Business Coaching Tools for Business Coaches

Last updated on February 6, 2024

If you want to assist your clients in achieving outstanding business results, the standard coaching processes, like asking the right questions, won’t suffice. You need to go the extra mile and equip them with powerful and proven tools for business success.

However, the moment you open that search box and type in “business coaching tools,” you’ll face endless options promising transformative results. What then? How to take your pick? We’ll save you the trouble with this ultimate list of the must-have tools for business coaches. 

1. Tools for Client Onboarding

It’s important to set the right tone in the initial phase of coaching. By employing the following tools, you can understand your potential clients better and develop a coaching plan that will bring optimal results. 

• Intake Questions Sheet – Collect valuable information about your client with this brandable questionnaire. The questions are designed to help you reveal more about clients’ aspirations, business goals, their perspectives, and what they need help with. 
• Business History Map Tool – This is a useful tool for getting a background history of your client’s business, including their highlights and low points. With these insights into their challenges and strong suits, you can tailor your coaching strategy to each individual.
• Business Coaching Goals Sheet – Get a better understanding of what your clients want to gain from you with the help of this coaching goals sheet. It will help you clarify the focus of your sessions by outlining clients’ primary and secondary goals. 

2. Mission Statement Generator

Creating a mission statement is an inevitable step, but many find it tedious or encounter a lack of inspiration. If your clients find themselves in this situation, you can offer them a quick and effective solution—the Mission Statement Generator for business coaching. 

This workbook will help them define and understand the purpose of their business. The targeted prompts will encourage clients to reflect on their values, aspirations, and the impact they wish to make, which will ultimately lead to creating the ideal mission statement. 

3. SWOT Analysis Tool

Speaking of essentials, the SWOT analysis exercise is yet another tool you definitely want to have in your coaching toolbox. Use this Business SWOT Analysis workbook to define your client’s business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. 

This is a must-have resource for helping clients assess their business, handle risks, and inspire ideas to accelerate business growth. We love that you can completely personalize this workbook so it matches your brand and other materials you’ll share with your clients.

4. Goal Setting Tools

Well-defined goals set the foundation for success. Therefore, your clients will need all the help they can get with this aspect. That’s why we’ve prepared a variety of goal-setting tools that will help them plan and organize for maximum efficiency. 

• Annual Business Goals Planner – Here’s a tool for long-term goals. This yearly planner will help your client pinpoint their top 10 goals for the next 12 months and the three key actions to kickstart progress on their top priorities.
• Quarterly Goals-at-a-Glance Tool – To realign with the near future, use this quarterly planner to help clients set seven goals for the upcoming quarter. It can be a great addition to your quarterly planning toolset.
• Monthly Action Tracker – If you want your clients to efficiently organize their monthly tasks and deadlines, this monthly action tracker can be perfect. It tracks up to 25 actions for the upcoming month, and it even covers task delegation and collaborators. 
• Weekly & Daily To-Do List Action Planner – For imminent business responsibilities, your clients can use this weekly and daily planner. It prompts them to define SMART weekly activities, which can align with their overall goal-setting plans if you use the SMART model. 

5. Visioning Exercises for Business Coaching

Visioning exercises work great for gaining clarity and boosting motivation. Here are a couple of tools tailored for business coaching.

• Business Vision into Action – Use this Business Vision into Action tool to guide clients to envision their goals for the next decade and then reverse-engineer the necessary steps for the upcoming three months. This approach helps bridge long-term aspirations with actionable short-term plans.

• Visioning Exercises – This visioning exercise prompts clients to connect with the broader vision they have for their business. The purpose of it is to provide both inspiration and a solid framework for the steps they need to take. You can combine this visioning exercise with a Mission Statement Generator tool by conducting this exercise first to draw out essential elements that will contribute to developing the mission statement.

6. Prioritizing Tools

Without clear priorities, planning and goal-setting can become messy. That’s why we suggest using these prioritizing tools to give your clients a structured approach to achieving their objectives. 

• Big Rocks Exercise – This is a fun exercise inspired by an old, instructive story illustrating the importance of prioritizing goals and tasks. The Big Rocks exercise focuses on aligning clients’ time with their true priorities (Big Rocks), ensuring that they take action on what matters most.
• Delegation Identifier – In the world of business, there are a lot of perfectionists who struggle with delegation. If you come across a client who’s finding it hard to let go of complete control, give them the Delegation Identifier. It helps them pinpoint tasks they can delegate.

7. Tools for Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses 

Knowing and understanding clients’ strengths and weaknesses can help you find the right angle to make a real mark in their niche. If you want to simplify the process of discovering these traits, you can use the following tools. 

• Boost Your Personal Strengths – This tool encourages the client to brainstorm about their top three strengths and how to leverage these to make an even greater impact. 
• Personal Weakness Zapper – Use this tool to identify clients’ top three weaknesses and then apply the five weakness-zapping strategies to tackle them head-on. This personal weakness zapper pairs well with the Delegation Identifier tool.

8. Work and Life Balance Tools

Work-life balance is such an important topic in business coaching. An alarming statistic shows that 89% of people experience burnout, which highlights the necessity of helping clients harmonize their drive for success and their mental health. Here are some of our favorite tools for creating a well-balanced life.

• Expose Your Hidden Time Wasters – Discover how your clients spend their time with this weekly recording exercise. It reveals not only time-wasting habits but also highlights the balance between work and personal life.
• What Do You Need To Let Go Of? – In both business and personal life, letting go can open the path for positive momentum. This tool will help your clients identify and release what’s dragging them or their businesses down. 
• Business Tolerations – If you want to help your clients improve their productivity, you can use the Business Tolerations exercise to learn what is wearing them down. After you identify the energy drainers, you can create a plan of action to help them regain their focus. You can download and brand this tool at no cost.
• Wheel of Life Template – Even though the Wheel of Life isn’t strictly business-focused, it is one of the best tools for life balance. It is available to you for free, and you can find out how it works in our guide.

9. Review Form

If you want to nurture and improve your relationship with clients, don’t forget to gather feedback. The reviews will help you understand how well your methods are working and which segments have room for improvement. This client-focused approach builds trust and enables you to adapt to evolving client requirements. 

With that being said, this Coaching Review Form can be the ideal tool for collecting feedback, and it is specifically designed for business coaching. You can give this form out quarterly or monthly to discover what they value most about your coaching and what can be improved.

10. Business Coaching Toolkit

If you want an all-in-one package, you can get everything you need to help clients organize and run their businesses within the Small Business Coaching Toolkit. This toolkit is designed and delivered by the Coaching Tools Company which is known for its budget-friendly and practical coaching tools. 

This is one of the most comprehensive toolkits we’ve set our eyes on. It has over 30 forms, planners, exercises, sheets, and other resources. It comes with a program outline, so you don’t have to rack your brain on where to start and what steps to take. The included materials cover everything we’ve mentioned above and more. You’ll get tools for creating a mission statement, setting goals (short- and long-term goals), tracking progress, assessing business strengths and weaknesses, SWOT analysis, popular exercises like the visioning exercise and Big Rocks exercise, and so much more. 

Conclusion

These business coaching tools serve as a medium to understand your clients on a deeper level, not just what lies on the surface. They uncover subconscious barriers that clients don’t even recognize themselves. 

With the help of these exercises, sheets, and forms, you can refine clients’ time-management, prioritization, and goal-setting skills. The diversity of these tools allows you to curate a toolbox that aligns with your coaching approach, whether you prefer a comprehensive and all-encompassing business coaching toolkit or wish to enhance your collection with individual tools.

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