Ever wondered why some coaches can charge so much more for their services compared to others and somehow have an endless flow of clients who want to work with them?
It’s all about specificity. The more niched down you are in your coaching and clientele, the more you’ll attract a specific audience your way.
And there’s nothing more niched down than a signature coaching program.
What is a Signature Coaching Program?
A signature program is a reusable system or framework that you use to coach your clients over and over again, to attain a specific goal.
In a signature coaching program, there is no need to plan your clients’ journeys from scratch, since that work has already been done during the design of the program itself. Your clients choose to purchase your program because they want the end result you’re promising, not because they have a vague idea of how you can help them!
The signature program can stem from several places. Maybe you have decades of experience in coaching and have discovered something that all your clients have in common, that you believe could be mapped into a framework.
Or maybe you’ve experienced something specific in your own life that gives you particular expertise, and that you think your clients could benefit from following in your footsteps.
Another way to define a signature coaching program is your unique way of solving a specific problem.
Why Should You Have a Signature Coaching Program?
The best part about creating and launching your own signature coaching program? There is no competition out there for this particular program.
Other coaches have their own signature programs, but they are designed in their own ways and don’t solve the same problems using the same method.
The most unique thing about your signature program is you! Even if other coaches try to copy what you do (which probably means you’re doing something right), they’ll never be you, and they’ll never have the life experience it took you to develop your program.
Signature programs are also perfect for attracting your dream clients. Because you define what type of problem you want to solve – and how you want to solve that problem – potential clients who hear about your program will know exactly what they’re getting into.
If your framework resonates with them, its specificity will help them make a clearer decision. If it doesn’t, then they weren’t your dream client to begin with!
As a result, you’ll avoid working with clients who don’t know what they want or clients whom you don’t enjoy working with.
Plus, signature programs help you organize the way you coach and deliver results much faster, which can not only allow you the time to help your clients on a deeper level but also generate more income as you’re able to take on more clients in the same amount of time.
Because a signature coaching program is a process in itself, you can also better organize your business and run it more smoothly, instead of doing things any which way. Hello, productivity!
Finally, a coaching program can help you establish credibility as a leader. You’re not just a coach – you’re the creator of a Signature Program, and you’re serious about getting your clients where they need to be.
9 Steps for Creating Your Signature Program
If you’re already excited about the idea of creating your own signature program and jumping up and down excitedly while singing “Where do I start?!?”, we’ve got you covered! You don’t need to take years to develop a signature program, just as long as you have something unique to offer and are dedicated to helping your clients succeed.
Survey Your Ideal Clients
Want to design your signature program in a way that attracts your ideal clients? In this case, you’ll need to dig into their brains and understand exactly how they think, what they’re going through, what obstacles they’re struggling with, and what they ultimately want to achieve.
The best way to do this, is to survey real people. Whenever possible, try to interview with people one-on-one so that you can ask follow-up questions and dive deeper into their heads.
If you’re wondering what you’re supposed to do if you haven’t yet worked with your ideal clients, that’s okay! The people you survey don’t have to be your past or existing clients. They do have to be the type of people you see yourself working with in the future, though.
Search your personal circle to find such people, and ask your friends if they know someone who fits the mold. With the power of social media, you can do a shout-out to attract the right people for a survey or one-on-one conversation with you.
To incentivize people to give you their precious time, you can offer a quick coaching session immediately after you’ve surveyed them. Who knows – if they enjoy your coaching style, they may come back for more, once your signature program is launched!
Define the Results For Your Ideal Clients
Once you understand what your ideal clients are struggling with and what they want, you’ll be able to nail down a specific outcome they’re looking for.
Not everyone you survey will necessarily want the exact same results, but you can narrow it down based on what you’ve learned from them.
Starting with your dream clients and their desired outcome in mind is key to your signature coaching program’s success! From here, you’ll be able to reverse-engineer your program, to get them those results.
Figure Out What Your Clients Need to Learn to Get to That Result
This is where your reverse engineering starts. Based on your personal experience as a coach, you can break down the steps required to attain the desired outcome.
There’s no need to be a perfectionist in this step. The goal is to get a clear picture of everything involved in the roadmap to success, without necessarily paving the road itself just yet.
The more coaching experience you have, the easier this will be for you. If you haven’t done a ton of coaching yet, recall back to your own personal life experience. What did you have to learn to get where you are now? What was the most difficult thing to get through, that didn’t seem obvious to you back then?
Those will be the key points your clients may struggle with, so it’s important to empower them with the tools they need to surpass those challenges.
Design a Framework Or Create a Process for Teaching Them
Now that you’ve figured out the ‘what’ of your program, you’ll need to map out the ‘how’. It’s essentially the coaching program outline! What steps are involved to go from where they are to where they want to be? Which steps need to be tackled first, before you can move on?
This is most likely the most difficult part, so take your time with this. If the people you surveyed are willing, present the framework to them once you have a draft, to know how they feel about it.
Would they pay to go through your process? If the answer is no, you either need to:
• Rework the framework to make the coaching program more approachable
• Clarify the way you present the program itself, or
• Add or remove steps in your framework
At the end of this step, you should have a complete step-by-step plan to take your dream clients from where they are to the ideal outcome you’ve already established.
Decide on the Duration of the Coaching Program
You can design the perfect signature coaching program but have it all fall apart at the seams if the duration is not right.
Make it too short, and there won’t be enough time for your client to learn what they need to, in order to empower themselves to evolve in the right direction. Too long, and they may lose momentum and motivation before they succeed.
There’s no perfect length for a coaching program, because it ultimately depends on what you’re coaching. If you know other coaches who have their own signature programs that resemble yours, check to see their duration, to get an idea of what you should aim for.
Give it a Great Name
Your signature coaching program’s name matters almost as much as the sales page (which comes later) because most people will decide whether or not they’re interested, based on the name alone!
The name should be specific and descriptive, while still remaining as concise as possible.
You can create a poll on your social media – as long as your followers are made up of your ideal clients – to get some opinions on a few name ideas.
If you can get in a community of copywriters, you may get some valuable insight from them as well.
Make sure you name your program only once you’re finished designing the actual framework!
Create a Sales Page
Now you know what you want to help your ideal clients achieve and how you’ll get them there. It’s time to write your sales page.
Your sales page should take your potential clients on a journey of discovery. If you’re not sure where to start, try tackling these topics in the following order:
• Resume the main promise of your program in a short headline
• Paint the picture of what your ideal clients are struggling with
• Explain how they may have been disappointed in the past by other solutions
• Introduce your program and how it’s different
• Break down how your program works
• Tackle objections by providing an FAQ section
• Illustrate how their lives could be, with your program compared to without it
Here’s the thing – your sales page will never be perfect. You can refine it along the way, especially once you test out your signature program and get some feedback.
Create the Content
Whether you’re coaching one-on-one or in a group setting, you’ll have some content to prep before your big launch.
Maybe this involves workbooks and personal exercises. In some cases, all the work is done one-on-one, but you may want to provide a recap of what your client has learned, so that they can come back to it later.
If you’re doing group coaching, you may want to pre-record some video content as well, but you should also prepare slides and notes for the live content you’ll present.
The goal here is to be fully prepared once you hop on a video call with your clients, so that you can actually follow the framework you designed!
Market Your Signature Program
It’s finally time to launch your signature coaching program to the world! Marketing a coaching program is just as important as designing the program itself.
There are so many approaches you can take to market your signature program, but here are a few ideas:
• Run a launch period, during which you offer extra bonuses or a beta pricing model
• Create an email sequence to send out to your subscribers
• Use social media to educate your audience about your process and direct them to book a call with you or check out your sales page
• Run ads once you’ve proven a level of interest in your program
• Book podcast interviews, in which you can discuss your framework
You should aim for both long-term (podcast interviews, for instance) and short-term (like launches) marketing strategies to ensure the longevity of your program.
Help Your Clients Succeed While You Grow Your Coaching Business
With your own signature coaching program, you’ll know exactly how you can help your ideal clients succeed – and you’ll have a repeatable process you can use over and over again!
Establishing core processes like signature programs and a streamlined booking system can help you build a sustainable business that serves you instead of draining you.
