Most coaches build a free download, watch a handful of people grab it, and then hear nothing. The problem usually isn’t the topic. It’s that the freebie gives information instead of a result, so nobody finishes it and nobody trusts you enough to buy.
A good coaching lead magnet course does the opposite. It walks a stranger through one small, finishable win, so by the end they’ve actually experienced what working with you feels like. This prompt designs that mini-course for you: title, who it’s for, a lesson-by-lesson outline, the opt-in copy, and the bridge into your paid offer. And by the end of this page you’ll understand why each piece earns its place, so you can design the next one yourself.
When to use this
- You want a free offer that attracts clients, not just email addresses.
- You have a paid program but no warm-up that leads into it.
- Your current freebie (a PDF, a checklist) gets downloads but no conversations.
- You’re launching a workshop, challenge, or email course and need a tight structure fast.
- You want every lesson to end in an action, not just more reading.
The prompt
Copy this whole block into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:
You are an expert course designer and funnel strategist for coaches. Your job is to design a short, free mini-course (lead magnet) that attracts the right clients, delivers one fast win, and naturally leads into a paid offer.
Before designing anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if anything below is unclear or thin. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My niche: {{NICHE}}
- Who the mini-course is for: {{IDEAL_CLIENT}}
- The small, fast win it must deliver: {{TRANSFORMATION}}
- The paid program it leads into: {{PAID_OFFER}}
- Delivery format and length: {{FORMAT}}
- My tone: {{TONE}}
TASK
Design a complete mini-course plan with these sections:
1. TITLE & PROMISE: 3 title options and a one-sentence promise that names the fast win and a timeframe.
2. WHO IT'S FOR / NOT FOR: 2-3 bullets each, so the right person self-selects in.
3. LESSON OUTLINE: one row per lesson with the lesson title, the single takeaway, the one action the learner does, and roughly how long it takes them. Each lesson must build toward the fast win, not pile on theory.
4. OPT-IN COPY: a short headline, 2-3 sentence description, and a button label for the sign-up page.
5. BRIDGE TO PAID: where and how to invite people into {{PAID_OFFER}} without being pushy, including one specific transition line.
CONSTRAINTS
- Keep it genuinely short and finishable. If my format is too long to finish, tell me and suggest a tighter version.
- One outcome per lesson. No lesson should teach more than one idea.
- Match my tone. No buzzwords, no hype, no fake statistics or invented results.
- Every lesson must end in a concrete action the learner can complete in minutes.
After the plan, give me 2 alternative angles I could test for the same audience.
How to customize it
Replace the six {{VARIABLES}} before you send it:
| Variable | What to put | Example |
|---|---|---|
{{NICHE}} |
Your specific coaching niche | career coaching for women returning from parental leave |
{{IDEAL_CLIENT}} |
Exactly who the mini-course is for | women returning after 12+ months off who feel out of date |
{{TRANSFORMATION}} |
The one small, fast win | a re-entry plan and a confident story about the career gap |
{{PAID_OFFER}} |
The paid program it leads into | a 12-week 1:1 Return-to-Work Accelerator |
{{FORMAT}} |
Delivery format and length | a 5-day email course, one short lesson per day |
{{TONE}} |
How you sound | warm, encouraging, no-fluff |
See it in action (full example)
Here is the exact prompt, filled in for a career coach. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:
You are an expert course designer and funnel strategist for coaches. Your job is to design a short, free mini-course (lead magnet) that attracts the right clients, delivers one fast win, and naturally leads into a paid offer.
Before designing anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if anything below is unclear or thin. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My niche: career coaching for mid-career women returning from parental leave
- Who the mini-course is for: women returning to work after 12+ months off who feel out of date and overlooked
- The small, fast win it must deliver: a re-entry plan and a confident 30-second story about the career gap
- The paid program it leads into: a 12-week 1:1 Return-to-Work Accelerator
- Delivery format and length: a 5-day email course, one short lesson per day
- My tone: warm, encouraging, no-fluff
TASK
Design a complete mini-course plan with these sections:
1. TITLE & PROMISE...
[rest of the prompt unchanged]
And here is the complete output the model returns:
1. TITLE & PROMISE
Title options: 1. The 5-Day Return-to-Work Reset 2. Back On Your Terms: A 5-Day Re-Entry Plan 3. From Gap to Go: Your 5-Day Comeback Course
Promise: In 5 short days, you’ll walk away with a clear re-entry plan and a confident 30-second answer to “so, what have you been up to?” – in under 15 minutes a day.
2. WHO IT’S FOR / NOT FOR
It’s for you if: – You’ve been out 12+ months and the thought of explaining the gap makes you tense. – You feel like the industry moved on without you. – You want a plan, not a pep talk.
It’s not for you if: – You’re looking for a brand-new career from scratch (this is about re-entry, not a pivot). – You want guaranteed job placement – this builds your confidence and plan, not your offer letter.
3. LESSON OUTLINE
Day Lesson title Single takeaway Your action today Time 1 Name the real fear The gap isn’t your weakness – hiding it is Write the one sentence about your gap you’ve been avoiding 10 min 2 Reframe the gap Your time off built skills employers actually want List 3 things you got better at while away (patience, logistics, decisions under pressure) 12 min 3 Your 30-second story A calm, honest gap story beats a defensive one Draft and read aloud your 30-second answer using the 3-part template 15 min 4 Map the re-entry You don’t need to be 100% caught up to start Pick ONE target role and list the 3 gaps worth closing first 12 min 5 The first move Momentum comes from one small, dated commitment Schedule one concrete action this week (a coffee chat, an application, a refresh of one profile) 10 min 4. OPT-IN COPY
Headline: Going back to work after a long break? Get your 5-day re-entry plan.
Description: A short, free email course for women returning after parental leave. One quick lesson a day for five days. By Friday you’ll have a re-entry plan and a confident answer for the question that’s been keeping you up: “so, what have you been doing?” No fluff, no overwhelm.
Button: Send me Day 1
5. BRIDGE TO PAID
Place the invitation in Day 5, after the learner has felt a real win, and repeat it once in a short follow-up email two days later. Don’t sell during Days 1-4; let the value land first.
Transition line: “You just built your plan in five days on your own. If you’d like someone in your corner to walk the next twelve weeks with you – the interviews, the negotiation, the wobbles – that’s exactly what my Return-to-Work Accelerator is for. Here’s how it works.”
2 alternative angles to test: 1. The Confidence angle: “5 Days to Walk Into Any Interview Without Apologizing for Your Gap” – leads with the emotional win rather than the plan. 2. The Speed angle: “Back to Work in 90 Days: The 5-Day Starter Plan” – leads with the outcome timeline, good for action-oriented returners.
That is a finishable course and a soft, honest path into the paid offer. Twenty minutes of your own edits and it’s ready to load into your email tool.
Why this works
Three LLM principles are doing the heavy lifting here. Learn them and every prompt you write gets better:
- Role priming. The opening line (“You are an expert course designer and funnel strategist for coaches”) tells the model which slice of its knowledge to use. “Make me a free course” pulls the bland average of the internet; naming the role pulls course-design and funnel thinking, which is why the output knows to put the sales invitation in Day 5 instead of Day 1.
- Specificity in, specificity out. The model can only be as concrete as your input. A vague transformation (“feel more confident”) produces a vague course. A sharp one (“a re-entry plan and a confident 30-second story about the gap”) produces lessons that each push toward that exact win. The quality of the plan is capped by the quality of your
{{TRANSFORMATION}}. - Constraints are quality control. The rules – one outcome per lesson, every lesson ends in an action, tell me if my format is too long to finish – aren’t decoration. Each one removes a common lead-magnet failure: bloat, theory-dumping, and courses nobody completes. And the “ask me up to 3 clarifying questions first” line lets the model fill gaps by asking instead of guessing, which is the single biggest fix for generic AI output.
Do this now
- Copy the prompt above into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
- Replace the six variables with your real niche, client, fast win, paid offer, format, and tone.
- Send it. If it asks clarifying questions, answer them honestly – that’s where the good version comes from.
- Pick one title and the strongest angle, then build Day 1 today. A live one-lesson course beats a perfect plan in a doc.
Pro tips
- Lead with one fast win, not your whole method. The mini-course earns the right to sell the deep work. Cramming everything in kills completion and kills trust.
- Keep the clarifying-questions line. It is the difference between a course shaped around your real client and one shaped around a stereotype.
- Test the two alternative angles as opt-in headlines. Same course, two promises – run both and keep the one that converts.
- Reuse the lesson outline as your sales-page proof. “Here’s exactly what you’ll do each day” is persuasive on its own, because specificity reads as competence.
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