A challenge is a manageable timeline. It's a package deal for your people – it includes nutrition guidance, workouts, and accountability.
And then it's also a great offer as far as price or payment. There's gotta be something like “You get a refund if you achieve this level” or “Lose 20 pounds and it's free” or some incentive for them to push through those weeks to really get some success.
Make it so enticing that they would not want to sign up with anybody else. They're going to go find some gym, so why not find yours?
Now, a lot of people start out saying, “Hey, I'm going to provide this many workouts.”
And that's great. But it's just a start. Workouts are almost free these days. People can go onto YouTube or just run in a park.
So we need to think, “what else is it?”
First of all, for workouts it's important to lay out why you are programming that specific exercise, especially if it's hard to do and difficult to coach.
Something like, “We like deadlifts because they use the biggest muscles in our body, and those big muscles are going to burn a whole lot more calories when we work them. Plus, it gives you nice legs and a nice butt.”
Besides that, when somebody's committing to a challenge for six weeks, they're really willing to make some modifications in their nutrition.
So that's also a great time to provide nutrition guidance, provide them some support and some education.
Maybe a series of recipes – “Here's what you should eat for breakfast this day, and dinner this day. And when you're eating at the office, here's some things to think about.”
Another thing to consider is that most people don't even know how to get the supplies they need to make their food low-fat.
It's a great idea to be helpful and
- provide shopping lists
- point people to the exact places where they'll find healthy supplies
There's also the accountability. This is probably the most valuable and most overlooked part of a challenge.
People in a six-week or three-week challenge are telling you that they want direction and a lot of hand-holding. They want to be regimented.
So set up an accountability session each week with every member. All you're doing is saying, “Hey, every Friday you're going to come in, weigh in, and we'll mark down your weight.”
We just need to keep the conversation going with them, and it all focuses around that objective measure of the scale.
If you follow all these principles, I'm sure you'll be able to create great challenges.
Challenges are capable of getting Clinic/Gyms a ton of new patients. Get some in place and you'll be impressed by the results!