Hosting a Focus Group to Learn More About What Your Clients Really Want

This year I’ve been having a lot of fun working with coaches on going a bit deeper into what they know about their clients. For several years, I’ve shared the Sweetspot Exercise of exploring what your strengths are, what your clients want and what you are great at. I first published this back in 2013 in From One to Many (download a copy of that marketing chapter here. (Use code 4411 and access the Marketing Chapter on Coaching Many).

This year I’ve been going deeper than this in the Coaching Biz Growth Lab and Learning Lab and Design Studio. We’ve turned to a number of tools from the Design Thinking Toolbox, including empathy maps, as well as thinking about how focus groups can help to broaden your understanding of what your clients want.

Having led focus groups in most of my roles over the last 3 decades – whether it was with government officials, community groups, leaders, HR teams, or executive committees – there can be a great cross section of generic questions you may want to tap into including questions along the lines of:

1. What’s important for you?
2. As you consider your industry/role/focus, what are the current trends?
3. What are the current opportunities you see in your role/focus/industry?
4. What do you see as some of the challenges in your role/focus/industry?
5. What do you need in order to do your best work (or thrive/excel etc)?
6. What supports are of greatest benefit to you – (explore things like on-demand vs. live, coaching vs learning)
7. How much time do you have to dedicate to learning?
8. What’s the most important goal you have for the next year

What else is important to explore within the time you have?

Enjoy the conversations!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - GroupCoachingEssentials | Potentials Realized 
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
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Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
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