A good coach helps their client unlock their untapped potential. However, Coaches all over the world struggle to sell their coaching programs despite being highly skilled themselves. Though every coach is unique, most successful coaching programs have a strong common foundation. That foundation is found in deep research and efficient planning. And if you are an aspiring coach you are at the right place.

Our comprehensive 12-week coaching program template is the best guide if you're starting or struggling to start your coaching business. This template will help you plan your course and effectively sell it to your ideal clients.

But first, let's dive into the benefits of a structured 12-week coaching program:

Top 3 Benefits of Structured Coaching Programs

Clear Learning path
Guaranteed Sales
Measurable Outcomes

Clear Learning Path

The easiest way to attract your ideal client is by being super clear about what, why, and how they would be learning. A 12-week coaching program template will help create clear stages of your entire program without hassle.

Eventually, you would be using that exact learning funnel in your sales copy to market your program.

For instance, a fitness coach might break down the 12 weeks into phases focusing on different aspects such as nutrition, exercise routines, and mental well-being. Mentioning the steps will help your potential is make their purchase decision.

Guaranteed Sales

Our 12-week coaching program template helps you create your ideal client persona. This will help you tailor your programs around your client’s pain points.

For example- A Copywriting coach would highlight pain points like small brands not being able to promote their product on social media.

They would sell their cost-effective copywriting course that would help them get leads.

Once a potential client sees how you solve their problems, they will sign up for discovery calls and eventually buy your program. However, if they don’t buy it, your program will remain in their minds which may make them come back when they are ready. This way you will get sales along with leads you can contact in the future.

3. Measurable Outcomes

Our 12-week coaching program template has steps that make sure that every client is well taken care of. A structured coaching program opens up space for exercises, surveys, and feedback that show your clients' progress.

Using our template you will decide on using tools like progress trackers or milestone checklists to visually show your clients their growth and achievements. Outcomes would become measurable and going forward it would help you find points of improvement too.

Why a 12-week duration can be effective for achieving personal and professional growth

You need to know that if you are a coach, getting to know your mentees, and establishing a rapport is crucial. Every mentee will have different personal and professional goals. That's why a significant amount of time must be spent getting to know them and setting expectations on both sides. Effective communication will be the stepping stone to your and your client’s personal and professional development.

Therefore, 12 weeks is necessary to create a bond, teach your course, evaluate your client’s progress, and help them achieve significant milestones.

Essential Elements of Coaching Program Design

To make sure that your trainees get all the benefits mentioned above you need to have a detailed Program Design in place.

A program design is the base of a 12-week coaching program. It will help you prioritize your client's requirements and break them into small, achievable steps, essential for both your goals and your client's."

To design the foundation of a 12-week coaching program you will have to keep 2 important points in mind:

Defining the purpose and goals of your coaching program

There is one crucial step here that helps you define your purpose and goals:

Defining your target audience

This step involves knowing what kind of person your ideal client is. And the best way to do that is by doing the following steps:

Deep dive into Demographic and Psychographic traits

See if your ideal client lives in a 1-tier city or 2-tier city. Think of their interests and values along with their income.

You will have to know what makes them wake up in the morning. This step gives you a roadmap as to where you will find your ideal client.

Identifying and Addressing Your Client’s Pain Points

One of the best ways any coaching program succeeds in its endeavors is through its Unique selling proposition.

And though it will be different for different coaching programs it will need to do at least 2 of the 5 things below:

Help them in being productive
Help them increase their income
Help them achieve physical transformation
Help them remove mental blocks from their lives
Help them have better relationships

So now you would need to decide what your 12-week coaching program would be helping clients achieve. Plus it will also help you in crafting your sales funnel and marketing strategy.

C. Conduct Market Research

Now this can easily be done using social media. In this step, you conduct surveys or work with focus groups to know your ideal client’s preferences. You will know what are the challenges they face in life. Once you have that, you proceed with creating your course curriculum with clarity.

D. Analyse your competitors

The idea behind analyzing your competitors is to find gaps and opportunities in their programs. Those gaps and opportunities will help you design your curriculum that will have distinctive features. Now your coaching program will stand out as you will have a USP that others won’t.

Therefore, analyze your competitors and start building a customer-centric coaching program.

2. Assessing client needs and expectations at the outset

To design your curriculum, you must know what your client wants to change in their lives. For this step, you will need a video or audio call session known as the Discovery Call.

This will help you assess your clients’ struggles and see if they are your ideal client or not. This discovery call will help you understand your client's motivations too.

At this stage, you will be able to create questions for surveys, exercises, and feedback for the entire program. Additionally, you will now have information to create personalized exercises to work on with your client.

For example, a career coach would customize separate exercises for people who are freshers vs people who have more than 5 years of experience.

Below I have given an easy-to-work-with 12-week coaching program template for you to get started with:

Detailed Outline for A 12-Week Coaching Program

Week 0: Week 0 is essentially a day when you conduct a free discovery call with your potential client.

Introduce yourself and give an overview of your program.
Ask them why they think they need your coaching program.
Get to know their goals as well as their struggles.
If a discovery call isn't possible, give out a Google form on WhatsApp.

Make sure the form has all the necessary questions to help you decide if they are the right fit.

If they turn out to be the right fit ask for payment and onboard them.

Week 1: Onboarding and Initial Assessment

Gather information about the personal and professional life of your client.
Establish communication timings and boundaries.
Set expectations on both sides.

Week 2: Goal Setting and Vision Crafting

Collaboratively set goals for your client.
Break the goals into sustainable and actionable steps.
Help them create a vision board to keep them motivated.

Weeks 3-10: Bi-Weekly Action Plans, Education, and Implementation

Schedule bi-weekly sessions to teach your lessons.
Schedule weekly calls to assess what they think about the last session they had. Adjust your sessions according to the feedback.
If your course has recorded videos, ask for online feedback and have online tests to check their progress.

Week 11: Review and Reflect on Progress

Now that the program may be ending, give out survey forms to review your clients' achievements.
Ask for written or video testimonials to post on your social media handles and website.

Week 12: Next Steps and Pathways Forward

Plan a goodbye session where you ask your clients about their plans.
Collaboratively create future goals and actionable steps to be implemented post-coaching program.
You can create feedback forms to gather constructive criticisms. You can ask questions like:

Please rate the program out of ten
How likely are you to recommend this program to someone else
Did you achieve all your goals? If not, specify which ones.
If you were the coach, what would you do differently?

Every criticism that you receive will help you hone your coaching skills and improve the curriculum of your coaching program. Further, to have a seamless coaching experience use the tools given below:

Boosting Your Coaching Program with Digital Tools

Calendly- The most cost-effective way of scheduling discovery calls is Calendly. Use it to schedule meetings at your and your client’s availability easily.

Google Forms- Google Forms will be your go-to tool for creating survey and feedback forms.

Notion- You can create habit trackers and databases to keep track of your workload. It is also the best way to track your progress as a coach.

Canva- For creating attractive marketing copy or making checklists pdf, Canva is the go-to place for most writers and designers. Its free version has enough features to get all your work done.

However, none of it will work if you aren’t an organized person and an active listener. Listed below are 4 key components of coaching sessions:

,4 Key Components of Effective Coaching Sessions

Positive Atmosphere:

Prioritize creating a positive atmosphere that helps your clients tame their anxiety. This is important so that going further your clients feel confident in communicating their needs without hesitation.

Teaching

Make sure that you teach complex stuff in the simplest ways. Continuously adjust your methodology according to your client's needs and take frequent feedback.

Collaboration

No success is achieved in coaching if there's no collaboration. Collaborate on every stage of the program. Carefully listen and note down your client’s troubles and feedback. This way your program will become client-centric and you will receive positive testimonials.

Action Plan

Focus on Client Feedback after teaching. Make worksheets and set a session agenda beforehand to avoid wasting time. Sharpen your time management skills and delegate as business management requires a lot of hard work.

Boosting Your Coaching Program with Digital Tools

Software like Simply. Coach, Kajabi and Topmate are ideal for conducting a seamless coaching program. Whether they are sources or links to important articles, you can have it all in one place. Plus it also creates a unique on-brand coaching experience.

Additionally, some of these laptops also help in marketing your coaching program.

Hence, below are a few steps to keep in mind when you promote your business.

How to Market and Sell Your 12-Week Coaching Program

Create compelling marketing copy and graphics

This is the place where you will need your ideal client persona. Use the pain points for creating marketing copy to attract your ideal client. Post them on social media like Instagram.

Leverage Social Media Platforms

Pick your top 3 social media platforms that your clients regularly visit.

For Instagram start creating video content that is informative and shows you as an authority figure in your field.

Further, hire copywriters to create copy for YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn ads to attract your ideal client. Expand your team with skilled people who know how to create targeted ad campaigns. Soon your marketing strategies will start functioning like a well-oiled machine bringing in fresh leads every day.

Want to learn how to use Twitter for marketing?

Read- “How to use Twitter for marketing your coaching business”

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Final Considerations Before You Say Goodbye

The only thing left after saying goodbye to your client is to check your progress.

Review all the feedback on your coaching methods and curriculum and set goals for working on them. Carve out time every week for upskilling and become the best in your field with perseverance.

If you find yourself unable to create an effective coaching management system read this article for help.

“Creating on-brand coaching experiences with a coaching management system”

For further assistance in creating an on-brand experience for your coaching program go to Simply.coach.

Sign up for a free trial today!

Creating Your First 12-Week Coaching Program: Steps and Templates

A comprehensive blog on how to start an online coaching business from scratch- Steps & Templates

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