How to Leverage Online Challenges to Get High Paying Clients Fast with Nick Unsworth: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Science of Scaling. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how to leverage online challenges to get high paying clients fast. To drop these value bombs, I brought Nick Unsworth into EO Fire Studios. Nick is a business coach, international speaker and bestselling author. As CEO of lifeonfire.com, Nick's mission is to help you launch your expertise and profit from your passion.

0:36And today, Foundation, we'll talk about instead of having to sell, just inspire. Don't make people feel like you're pushing an offer. Just present it and create urgency and excitement and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nick and our sponsors. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work. A recent episode on whether vulnerability is a superpower and business is a must listen.

1:09Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Nick, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Fire Nation, it's so great to be here with you. And boom. And so what I want to say is be bold in your faith. And so I have made that decision just very recently to be bold in my faith and to not hide it, to do what's comfortable. And so a lot of people said like, oh, you can't really share your faith. You're going to offend the customers. And you know what? By being bold, by sharing who I am and sharing my faith, it has had the opposite effect.

1:57It has been an X factor, multiple on the business, and I get to just be authentically who I am. and so it's a win-win all around. Nick, I love this and Fire Nation, I've known Nick as a dear, dear friend since 2014. We were neighbors in San Diego for a number of those years even though now I'm in Puerto Rico and he's now in Texas, we still remain friends, we text, we communicate, we chat and this guy is the true deal through and through and this conversation is gonna be fantastic today. It's about how to leverage online challenges to get high paying clients, not slow. but fast. And I want to break down first, Nick, what exactly a challenge is and why it's the fastest path to wait for it.

2:43Freedom! Yes! So a challenge, very simply put, is, or an online challenge, I should say, is it's a series, it's a string of webinars online, you know, and we like to do seven sessions and we like to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday. But it is a theme. It's a, it's a string of webinars online done on zoom and you create an experience. And so that's the biggest thing is, um, I'll never forget Eben Pagan 10 years ago saying, uh, when I invested to be in a mastermind, he said, move the free line, move the free line in your niche, in your industry, and basically do what other people aren't willing to do.

3:26And so, you know, um, I started these challenges about five years ago. And so I think people have been doing challenges for different niches for a long time. So it's not like completely revolutionary. However, five years ago, doing them online became the entire backbone of our company, Life on Fire. And so we've been doing them every single month for a long time. And so we've learned a ton. I'm going to break all that down. But at the end of the day, an online challenge is about over-delivering. and we call it the give first model. And so our challenge experiences, it feels literally people tell us, I would have paid$2 ,000 for that experience.

4:07So we coach them. So it's not just videos or, hey, come on and take some action. We literally use our gifting. We do what we're best at, which is coaching and we get them a result. We get them an experience and we get them into action so that by the end of it, people, their minds are blown and they say, who does this? some other people out there you know there's a lot of people you know pushing challenges doing different things but they're upselling as soon as you opt in they're they're asking for money like right off the bat and and the way we look at it is when you come in with a pure heart pure intention and you're honest and upfront and just say hey we are going to bless you on this challenge we are going to over deliver and it's literally a two thousand dollar value not fake marketing value but it's going to move your business it's going to get you off the ground get you launched and then by the end of it, people, there's such a rapport, it leads to the next step and the next step.

4:56So it's all about having a specific outcome and then really, really giving first and just doing what your competitors aren't willing to do. And I just wanna rehash exactly what Nick just shared there. Do what other people aren't willing to do, Fire Nation. I always talk about how if you can build the barrier so high, your competition will be so low. Like the higher your barrier, the lower your competition. It allows you to build a moat around your business that cannot be replicated. My daily podcast, when I launched it back in 2012, could not be replicated. The barrier was so high. I did what other people weren't willing to do, work that hard to do a daily podcast.

5:34And then I started doing a weekly live webinar in 2013 for three years in a row to sell Podcasters Paradise. I was willing to do what other people weren't willing to do. And for five years now, Nick has been doing what other people aren't willing to do with these challenges in the Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday challenge webinar strategy. And hey, you have to be willing to do what other people aren't willing to do, Fire Nation. And Nick is such a testament to that. And you are, Nick, a tactical beast, which is why I wanted to bring you on here today and give Fire Nation a complete tactical training on how to create, launch, and scale our online challenges so that we can get more high-paying clients fast.

6:17Well, I'm so fired up to break it down in steps. My brain, I don't know who else here listening is a how thinker, but I think in steps, you know, and we definitely got to, we want to know the what and the why, right? So the what, what is challenges? Why? Well, it's the fastest way to grow an online business. And a lot of people, JLD, you've done challenges and Tony Robbins and lots of people are doing them. And so it's like, gosh, if everyone just could know right now and say, all right, well, if If you've got a message on the inside, if you want to go from, you know, listening to, you know, EO fire and you want to go from, you know, the idea stage into the action and launch stage, then I really, really want you to just, you know, really, you know, perk up and follow this training.

7:01Because my goal, my heart on this is I want Fire Nation to be able to put this into action and start your challenge. And so it is very specific and very tactical. You know, so the very first phase is thinking about, all right, well, how do we, you know, how do we create, you know, what is your challenge going to be? And when I think about what makes, you know, an online campaign work and what makes one fail, everything revolves around the hook, whether it's an online webinar, whether it's an online summit, you know, I mean, and JL, you would agree with that, right? I mean, we got to get that hook right.

7:38So true. It's all about making sure that you've got something that other people, that they want, that they need. And so we want to look at it and say, okay, what are you really passionate about? For all my believers out there, what is the gifting that God has put on the inside of you? What's that message? And then think, how can you share that and get it out there in a challenge and make it outcome focused? So the difference between a challenge and something like a virtual summit is a virtual summit is you get to leverage the expertise of other people and bring them on and feature them on those online webinars and Zooms.

8:14And so it's a great way to build your brand. But if you already have a message and you're like, okay, I want to share my expertise, then a challenge is about creating a specific outcome. So what we do is we've got a whole, we've got lots of different challenges. But one of our flagships is our business on fire challenge. And so the outcome of it is we're going to help every person that's on that challenge get very specific and clarify their message. Then we're going to help them create a success roadmap. And what we do is we actually have a make, we call it a prayer board. Some people call it a vision board, but we help them.

8:53Some people think about it like a business plan. So we help every single person literally literally create an actual plan. And because what we find is, and maybe some of you can relate to this, is that for most entrepreneurs, they're excited, but there's a lot of things to do. And there's a lot of distractions. And so if we can have a very strategic, specific success roadmap and plan, then we know what to do. We know what to focus on. And then the next step is about launching into action. So on that specific challenge, by the end of it, people are like, wait a minute, so I can sign up for free.

9:28I can get, be a part of this challenge. I can be with thousands and thousands of people and in a community and then be taught how to, you know, clarify your message, start your business, create your success roadmap and launch into action. It just becomes in a map, like a very incredible, you know, value proposition in coaching experience. And so that's an outcome for one of our favorite challenges. And we have that coming up too. um now so for you we want to be thinking about you know we've got clients that do green smoothie challenges right and the outcome is you know to to literally do um you know to do a cleanse and have the green smoothies and do it for seven days and get a result you know and shoot jail do you remember megan ann i was just gonna bring this up i'm like isn't this how you met your wife so quick little teaser Megan Ann Unsworth who I love my beautiful wife she's going to be on EO fire I can't wait for you to hear her message but yes when I was just trying to get a date I did find that she had a little juicing business at the time and so I not only bought the juice so that she would deliver it and I'd get to meet her but then I also JLD my neighbor he gets some juice and now I'm kind of referring an influencer to her.

10:45So I was just trying to look cool, but hey, you look cool. You looked cool, brother. Oh, it was so awesome. It was so cool. So yeah. So basically in that create phase, we want to be thinking about, all right, so what's your outcome? What's something that you can deliver upon in your challenge that is a solution to a problem? You know, I love challenges where we've got lots of folks that will help someone get their first client. We've got some folks that will help someone launch their podcast. Can you imagine the value of that? Like literally, cause, cause launching a podcast is, as y 'all know, like that can be something that takes a year or it can be something that takes a month.

11:23So true. You know? So it's like when we collapse time and we have the collective energy of a massive community and a Facebook group together, and we're all excited and it's led by someone who, you know, that you, that is fired up about your, your niche. Um, you just get people results. So the biggest thing is the outcome of the challenge in the create stage. Now, the next piece is the tech. So JLD, the tech, how many folks do you have you heard of over the years? Like, right, like the tech is a huge problem. It's people's biggest concern going into any kind of online project. Oh, my gosh. Right.

12:01The tech, the tech, the tech. And I don't really love the tech, but after coaching lots of people for a long time, we've come up with solutions for it, right? Like how can you make it easier? And so, um, if any one of you want to, uh, to do a challenge, to grow your business, you know, to get high paying clients, then, um, then, uh, we actually have like a really cool, you know, free gift for you, um, which is just business on fire challenge.com slash JLD. And it's our challenge. So one of the cool things is come experience our challenge completely for free. We'll rock your world on it and teach, and you get to see the process in action.

12:40I believe we do it better than anybody in the industry. And then the other thing is that we're going to actually provide for you for Fire Nation only. So this is a Fire Nation thing. So Fire Nation, we're going to give you these specific funnels. And they're battle tested. They've had over$5 million of revenue come through these challenge funnels. So it's, it's the website page. It's the thank you page after someone. So cool. And I'll even provide email copy. And my goal is, is this session today, my goal is for you to look at it and say, dang, if I just rewind this thing a couple of times, I literally can do this.

13:15And that's what we all have to think as entrepreneurs. We have to come to the conclusion of I can do this. That's the first hurdle is thinking, all right, I can do it. So, you know, we'll provide you those resources, totally hook you up. And then on our challenge, We'll get you in community as well and support you every step of the way. So that's on the create side because we've got to make that quote opt-in page. And I'm sure most of you are familiar with that, you know, where someone can put in their, you know, their first name and then their email. And once we have that up, the next step is what happens after that.

13:48So after that is, you know, what we call the thank you page, which is just a video of you saying, hey, thank you for opting in for our Business on Fire challenge. Super excited to have you on board. And oh, hey, be sure, check your email. Make sure you put us in the inbox, favorite us so that you can get all the communication about it. And then the other thing is on that page, and you'll see in the one that we're giving is that there's three very specific things that you want to have happen. And I would encourage you to literally model and actually use our pages on this because it works so well.

14:26So the first one is the first step is pop in your cell phone for text updates. You're going to get exclusive updates. You're going to get special messages and cool things. And you want them to be excited to put in their phone number. And the nice thing is that it's very easy for them to just pop it in, type it into that web form. and so that's the first one is is you know subscribing for text updates the second one is joining the Facebook group so on that it's like what a cool thing where you know you get folks to you get to build your email list you know by people opting in for your challenge you're building your text database your text you know asset list of phone numbers and then the third you know asset is you're building out your Facebook group and the Facebook group is you know where you build community.

15:16I would encourage you to do this is another power move. Very few people know to do this. I, you know, I can't help myself. So I just give away like our best stuff. And sometimes it comes back to bite me because then everyone else, you know, catches on. But I'm going to give it away because when you do this strategy, have a public Facebook group, a public Facebook group. This is Ninja. This is Ninja. I'm going into that vault and I'm like, all right, Fire Nation, I'm hooking you up. So here's why it's so ninja. When you have a public Facebook group, you want that to be an asset that you build over time.

15:55You do your first challenge and you're like, this is epic. You've got 100 people on your first challenge. You've got 100 people in your Facebook group. You've got 100 email addresses. You've got 75 phone numbers, right? And now you have these assets. So people say, build your list. Well, they normally talk about your email list. And you know what's cooler than an email list? A text list by a lot. I'll take a hundred phone numbers over a thousand email addresses. So if anyone's thinking, okay, well, geez, I got to be some mega influencer to do this. The answer is no. You can literally get going.

16:29And you can have a challenge with 10 people. We've had clients that do challenges with 10 people and got clients. You know, we've had people that have done challenges with 50 or a hundred. You know, We do now 20 ,000 people, which is crazy. So here again, back to the Facebook group. So when it's public, what happens is it's very easy for everyone to find it on Facebook. It's very shareable. People can invite their friends, which is easy. And then the other thing that happens when you stream that replay to that Facebook group and when you go live, we encourage you to go live on Zoom because people pay more attention on Zoom.

17:05but we can also still stream it to the Facebook group so everyone gets that reminder, oh yeah, the challenge is today. But here's what happens. That replay that goes in there, we just say, hey, take a quick second and share it. So all of a sudden, you've got 100 people in your Facebook group. Let's say 20, 30 of them click the share button. Now you're outside of the Facebook group, y 'all. This is bigger than just you teaching to your own 100 people. This is free content. If you're going to teach and bless people on your challenge, let's not create a barrier and create a wall of it being a private group.

17:42You want this to be a free and public group. And so all of a sudden that content goes outside those walls. People can share it. And the beautiful thing is over time, as you share content in that asset of your community, your Facebook group, this becomes a massive asset for you. Basically, people will invite their friends to it. You'll get organic growth. When there's a challenge session, people share it. It gets pushed out all over the Facebook algorithm to other timelines and other people see it. And basically, we have found that you get organic growth by doing a challenge. So the days of like, oh my gosh, this is so hard.

18:20How do I get enough people? This solves that problem. And it's an asset as you build community over time. And it becomes something to focus on. Hey, grow your group by 100, 200 people every single month, and it happens organically. Now, the only thing that you want to be clear on is you want to make sure that you're clear in that video on that thank you page and let them know that it's a public group and why it's so awesome that it's a public group because you can share from it. And so what happens is most people don't know this because everyone has private groups, but people will share that content.

18:54We have posts that our community members make that have hundreds and some that have thousands of shares. And our group is like growing like wildfire without us having – and I don't even make a ton of content. We do like a weekly post. But our members' content are getting shared. And then we just let people know, hey, this is different. This is a public group because we want everybody to be blessed by this content. And so, yes, you can share because that share button does not exist in private groups. and so that does, you know, it is important that, you know, when people are coming up with their plans, if someone's like, hey, I'm going to leave my job by this date.

19:31So we have a lot of people that do that in our challenges. They're like, now that I have a plan and now that I have the confidence and now that I got coaching, I'm going to leave my job by this day. Well, that declaration, that post, we just say, hey, you know, it is public. So you've got to be careful if someone's going to break up with a boyfriend or something. It's a public group. If someone's going to leave their job, keep that public, you know? So much value, Fire Nation. Since I've known Nick, he has always done just this. He has opened up the vault all the way and shared all his tips, tactics, and strategies that have actually worked.

20:07And this is something I want to share, Fire Nation. Success leaves clues. Success leaves clues. Nick is having success. Pick up on these clues. I love how Russell Brunson always talks about he would buy all of his clients or all of his competitors products so he could see their funnels and then he could reproduce the best parts of their funnels. You can do this for yourself, Fire Nation, when you go through amazing challenges like Nick is going to be putting on. And that way you can say, okay, this is how I can structure my challenge. This is what's working. This is what I know will resonate with me, with my audience, with my community.

20:41So Nick, one more time, what's that URL that Fire Nation can go to right now to sign on up? Yeah, it is businessonfirechallenge.com slash JLD. Businessonfirechallenge.com slash JLD. What else, Nick? That's how we'll get you, Fire Nation, the marketing funnels and an extra bonus training. And then, you know, jump on board with us and get access to the training. So what'll happen is as you hear this today, and, you know, maybe you're taking notes or maybe you're jogging or driving, it's like, you can come back to this and replay it. And then as you experience it, what we find is basically between teaching it and then experiencing our challenge, people are at a place where like, well, I can definitely do this.

21:24I just experienced it. I just learned it. And, um, and then y 'all get in action. And so that's, that's what is, uh, really cool about a challenge is that you have more people that finish, you have more people that get results. And then when those results happen, they're more likely to continue. and so basically on that create phase we're gonna we're gonna do a couple more tips and then we'll jump into launch and then jump into scale and then we'll talk through some some mistakes that people make well we still got a lot to get to i want to talk about anchor clients i want to talk about those three biggest mistakes so you know you've already given away a ton nick let's run through the create launch and scale phase then we get a sponsor break and then we're going to crush it i love it i love it yeah so to wrap up on create then you know just look at that thank you page is everything in the challenge, you know, in that model.

22:12So, so from that, the next step is as we get into launching. So how do you launch this thing? So some very simple steps is number one, because it's done live, you've got a beautiful thing called urgency. You pick your date, we encourage you to make a declaration, make a post about it, speak out, go on Instagram, Facebook, hey, here's what we got coming up. The other thing is, as you go to launch, you know anything that you can do if you can you know reach out get on podcasts if you can go out and you know email your list if you have a phone numbers text your database and use all the different things at your disposal to make it a big deal if you've got you know if you started a franchise right you would you would tell everybody about it so sometimes people are hesitant to tell everybody because they're nervous if it doesn't work well I want to encourage you you're going to be just giving on this challenge to go ahead and let everybody know.

23:09And the flow for the sessions, the flow for the sessions is on the very first one, you want to be thinking about, how can you build rapport? So the first one, sometimes you're going to have strangers on your challenge that don't know you. So it's about explaining what you're doing and then explain the benefits of it and then building rapport and sharing your story as how with what you're teaching has changed your life. A couple of very important things, ninja tips is that you want to also make sure that you set expectations. You know, we're very clear with people. We're clear in our ads. We're clear on the page that during this challenge, we are going to over deliver and it's going to feel like a$2 ,000 program.

23:52And we're going to do that because we call it the give first model. And that by the end of the challenge, if we over deliver, and this is the exact phrase. If by the end of the challenge, we completely over deliver, we exceed your expectations and we help you crush it. And then you get results during the challenge. Do we have permission to share how you could work with us further? Pop in the chat box and let us know. And then the chat box lights up and people say yes. You know, cause there's so many people that are doing the old bait and switch and they're trying to trick people in marketing. And I got to tell you, when we just take the mask off and we just go and say, you know what, just be authentically you and just give them the truth on everything, it's so powerful.

24:35So session one is – that's a key point. Think of session two, three, adding value. I'm going to speed this up just for time, and I'll make sure I catch up on some of this in the training for those of you that hop on board with our free training. So then we want to get to the offer. So how does this create income for you? Um, we do ours on session number five. And one of the important factors is, uh, we have what we call an inspiration panel. So if you're doing a challenge, you probably have expertise, right? And you, ideally you already have some customers, you've got some clients. And so on that inspiration panel, you've got your success stories.

25:14They're live with you. We do five, five minutes a piece and they just share what happened and what worked. And so instead of having to sell and convince, we just literally inspire. And then once that's done, it's like, hey, y 'all heard from Wendy and Justin and Alicia and so and so and so and so. And if you'd like to hear more, pop in the chat box and then you share your offer. And so the great thing is we never have to feel like we're pushing it. Instead, we just present it. And as we share what that is, we create some urgency and excitement, make sure that your offer is completely irresistible.

25:54um i love that james melanchek calls uh i don't normally swear but you know he says you know make an offer that's so good that you'd have to be a dumbass not to buy it and that's kind of a strong thing to say um you know he calls it a dumbass offer i like to just say the dow the power of the dow um but make the offer so good that people say oh my gosh this if this challenge was this good for free. And then this, you know, the next step at, you know, four 97 or nine 97, you know, how incredible would that be and make it where it's easy, where people love to buy, they have fun buying and you have bonuses for them to take fast action.

26:32And so the sweet spot on pricing is four 97 to nine 97. And that's been tested. We've done low ticket membership, you've named it, we've tried it. And that is like the absolute best price point. And then session six, we love to feature another speaker. And, um, this is also a quick little ninja strategy is if you can have someone else on that brings influence to the table, someone else that can maybe market this with you, have them speak on session six, you know, and it's not about their offer or them. They would be supportive to your challenge and then session seven follow up and then encourage folks to hop on board.