There’s something about a challenge that just gets people fired up. It doesn’t work for everyone, but for a lot of people, a challenge can be irresistible. They want to know if they can beat it, they want others to know they can beat it, and at the very least, they want to try.

That’s why we run our challenges, because of the visceral reaction they elicit.

 

But there are right ways and wrong ways to put out these special offers. And if you get it wrong, it can be devastating for your boot camp.

Think about it, to keep your Boot Camp growing and keep your client base increasing, you have to keep filling your sales funnel, right? We’ve talked a lot about these in the past, they are what we call the series of steps our prospects move through as they go from being interested individuals to paying clients.

And we’ve explored many passive ways to keep that sales funnel full, because that’s how you operate an effective business. It’s not sustainable to be working like crazy to keep filling your funnel from nothing all the time. We teach you to put systems into place (like human billboards or email marketing) that keep filling the funnel overtime, all the time.

But occasionally, your funnel starts to run dry or you lose a lot of clients all at once, and you need to dumb a huge number of prospects into that funnel to keep things moving upward. And that’s where the challenge comes in.

But that’s also what makes the challenge so crucial. You rely on the power of the challenge to boost your client numbers when things start to slow down. If something goes wrong, your boot camp is going to be in trouble.

To make sure that never happens, I’ve put together the following dos and don’ts for Fit Body Boot Camp Challenges.

1) Make a Big Fat Claim.

If you want people to have a big reaction to your offer, it needs to stir things up a bit. If you want attention and you want reaction, you’ve got to stick your neck out there. While I strongly advise against promising anything you can’t deliver, I do encourage you to make a big fat claim about your program and the results you can bring people. If you want to get someone fired up, tell them exactly how you can change their lives or their bodies.

Make an impressive promise.

The catch, though, is that you sure as hell had better deliver on that promise.

See, the big claim gets them in the door and gets them to sign up, but it will leave them with massive expectations. They signed up because you made them a promise, and they are expecting you to deliver on that promise. So when you do, when you blow their expectations out of the water, they’ll be clambering to get their names signed onto a shiny-new long-term agreement.

And that’s the real purpose behind the whole challenge, right? To get new long-term clients.

So make a big claim, deliver on that claim, and then watch as your sessions start overflowing with new clients.

2) Shower them with love.

Challenges are always pretty short, right? Remember the rule? Never more than 30 days. So that means, with any given challenge, you’ve got 14 days or 21 days or, at the most, 28 days to get those people to decide to stay with you after the end of the challenge. Besides delivering awesome results, how to you think you are going to get them to stay?

You gotta love em!

Drown them in it! Now, before any of this gets horribly misconstrued, let me explain a bit more.

Because you only have these people in your facility for a short period of time, you’ve got to generate tons of reciprocity as fast as possible. That means, you need to make them feel like you have given them so much and delivered so much value into their lives that they owe you something. Then, when you pitch them your long-term offer, they will feel like they owe it to you to sign up.

What exactly, though, do I mean by love?

Well, first of all, you should give them the attention and the support that makes them feel welcomed, appreciated, and cared for. Check in on them, chat with them before and after sessions, memorize their names and ask about their families, their jobs, their lives— treat them like you would a friend for which you genuinely care.

But it’s more than just feelings— your love must also be delivered in the form of stuff.

On the first week, give them a free T-Shirt. On the second week, hand out free shaker cups. When they come in the third week get them a coffee mug or a rubber bracelet or a cookbook or whatever it is you think will keep them motivated, keep them excited, and make them feel indebted to you.

After you generate all these feelings of reciprocity within them they’ll become some of your most loyal boot campers.

3) Get your Human Billboards in there.

These short-term clients still need to be referred. It’s true, they already know you, they’re already familiar with you, but they’re testing you. This challenge is a trial process. While they are looking for reasons to stay, they’re also looking for any reason why they should leave. Forever. To never come back.

And while your attitude and your results should make them love you, you’re still the salesman. No matter how well you treat them, when they look at you all they will see is the guy trying to take their money or the girl who will say anything to get them to stay. Every honest thing you say will be taken with a grain of salt, a healthy amount of skepticism.

Well then, how to do you combat this? Social proof. And where do you get that social proof? Your human billboards.

Infiltrate your challenge workouts with your best, most reliable human billboards. As they interact with the short-term clients and get to know them, they will not only display the results your boot camp can produce but they will even start your sales pitch for you. As your human billboards discuss their transformations and their lifestyle improvements they’ll remind all those potential clients that significant results can only come from long-term dedication.

Your veteran clients will encourage the newbies to stay with the program, they’ll talk about how helpful and supportive you can be, and they will get the challenge participants primed and ready to hear your sales offer for a long-term payment plan.

These simple yet important tips will help maximize the amount of benefit you can squeeze out of a transformation challenge. When you call on the power of the challenge, you need it to perform as successfully as possible— the success or failure of your entire business depends on it. So make sure you are doing it right.

Make that Big Fat Claim, get your Human Billboards into the challenge workouts, and shower your short-term clients with all the love. Don’t forget these three tips, and you’ll be well on your way to mastering the art of the Transformation Challenge.

This entry was posted on January 28, 2015 at 9:46 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Boot Camp Marketing, Closing and Sales Techniques by Steve Hochman | No Comments Yet