A client intake form for business consultants and coaches
A consultant’s first call is often spent finding out whether there is an engagement at all. An intake that asks what the client wants to change, what they have tried, what a good result looks like and who else decides turns that call into the start of the work.
What should business consultants and coaches ask first?
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What is the business, and what is your role in it? | An owner, a manager and an employee paying for their own coaching are three different engagements. |
| What would you want help changing? | A consultant is hired to move a specific thing. This names it. |
| What have you already tried? | It saves recommending what failed last year, and shows how the client works. |
| How will you know it worked? | A result the client can name is the scope of the engagement and the basis of the proposal. |
| Who else has a say in whether you go ahead? | A partner or a board that has to agree changes the length of the sale. |
| Are you looking for a one-off project or ongoing support? | It decides between a project fee and a retainer. |
| Is there a date this needs to be settled by? | A board meeting, a funding round or a busy season puts a deadline on the work. |
If an answer would not change what you do next, leave the question out. Each extra question is one more reason for someone to stop before they finish.
Which answers come back too vague to use, and what do you ask next?
The answers that cause a phone call are rarely missing. They are present and too loose to act on. A narrower follow-up, asked straight away while the person is still there, usually settles them. Offering likely answers shows the person the level of detail you need.
| What comes back | The follow-up that settles it |
|---|---|
| “We want to grow.” | Grow what first: revenue, the number of clients, or the team? And roughly from where to where? |
| “I need help with leadership.” | Is that your own leadership, a team that reports to you, or how the senior people work together? |
| “We tried a consultant before.” | What did they do, and what would you want done differently this time? |
Follow up once per gap, then move on. If an answer is still unclear after one follow-up, flag it for whoever picks the request up rather than pressing.
When is a call or a visit still the right move?
Coaching and consulting are bought on trust, so the first conversation still matters, and most clients will not commit without one. The intake changes what that conversation is for: you arrive knowing the problem, the history and the deadline, and can spend the time on whether you are the right person to help.
How do you set this up from the Client intake template?
Acquainto has a Client intake template to start from. After you sign up, open Browse templates, pick Client intake, and it lands in the editor as a draft you can change before anything is published.
The template asks for a name and email, branches on the service the person is interested in, and asks one follow-up question per service. Its starting choices are consulting, design and development. Rename them to your own offers, such as strategy, coaching and workshops, put the problem, the result and the deadline on every branch, and use each branch’s own question for what that offer needs first.
Acquainto runs it as a short written conversation instead of a form. It:
- asks a follow-up when an answer is incomplete, and asks for clarification when one is vague;
- uses a structured choice where precision matters and open conversation where detail matters;
- shows the person every answer before it is sent, so they correct their own mistakes;
- hands back one clean value per question, delivered to your own systems by webhook.
The person answering needs no account, and nothing has to be scheduled. Start free trial, see how it works, or compare plans.