1606 – The Field of Favor with The Challenge Champion’s Chris Colt

Speaker 1 (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now. It is the challenge champion. It's Chris Colt. Chris, it's great to have you. You and I have been friends. You actually at our event last fall, Fame and Profit lab, you were one of our featured speakers. Somehow I missed getting you on the podcast. So here we are.

Speaker 1 (00:01:17) - Make good. I'm finally got you. You're a get Chris. It's great to have you. Yeah, it's awesome to be here. Glad we're doing this. It's going to be a lot of fun today. Absolutely. So what is a challenge? Champion? What's a challenge? Champion Well, I could go on the bike end of things here and talk about that from the whole perspective of riding a bicycle. But, you know, a challenge champion really what they're about, they're getting their message out to the world faster through using fun, gamified five day challenges and increasing their sales without feeling salesy. That's what I love about it. Yeah. Break this down for me. What do you mean by like a five day challenge? So, you know, somebody listening here is more than likely a knowledge expert. They have this zone of genius. I like to call it field of favor that they're really good at and they need to get that message out in very simplistic terms to their market. So what we do is we take something that may be kind of complex and break it down into a simple, actionable five day challenge where the participants come in every day, they get a little win or a little breakthrough each day, and as that happens, they start to progress forward.

Speaker 1 (00:02:20) - So by the end of the challenge you're looking at, if it was you, Josh, Josh gave me the confidence. That's the key. The confidence that I can do this Now I want to do it. And Josh is the guy who taught me this. So essentially we bring them through that process and then convert strangers into loyal clients on the other side of things. Okay. So. So. Okay. So understand. So this is so you're just not these aren't necessarily your active clients right now. These are people in your audience. Right. But you're going to lead them through something. Where are they making an investment? So when I me personally, from how many we've done, you know, we've done almost 100 of these between myself and clients, I do my challenges or paid challenges because I want the right audience there and we have a mechanism we use for that. So kind of look at it. You know, if you're on LinkedIn, you get all those fake DMS, all those other things.

Speaker 1 (00:03:12) - We take a process that builds true authentic relationship and we bring those individuals that we built that relationship with into the five day challenge so then they can really get to know, like and trust you and experience what you're. Oh, sure. Oh, absolutely. Oh, I love this already. And in fact, I'll tell you where what we've seen pretty consistently is when we're recording this right now over the past six months, you know, with the consultants that we've worked with, that we work with our clients, we've heard some feedback that sales cycles have increased a little bit. Just the market's a little jittery. I think it's kind of leveling out now, but there are just a lot of disruptions, both kind of, you know, broader economically layoffs, that sort of thing. But so yeah, so doing something to like, let's say you're a knowledge expert or your consultant, you're charging, you know, three, 4 or $5000 a month. That's a pretty big commitment for your client. And so I love the idea of is there a way where we could still provide, you know, a hike? I'm not talking about just selling courses.

Speaker 1 (00:04:15) - Right? Because that's those that's a completely different audience this. But, you know, if you can come up with a high touch way that you can engage together minimal investment on their end but at least it kind of gets the ball rolling. I'm finding that to be a very, very effective strategy right now. And in your case, like when you're talking about a challenge and there is some investment to it, can you talk a little bit more about the dollars and cents of it? You know, everything depends. I'll share my personal challenges that I do. You know, I charge $100 to get in what I call it's my one challenge away challenge, right? Literally show the framework of, hey, first thing, somebody always ask me, Chris, will it challenge work for my business? I show it what they can do in day one. Day two, the next thing they ask me, How do I create one of these bad boys? I show them how to do that. Day three.

Speaker 1 (00:05:06) - Okay, how do I run the whole thing now? I shown that. And day four. Yeah. Quite frankly, I walk them into what I'm going to offer him. So when I do that, I charge $100 for that because I'm giving actual framework. I'm literally coming into my playbook that my clients use that we built, and I'm giving them tools out of that playbook. So when they become clients like this was right out of your playbook, I'm like, Of course it was. You paid to be here. I'm going to give you something of value. So I charge $100 for my challenges. People love it. I get a different audience at that number, which I love also, right? They're committed. They show up every day. They ask you questions, they send you referrals. It's like the best thing. And then I have a VIP uptick. I do for $300 all the time where they get one on one time with me. We do some VIP sessions and I have a typical conversion for every five that come into the challenge.

Speaker 1 (00:05:52) - Three will go into that VIP because there are people who want to be there. Now here's the big. Think Josh going to give the big disclaimer, all these people on social, they talk about you need this big audience, this huge audience need hundreds and events. I can tell you right now we have challenges that go with ten people, 15 people, 20 people, 25, and we're seeing conversions. Now, I'm careful on this, but because it depends where a person is, how it's set up, typically 30%, we've had up of 80% conversions in these challenges because they're very focused with the right audience. Wow, That's really interesting. So let's since I got you and we could do. Yeah. I wonder how this might look for example like so you know what we do right So we're we facilitate high level introductions by, you know, setting up and running a podcast for our client client shows up as the talent and now they get to speed date while they're co-creating content with their dream ideal customers, investors, influencers.

Speaker 1 (00:06:53) - That's essentially what my influence is. Now that said, we also have a lot of really valuable assets on the other side. So guesting and so, you know, because we have so many podcasts in our network, like we have those assets too, like how would I decide? Can I just tell you? So right now, the way that we're doing this in, we have what we call like a man. We are totally just like having a quiet okay to our listener friend who's been listening and just pretend you're eavesdropping at this point. Yeah, this is one of those conversations. This is interesting. All right. So but yeah, so so right now what we'll do is say, listen, what we're going to do is we're going to come up with come up with a concept for the podcast. We're going to pitch it out to our network. You're going to pitch it to your network, and we're going to get which sounds like this would be a perfect you know, this could work really well with this challenge concept.

Speaker 1 (00:07:45) - We charge $500 for this, and there's some other things that we do. We don't have to do those other things. But this alone, I think we already and I'll tell you, like we've already tested this, like I can get somebody at 28 listener guests like instantly, and that could potentially be part of this challenge, particularly if we say, okay, you know, day one is you're going to come up with a form, this is how you do it, blah, blah, blah. But we're going to set it all up. Day two, you're actually going to email your list, you're going to post on social media and you're going to ask for gas and you're going to get those people to RSVP. Like, I think this is perfect, right? And then at the end of it, it's not like so it's it's more about I think the challenge is not necessarily about getting the end goal, but I think it's about validating. Yes, this makes sense for you to do a challenge in your case.

Speaker 1 (00:08:27) - Right. And in our case, I think maybe this could be part of that same thing. Yeah, your model works perfectly for it because you start to walk people through. Like there's three different there's three different tiers of how to build challenges. The one that I use, I call it the champion approach. It's called the it's essentially a marketing pain point approach. So day one opens up. What's the biggest question you get, right? So what's your biggest question? We build a challenge around that and we give a really good, solid action item that they get a mini break through that day, Right? Day two, we just saw that. What's the next thing we solve? Boom, Same thing. Rinse and repeat Day three, same thing. Now, there's a lot of other things within the challenge you have to do behind the scenes, but like, that's the high level of it. So for you, if you're bringing people forward to all of a sudden on day four, they're like, Holy cow, I got a list.

Speaker 1 (00:09:13) - I got like, Why wouldn't they want to know how much further you can take them? Because they're just like, Josh, I just got rid of like 60% of my objections in my head for you. How much easier is that for you? Think about it from your perspective when you have a client. If I was that ideal client coming, which I am right for what you do, coming to all this and all of a sudden I'm like, Holy cow, he just got rid of like half the stuff I have to go spend doing. You're set to work with him? Like, Oh, here's what's next. And then they're in such action mode. They just want to get it done faster. So that's the other thing. When I look at the invitation of product, you know, when we implement things, how fast things are happening because the person's already in flow, they don't want to lose that momentum. So like, let's go, let's keep on moving. Yeah, yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 (00:09:58) - And I like that, you know that you condense it down to five days because if you're like, well, you know, we'll do this over a couple of months, you lose that momentum. Oh, you totally I can I have so many statistics now. I get a fitness challenge, all those things, nutrition, that's a different concept. Still, everything you do. The reason I love five days, it's short. Mini bursts. They're an hour a day. Right. But I'm one of those people who no fluff. So anybody comes into my challenges like you did everything in the first 20 minutes, right? Because I don't want to waste a person's time. Time is valuable. Then I sit there and answer questions. But my preferred model is four days of content, final days, open Q&A. Let's make sure we don't walk away here not knowing what to do. We've dialed that so well. I just love doing them that way. Now your website is the challenge champion.com. Can you tell me a little bit more about like okay so let's say someone joins your challenge.

Speaker 1 (00:10:53) - Obviously they're going to be like, okay Oh okay cool. I get it. Like how do you then work together? Like let's say someone says, Well, Chris, listen, this challenge was great in working with you. Where do you go with where where do you go from there? You know, everybody's different. So I have a few different areas. I work with individuals. Some already have an audience built. So if they have an audience built, I have what I call the audience conversion system. That's what we work in. Audience conversion. That's a very high ticket item. I literally work with that person one on one. I'm in there challenges running them with them, doing the things with their team. So I'm in it day in, day out. Having successful launches on that. I only work with six clients a year on that environment right now because I'm so ingrained with them, but I'm running their challenges with them. That's been a huge success. Then my other tiers are I do an academy twice a year where I release my framework and I take people over through that over 90 days.

Speaker 1 (00:11:45) - And then any time anybody can work with me, which most people this is where most of my clients sit right here. They get the academy content, they can come in time and it's what I call my accelerator. So they go through my academy content and then they work with me one on one to get everything launched. I'm not in their challenges, but they get two months of one on one time with me to make sure they got everything going. And then I give them all the tools I need. They need landing pages, all the tech, all the stuff in the back end. I have all the systems we need for that. It's literally swipe it and off you go. But what comes the big thing people don't understand about challenges. Josh You have so much knowledge on what you do. I have so much knowledge. Somebody listening to this does. You cannot firehose people, right? You have to dummy these down. I know that sounds weird to this most simple little things. And the biggest challenge I see people have when they come to me and say, Here's my idea.

Speaker 1 (00:12:36) - And I'm like, All right, we got to cut that down by like 90%. Let me show you how we do it, and then I'll go do it for them. They're like, How did you do that? And I'm always like, You're ingrained in this every day, which is amazing. I'm not. So I can see something where this let's make this simple for somebody to get enough breakthroughs that they want to work with you. So that's really what we do in all those programs that I just went through. Right. You know, explain, Chris, just a little bit about the psyche. Let's be empathic for a moment about this. Like, I'm going to put a challenge, My audience, for example, like or any consultant or, you know, someone that's dealing in knowledge of wisdom and you know that the consultant coach agency, you know, that sort of thing, you know, being empathic to who their audience is and who their potential customers. Why is a challenge a benevolent way to suggest initial engagement? So here's why.

Speaker 1 (00:13:29) - If you look at everything that's happened in the world the last few years, there's something called and I'll just call it out webinars. People don't get excited to be on a webinar. It's a 30, 90, whatever minute sales pitch. Let's just be really honest. What I love about challenges and this is why they work so well is multiple things happen. You're bringing a micro community together. Have you noticed micro communities are just skyrocketing right now? So you have that right there. You're bringing a community of buyers sitting in place. You've got something scalable because you're bringing these individuals into this that you can do at a wide scale, and then you can teach them what you want to teach them in short bursts, really simply and then moving forward. So when I work with clients and they have an audience out there, you know, we build these challenges with a key value prop. We make sure they're targeting their right audience and when they invite them to it, it's a natural progression to come in there and work in that environment.

Speaker 1 (00:14:24) - And then everything there is just repeatable. When I get clients in flow, you know, I used to do these every single month. Now I do them every three months because of the flow I'm in, but I have clients doing them every eight weeks typically now, and it's a consistent revenue stream and they got the systems down so well, it's easy for them to implement this. Yeah. Now, Chris, would you do this like where anyone could join the challenge at any time or do you set defined start and stop dates? So that's a great question. Two scenarios. I prefer to do mine live. I love having that live audience. I love being, you know, when I can see the group together and if I see somebody wants a little more help, I know I can gauge them and work with them in front of the audience, which people like to see that. Think about that, right? Oh, this is how Chris coaches people, so people don't know. So I prefer my live.

Speaker 1 (00:15:10) - What tends to happen though, if I don't have one going for a few months, I'll have clients ahead. Kind of want to go through your challenge before I work with you. Great. You can get that on replay. Next challenge, you're in there live, so I always have people evergreen it and we just put the disclaimer one more live again. You can go through it live also. So we've had huge success with that. You know, people want to be around that environment, that energy. So I just find when you do these live, they're more impactful. Wow, I like this. This is Chris. This is really cool. All right. So someone's been listening to our conversation. They're like, okay, listen, I'm. Excited. How do I get in with a Chris Colt challenge or like, you know, is there something, you know, a piece of content that they can kind of dig into after this conversation? Yeah, I mean, the challenge champion Easiest place to find me if you're on social media.

Speaker 1 (00:15:57) - LinkedIn is my preferred mechanism for communicating. Go to the challenge champion.com. You'll see the one challenge away challenge there. I do them every three months. The next one's in July. The one after that will be in October. So those are the two for 2023. That's the best way to get some only. And there's also a guide up there how to build a thriving community that I put together. That's a great PDF that outlines how to build a community. Because here's what happens after you build a challenge and you do it well, you're going to build a community which will give you that community of buyers going forward. So I recommend grabbing that guide if that guide's not there, depending on when you're checking this, I'm uploading something else that'll be a video series also around that same. So you might be I don't know where to guide is with over the summer. I'm updating it with a video series. I find people like to get videos over guides. Yeah, I agree. Oh, I totally agree.

Speaker 1 (00:16:48) - Awesome. Chris Colt your website the challenge champion.com. That's you. That's your that's your AKA. But Chris has been fantastic. Thank you for a great conversation. I appreciate this. Josh was awesome. Good to see you again. Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up My Influence slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for the thoughtful entrepreneur and Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi, I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together. We are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning. That's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.

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