The Burning Question Trick for Great Coaching Articles
One of the challenges you may face as you build your coaching business is how to put together great content that both (1) builds you up as a great coach and (2) engages readers in the material they love to read.
Such articles are fantastic for attracting people to your site as well as serving the existing loyal followers on your email list.
Itโs an ultra simple trick too. Hereโs the crux of it. Simply ask your list members for THEIR biggest, hottest, most burning questions – in your area of coaching.
If youโre a relationship coach, working with women in difficult marriages, youโll be getting questions on how to handle the difficult partner, how to grow oneโs self-esteem, how to deal with anger, etc.
If youโre helping new managers become top executives, then youโll be getting loads of questions about how to delegate, how to get others to follow your lead, how to get others to work autonomously, etc.
If youโre a โsuccess coachโ working with just about anyone (general), then youโll be getting loads of questions about why people are stuck, limiting beliefs, how to get motivated, etc.
Though simple sounding, asking for burning questions does THREE AMAZING THINGS:
1 – It invites your list of members to contribute. This makes communication a two-way event. They are participating. Thatโs more powerful than just sending articles to your list (one-way).
2 – It gives you topics for new content that you know your list of readers want to read. The guesswork is gone. Plus, you save yourself a lot of time in finding writing ideas.
3 – It gives you the opportunity to operate from the heart. I find it very easy and fun to respond to a human beingโs question rather than create an article alone.
How to do this lickety-split.
When I first did this, I used Survey Monkey to ask my questions. This was overkill. In retrospect, thereโs no need to make this process complicated as you can do this simply with your existing list service provider (eg AWeber, Constant Contact, Get Response).
If your list service doesnโt allow automatic follow-up messages, then just manually send out a request for questions periodically.
Hereโs an easy way to ask for questions, and then just customize to your style:
โHi [name].
Itโs great to have you on my list. I hope all is well on your journey to success.
Iโm answering subscriber questions in future editions of my newsletter. Can I ask you what one of your most burning questions is on [your topic here]?
Just click reply and let me know!
Thanks!
John Doe
Your Success Coachโ
In summary …
The great thing about this burning question trick, as simple as it sounds, is that it assists you to create new articles so easily and naturally. Your content comes from the heart with the intent of helping another. Itโs just great!
Let me ask you …
Have you implemented this trick? Would you like to? What have you found when using it? Do you struggle to write articles and have other methods for creating them? Iโd love to hear about what youโre up to!
Comment below!

Thanks Kenn, I know my website needs fixing, that’s why I follow you. I’m a health coach and have stored loads of good suggestions, just need the time to put them into action.
Yvonne
Action … tell me about it. One thing that’s been amazing for me lately for taking action is to dumb stuff down to some way to easily get moving … moving on the stuff that is important. Well, that and detaching more from outcomes/perfection. No action = no anything! Great to have your comments here. Looking forward to more of your thoughts.
Really great article. As in coaching, questions are the best way to get results in so many other situations. People love answering questions and contributing.
Some questions work really well, others not so well. It’s a matter of testing and also looking at other LinkedIn posts to see which questions get a lot of comments and which get ignored.
What a simple approach to finding the real questions to address. Thanks for this.
Very welcome! Nothing like letting the market do some of the business building for you! I find it easy to create content when thinking of helping a very specific person.