The best way to do this os edit your template node do receive a colctrl. An example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jcr:root xmlns:sling="http://sling.apache.org/jcr/sling/1.0" xmlns:cq="http://www.day.com/jcr/cq/1.0" xmlns:jcr="http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0" xmlns:nt="http://www.jcp.org/jcr/nt/1.0"
jcr:description="Page with a parsys"
jcr:primaryType="cq:Template"
jcr:title="Page with a parsys"
allowedPaths="[/content(/.*)?]"
ranking="{Long}100">
<jcr:content
jcr:primaryType="cq:PageContent"
sling:resourceType="fiat-portal/containers/empty-container">
<banner
jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured"
sling:resourceType="foundation/components/parsys">
<colctrl
jcr:created="{Date}2013-07-05T11:06:16.396-03:00"
jcr:createdBy="admin"
jcr:lastModified="{Date}2013-07-05T11:06:16.396-03:00"
jcr:lastModifiedBy="admin"
jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured"
sling:resourceType="foundation/components/parsys/colctrl"
controlType="start"
layout="2;cq-colctrl-lt0"/>
</banner>
</jcr:content>
</jcr:root>
The colctrl needs to be inside a parsys component. The template node "page" in the geometrix-outdoors, (/apps/geometrixx-outdoors/templates/page) is an example of a template with columns.