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The Ultimate 5 Day Challenge Launch Strategy

(Nearly everything you need to know to turn ice cold prospects into sales.)
 

by Stirling Gardner

 

Are you trying to bring in a flood of new coaching clients?

Or, maybe you’re trying to get those course sales off the ground
You know you’re ready to launch your program or product…
BUT —
…you also know a few other things because, let’s face it, you’ve been around the block enough times to know what you do not want.
 

➡  You don’t want a launch that will overwhelm and exhaust you

➡ You don’t want to spend a lot of money

➡ You don’t want something that involves a lot of complicated tech

➡ You don’t have a huge email list

All you know is that you are ready to serve your dream clients and, in turn, grow your business beyond your wildest dreams!

I am going to lay out, in detail, everything you could ever want to know about creating and launching a highly profitable 5 Day Challenge.

Table of Contents

HOW MANY 5 DAY CHALLENGES HAVE I DONE?

At the time of this writing, I have done over 50 challenge launches with my clients and I can say without a doubt that…

5 Day Challenges are the easiest, fastest, lowest risk launch in existence today.

But what’s more exciting than that is that they are the #1 best way to turn ice cold prospects (i.e. people that have never heard of you) into sales.

Full stop.

In addition, they are the highest converting marketing mechanism in existence today.

FACT: We have seen them convert up to 6x better than webinars. 

(I will explain why later…)

So, if you’re ready to launch “the fun, easy, and lucrative way,” let’s go!

Striling


SO WHAT EXACTLY IS A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

A 5 Day Challenge is an online coaching experience where you will share your expertise to help solve a specific problem your audience is facing ( that takes place in a temporary “pop-up” Facebook Group.

5 day challenge of PP Graphic

Usually, the group is open 7-10 days before the first day of your challenge which allows you enough time to rally the troops (aka your best prospects) and get them settled before you teach.

(Rest assured, I will share some of the best ways to fill your challenge below!)

5-day challenge launch strategy

Meaning, the Facebook Group is created solely for the purpose of hosting your challenge…

It is the container where all your teaching takes place.

When the challenge is over, the group is archived.

Once you have created the “pop-up” Facebook group, you invite your participants into it which becomes the central hub where all of your teaching will reside during your challenge.

It is also the place where your “audience” gets to mingle with one another, learn from you, and most importantly, interact with you. 

That interaction is one of the crucial elements of why a 5 Day Challenge is so powerful — it simultaneously builds trust and establishes your authority. 

WHAT DO YOU DO DURING THE 5 DAYS?

Each day, for five sequential days, you use Facebook Live to teach something relevant to your audience.

The point is to share your knowledge (and help them achieve a small goal) over the course of five days and at the end of that time, you invite them to join your program, buy your course, and/or to work with you further…

Let me be clear that you are not teaching the entire dayYou are teaching for less than an hour. 

We actually recommend less than 30 minutes so the information you share is bite-sized and digestible.

If you share your knowledge the way we teach our Launch Perfect  students, at the end of your five days of teaching, you do not have to “hard sell” or “pitch” someone to buy your stuff…

If done correctly, you simply extend an invitation to work with you on a paid basis after the five days of the challenge is up.

Usually, you extend the invitation to work with you on Day 4 and Day 5.

You can use those days as a chance to answer questions about your offer and to go over the invitation and what it would look like to work with you.

Spending extended periods of time with your audience (i.e. prospects) gives them sufficient time to feel you out, decide if they resonate with your teaching style, and to see if what you have to offer them is a good fit for their needs.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

5 day challenge PP Graphic

There are two groups of people that benefit from a 5 Day Challenge; people that host and the people who participate.

If you are reading this article, you probably fall into the first group.

As the host of a 5 Day Challenge, you can easily sell courses, coaching programs, consulting services, and masterminds. 

But it’s not just about sales. It’s also about being able to nurture your leads during the five days. 

Some of your leads won’t be ready to purchase your offer during your challenge, but the level of trust they have for you will pay off later when they are ready to purchase. 

Believe me, when your ideal customers spend five quality days with you and you drop tons of value on them, they will be a fan for life.

This is why a 5 Day Challenge helps your business grow in both the short and long term.

The second group of people who benefit from a 5 Day Challenge are those who participate in your challenge.

I like to call these folks your “dream prospects”.

These are the people who are ideally suited to take you up on your offer at the end of your challenge.

MARK'S CASE STUDY : 2 MILLION DOLLARS

Mark came to us after having done challenges for 4 years.

He said, “I thought I knew everything there was to know about challenges and then I saw how you do them and wow. You got us to our second million dollars in revenue 4x faster than we got to our first million without you.”

What Mark experienced was the difference between doing a challenge and doing a Launch Perfect™ challenge.

WHAT NICHES AND OFFERS ARE BEST FOR A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

I have helped people run highly profitable challenges in a wide variety of niches.

I have helped people with challenges selling a $297 course on “how to sew personalized teddy bears” as well as $15,000 coaching programs that teach how to get high ticket clients, and everything in between.

Using the Launch Perfect™ system, one of my previous clients, Mark, was able to hit his second million dollars 4X faster than he got to his first million.

HOT TIP: The more specific the problem you solve, the more you can charge. 

Why? Because the perceived value is higher.

Example: You could take your BMW to any service station and have your oil changed for $50. But the BMW dealer charges you $225 for the exact same service, because the perception of the BMW owner is that the dealer only works on BMWs, so they must “know more” and “do it better.”

5 day challenge Quote

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF DOING A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

This is one of my favorite topics because there are tons of amazing benefits to doing a 5 Day Challenge, but these are the top 3

 

➡  5 Day Challenges are live

One benefit I like the best is that the training is done live and with your face streamed right into the “pop-up” group.

This gives people the feeling that they are “right there with you.”

It feels a lot more personal than an automated webinar that is easy to get distracted from and disengage from. 

People will be following along and commenting, so if they have questions, you can answer them right away.

The “live” presentation gives you real time feedback on what your dream prospect is needing and ensures that you are fully dialed in to all the questions that they are having and you are the one that has the answers that don’t leave them hanging.

Your training becomes more of a dialogue, than a monologue which can tend to bore people quickly with all the distractions of life going on around them.

A two-way conversation feels more natural and genuine.

It’s the whole feeling of having a conversation with someone versus being “talked at.”

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

 

➡  5 Day Challenges are authentic

When you are going live and have the ability to connect with your audience, it allows you to be authentic in a way no other launch model can. 

You become a real person and not an elusive authority figure simply doing a sales presentation. 

If you show up live the way we suggest in our system the entire experience should feel like a retreat.

Authenticity and connection should be at the heart of your 5 Day Challenge so people are getting a genuine taste of who you are, your teaching style and what it would be like to work with you.

Our Launch Perfect™ system shows you how to ethically amplify the authenticity and connection your audience feels to bring you (and your audience) better results through trust building. 


➡  5 Day Challenges create community

When you host your challenge in a “pop-up” Facebook Group, you are assembling a group of people with similar interests who also share the same problem and are looking for a solution… your solution.

I don’t know about you, but I find communities of like-minded people to be empowering and you no longer feel alone with your problem.. 

A community can relate to one another’s problems of sharing a “we’re all in this together” camaraderie and when you (as the host) are the one to show up with the answers, it can do wonders for how people perceive you.

You become the white knight in shining armor.


Cultivating a sense of belonging in your community is another of the 10 psychological factors that must be present to have a highly profitable challenge.

WHEN NOT TO DO A 5 DAY CHALLENGE

5 Day Challenges work incredibly well for coaches, course creators, masterminds, and membership programs, but they aren’t for everyone.

They are not well suited for ecommerce products simply because most products don’t need a 5 day experience in order to get someone to purchase them.

Imagine needing to spend 5 days with someone in order to buy a sweater they made. Generally speaking, you see the sweater, maybe read the description about how it was made, check the price, and if it all comes together, you either buy or you don’t.

The only time I have told someone not to do a challenge is if they are doing all of the work themselves.

A friend came to me and wanted to do a challenge teaching people how to write case studies for their business.

I told her I suspect that most of the people that want a case study done don’t want to write it themselves. They would prefer to hire it out to someone who is an expert. The reason for this, is that most businesses only need a handful of case studies so to take the time to learn it and save a few bucks versus hiring it out just didn’t make sense.

And if that was true, and they wanted to hire my friend instead, there was no strong advantage to doing a challenge.

WHY A 5 DAY CHALLENGE IS BETTER THAN A WEBINAR

The reasons listed above are a large part of why a 5 Day Challenge is better than a webinar, but there are more you should consider.

With a challenge, you can make changes in your content based on real-time feedback..

Unfortunately, with a webinar, you have to write it and pray you are hitting all the right notes assuming that you are fully dialed in to all the questions and concerns that your dream prospect has that assures them that you are the one to help them.

I call webinars “presenting in the dark” whereas a challenge is painting with the lights on.

A webinar happens within the span of about two hours so if you mess something up, well, you are out of luck with no way to go back and fix it. Without that immediate feedback, you aren’t even sure what part of the webinar needs to be fine tuned which means you have to often recreate it over and over assuming what changes need to be made which wastes precious time and effort. 

For the most part, a webinar is  a one and done deal in terms of engaging with your dream prospect. 

Instead, a 5 Day Challenge takes place over roughly 16 days (7 days of building the community through lead generation and conversation, the five days you teach and another 4-5 days during which you extend your offer and answer questions about it.)

As you can see, there is a lot of space in a challenge to make pivots based on what your dream prospects actually need instead of you guessing what they want.

There is incredible power in that.

Imagine knowing exactly why your prospects joined your 5 Day Challenge and what they want you to teach them…

You can set yourself up as the expert and a hero if you know what to look out for.

In Launch Perfect, we share a few powerful tricks to help our clients find out what their dream prospects need before they even go live for the first time.

The advantage Launch Perfect students have to deeply serve their prospects at the highest level resulting in a flood of new clients and customers almost feels unfair because it’s so easy once you know how.

None of that is possible with a webinar.

There is safety within a challenge.

Now, let’s look at some data to back up what I am saying.

5 DAY CHALLENGE STATISTICS

Over the 50+ challenges I have helped my clients with, we have consistently seen them convert up to 6x better than a webinar.

We have seen statistics first hand that prove why 5 Day Challenges are the highest converting mechanism in existence today.

For those of you that don’t know the statistics, a great webinar converts at roughly 1.5-2%

A “normal challenge” typically converts at 3-5% which sounds great, but…

We have seen some of our clients’ challenges convert at up to 12% when using our Launch Perfect system.

That means if you have the same number of people attending your webinar as you do your challenge, you will have 6x more people purchase your course, program, or services.

I don’t know of anything else in existence that can get you those types of crazy high conversion rates!

5 day challenge Graph

MATT'S CASE STUDY: 87X RETURNS

One of the many things I love about 5 Day Challenges is that they can be highly profitable whether you are a newer entrepreneur looking to get your business off-the-ground, or whether you are a 7-figure business owner looking to grow to 8-figures.

One of my best case studies is of Matt Tommey..

His challenge was phenomenal….. wait for it… 87x return on ad spend!

I have another client, Mark Bowness, that had been doing challenges for 4 years when he came to us.

He said, “I thought I knew everything there was to know about challenges and then I saw how you do them and wow. You got us to our second million dollars in revenue 4x faster than we got to our first million without you.”

You can read Mark’s Case Study Here.

Alyssa Dillon, a coach for accountants and bookkeepers looking to scale their businesses and Jim Baker who teaches financial principles based in scripture both did 24x returns on their challenges.

WHY A 5 DAY CHALLENGE WORKS SO WELL

5 Day Challenges work well because you get to spend more “connected” time with your prospects than any other marketing launch method.

Because of this, your prospects get to know more about you personally as well as how you can help them.

You have more time to “go deeper” with your audience and actually teach them, as opposed to a webinar where the “gurus” tell you to explain the “what and why” but not the “how.”

We think this is backwards.

➡  We believe that the more value you deliver during your challenge, the more people see that you can deliver on what you promise, the more likely they are to enroll in your paid course or program.

➡  We believe in giving our audiences mini-transformations along the course of the five days so they think, “Wow! If I learned this much in five days, imagine what I can learn if I pay them?”

➡  We believe that you will be rewarded in direct proportion to the amount of value that you give.

A Launch Perfect 5 Day Challenge is the easiest way to do that.

SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS WITH A 5 DAY CHALLENGE

The best way to set yourself up for a successful 5 Day Challenge is to have a clear understanding of what your challenge is going to lead people into…


     ➡ What is the main offer you are going to enroll them into at the end of your challenge?


It is imperative that you are clear on that.

Why?

Because we will be “reverse-engineering” your challenge based on what you are going to offer them at the end of it.

We want your challenge to be the baby steps into your main offer.

This offer could be a lower priced course (generally anything sold for $2000 or less) or a high ticket offer (generally anything sold for $3000 or more).

WHAT GOALS DO I NEED TO HAVE GOING INTO A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

5 day challenge of MINDSET GOALS

MINDSET GOALS

Your goals are going to depend, first and foremost, on your mindset.

Let me ask you a question:

Do you believe a 5 Day Challenge can truly propel your business forward like it has for so many others?

You’ve heard it before, but your success has a lot to do with how much you believe a 5 Day Challenge can help you.

 

Here’s the truth: A 5 DAY CHALLENGE IS A LOT OF WORK THE FIRST TIME YOU LAUNCH ONE. .

Remember how I said collectively my team spent 371 hours?

If investing that amount of time is overwhelming to you…. I completely understand. Would I still do it all over again?

ABSOLUTELY.

But that’s because I know that the process I went through is what refined my strategy where I knew exactly what worked and what didn’t and I also knew what elements would save other’s immense amounts of time if they could swipe and use as their own.

The Launch Perfect™ System is nearly done for you, eliminating the trial and error and the time investment allowing you to leapfrog ahead your competitors who are trying to build their own challenges from scratch and giving up or never getting it implemented from the overwhelm of all the working pieces.

You are carefully weighing and vetting your options and I think that is wise.

A 5 Day Challenge is not the only way to grow your business, but it is the best way we have seen for our clients.

You have to decide if a 5 Day Challenge feels right for you.

5 day challenge of Concrete Goals

CONCRETE GOALS

Some concrete goals include:

  • How many people you want to get into your challenge
  • How many people you want to serve after your challenge is completed
  • How much money you want to make

 

I laid out those goals in that specific order for a reason; they all depend on one another.

The number of people you get participating in your challenge is critically important when it comes to achieving your earning goals.

If you get 100 people into your challenge and 12 end up buying your main offer and your main offer is $2000, that is going to bring you $24,000.

Next, subtract how much you spend to get those 100 people into your challenge and you have your net profit. 

But, if you get 1000 people into your challenge and 120 purchase your $2000 offer, you walk away with $240,000.

(We have people that didn’t spend a single dollar promoting their challenge, but instead leveraged relationships and referrals, so their revenue equaled their profit.)

You can find a detailed list of ways to fill your challenge for free here.

 

Of course, there are other factors like how much you connect with your audience, and how much they want what you have to offer which we help people dial in with in our system, Launch Perfect™. 

You can learn more about our system here.

WHAT QUESTIONS SHOULD I ASK PRIOR TO A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

The main questions you need to ask yourself are what assets will I need to have prepared before I start my live challenge.

By assets, I am referring to things like: worksheets, videos, graphics, or an order page so you can take payments at the end of the challenge.

You will also want to ask yourself questions that I am about to get into below, but a two of the key ones are:

  • What do I talk about in my challenge?
  • When is the best time to “invite people” into my offer? AKA pitch.

 

A word about pitching… if you design your challenge the way we can teach you, you will never have to do a slime-y sales-y pitch!

No one likes that.

When you give value and lay it out in a way that makes logical sense to your audience, all you have to do is invite them into your program.

And one last question you might ask is: what do I do each day from the time I invite people into my program for the next 4-5 days when the cart is open?

The content you teach and the order you teach it are the #1 thing people get wrong during their 5 Day Challenge.

But if you get this right, you’ll be shocked at the number of people that want to become your customers and clients.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR CHALLENGE CONTENT

Your challenge content is arguably the most important thing to get right to have a successful and lucrative challenge. You will need to have a content strategy, a content structure, a content roadmap, and an outline. It is also critically important strategically naming your challenge, knowing the different levels of challenges you can do and choosing the best fit for your dream prospect, and having a clear understanding of what your challenge funnel is and how it will work.

5 Day Challenge Content Strategy: Structure

There are 5 different ways you can structure your challenge content. What I like about having multiple proven challenge methods is that there is flexibility and fluidity in the choices you have. I like to assure my clients that we can create a structure that feels good to them, makes sense to their audience, and is congruent with the offer they are going to make at the end of your challenge.

The 5 Types of Challenge Structures

5 day challenge of 4 pillars

Remember when I said you can create a structure around the offer you are going to make at the end of your challenge? 

What I like about this structure is that it allows you to cover a lot of ground. You get to share your breadth of knowledge around that topic.

Here’s how that works: 

Let’s say your offer is an 8-week coaching program.

During those 8-weeks, you will be teaching your new clients the things they need to do to accomplish “X”.

As an example, maybe you will teach them how to grow a prize winning orchid.

Each week, you will teach them one step they need to achieve that goal.

In this case, your program may be broken down into 8 pillars. 

That is, 8 things they need to learn to grow that prize winning orchid.

Days 1 – 4 of our challenge would then consist of 4 mini-trainings from 4 of your 8 pillars.

Using the prize winning orchid example, you could teach on where to get the best seeds (and what makes them “the best”), how to enter orchid growing competitions, what it takes to grow prize winning orchids, and how to create an inexpensive orchid “grow house” out of materials you already have at home.

Your challenge content would not teach them everything they need to know but simply begin them on the journey of getting started and headed in the right direction. 

5 day challenge of 1 pillar 4 pieces

Structure #2 is what I call 1 Pillar, 4 Pieces.

Instead of teaching 4 different pillars of your main offer, you would choose just one and teach 4 mini trainings from that one pillar. What I like about this structure is that it allows you to go deeper into one specific pillar and gives your audience an opportunity to really dig in to see the depth of your knowledge. Usually, you will be diving deep into the one main thing (pillar) that makes the biggest impact on your potential new clients’ success. Using the prize winning orchid example, if understanding and cultivating the soil was the most important thing for someone to know, you would spend four days teaching various aspects of the complexities of orchid soil.
5 day challenge Stackt Style

Structure #3 is my exclusive method, the STACKT Style

Stackt is the name of my digital marketing agency and I named structure 3 after it because I am the one that created this structure.I refer to Stackt-style as the “cascading pain point” method. If you are unfamiliar with the term, a “pain point” is what marketers refer to when talking about the problems their ideal clients have before they figure out a solution. So, one example of a pain point might be a newbie gardener who has tried growing orchids before but always ends up with limp, dead orchids. Some of their pain points might be: 
  • They don’t know the best type of soil
  • They don’t know how much to water
  • They don’t know where in their house they should put a newly planted orchid so it grows best, and so on.

When we set up challenge content Stackt-style, we always ask “what is the very first thing a newbie orchid grower needs to know to have a successful thriving orchid?”

If the answer is “they need to know what type of soil to use,” then we would build our Day 1 challenge content around that topic.

Then, we would ask ourselves, “after they understand the type of soil they need, what’s the very next thing they need to know?”

If the answer is “they need to know how much water, when to water, and how alkaline the water should be,” then that becomes our content for Day 2 of the challenge.

Then, you repeat those steps for all four days worth of content.

Laying the content out in the way, makes logical sense in the minds of your audience.

 

Nailing your 5 Day Challenge content structure is vital to a highly successful launch. This is why it is the first and most comprehensive Module in our Launch Perfect™ system.

5 day challenge of Product Launch Formula

Structure #4 is the  Jeff Walker method

There is a fantastic marketer named Jeff Walker that teaches a method called PLF (which stands for Product Launch Formula). Full disclosure, I am not a certified PLF coach, so although I know the formula well, I am not at liberty to teach it in detail. However, I can tell you that the basic formula consists of the following four steps:

1. The New Opportunity

The new opportunity is the new “path” you have created for your clients. It is how you see and do things differently for your clients.

As an example, you might say, “these are all the ways people have grown orchids in the past (name them), but I am here today to share with you a new way I discovered to grow prize winning orchids.”

And then you go on to share what that new way or new opportunity is to your audience.

You get them excited to learn from you.

 

2. Transformation

Transformation is exactly what you think. 

During this training you are simply sharing how the way you do things (the new opportunity) is capable of transforming the lives of your audience.

You list all the ways you know your audience is currently struggling. Remember those “pain points” I mentioned earlier? 

You create an empathy connection with your audience because they now see you can identify with their struggles… This sets you up to share the transformation you have gone through personally and are now capable of leading them through because of your experience.

You speak about what it is like now for you and what it can be like for them if they let you show them “your way.”.

 

3. Ownership

Ownership references your audience’s ability to see your offer as what they need to complete their transformation.

This piece gets into the “how” they take ownership.

Your audience needs to believe that their transformation is a genuine possibility for them.

On Day 3, you would dig back into their pain points and provide the ultimate solution…. your offer.


4. Wrap-up and Pitch

On Day 4, you can do a summary of the previous three days and re-pitch your offer.

Depending on your offer and content, you could also do a hot seat with one of your audience members so everyone can see what it would be like to work with you.

We are veering away from the exact PLF formula when we start bringing in hot seats with our Launch Perfect™ method, but it is something I know works really well to help more people buy your offer.

Structure #5 is the Stu McClarin method

Our fifth and final structure is a spin-off of Product Launch Formula and was expanded on by Stu McClarin. Stu’s “big thing” is teaching people how to run profitable membership programs. His structure involves the same elements as PLF but he adds one training all about mentors and how important they are to your success. Makes sense, right?  If you are selling people on the idea of a membership group where they are paying for your expertise, you would want to share all the ways a mentor (i.e. you) would be invaluable to their success.

THE 5 DAY CHALLENGE ROADMAP

You want your daily content to do these three things:

  1. Give your audience an “a-ha” moment
  2. Connect with them emotionally
  3. Make them take one simple action

 

This unique strategy is meant to provide your audience with a mini-transformation every day.

We want to activate the 10 psychological triggers necessary for a highly lucrative 5 Day Challenge.

5 day challenge of daily content

For each day of the challenge, you want to design your content to cover these three things:

  1. What is the outcome they will get today? 

What is the main thing you want your dream prospects to learn?

Example: I want my dream prospects to learn why a 5 Day Challenge is the highest converting marketing mechanism in existence today. I would then talk to them about the 10 psychological triggers they need to include in their challenge or it could flop.

  1. Connect to the outcome emotionally.

 What emotion will they have about this outcome?

Example: Excitement and “whoa!” I will connect them to this emotion using a story.

Share a story that connects them emotionally to what you are teaching them.

You can use a personal story, a client story, or a metaphor. People remember stories.

Example: My client Matt did 87X returns on his challenge and this is how he did it.

  1. What is their action step for the day?

The core purpose of your content for the day is to get them to take action that will move them closer to their goal.

This “action item” should not take them more than two minutes to complete. 

We are looking for “quick wins” here, not a thesis homework assignment.

Example: Out of the 10 psychological triggers, pick one you’re most excited to implement into your challenge.

That’s it. 

If you can implement the three items listed above, it will make your challenge a lot more appealing to your audience.

When you get these 3 things totally dialed in like my students do, the sky’s the limit.

5 DAY CHALLENGE OUTLINE

An example outline for Day 1 of a challenge might look something like this:

Welcome everyone to your challenge + New Opportunity + Your story (be brief), then go into your content.

A “new opportunity” in marketing is how you are challenging the prevailing wisdom… 

WHY is what you’re teaching a “new opportunity” in your niche? 

How will you show them a “new path?”

The “new opportunity” with challenges: 

“traditional launches require a big team, big budget, and restless nights… but not anymore… a challenge allows you to launch simply and repeatedly with much higher conversions.

Example:

WELCOME: Hi, I am Stirling. And welcome to the “Launch Your Perfect Challenge” Challenge! 
It’s going to be amazing. You’re going to learn A, B, C, D, and E. 
NEW OPPORTUNITY: Most people think launches involve a giant team, tons of tech, lots of money, etc… I am going to show you that’s simply not true. We have systemized the whole process… so much so, that we can save you 371 hours setting up your next 5 Day Challenge. 
MY STORY: I have done over 50 live launches in tons of niches for people with $297 courses to $25k coaching programs. The first thing I want you to know is WHY live launches and challenges convert so well… 
STORY about challenges… I had multiple clients who moved from webinars to live launches and we just saw them convert up to 6x higher… I am a nerd and needed to know WHY… so I spent two days diving into scientific and psychological studies about why this was so… 
I want to share those ten factors with you right now…
SHARE the teachings (in this case, the 10 psychological triggers)
ACTION ITEM: Now, I want you to choose the one psychological factor that really made an impression on you and share with me why you know that would really help you if you were to do a live challenge. 
“And tomorrow, I will show you how to ethically simplify those psychological triggers so your dream prospects not only become your dream clients, but I will show you how to make them feel amazing about their decision!”

NAMING YOUR CHALLENGE

The most important thing about naming your challenge is that it speaks directly to the thing that your dream client wants.

You want to keep the name short and action oriented.

It will convey the “promise” you are giving them during your challenge.

Here are some questions to get your brain noodling:

    1. What is the thing you are promising your audience? What problem are you solving?
    2. What is your audience going to get?

Example: I will show you how to build a high converting challenge. I will remove all the guesswork to what to say, when to say it, and how to connect with your dream clients.

3. What is the action word associated with your promise?

Sample words are: Attract, Find, Lose, Discover

Example: Launch!

  1. What is the timeline for your challenge?

How long is it going to take?

Example: 5 days

  1. Who is this for? Call out your dream prospects..

How do they self identify themselves? 

For example, Homeschool Moms, Health Coaches, Painters, course creators, etc. 

Now, brainstorm your title and tag:

Example: Launch Your Perfect 5 Day Challenge.  

If you’ve read this far and are saying to yourself, “Okay, okay, you have convinced me… where can I learn more about your 5 Day Challenge ways, Jedi?

I have a free video training to get you started, but you have to apply to watch it.

I do this for the same reason you would do it in your business… to make sure the person is a good fit for the program.

To be completely transparent, I am only interested in working with people who are committed to making the world a better place by serving authentically.

If this is you, you can go to the following page ➡️ Launch Perfect Video Training Application

THE 3 LEVELS OF CHALLENGES

There are three levels of challenges.

1. The Conversion Challenge

The most basic and first level is what we call a “conversion challenge.” You can think of a conversion challenge as a “regular challenge” to make things easy.

It is called that because the overall goal is to get people in your challenge to convert into your main offer.

People with very high priced offers sometimes choose to do a “wrap-up info session” for all the people that feel they are behind or missed parts of the challenge.

This “info session” is more casual than a traditional webinar and is really just one more “touchpoint” for the host to have with their ideal clients.

This is another opportunity for the host to answer questions and invite people into her offer again.

This is the type of challenge I recommend 95% of the time. 

TIP: You can do a conversion challenge with or without an “info session” at the end of it.

2. Automated Challenges

Once you have your conversion challenge really humming along, some people choose to pre-record their content and deliver it into the group that way.

Although this way can be profitable, we have seen a drastic decrease in conversions.

That is for a few reasons; one of which is that it’s just not as exciting for the participants not having the live connection. 

There is nothing that beats a live experience.

And when you don’t do the content live, you are going to miss the mark with a lot of the psychological triggers needed to really convert at a high level.

3. Evergreen Challenges

This is truly “next level.” 

Evergreen means that your challenges run like clockwork.

We had a client that was doing two per month because his systems were so dialed in using Launch Perfect™.

His challenge was a hybrid of pre-recorded content and going live.

People would consume his pre-recorded content during the day and he would come on in the evenings and end the challenge with an info session.

We helped this client get to $2 million in revenue solely from challenges.

You can see Mark’s case study here.

WHAT A 5 DAY CHALLENGE FUNNEL LOOKS LIKE

A marketing funnel is the customer journey that leads to your offer.

5 day challenge of marketing funnel

People see you post on social media or get an email and then they go to your challenge registration page.

From there, they opt in and get sent to your “thank you” page.

From the Thank You page, they are sent to your Facebook Group where they engage in your challenge.


In Launch Perfect™ provide our clients with a funnel so all they have to do is change the copy (words) to fit their offer (we even have templates for that!), but if you already have your own funnel platform, you can simply use our templates and paste them into yours.

5 day challenge of social media
5 day challenge launch

5 DAY CHALLENGE FUNNELS vs OTHER FUNNEL TYPES

One of the reasons I love challenges is because it’s BOTH a lead funnel and a sales funnel.

You are collecting tons of leads so even if people who go into your challenge aren’t ready to buy at the end of your challenge, they are now in your ecosystem.

You can nurture these leads over time and invite them into your next challenge or sell them something else that might be a better fit.

 

The Difference between a 5 Day Challenge Funnel and a Lead Magnet Funnel

A challenge funnel is created to drive people into your Facebook Group and eventually sell them into your offer at the end of five days.

A lead magnet funnel is designed solely to get leads from offering a “freebie” that are nurtured over time with emails and eventually sold into one of your offers. It is not connected to a 5 Day Challenge and it isn’t usually something that has a set time on it.

A “freebie” is usually in the form of an e-book, swipe file, a template, or maybe a video training.

One type of sales funnel is called a Self-Liquidating Offer (SLO) funnel.

With this type of funnel, you are going straight for the sale.

These types of funnels are tricky because the prices are generally really low ticket items (usually $27 to $47) so if you are spending money to promote it, the profit margins are a lot smaller than a challenge. 

The 5 Day Challenge is a great way to get leads and sell them into programs that cost way more than $27, so your profit margins are exponentially higher. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the different types of funnels available in the digital marketing world, but just to give you an idea of how the 5 Day Challenge can be a better option to some of the popular funnel strategies out there.

HOW IS LAUNCH PERFECT'S™ 5 DAY CHALLENGE DIFFERENT THAN A RUSSELL BRUNSON CHALLENGE?

The crudest way to explain the difference is that Russell is famous and has a huge following and most likely, you don’t have a million people on your email list that want to hear every word you’re going to say next…

If you don’t know how Russell Brunson is, he is an incredibly well known marketer.

He has a large crowd of die hard fans while some other people think he is too into “bro marketing” – a term people use to describe lavish, outrageous, and often unethical marketing tactics.

I do not know Russell personally, but I have consumed his books and very much enjoyed the content of them.

The world is so full of judgment these days that it tends to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to industry leaders and their methodologies. Personally, I try to take what is helpful to me and leave the rest behind.

Russell is well known for his “One Funnel Away 30 Day Challenge” which is primarily what he uses to sell his funnel platform called ClickFunnels.

Personally, I couldn’t move off of ClickFunnels fast enough. I found it to be clunky and to break down a lot which caused a lot of frustration around my ability to easily launch and sell. I now use a service for my 5 Day Challenges, emails, etc called Go High Level.

One of my favorite features is my ability to build a “snapshot” of my funnel, emails, SMS sequences, and share them with my students which removes a lot of the time, effort and frustrations of having to build a funnel strategy from scratch.

Russell also holds a 5 Day Lead Challenge where he shows people how to get leads.

The thing is, Russell doesn’t really have to convince people to buy from him. Most of the time, they already want what he has to offer. His leads generally come to him incredibly warm or almost hot just because of his large reputation in the industry.


Very few of us have that size of platform to launch a challenge from where the leads are coming to us already warmed up to what you are offering. 

A 5 Day Challenge is the best way for people who have never heard of you to turn into raving fans of yours using ten ethical psychological triggers that make people naturally want what you have to offer. 

Launch Perfect™ teaches you how to execute a highly profitable 5 Day Challenge even if no one has ever heard of you.

FREE VS PAID CHALLENGES

Another question I get asked all the time is whether people should charge for their challenge.

In my experience of doing over 50 launches, my answer is almost always “free is better.”

We have tested this time and time again and the difference in sales is negligible.

The reason I say free is better is because you’re going to get a lot more leads and those leads will more than likely purchase from you in the future if they don’t purchase now.

I would rather have a big list to sell to once my challenge is over, rather than a smaller one.

The only time I have seen paid challenges work is when the niche is very specific, or there is very little competition in your niche, or the client is very well known with a large-ish audience that knows them.

EMAILS NEEDED FOR A 5 DAY CHALLENGE

Getting your emails right is a big part of a successful 5 Day Challenge.

Emails are a free way to do a lot of heavy lifting.

Here is one the two Email Roadmaps we provide inside Launch Perfect.

As you can see, there are a lot of emails, but when you work from proven templates that also tell you exactly when to send them out for maximum impact, it is really quite simple.

Launch Perfect also provides you with emails and surveys to send at the end of your 5 Day Challenge to find out the exact reasons people joined your program or why they didn’t so you can improve your next challenge.

We provide all the tools you need to compound the winnings in your business over time.

GRAPHICS NEEDED FOR A 5 DAY CHALLENGE

80% of the world processes information visually.

Needless to say, having attractive, high converting graphics to strategically post throughout your challenge is essential.

There are ways to maximize the audience’s perception of your expertise and your brand.

Ways to ethically position yourself as the “go to” expert for their problems.

And you also want to make sure vital information like the days, times, and subject matter of your daily content is clear, concise, and inspiring.

It’s not just the look of your graphics that will show people how much of a bad-ass you are, but what they say that separates a limp, boring challenge from a Launch Perfect™ 5 Day Challenge.

 

Here is a non-exhaustive list of graphics we highly recommend having for your 5 Day Challenge:

  • Welcome Graphics
  • Announcement Graphics for every time you go live
  • Open and Close Cart Graphics
  • Engagement Graphics
  • Organic Promotion Graphics
  • Paid Ad Graphics
  • Where to Find Me Graphics
  • Facebook Live Announcement Graphics

 

We have every graphic and the words to say in every post you need to make already created by professional graphic designers in Canva ready and waiting for you to insert yourself and your business into.

You never have to guess what to say, what to make it look like, or when to post it. 

Launch Perfect™ also includes a detailed task calendar for the ClickUp project management app (free to use) as well as a GoogleDoc if ClickUp isn’t your thing.

launch perfect

WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO ENGAGE PEOPLE DURING A 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

Engaging with people in your 5 Day Challenge is not rocket science, but you do want to go about it with intentionality.

None of your participants want to be “spammed with hype-y comments.”

They want you (or members of your team if you have them) to be welcoming, cordial, helpful, and accommodating.

There are some Community Best Practices that can really make a huge difference in how your challenge is perceived.

Some of the more ones off the top of my head are:

  • Make sure you tag them when you welcome them into your community
  • Answer their questions when they post them
  • Reply to all of their comments

 

People want to feels seen and heard. Leaving comments hanging there makes them feel like all you care about is going live and making the sale. You are also still being observed by people who look like they aren’t actively participating! 

Our Community Concierge SOP and Guidebook walks our Launch Perfect™ students through step-by-step of the exact ways to maximize engagement and thoughtfulness in your 5 Day Challenge.

Remember, we want your audience to feel like they are attending a carefully crafted high end retreat where their needs are your top priority.

WHEN TO PITCH DURING YOUR 5 DAY CHALLENGE?

I am thoroughly against the traditional methods of “pitching” your product or service.

No one enjoys a “hard sell.”

When you lay out your challenge content in a clean, clear, concise and logical manner, working with you becomes the next natural and logical step…

…all you have to do is invite people to work with you and lay out what that looks like.

There are all kinds of theories on when is the best time to do this, but what we have seen work consistently is to lay out 3 amazing days of content and to “pitch” on Day 4 and Day 5.

That said, I have some people that are super comfortable with their audiences and start “inviting” earlier than that.

There is a fine line between giving enough value and free content in your challenge and then letting people know the cost of working with you after the challenge.

Whatever you decide, and that is something we can help you with our Launch Perfect™ system, make sure you have given a ton of value before you do any “inviting.”

WHAT TO DO BETWEEN THE TIME YOU PITCH AND CLOSE THE DOORS TO YOUR OFFER

After doing over fifty live 5 Day Challenges, I have seen a lot of ways people can fill the time between when they “invite” people to work with them and the time they close the doors on their offer 4-5 days later.

Those ideas include:

  • Q&A Session – where you go live and simply answer all the question people have about you, your offer, working with you, etc
  • Live Testimonials – where you go live with someone who has worked with you in the past and achieved results.
    • I have had clients do this with multiple people on the same live session
  • Hot Seats – where you go live with people in your challenge to help coach them through a problem so others can see how you work
  • Congratulations Interview – where you bring on a few people that have just purchased your system to tell you why they purchased and what they are looking forward to accomplishing with the system/program
  • InfoSession – where you walk people through the back end of your system or program – this can also include a Q&A while you walk them through the system
  • Working Session – where you hold an accountability session with your participants to get them to complete all the challenge action items
  • Mini-Webinar – where you are basically going over all the content from your challenge in one feel swoop, similar to a live webinar.

The main thing you are accomplishing with all of the above tactics is to keep people who have not yet pulled the trigger engaged.

The fact is, there are quick purchasers and slow purchasers. 

Some people are a little slower in discerning than those who impulse buy even if they are interested…

It’s like the person who goes into the car showroom, points and says, “I’ll take it!”

And then there are people like me (and you if you’ve read this far) that want to know absolutely everything before they make a purchase. They want full details and most of all, they want to have full confidence that the money they are investing is the best purchase for where they are at and where they want to go.

Your job is to give them all the details and reassurance in a variety of ways to make it easier for them to make a decision.

We all process information differently and you have to respect that and not only cater to the impulse buyers.


HOW TO GET PEOPLE INTO YOUR 5 DAY CHALLENGE

HOW TO GET PEOPLE INTO YOUR 5 DAY CHALLENGE

There are four main ways to get people into your 5 Day Challenge.

  • Organically – where you make posts, send emails and messages inviting people into your challenge.

It should come as no surprise at this point that our Launch Perfect™ system also contains high converting organic post templates and graphics to entice people into your 5 Day Challenge so you can easily maximize your organic reach. 

  • Partnerships – where you align with other leaders who may have an email list of people that would be interested in your 5 Day Challenge or maybe they’re an influencer in a niche similar to yours but serve a different topic…

For example, one of my clients helps people get really good at doing live video. Whether it is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube, she helps people show up with confidence. Her list of people is a perfect fit for me as we both serve the same type of person. 

  • Paid Traffic – where you spend money on advertising to promote your challenges.

My very own agency does a lot of Facebook Ads for people running 5 Day Challenges and it’s the best method for those who have limited connections for organic and partnership reach. . 

If you know what you are doing, you can put out the perfect message to the perfect audience and flood your challenge with willing participants who are eager to hear what you have to say.

Please know, you do not need to spend a lot of money on ads or any money for that matter depending on where you are in your business.

3 SECRETS FOR EXECUTING A HIGH CONVERTING LIVE 5 DAY CHALLENGE

I asked myself “what are three things you would tell people to have an ultra high converting and lucrative challenge and here are my answers:

 

Tip 1: Make sure you have a proven 5 Day Challenge system in place.

There are a lot of moving pieces to any kind of launch and 5 Day Challenges are no exception.

You want to have all of your assets ready well ahead of time to eliminate as much overwhelm as possible.

My previous business manager was meticulous about tracking my team’s hours and what they were working on.

We decided to track every single task and the time it took to complete when building a highly profitable challenge.

Guess what? 

It took us exactly 371 hours and we knew what we were doing! 

Imagine if you were building your 5 Day Challenge from scratch and did not know what you were doing…

That’s one of the reasons why I created the Launch Perfect™ system, absolutely everything you need to pull off an ultra successful 5 Day Challenge comes with it.

97% of the work of building your 5 Day Challenge is done for you..

I want to put those 371 hours back in your pocket and allow you to easily do it yourself or  to hand our system off to your team and let them handle the details so you don’t have to worry about micro-managing them.

5-Day-Challenge Launch Strategy Success

“If you’re wanting to do a KILLER 5 Day challenge, you need Launch Perfect. Period.

I wish I would’ve found Launch Perfect sooner because it would have saved me SO much time, headache, stress, overwhelm, late night worrying around creating and launching my first challenge. 
Don’t make my mistake – get Launch Perfect so all you have to do is show up and teach (aka what you’re good at). 
Stirling has thought of EVERYTHING – copy templates, graphic templates, strategy, workflow, everything you need to run an amazing 5 Day challenge launch – he’s got it prepared and ready for you to get going ASAP. 
You honestly can’t find someone better to guide you through a challenge launch.”

Tip 2: You must know exactly what to teach in your challenge.

This is the #1 thing I see people get wrong and they have disastrous results.

I can’t tell you the number of experts that have tried a challenge and failed, coming to me scratching their heads trying to figure out why…

Here is what I learned: just because you know a lot about your subject does not mean you know how to structure it for a 5 Day Challenge.

You want your content to be meticulously laid out like breadcrumbs leading your audience into the natural transition of working with you.

Give them too much information and it will feel like a firehose and your audience leaves feeling overwhelmed and they won’t show up for Day 2-5.

Don’t give them enough value and they think you’re nothing but fluff.

Your content is not something you can “wing.”

Clarity breeds confidence.

Launch Perfect™ gives you an extreme amount of confidence so you serve your audience and they trust you to give them mini transformations along the way…

… leading them right into buying what you have to offer.

Tracy had this to say after mapping out her 5 Day Challenge content with me…

 

Tracy

“What Stirling is brilliant at is providing the tools for digging into what your audience actually wants and how to structure your days so they make sense to your audience and give them wins. I am totally indebted to you as the challenge leader because I was leaving a lot of money on the table.” – TRACY

Tip 3: You must bake 10 psychological triggers into your 5 Day Challenge

Even if you have a proven challenge system and have your content meticulously mapped out, you must have all ten psychological triggers baked into your 5 Day Challenge.

Leave just one out and your challenge can bomb.

I can’t tell you how many people have come to me with an already “successful challenge” and I show them Launch Perfect™ with all ten triggers backed into it without them having to do any additional work and it instantly takes theis challenge to the next level.

Mark had this to say, ““I received my second Two Comma Club Award and it’s all because of you and your team! That’s a million dollars! I’ve been running challenges since 2014… I thought I knew everything about challenges but what you’ve implemented and executed in our challenges is taking it to a whole new level.”

You can read Mark’s Case Study HERE.

Congratulations! 

If you read this far, you deserve a cookie!

If you are ready to launch your own wildly successful 5 Day Challenge, I invite you to do any of the following:

  Go HERE to apply to watch an exclusive video training on all of the ways Launch Perfect™ is changing people’s businesses and lives.

Or book a time below to chat with me personally and get Launch Perfect™ in your hands right away. ⬇

I look forward to helping you take your business to the next level using 5 Day Challenges.
Kindly,
Stirling

P.S. If you are looking for personalized business or marketing coaching, email us at [email protected] and we will add you to a waiting list for our upcoming MasterMind where we will dive deep into your business and give you the clarity you’ve never had before. 

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