Want to know how to run a group coaching program? 

You’ve come to the right place. Today, you’ll learn how to create, lead, and launch a group coaching program. 

Want to learn more? Read on!

You’ll learn:

• What is group coaching?
• How do you create a group coaching program?
• How do you hold group coaching sessions?
• How do you launch your group coaching program?

What is group coaching?

Group coaching means that you coach a group of people who want to achieve similar goals. Your group attends the same coaching calls and you might have an online group where the group meets in between calls. 

But what are the benefits of group coaching? That’s what we’ll look at next. 

What are the benefits of group coaching?

Why should you start your own group coaching program? 

There are a few reasons…

…You get to scale your business from working with just a few clients (and help more people in the process)

…You can systematize your program so that it becomes more scalable and easier to sell

…You create a killer product you love and feel confident sharing and selling

Right now, you might have a one-on-one coaching program. But you can only sell so many private coaching packages because every new client takes up a big chunk of your time. 

And so your income caps somewhere around 10 one-on-one coaching clients. How do you grow your business?

Simple, with a group coaching program. 

So you take your one-on-one coaching plan and systematize it into a group coaching program. You can help more people at the same time while growing your income. 

It’s a win-win for your clients, too. While group coaching clients get less personal time with you as a coach, they get a bunch of other benefits, including networking opportunities and learning from each other. Research shows that group coaching is effective in facilitating goal attainment.

On the flip side, you need to learn how to manage a larger group so that you don’t become overwhelmed or stressed out. And you need to be able to maintain support and help clients get great results. (Spoiler alert: that’s what you’ll learn in this post.) 

I grew my own business to multiple six figures and multiple seven figures with the help of group coaching programs and online courses. And I’ve run group programs with just a few people to 300-400 people, so rest assured I know what I’m talking about. 

It’s also how my students have scaled their businesses. 

In this short video, I show you how to start a group coaching program from scratch: 

But when should you start your group program? Let’s take a look: 

When should you start a group coaching program?

There’s no definite rule that dictates when you can start a group coaching program. But once you’ve worked with at least 3 one-on-one coaching clients, you’re in a great position to start your group coaching program because you’ll be better equipped to anticipate your coaching students’ obstacles and questions. 

But how do you create a group coaching program? Here’s what you need to know.

How do you create a group coaching program?

To create a group coaching program, you need to structure your program, set a price, and decide on the number of people you want to enroll. That’s what we’ll look at now:

How to structure a group coaching program 

How do you structure your coaching program? First and foremost, your group coaching program should be about 3-5 months long with one or two group sessions a month. In between calls, you can create a group with Slack, Voxer, or Facebook where your group meets and you answer their questions. 

But aside from these practicalities, you need to decide on the structure you’re going to walk people through. If you want to scale your group program, it can’t be a mishmash of different group calls because you’ll have to reinvent the program every time. 

Fortunately, no matter your industry (whether you’re an energy healer or a confidence coach) your coaching is going to have some type of system. There will always be a pattern and understanding that pattern is key to scaling your offer.

Typically, people go through the exact same steps. Some people need more time to go through some steps, while others can move forward more quickly. But the steps remain the same. 

If you’ve worked with a handful of coaching clients, you likely already know what your structure looks like. 

This structure does the heavy lifting for you. And you get an 80/20 breakout; 80% of the work is done with your pre-existing content. 20% is the customization that helps people get that extra boost in their results.

How much to charge for your group coaching program

Your group coaching pricing can be pretty straightforward. $1,500 to $5,000 is a good price range. 

The lower price range is for those who are new to coaching. Once your clients have gotten results and are giving you testimonials, you can move to a higher rate.

How many people to enroll in your group coaching program

You can pretty much enroll as many people as you want in your group coaching program. I’ve worked with 300-400 people when I offered group coaching together with an online course. High-ticket programs ($5,000 and up) will have a more intimate setting with usually somewhere from 10 to 25 participants.

But what if no one buys your program? Is it worth it if you only get one or two buyers? 

If it’s your first time selling your group coaching program, one or two sales are amazing–those sales show that people want to buy your program. Instead of getting fixated on the number of people who buy now, view it as, you’re making sales and getting started. 

And if you’re wondering, “won’t people judge me if I only enroll one or a few people in my program?” 

Not at all. In fact, they’ll feel like they’re getting even more value because it’s so intimate. 

The best days for group coaching calls

When should you hold your group coaching calls? Ideally, you’ll hold them during the week when people are more focused. If your clients are full-time employees, you might do evenings around 8 PM. 

But also note your own energy! I’m sleepy around 8 PM, so I like to hold my calls from noon to 1 PM when a lot of people are available because of lunch. 

However, if you have a global audience from all over, you probably won’t be able to find one time that works for everyone. Try to find that time, but if you can’t, you can collect questions beforehand and make recordings available so that everyone gets the support they need. 

How do you conduct a group coaching program?

Next, we’ll look at how you conduct your group coaching program (how you organize, lead and scale your programs with the right support). Here’s what you need to know:

How to organize group coaching sessions

The way you organize your coaching calls is to give everyone a few minutes to ask questions. As the coach, your job is to ensure that there aren’t any interruptions or oversharing of details so that you keep group boundaries for the sake of all your students. And if you’re leading a larger group, you can collect questions beforehand if it’s more efficient. 

Plus, don’t forget to encourage your students to participate in the discussion group so that they get the best results possible. You then answer questions in that group every day. 

You can set up your calls with a tool like Zoom and calendar invites in Google Calendar. 

How to lead group coaching

You might be wondering how you should move from one-on-one coaching to group coaching. Here’s what you need to know about leading a group coaching program:  

What’s the promise of your program? 

You first need to get clear on one thing:

What is going to be the actual promise of your group program? 

And how is the delivery of your program going to match the promise? 

A common mistake coaches make is to think that their group program is just them delivering one-on-one coaching in a group. If that’s what you want to do, go for it. This would typically be a more high-end program.

But what a lot of people want to do is to move more towards a highly scalable, course-type program where everyone goes through the same course modules and then they can get extra support in a group setting like an online group and group coaching calls.

In that case, the promise isn’t that the relationship is going to be one-on-one coaching in a group setting, but a less personal group program.

What’s the depth of your support?  

The next thing you want to get clear on is: 

What is the depth you’re going to get into for customizing your support? 

A mistake I made with my first group program was to think that I would give the same support to each client as I would in a one-on-one program because I wanted to help them get the best results.

The program I sold has a module on how to write your website pages, including your about page, homepage, and work with me page. I told those who joined the program that I would review their pages in detail.

So when the time came for that module, I had to review over a hundred websites with multiple pages. You can bet that I didn’t offer that level of customization the next time around.

I told new students: “You don’t need me to review every single page of your website. You need the structure, templates, and best practices that I teach in the program. And then you can ask me pointed questions about it, like ‘I’m thinking of doing X with my website. What do you think?’”

These questions were much easier for me to answer AND they helped people get the best results. 

Understanding the depth you’ll go into and what’s fair and appropriate helps you avoid overpromising.

What is the depth of your answers? 

Also, think through:

How in-depth will your answer be? 

One mistake I see new group coaches make is to go into detail in their answers. 

For example, one of my clients helps people build their own real estate portfolios. What he used to do was review every student’s potential investment and do all the work for them.

That was not the promise of the program and it wasn’t necessary for his clients. Instead, he found himself really maxed out after just a few clients.

With that, figure out how in-depth you’ll go with your answers.

However, people often struggle with thinking, “If I’m not answering questions in-depth, I won’t be providing support.” 

That’s why you need to clarify the promise of your program before you sell it so there’s no mismatch. 

What I do when a client joins a group program is to send them a welcome questionnaire, which gives me all the details about their situation pertaining to what I do. I review the questionnaires before the program, and I’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s going on with them. 

When they ask me a question, I’ll be able to answer their question with a customized answer really quickly because I know their situation. I can also direct them to existing content that is part of the course so that I don’t need to teach that part again. 

This way, you’re giving customized support but you’re doing it in a way that’s scalable and leverages your existing content. 

Questions to ask on your call

During your calls, you as the coach are the one who is leading the call. And that includes asking questions such as:  

What’s one win?

What’s one thing you’re working on?

What’s one thing you’d like help with?

What’s on your mind regarding the topic you help with? 

Where’s an area you’d like to get better at?

By going through the participants one by one, everyone gets a chance to speak. Try to keep the allocated time around the same for each participant so that they get the same support. 

How to make time for supporting your students

The next question is:

How are you going to set aside time to personally support your coaching students? A lot of coaches tend to struggle with supporting their clients without it taking over their time. 

The way I think about it is that you set aside time for it, just like you would a non-negotiable activity like brushing your teeth, and you get it done. (In the same way that you wouldn’t think “Should I brush my teeth today?”, you don’t ask yourself “Should I support my group today?”)

When I was running big group programs with several hundreds of people, it would be one of the first things I did in the morning. It would take me a few minutes to an hour and during that time I was focused on answering all the questions. 

With this, you set a structure for yourself so that your group program doesn’t take over your life. You also train your clients to make the most of your support and don’t expect you to be there 24/7. And this prevents you from getting stuck in a bad cycle where you feel you have to check in on your students at all times.

How to scale with program coaches 

Something a lot of coaches struggle with is having scalable backup support. 

One solution is to add on other backup coaches so that your business isn’t dependent on you. 

But what if you only sell one spot? How will you pay for your support coaches? 

And if you scale faster than anticipated, what are you going to do? 

Here’s what I recommend:

Decide right now how you’re going to find that support. 

There are two ways to do this:

The first way, which is for those who want to build a big coaching business and remove themselves from coaching, is to have program coaches who are “mini you’s.” They represent your brand and do everything you do as a coach. 

For example, if you have a high-end group program with more one-on-one support, then those coaches might support groups within your group program.

The second model is having program coaches who specialize in certain areas. When I used to run bigger group programs, those areas were mindset, ads, copy, and sales. Typically, they were people who had already developed skills in those areas through their careers, and then had gone through my program to build their own businesses. 

As a result, I could focus on the things I enjoy, such as strategy.

To implement this, identify the people you want to work with so that you don’t have to scramble to find them right when you need them. Then, pay the coach a certain amount per person so that if you only get one person, they get a sum for that person. 

And as you scale, you can add on extra payments when you take on more students. 

If you want to learn more about how to coach, take a look at this short video:

How do you launch a group coaching program?

Finally, to sell your group coaching program, you need to launch it. How you launch depends on if you have an existing audience or not. Let’s take a look: 

How far in advance do you market an online group coaching program?

If you have an existing audience, you can launch your group program to them. For instance, people who didn’t buy your one-on-one coaching program can be a good fit for your group coaching program. In that case, start marketing your program right away. 

If not, start building your audience and get your offer out there with the strategies we’ll look at next.

How do you market a group coaching program?

There are various marketing strategies you can use to market your group coaching program. The “simple” funnel is to direct people to an email list and then to a webinar where you offer your program. 

Other strategies include: 

• Affiliate marketing
• Podcast pitching 
• Guest post pitching 
• Referrals from clients 
• Testimonials
• Advertising
• Search engine optimization 
• YouTube marketing
• Pinterest marketing
• Instagram marketing

Those are a few of the marketing strategies you can use to grow and scale your group coaching program. Pick one or two and focus on them! 

Over to you!

There you have it! Now you know what it takes to create and sell a group coaching program.

What it comes down to is that you create a well-structured and scalable program to offer the best support to your students. 

However, building a highly profitable coaching business requires the RIGHT strategy.

Want to know what it is?

Get my free PDF that shows you how to build a sustainable six-figure business: