Separate what you repeat from what needs you
Go through your last few clients and write down what happened in each session. Two kinds of work usually appear.
The first is teaching you repeat almost word for word:
- explaining your framework or method
- walking through an example
- worksheets, templates and reflection prompts
- practical instructions for what to do between sessions
The second only works because you’re there:
- understanding a specific person’s situation
- feedback on their work
- adjusting the plan when something doesn’t fit
- accountability
The first list is your course. The second list is what stays in coaching, or becomes the premium version of the program.
Turn sessions into modules
Your program already has an order. Clients rarely start with advanced work, and there’s usually a point where things click.
Use that sequence. Each stage of the program becomes a module, and each module holds a few short lessons rather than one long session recording.
An example six-session program might become:
Module 1: Where you are now- The framework in ten minutes
- Self-assessment worksheet
- Reflection: what you want to change
- Worked example
- Planning template
- Common mistakes
- A short guided practice
- Your first week, step by step
- Exercise: describe what happened
Six sessions don’t have to become six modules. Group the stages the way a client experiences them, not the way your calendar happened to divide them.
Choose a format for each lesson
Not everything needs to be a video. Pick the format that suits what the lesson asks someone to do.
- Video when you need to show something, or when seeing you explain it matters.
- Audio for guided practices, reflections and anything people might listen to on a walk.
- Text for instructions, prompts and anything people will want to scan or come back to.
- Downloadable documents for worksheets and templates people fill in.
Text and audio are quicker to produce and much easier to update. Save video for the lessons where it does something the other formats can’t.
Reuse what you already have
Most programs come with material that already exists somewhere: slide decks, the emails you send between sessions, worksheets, answers to the questions everyone asks.
Recordings of past sessions are tempting, but they belong to the client as much as to you. Don’t reuse a private session in a course. Record the explanation again on its own, or use a group workshop where everyone agreed to be recorded.
If one workshop recording already carries most of the program, you might not need a course yet. Selling the recorded workshop as a masterclass can be a quicker first step.
Replace the calendar with clear instructions
In a live program, the schedule does the pacing. The next session is on Thursday, so the worksheet gets done by Thursday.
A self-paced course has no Thursday. The structure has to do that work instead:
- Start with a short lesson explaining how the course works and how long it takes.
- Keep modules small enough to finish in one sitting.
- End each module with what to do before moving on.
- Tell people what “done” looks like, especially for exercises.
The questions you answer in the first five minutes of every session are a good guide to what belongs in those instructions.
Decide where you stay involved
A self-paced course doesn’t have to mean no contact. Common versions:
- Fully self-paced, as a lower-priced way to experience your approach.
- Course plus written exercises that you read and respond to.
- Course alongside coaching, where the course carries the teaching and sessions are for applying it.
The third version often changes the program itself. When clients have already watched the explanation, sessions can start from their situation instead of from the theory.
Existing coaching clients can simply be given access as part of what they already pay for. They shouldn’t need to buy it again.
Price it against the program
The self-paced version takes your teaching but not your time, so it should cost noticeably less than the live program.
Useful reference points:
- what the full program costs
- which parts of it the course leaves out
- what you hope someone does after finishing it
If the course is meant to lead into coaching, make the next step obvious inside it, not only on the sales page. Then revisit the price once you see who buys and who asks for more.
Watch where people stop
Once people are working through the course on their own, you lose what you used to notice in sessions: the hesitation, the skipped homework, the question that shows they’re ready for more.
Progress gives you some of that back. You can see who started, who finished and where people stopped.
It isn’t proof of learning. A finished video doesn’t mean someone applied it, and a downloaded worksheet doesn’t mean they filled it in. Treat progress as a reason to check in, not as an assessment.
If several people stop at the same lesson, that lesson probably needs to be shorter, clearer or moved.
A quick checklist before you publish
- List what you repeat in every program and what only works live.
- Group the repeatable parts into a few modules in the order clients need them.
- Choose video, audio, text or a document for each lesson.
- Write a short start-here lesson and clear instructions for each module.
- Leave private client sessions out.
- Decide where you stay involved and how existing clients get access.
- Set the price against the live program.
- Preview it as a client would see it.
How Coavela approaches this
Coavela is built for coaches whose courses sit alongside their coaching, not instead of it.
Build a course from modules containing video, audio, text and downloadable lessons, including written exercises. Reorder lessons as the program evolves and preview the course as a client before you publish. Audio, text and documents don’t count towards your plan’s video hours.
Offer the course for free or for a one-time price through your connected Stripe account, or grant it to existing clients without recording a purchase. Clients get a private library where their progress is saved.
You see each client’s progress, keep private notes and set dated follow-up reminders, so the course stays connected to the relationship. See how course delivery works for coaches.
Starting from a recording instead? Coavela proposes a transcript and chapters for a masterclass, and nothing is published until you’ve reviewed them. On Growth and Scale, you can import completed Zoom cloud recordings directly. Compare plans.