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5 Tips For Running a Successful Challenge

An online challenge can be a great way to increase engagement with your audience and build a TON of momentum going into a launch.  Follow these tips to make it a success.

Big Ideas

Have a Clear Finish Line [2:01]

Tip number one is to have a clear finish line that everyone is working towards. For example, Rachel Miller and I run a challenge called the 100 Perfect People. The whole focus is to help those who are in the challenge to attract at least 100 new perfect people into their audience. No matter whether you’re starting an audience from scratch or you already have an existing audience, she’s helping you grow your audience at least by 100 perfect people during the duration of the challenge.

Another example is Jamie Swanson who has a challenge where she helps personal brand photographers generate $1,000 over the weekend. It creates a ton of momentum for people and entices them to want to learn more from Jamie. You really want to have something very clear that people are looking or striving to accomplish.

Keep It Short And Sweet [4:34]

Tip number two is short bite-sized content. Keep the lessons quick and easy so that people have time to implement. It won’t serve you or them if they just keep learning and not doing anything. Keep your lessons short and focus your energy on encouraging and supporting people in the implementation of what it is that you’re learning. People don’t have a lot of time in the day. If they have more time to implement, they’re going to make more progress.

Make It Easy To Implement [5:18]

Tip number three is to make implementation easy. Ask yourself, what could I do to speed up the implementation for my audience? That could be templates, fill-in-the-black scripts or anything that makes it faster and easier to help people implement. The easier you make it for people to implement, the more they’re going to implement. And the more they implement, the more progress they’re going to make. And the more progress they’re going to make, the more desire they’re going to have to continue to work with you.

Have a Clear Start & End Date [6:15]

Number four is to have a clear start and end date. When it’s an experience that everyone is doing together, it gains a lot more momentum. I would even encourage you to end it with some type of a graduation or celebration. I learned from Jamie Swanson that it naturally creates an amazing environment for you to then offer additional support and help if people want to go beyond the challenge.

I also want you to be mindful of capturing moments. So at the end, when you have that graduation or celebration moment, you can show people how far they’ve come in such a short period of time. Knowing the end date gives people a reason to actually start doing it, instead of just putting it on their hard drive to collect digital dust.

Allow Space For People To Catch Up [7:34]

Tip number five is to leave room for people to catch up. When you start your challenge, you will have people who fall behind. Sometimes when they fall too far behind, they may think to themselves that there’s no point for them anymore to even try completing this. And that’s why you have to leave room for people to catch up, because knowing that people are going to fall behind, you leave some buffer room and remind them that all is not lost if they aren’t exactly on track. And in fact, there’s actually a specific time set aside to help them catch up.

Memorable Quote

Challenges create a lot of engagement, but more importantly, they help people make progress.– Stu McLaren

Resources

Episode 123 – Our $5 Million Dollar Launch – Part 1
Episode 124 – Our $5 Million Dollar Launch – Part 2
Rachel Miller.com
100 Perfect People
Jamie Swanson – Personal Brand Photography

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