saves a session of dancing around it.
• Run it twice for two packages. Generate one intake for your short discovery package and one for your full engagement, then reuse the best questions across both.
• Revisit quarterly. After a few months you’ll notice which answers actually changed how you coached. Feed those back into the prompt and ask it to tighten the form around them.

Related

• Client Intake Questionnaire Generator for Coaches
• New Client Intake Questionnaire Builder for Coaches
• Client Intake & Onboarding SOP Builder for Coaches
• Client Onboarding Welcome Packet Template for Coaches