Want to become a life coach but unsure how to get started? In this article, we walk you through the process of creating your very own 12-week coaching program, from defining its purpose to building out each session.
Plus, we’ve created a handy 12-week coaching program template that helps you create a comprehensive coaching program in no time. The template includes all of the essential components necessary to create an effective (read: profitable) 12-week coaching program, along with writing prompts and fillable tables to help you out along the way. Get it for free!
How to create a 12-week coaching program
- Define your niche and choose your program’s topic
- Determine your program’s purpose and target audience
- Decide on your coaching strategy
- Determine how you’ll assess your clients’ progress
- Build out your program week-by-week
- Determine your program’s pricing
Did you know you can create your own 12-week coaching program in just six steps? That’s right — and we’ve outlined them all here!
Read on as we walk you through how to create your next best-selling coaching program.
Step 1: Define your niche and choose your program’s topic
First, you’ll want to choose your 12-week program’s topic. Once you’ve figured out what topic your program will tackle, everything else — from its purpose to its pricing — will fall into place.
To determine your program’s topic, you’ll want to look to your coaching niche to guide you — and if you don’t have a coaching niche yet, you’ll want to define it!
Keeping your niche (or sub-niche) in mind will help you narrow down your topic options. In other words, your niche will dictate the range of topics you can rightfully tackle with your program.
Example: If your niche is relationship coaching, then you definitely won’t be creating a program about investments (save that for the financial coaches). In this case, you’ll likely be creating a program around the topics of romantic, social, or professional relationships.
Need to define your coaching niche? Our Coaching Niche Finder is chock-full of information on the most profitable coaching niches currently on the market, and helps you find and define yours in just a few minutes. Try it now!
Step 2: Determine your program’s purpose and target audience
Now that you’ve defined your niche and determined your program’s topic, it’s time to determine your program’s purpose.
Another way to think of your 12-week program’s purpose is in terms of its objectives and outcomes. For this step, you’ll be digging into the “what” of your program by asking yourself what, exactly, your program will help your clients achieve.
Identify your target audience
In order to answer that question, however, you’ll first have to figure out what your clients want to achieve. This means defining your target audience and understanding their needs and pain points. And that requires a little bit of user and market research.
If you already have an audience or client base, you can begin by gathering data on your followers and current customers. To learn more about your audience’s pain points, check out what your followers are writing in your social comments sections and DMs, both spaces where followers commonly ask questions and air their frustrations. If you already have a client base, you’ll want to look into your customer service inbox and product reviews for valuable customer feedback. These are all great starting points in determining which problems your program can address.
During the research phase, it’s also helpful to check out the current coaching market within your niche. Look into what types of programs your competitors are offering. Is there a hole in the market that you can fill with your program? Then you’ve likely found a very profitable purpose.
Create your offer statement
Finally, you’ll want to put your purpose into words. Ideally, your purpose should be easily summarized in a concise, compelling sentence that explains what you’re helping your clients achieve. You can think of this purpose statement as an “offer statement.”
Let’s return to the example of a relationship coach from step one. After some user research, this coach has found out that a significant portion of her audience are men who want to improve their emotional intelligence. In this case, the coach might want to create a 12-week course with the purpose of “helping men improve their emotional intelligence.”
Want to understand your target audience even better? Our Target Audience Templates Bundle helps you dig even deeper into your audience’s needs, so you can create the products they’ll want to buy.
Step 3: Decide on your coaching strategy
Now that you’ve found your program’s purpose (i.e. it’s “what”), you’ll want to dig into its “how.” In other words, you’ll need to figure out how you can help your clients achieve your program’s intended outcomes.
To flesh out your coaching strategy, you’ll need to decide what tactics, tools, and activities you’ll be using throughout your program.
As a coach, there are tons of methods and tools at your disposal to help your clients achieve their goals. However, the tactics you choose depend entirely on your program’s specific purpose and outcome. For example, while the Wheel of Life is a helpful tool for life coaches to assess their clients’ life balance, it’s probably not a useful tool for financial coaches looking to help their clients grow their savings and investments.
If you’re stuck for which tactics and tools to use, we suggest conducting a little more market research. Check out your competitors’ coaching programs and content to see what tactics and tools they’re using to help their clients. In addition to your competitors’ channels, Google is also an invaluable resource to see what types of tactics and tools are available — so get searching!
Step 4: Determine how you’ll assess your clients’ progress
Now that you know how you’ll be helping your clients, you’ll need to determine how you’ll assess your client’s progress throughout the program.
Assessing your client’s progress isn’t just essential to ensuring your client’s success, it’s crucial to maintaining the effectiveness of your program. Regular re-evaluations enable you to track your client’s progress across your coaching relationship, so you can determine whether they’re on track to achieve their intended outcome. These reassessments also signal emerging pain points or goals, so you can adapt your coaching strategy and program accordingly.
In other words, these assessments ensure that your coaching remains impactful, relevant, and aligned with your client’s changing needs. And that’s why it’s crucial to integrate ongoing assessment into your 12-week coaching program.
There are a number of ways for coaches to gauge and track their clients progress. These include self-report questionnaires, performance assessments, behavioral assessments, and self-assessments. Each of these tools enable coaches to assess different aspects of their client’s progress throughout their program. To get a complete view of your client’s progress, you’ll likely want to use a combination of assessment tools throughout your practice.
Step 5: Build out your program week-by-week
Now that you’ve laid all the groundwork, it’s time to actually start building out your coaching program, session by session.
Because this is a 12-week program, you’ll need to build out 12 unique sessions. Remember that not each session is created equally. Each session should be distinct from each other. When plotting out each of your sessions, ensure that each has its own clearly laid-out topic, objective, list of tactics and activities, and homework for your client.
When building out your 12-week program, it’s important to keep the cadence of your client’s coaching journey in mind. You shouldn’t dive right into the nitty-gritty during your first session. Instead, your first sessions should introduce your client to the program and assess where they’re at before they begin.
Following that, the most significant portion of your program will be your client’s growth journey. Here, you’ll be using your unique coaching strategy to help your client grow and achieve their goals.
Finally, during your final sessions, you’ll debrief with your client about what they’ve learned throughout the program and evaluate whether they have achieved their goals. From there, you can both discuss next steps, which might include more coaching from you!
Need help building out your coaching program? Our 12-Week Coaching Program Template helps you create a best-selling 12-week program, session by session. Its helpful writing prompts and fillable tables ensure you include all the essentials and don’t miss a single step.
Step 6: Determine your program’s pricing
Now your program’s all finished! However, before you can start selling it (and raking it in), you’ll need to decide on a price.
This is where, again, you’ll need to dive into some market research. You worked hard to create this program and your expertise is valuable, so you want to earn your money’s worth. But you also want to price your program competitively, so that potential customers will “add it to cart” and actually cash out.
In order to price your program competitively, you’ll need to, well, check out the competition! Find coaches within your niche and look at how they’re pricing similar offerings. What does “similar” mean, in this case? Be on the lookout for programs on similar topics (the more specific, the better), with similar purposes and outcomes, and of similar lengths (you wouldn’t price an 8-week program the same as a 12-week program).
Typically, coaching programs are given package pricing. This means that you give one dollar amount to the entire course, rather than individual prices per session. Once you’ve given your program a price, it’s up to you whether you’d prefer your clients pay the entire cost upfront, or pay off the cost weekly, before or after each session.
According to coaching pro Luisa Zhou, the average penetration price for a 3-month program (which evens out to 12 weeks) is $1,500 for most new coaches. Penetration pricing is a specific pricing strategy that helps you penetrate the market by offering the lowest coaching fee that you’re comfortable working for. If you’re interested in using this beginner-friendly pricing strategy, Luisa’s price point is a great ballpark number to keep in mind as you’re choosing your program’s pricing.
Sample 12-week coaching program
Need a little help getting started? Use this example 12-week coaching program to help you develop your own:
- Week 1: Onboarding and assessing
- Week 2: Developing an action plan
- Weeks 3 – 10: Tracking your client’s growth journey
- Week 11: Evaluating progress
- Week 12: Taking the next steps
Week 1: Onboarding and assessing
Before your client can start their growth journey, they’ll need to be introduced to you, your program, and your method.
During your first session, you’ll onboard your client to the 12-week program. This includes introducing yourself and your expertise, going over your program’s purpose, and explaining how you’ll help them achieve the program’s intended outcome. Here, you’ll also go over the expectations for your coaching relationship, including your and your client’s responsibilities towards their growth journey.
During this session, you’ll also want to assess where your client is at before they’ve embarked on their growth journey. This will provide you with a baseline from which you can measure the progress they’ve made.
Finally, take this session as an opportunity to build trust with your client. Encourage your client to ask you any questions they might have about the program and the coaching process, so they can start their growth journey with total confidence.
Week 2: Developing an action plan
Now that your client is acquainted with your program and has completed an initial assessment, it’s time to create an action plan.
To develop an action plan, you’ll want to take into account your client’s assessment from week 1 as well as their own personal goals and challenges in relation to the topic of the course. Talk through your client’s needs and goals so you both have a good understanding of exactly what your client would like to achieve and what you’re able to help them achieve with this specific program.
From there, work together to develop an action plan with discrete, weekly objectives that will bring your client from where they are now to where they want to be.
Weeks 3 – 10: Tracking your client’s growth journey
Your client’s growth journey makes up the bulk of your 12-week coaching program.
Here, you’ll be helping your client progress towards achieving their goals. Every session should take your client one step closer towards the program’s end goal. In other words, every session should have a clearly-laid out objective, along with the tactics and activities that will help your client reach it.
Also: don’t forget the homework! Giving your clients work to take home and complete or reflect on between sessions helps them internalize what they’ve learned and apply their insights to their real life.
Week 11: Evaluating progress
Now that the growth journey’s over, it’s time to evaluate your client’s progress and assess whether they’ve achieved their goals.
The second-last session in your 12-week course should act as a final check-in to evaluate your client’s growth throughout the program.
During this session, you’ll give your client their final assessment, whether it’s a self-assessment, behavioral assessment, or otherwise. Comparing this final assessment to the initial evaluation in week 1 will give you a solid idea of your client’s real progress across the program.
Here, you’ll also want to lead a discussion with your client about their growth and progress. Ask them what insights they’ve gained from the program, how they think they’ve grown, and whether they feel they’ve achieved their goals throughout your coaching relationship.
Week 12: Taking the next steps
During your last session, you and your client will look to the future, beyond your coaching relationship, to assess their next steps.
Lead a discussion with your client about the challenges they still might want to address and the goals that they still have for their growth.
From here, you can suggest a number of next steps, including additional coaching towards the same goals you’ve been addressing or additional coaching towards a completely separate goal.
Launch your coaching business today
Now that you know how to create your own 12-week coaching program (and have our handy template at your disposal), it’s up to you to build it — and start earning that bread.
Want to start earning even more as a coach, like, today? You totally can with The Leap.
The Leap is an all-in-one creator platform with features like a mobile-first digital product builder and mobile-optimized link-in-bio storefront. The platform lets you create a variety of the most popular digital products, including mini-courses, tutorials, guides, challenges, and mini-consultations in just a few minutes.
Rather than hopping on a live coaching call, The Leap’s mini-consultations let you share advice, offer feedback, and answer your clients’ questions via pre-recorded video. In other words, these bite-sized consults are an easier, more hands-off way to monetize your coaching expertise, earning you more money for less time and effort.
Interested in selling mini-consultations or broadening your digital services offering? Try The Leap for free today.
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Further reading
- How To Become a Life Coach (Tips + Free Templates)
- How To Become a Mindset Coach (Tips + Free Templates)
- How To Create a Life Coaching Business Plan (+ Free Templates)
- How To Create a Coaching Contract (+ Free Template)
- Your Guide to Creating an 8-Week Coaching Program (+ Free Template)
- How To Find Your Target Audience (+ Free Template)
- How To Use the Wheel of Life in Coaching (+ Free Template)
- How To Find Your Coaching Niche (Tips + Free Templates)
- How To Sell Digital Products Online: A 6-Step Launch Checklist
