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ABOUT PHILL WESSPhill is a funnel nerd, IMfinite Network founder, and a world traveler, dedicated to help you grow your 6-figure business online faster.

His specialty is creation and implementation of digital marketing systems, custom tailored for a business who want to scale and automate their growth online.

This PDF is part of a special free marketing toolkit designed to help you:

• Learn exactly what your audience wants and needs• Grow your audience faster than ever before• Build engaged relationships and sell to your audience with ease• Position yourself as an expert and trusted advisor in a matter of days

Meaning, you are in the right place so keep on reading!

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Welcome and thank you for downloading “The Ultimate Challenge Blueprint”

This blueprint is the exact step-by-step system I use to help my private clients and students create and run successful challenges, meaning it has been proven to work over and over again.

Once you go through this easy-to-follow blueprint, you will know how to structure, plan and launch a successful challenge for your business.

Running a successful challenge isn’t rocket science, even though it appears that way to most business owners who try to run them.

I’m sure you’ve seen at least a few Facebook challenges popping up in your newsfeed, and thought how great it would be to have such a powerful lead generation tool in your business. (And let’s be honest, challenges really ARE powerful when it comes to generating leads, building relationship and trust quickly, by showing your expertise and guidance)

So, what usually happens?

You read a Facebook blog post outlining how to do a challenge and how somebody made five figures by running a simple 7 day challenge which gets you all worked up.

“I wanna do that!”

- you scream in ecstasy, thinking about how a few weeks from now you can be in Hawaii, drinking a Mojito in the sun if you decide to run a challenge in the next couple of days. You make a decision to read every blog post on the topic then you start to prepare for the challenge and next… ...you figure out that it’s not as easy as it sounds, and that it might as well be rocket science as far as you’re concerned. You get disappointed, and go back to browsing your Facebook Newsfeed and posts from your friends, trying to forget that you feel incompetent and useless.

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Or, maybe you’re one of the business owners that have given challenges a fair chance and tried to run them, but at the end didn’t get a gazillion leads like the other super thriving entrepreneurs.

(What are they, from another planet or something?) Well, if you had some of these experiences, then you are in the right place because I am going to show you, step-by-step, what you need to do to finally get it right, have your successful case study, and run a successful challenge. But, if you want to get the best out of this Blueprint, and if you want to make sure you get the results you want, we need to start from the beginning - so be a bit patient and be sure to read this PDF carefully until the end. Now the million dollar question - how are these Successful people around you creating all these successful challenges that give them thousands of leads and sales - and how can YOU do the same?

WHAT IS YOUR CHALLENGE EXPECTATION AND WHY MOST CHALLENGES FAIL

Okay, before we go deeper into the nuts and bolts of the challenge blueprint and strategy itself, there are a couple of things we need to cover first. Yes, it’s the boring part most business owners skip, and most “challenge gurus” fail to mention - which is one of the reasons they run successful challenges, and you don’t. As I said in the beginning, running a challenge isn’t rocket science, but you also can’t skip steps and expect it work. We live in the “shiny-object” era, where you are bombarded by the “instant” successes people have, that you read on Facebook about – but trust me, in reality – every single one of those “Facebook challenge gurus” put a lot of time and effort in making it work. If you expect this Blueprint will give you an overnight formula, and that after reading this you’ll wake up tomorrow and create you 5 – figure challenge, this might be the time to stop reading.

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Seriously, if you want another “challenge blueprint fix”, this PDF is not for you But, if you really want to know the “behind-the-scenes” of how it all works and what needs to be done, then keep reading because this blueprint will show you exactly what you need to do. And yes, all of these steps I am going to show you are what most successful folks do on the (seemingly boring) back-end of their challenges, but since they only talk about the results, it seems like they did it overnight. So, let’s focus on the MOST important thing about your (future) online challenge.

One of the most important things you need to do is - set your goals and expectations BEFORE you even start PREPARING the challenge.

This is the FOUNDATION of running a successful challenge, and I guarantee you that if you skip this step - you either won’t have results, or they will be unsatisfactory. Why? Because you need a value ladder to know if the challenge was indeed, successful or not. And it’s simple, really. If you don’t set your challenge goals and expectations, you will probably fail. (And don’t look at the cool instant case study creators. They’ve done a LOT of challenges and their expectations are much higher then yours will be in the beginning.

But, I assure you that they once had VERY down to earth expectations, because they needed to start from somewhere, just like you). So, what is your challenge goal? What do you expect to get out of it? Leads? Sales calls?

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Webinar registrations? Let me explain.

One of the biggest mistake people make when building their challenges is, doing them JUST to get more sales.

If you are a business owner, of course you want more sales, we all do. But, ask yourself what does it take for you to get more sales in your business right now? Do you need more people on your e-mail list to make that happen? Or is it something else? Getting more sales with a challenge is just the end result if you understand what you need in your business to get there. And to be honest, there’s not just one universal approach to running a challenge. There is no “one-size-fits-all” model, no matter how much you’d like it to be. Yes, steps are very similar, but YOUR specific challenge will be determined by several important factors, like: • What type of product do you provide (online course, consulting, brick and

mortar?)• What’s the current stage of your business (are you looking to scale, build brand

awareness or just learn more about your target market?)• How are you communicating with your audience (are you using blog posts,

videos or have audio podcast, for example?) These are some important things to keep in mind if you want to set your challenge goals and expectations right. Why? Because a business owner who focuses on podcasts, and has an online course will definitely have different goals and expectations while running a challenge, than a business owner with an $997 online course that he uses mostly video to talk to his audience.

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Okay, so this is pretty self-explanatory, right? Now, let’s look a little bit deeper.

Based on the information above, you can start to grasp what your challenge goals might be, by understanding at what stage your business is.

I’ve put it into stages from 1-5 so, it’s easier to follow:

TO UNCOVER YOUR MARKET’S NEEDS (which is what you should do if you are just starting your business in most cases, or entering a new market with your existing one)

BUILD A NEW AUDIENCE (that’s a great goal for those who have started their businesses, and now they want a bigger outreach)

ENGAGE YOUR EXISTING AUDIENCE (if you have a Facebook group or an e-mail list of only 500 subscribers, I would suggest you consider this as your goal)

SELL YOUR PRODUCT (which is, obviously, a good choice for those that already have a fairly big and engaged audience)

ESTABLISH YOUR BRAND (to be honest, we all need to establish our brand. However, I would recommend this goal for those that already have a well defined brand with lead generation and sales systems in place)

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While working on many challenges with my students and clients, I’ve seen 95% of them wanting to jump straight to the stage 4 - and just wanting to use the challenge to sell their products. Since most of them didn’t carefully take into consideration everything I mentioned above, they made challenges focused on sales to small, unengaged lists, or without being sure who their target market is or what they really want. And, of course - their challenges flopped. (It’s almost like selling a Manolo Blahnik pair of high heels to a newborn - completely missed. A woman might need high-heels 25 years from now, but today that baby only needs to take a good nap.) That’s why I suggest that if you don’t know these answers, you choose one of the stages from 1-3 as you challenge goal. You need to be able to answer these questions if you also want to have a stage 4 challenge, otherwise your challenge will flop. In case you’re struggling to answer any of these questions, just go back and examine stages 1 through 3, then set your goals accordingly. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I even have an audience that I could sell to?• What are my audience’s wants and needs?• How does my audience react to my message?• How engaged is my audience?

Even though this might seem discouraging, because you had a plan to sell your online course as your one and only goal.

The great thing about it is that no matter which level you choose, if your challenge is done the right way making sales won’t be a problem at the end. For example: In case your goal is to BUILD AN AUDIENCE, you’ll still be able to make sales because the goal of any campaign should be to generate return on investment, even if it’s a long term one.

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Okay, let’s just quickly go over the goals that you might set for your challenge, depending of course upon the current stage of your business:

SET YOUR CHALLENGE GOALS

You are at a level where you need to uncover your audience’s wants and needs, and you don’t have a tested product or service in place yet.

You have at least a basic offer in place but have a very small or no audience at all, so you are looking for a way to build an engaged audience fast.

You have a following (email list and/or FB group), and want to get a response from them so they better understand the value you can provide them.

You have a responsive audience, and just need an effective tactic to sell your product or service

You have all systems and processes in place and would like to reach a bigger audience, and further establish your brand in a fun and engaging way.

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1

3

4

5

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SET YOUR CHALLENGE GOALS

Now that you know at what stage your business is, the first thing you are going to do is to set up your challenge Primary and Secondary goals.

Your Challenge Primary goal is your main, key goal, focused on the end results you want to achieve by running your challenge.

Here’s an example for you: You have a Facebook group that’s pretty quiet, and there’s not much going around. You would love to have hundreds of engaging members, sharing, liking, connecting, plus becoming your clients.

However, every time you ask a question, you get only a few answers (or none). Here and there, someone posts in your group, but it’s mostly crickets you hear.

If you want to bring back the life into your group so you can grow your business faster and have more clients, then your Challenge’s Primary Goal will be in STAGE 3 - Engage your existing audience.

Once you have your Primary goal covered, then you will set up one or two Challenge Secondary goals. Your Secondary goals should be complementary with your Primary goal. All actions that you do during your challenge should be aligned, bearing in mind all that you want to achieve.

So, if we go back to the example above, your Primary goal will be to engage your existing audience, with your Secondary goal being in STAGE 4 - to sell your specific product/service.

By achieving your Primary goal (to engage your audience), you will have your members’ attention, then you will make those sales with ease. The connection will be there, so use it wisely!

While you’re out there, you can set up another Secondary goal - uncover your market’s needs. They’ve been pretty quiet, right? Throughout the Challenge, you can ask them about their biggest struggles, find out what they need the most, what their challenges are.

What will that give you?

An endless sea of possibilities! You can refine your offer based on what they shared with you.

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You can create a new product specifically for your group members that they’re dying to buy.

You can, once again, show your expertise by giving them advice on that specific content.

And where will that take you?

• To make those sales. • To have amazing clients. • To reap the rewards of your successful challenge.

Here’s the overall example of what setting Challenge Goals look like:

My Challenge Primary goal is: Engage with my existing audience.

My 1st Secondary goal is: Sell my specific product/service.

My 2nd Secondary goal is: Uncover my market’s needs.

WRITE YOUR CHALLENGE GOALS

My Challenge Primary goal is:

My 1st Secondary goal is:

My 2nd Secondary goal is:

Okay, now that you know what the goal is for your challenge, it’s time to talk STRATEGY, because I know this is what you’re dying to hear.

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THE THREE PHASES OF A SUCCESSFUL CHALLENGE (or how to be like the success case study entrepreneurs )

Unlike what most people think, even a short 7-day challenges require preparation. And I am not talking about “let’s do everything at once and do it now” preparation, but making a clear and focused plan. A successful challenge has three stages, and you can’t skip steps if you want sales coming from your challenge. Trust me, I’ve tried all the tricks in the book. I have found that “THE BEST” results come from following these three phases, in this order:

This is actually a pre-challenge period where you’ll design, create and prepare all the materials and technical stuff, that you will need to build your challenge.

This is the phase where you’ll start promoting and running your challenge with your Primary and Secondary goals in mind.

This is a post-challenge phase, with the focus on the main call to action behind the challenge (offer your product, introduce a service, or increase brand awareness).

THEBUILDPHASE

THEENGAGEPHASE

THETHRIVEPHASE

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As I said before, creating a successful challenge takes a little bit of preparation, and it all happens in The Build Phase. You know when you watch an amazing TEDtalk, and you think “Woah, this really gave me something to think about! Amazing!”

What we don’t see, is the work that was done behind the scenes, days and days of speaker’s preparation. You don’t think they just walk on that stage and share their knowledge by improvising and saying whatever they felt like saying, right? Hundreds and hundreds of hours of preparation went into that talk. Just so they can provoke the change in others.

As with all great services, if you want to impact others, you need to do a damn good preparation yourself.

In The Challenge Phase, that’s exactly what you do. For this phase I suggest you leave at least 5-10 days, depending on how well you know your target market and how much content you already have. After you’ve determined your Challenge goal and set your expectations, it’s time to get to work – write your content and prepare everything else. I suggest you start with determining your Challenge title. It needs to be focused on your target market, plus be compelling (it’s still a challenge, right?) A simple approach is the best one - the challenge name should be that one big promise, a solution your course/service (the one you’ll sell in the end) will provide. People need to understand the exact challenge benefits and potential outcome for them, especially a new audience or visitors that aren’t aware of you or your brand.

BONUS RESOURCES (on crafting great hooks and headlines):How to craft a perfect headline by Karri Stover How to write magnetic headlines by Copyblogger 30+ Ultimate Headline Formulas by Buffer

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After that, create your daily challenge materials. You need to have one material (assignment, video or a cheat-sheet) for every day of your challenge, to keep people engaged and move forward. This doesn’t have to be as long, big or explanatory as your launch materials. You need to have something to keep people moving forward in your challenge from day to day – because the end goal is for them to finish it. Use your service/program/course content you’d like to promote, and strip it down to 7 (number is based on the length of your challenge) important topics. Think of these topics as small sub-goals people can achieve to contribute to your big challenge promise. Transform these topics into 7 worksheets (fillable PDF’s). The goal of a challenge is to give a daily assignment that can later be discussed in a group, so every day is focused on one big topic.

It is recommended to record a short instructional audio/video for easier understanding and implementation of each daily task.

I’ve seen people using Facebook Live lately to deliver content for their challenge. That’s also an option to increase group engagement, however, make sure to provide additional worksheets also.

A lot of people still print and fill out materials, so this will be perceived as added value for them. In this phase you also need to make a decision about how you are going to deliver your content (are you going to use audio, video, blog posts or something else)?

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I suggest you stick to the communication channel you usually use to talk to your target market, where you have the least amount of work, and where you feel most comfortable.

In most cases we create separate web pages, and combine written instructions with daily videos for better engagement. Then, to make things easier for yourself, prepare your challenge calendar. It’s just as easy as setting the dates in your Google calendar.

Here is the example of the calendar I’ve used with my clients in the past.

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Challenge Funnel

The ONE thing you SURELY need for your challenge is to create a challenge funnel. The best part is - you only need two pages to do it, and to make it work. You have an option here – you can create the SIMPLEST challenge funnel with only a landing page and a thank you page.

Your landing page can be as simple as: headline / benefits / name + email. This will be the main link you’ll give anyone who’s interested in participating in the challenge, but a WARNING - never give out a direct link to join your Facebook group, you need their email first!

As far as the thank you page goes, people that organize FB challenges create basic thank you pages with a link invitation to their FB group – and that’s okay. However, I’ve added that small survey on the Thank you page, and I suggest you do the same.

This is not a mandatory step, but I strongly recommend you do it. Basically, you take any survey software (bucket.io / SurveyGizmo / eForm / Typeform ) and create one simple question that’s important for your business to know about your target market – and simply put it on your thank you page. Instead of giving them the direct link to join your private Facebook group, you ask them to answer one very simple question.

I use a well known ASK Method (developed by one of my mentors, Ryan Levesque) structure that works very well.

Here’s an example of the question I use, and you can phrase it in the exact same way:

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“What’s your biggest challenge/obstacle/frustration when it comes to (fill in the blank with the desired results in your market/business) ?”

I regularly have more than 75% of people who signed up for a challenge answer that survey before joining the FB group, and the same goes for my clients as well.

Remember, this is an option for you – you don’t HAVE TO do it, however, it WILL give you TONS of valuable information about your target market, and it will be well worth it.

Feedback from the survey responses is invaluable, and helps fine tune your challenge content, group

posts, and even your product/service sales message to resonate better with your challenge audience.

This is the example of a landing page, and a thank you page:

Challenge #1 - Landing Page

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Challenge #1 - Thank you page

Challenge #2 - Landing Page

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Challenge #3 - Landing Page

Challenge #4 - Landing Page

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That’s it. If you are using funnels in your business that are more advanced then you can create multiple pages, however, what you REALLY need is just the opt-in and a thank you page.

EXTRA ADVICE: Prepare ALL your engagement posts

and e-mails in advance.

You’ll communicate with your audience A LOT during the challenge days, and you can do that on the spot. However, I definitely suggest you create your engagement posts and your daily content delivery e-mails before you actually start the promotion. These e-mails can be just 3 sentences reminding them that they need to do the assignment for that day. Your email structure can be as simple as this:

Subject: Title of the challenge [Day 01]

• Welcome message• Step 01: Click here to access your DAY 01 content• Step 02: Download your daily worksheet• Step 03: Post xx in the group once you are done (give them a small

completion assignment so they contribute after completing the daily task)

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Live Example:

Dear, Phill.

You made it to Day 5 of the (name of your challenge) Challenge! Congratulations!

Please, access your Day 5 here:

>> Access Day 5: (name of the daily topic) <<

No worksheets for you today ;-) Watch the 13 minutes video with tips on (benefit)

P.S. If you still haven’t, join (name of your FB group) - our Facebook group and check in with the other ladies.

We’re waiting you there!

Love,(your name)

Previous days of the challenge (include links): > Day 1: (name of the daily task) > Day 2: (name of the daily task) > Day 3: (name of the daily task) > Day 4: (name of the daily task)

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And last, but not least – you need to open up a Facebook group.

Now, your Facebook group name doesn’t have to be the same as the challenge name. Think in the long term - you’ll probably have more different programs to promote, so the FB group name should cover your broader business goals.

The Facebook Group description needs to consist of clear steps you want new members to take. In most cases you’ll want them to write an intro post about themselves and complete a specific task (download materials, sign up for the challenge if they haven’t, invite a friend...) In case you already have an established group, you can use it too. However, make sure to sync your regular group content schedule with your daily challenge posts. Now, the question you are probably asking yourself

“Phill, what’s the big picture here ???”

Be patient, because here it is.

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This is where you are going to use all of those small pieces that you’ve prepared before the launch – and now you see why you needed to start with these.

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How does the Challenge work

Now that you have all these pieces of the puzzle in place, how does the challenge actually work? As you see in the “Facebook Challenge Funnel” pic, these are the steps you need to do to make your challenge work. The first thing you need to do is to get people to sign up for your challenge, and join your Facebook group. These people can come from your existing email list, or you can drive FB ads to your landing page. If you are asking people from your existing mailing list to join the challenge, all you need to do is to send them an email with the link to your challenge landing page. If you want to pay for FB ads, you do the same thing – drive them to your landing page where they can sign up for the challenge. Make sure you block off 10-14 days before the challenge to just get people to your landing page and sign them up for the challenge.

Don’t forget, FACEBOOK GROUP ENGAGEMENT is the most important factor of a successful challenge.

So make sure to communicate and engage with your group members consistently during the promotion period. After that – your challenge will start on a certain date. Once the challenge actually starts your job is to send your subscribers daily emails with their assignment, a task they need to do. It’s recommended that you write daily Facebook Posts – with clear guidance of what they need to do for that day.

Engaging them this way, will eventually get them to finish the challenge and get the result they wanted to get from your challenge in the first place. And that’s it.

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That’s your job for seven days during your challenge – to guide your leads, help them to enable to finish the challenge and get the result they are expecting. Okay. Now you are asking yourself, what the hell do I do once the challenge is over?

Now that your challengers have completed their goals, it’s time for YOU to thrive!

This phase depends on the Challenge goal you set in the pre-launch phase. After the 7-day challenge and the Engagement phase - you should have new leads in your email list (and members in your FB group) that are engaged who now like and trust you. This is the time to offer them “your stuff” – whether it is a webinar registration call, a Facebook live training, or a simple link to your product or sales page. (Don’t make the mistake of offering anything during the challenge itself, because you’ll lose credibility and trust.) If you did a good job with the challenge and they got expected results, your

offer will sound very natural and is a logical step for them to take. Just a quick note though. As you’ve probably figured out by now, the topic of your challenge should be connected to your business and whatever it is that you are selling. Be sure your challenge is an “introduction” to whatever your service or product is. In your post promotion, you will offer them to take their current success to a higher level, to get even more results by accepting your offer.

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If you have no idea what to put in your post promotion campaign, here is a little suggestion.

Write 4-7 day post-challenge campaign emails offering your product at a special price. Below is an example of live email campaign we did for one of my clients who had WEBINAR as final training after challenge has ended.

POST CHALLENGE PROMO SEQUENCE

EMAIL 01: Day 1 (am): “Webinar Topic” Training

(including replay link)

EMAIL 02: Day 2 (am): FAQs: Webinar Topic

(most common questions about your product/topic)

EMAIL 03: Day 3 (am): CASE STUDY: “Webinar Topic “

(example of how you or your students had success)

EMAIL 04: Day 4 (am): Why “Webinar Topic” is different than similar programs

(what makes you unique or better than competition)

EMAIL 05: Day 5 (am): Is “Webinar Topic” for you ?

EMAIL 06: Day 5 (pm): “Webinar Topic” (Closing soon...)

EMAIL 07: Day 6 (am): CLOSING: Webinar Topic (12 hours...)

EMAIL 08: Day 6 (pm): FINAL CHANCE: Webinar Topic (3 hours...)

EMAIL 09: Day 6 (pm): Game Over (1 hour...)

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WHAT TO DO NEXT AND HOW YOU CAN LEARN MORE?

After reading this outline of the Challenge Blueprint, I hope you have a deeper understanding of how challenges work, and that when you decide to do your own you will need a clear outline of what exactly you are going to do and how. If you are ready to start your own challenge after reading this – congrats! You’ll probably need a little more help, and I guess you will have a few more questions once you start. What I suggest you do right now, is join my Facebook Group here:

Simplify ~ Predict ~ Profit

I’ll be there on a daily basis, and will try to personally answer any questions you might have about challenges or other related digital marketing strategies so that you too can finally thrive in your business, rocking those Facebook challenges and collecting the rewards of your great, great work.