What exactly is “The Crush It With Challenges” training program? Is there potential in creating and running challenges? Is this a new method or outdated? Is it effective and why? Is Pedro the right mentor and guide? Is it worth the money?
These are just a few of the questions going through your mind right now. So, here I am, to answer all the questions you might have and to guide you to make a well-informed decision.
Let’s dive right in!
Pedro Adao – Crush It With Challenges | Review
Overview
Video Overview
What Is The Crush It With Challenges?
“Crush It With Challenges” is a training program created by Pedro Adao to help people launch new businesses or scale and grow existing businesses with the help of “online challenges”.
When we say “online challenges” we mean a marketing methodology that brands adopt that is based on challenging people via live events to participate and interact with them in order to provide a unique experience, educate, nurture, and entertain the ‘challengers’, build brand awareness, or promote a new product or service, and much much more. The philosophy is similar to contests, competitions, and tournaments.
In a nutshell, this training is focused on helping you create, design, run, execute, and scale online challenges by adopting movement-based messaging that is key to positioning your brand as a leader in a very competitive marketplace.
It’s a comprehensive and detailed program including video lessons, worksheets, infographics, and other downloadable material, support, bonus training, and other goodies covering everything you need to become an effective challenge-maker targeting specific groups of people and grow your business exponentially using traffic secrets, sales funnels tactics, and paid advertising in a short period of time.
Pedro was able to use this methodology in his brick & mortar business and multiple successful promotions of Click Funnels, a SaaS company owned by Russell Brunson, as a publisher/affiliate winning various awards that are given to those who exceed $1M in sales.
He was also able to use this strategy to launch the 100X Academy, a rapidly growing company helping faith-based entrepreneurs succeed and thrive by providing training, support, and a community.
After this phenomenal success in a moment where Pedro was unknown in the online space without followers, no email list, no influence, and no prior experience, he went on to creating the ‘Crush It With Challenges ‘course to help business owners embrace online challenges, a method that more and more brands have already adopted in the recent years.
‘Crush It With Challenges’ as a training method helped thousands of ordinary people build their dream movement-based businesses. Pedro reveals all his secrets and holds nothing back.
He shares invaluable insights, strategies, tactics, and methods, along with downloadable course materials to ease the program’s implementation.
How it works overview:
- You define your goals
- You get clear on who you are targeting, what you are going to offer, and why people would want it
- You design the challenge based on movement-based messaging
- You execute it, drive traffic, and promote it
- You provide support to your challengers
- You scale the challenge with social proof and testimonials
- and more
Who can use this method:
- People that want to launch a new business in any industry, any niche.
- It works for digital products, services, retail stores, eCommerce, brick & mortar, software, membership sites, book releases, coaching and consulting, other professional services, and so on
- Existing businesses and established brands that want to be positioned as leaders and gain momentum with movement-based messaging
- Those who want to promote other companies’ products and services as affiliates/publishers
Why are online challenges so effective?
The main drive is that people get excited, interact in real-time with brands, ask questions, discuss with other like-minded participants, compete for prizes and awards, learn new things, get entertained, and get assigned homework.
They are being ‘challenged’.
Brands build awareness, create anticipation, provide a unique experience, and much more.
Availability
The program is only available once in a year, the registration doors open up for a limited time, usually 3-4 days.
Pedro’s Background
Pedro was working as an independent financial planner selling other companies’ services for many years.
He did not have much success until at some point he was able to distinguish how to position himself as an authority in his space. And although this industry was extremely competitive, he was able to define a small group of people, created a branded messaging tailored to these people, and a short book called “Retired & Free”.
And that was the start of an impressive career.
But as a genuine entrepreneur who is always experimenting and because he did not enjoy the financial sector anymore, he decided to pursue new venues.
He also got into the online marketing game and he devoted his promotions to ClickFunnels, a software that helps businesses build and automate sales funnels.
By using his unique messaging methodology and with the help of online challenges, he made it to the 2-Comma Club Award Club, not once or twice, but multiple times. The 2-Comma Club awards are exclusive for affiliates that exceed $1M in sales with ClickFunnels.
What’s even more amazing, he helped ClickFunnels surpass the 60,000 members mark. The company was stuck but when they adopted Pedro’s challenges’ philosophy, they took off and gained 40,000 more active members.
After this amazing recognition he built momentum and he founded the 100X Academy. A community for Christian entrepreneurs.
He says, for that matter…
Dear Christian Entrepreneur,
The Birth Of The Course
When the 100X Academy took off really quickly, he decided to share his secret strategy successfully with thousands of students from all over the world.
This is when he refined and perfected the ‘online challenges’ framework and his movement-based approach and messaging.
His work has been praised by names like Pete Vargas, Jason Fladlien, Ryan Levesque, Dean Graziosi, John Lee Dumas, and many more.
Who Else Is Using ‘Online Challenges’?
Lately, more and more brands are using online challenges as a marketing strategy to attract, educate, nurture, and entertain their audiences.
We’ve seen, for example, Jeanna Gabellini, Eben Pagan, Matt McWilliams, Grant Cardone, Ryan Deiss, HopeWriters, Ziglar Family, and so many more leaders and established entrepreneurs.
They use challenges to generate leads and build brand awareness or they incorporate challenges in their product launches mix along with webinars, workshops, live events, assessments, quizzes, social groups, and so on.
Challenges are interesting, fun, exciting, and people interact with the brands in a unique way.
These challenges are becoming a trend and if you’re not using them yet, you miss out on a huge opportunity.
You can find more information on the topic where I overview various challenges on this page.
Online Challenges Advantages/Benefits/Goals
Well-organized and well-targeted challenges offer brands a competitive advantage and can lead to amazing results. But challengers are also benefited. Successful challenges are focused on quality and superior content and action.
- Challenges are interesting, entertaining, and fun.
- Participants are able to interact with brands in a unique way
- They build excitement, enthusiasm, and anticipation for what’s next
- Challengers are getting assigned homework and tasks to complete
- Brand awareness, credibility, trust, and reinforcement
- A sense of community, rapport, and culture
- Audience engagement, lead generation and nurturing
- Customer engagement, delight, loyalty, and retention
- Most of the time challengers enjoy valuable prizes, hidden gems, and are delighted with special and mystery guests
- Deeper connection with the audience
- Brands are able to apply universal marketing principles such as attracting ideal clients and repelling unwanted ones
- Brands discover hidden opportunities by getting invaluable feedback from the participants
- Challenges may be used to launch products and services in any industry, any niche
- They are versatile and can be used to launch a new business or scale an existing one
- They open doors for product development and innovations
- Product improvement
- Leader positioning and branding, showcasing expertise and demonstrating authority and competence
- Social proof and testimonials
- Business growth and leverage (partnerships and joint-ventures, affiliate recruiting, education, and retention, revenue streams)
- and more
And the most important benefit is that online challenges help brands move prospects from the top to the bottom of their marketing funnel in a matter of days.
What does this mean?
Let’s imagine the traditional marketing funnel for a moment.
The buying cycle consists of some stages:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Consideration
- Intent
- Evaluation
- Purchase
And there are more stages if we consider the post-purchase experience and customer retention, brand loyalty, and so on.
But these are the stages we are interested in the moment when we try to convert prospects into customers.
When you attract prospects and build brand awareness, you invite people to your web properties. Now, you have to educate and nurture them to your brand’s vision and ethics and help them move through the buying cycle so they consider your brand as a possible solution to their problems, needs, and wants, and finally to decide to make a purchase.
With online challenges, you’ll be able to accomplish all of that in 3 to 5 days or a week.
Because online challenges are educational, interesting, you give value upfront, you nurture prospects, they get familiar with you, you are omnipresent every day for as long as the challenge lasts, you build momentum and create reciprocity.
This way, prospects are way more receptive to your message and the offers that you will be presenting them during the challenge.
Deeper Investigation
Members’ Area
The member’s area is divided into these categories:
- Introduction
- Design
- Run
- Scale
- Bonuses
The training program includes video lessons, templates for graphics, ads, and other assets, images, PDFs, worksheets, workbooks, and other goodies.
Pedro’s Prologue
The strategy you’re about to learn is the most effective way to cut through the noise of the marketing world we live in right now. In this course, you’re going to learn everything I know about how we have completely launched, and built, our company, our movement from ZERO. I had no list. I had no fans, no followers. I wasn’t an influencer, a coach or a mentor.
I was doing nothing in the marketing training space whatsoever, and, within 18 months, we have become a category king in our niche. We’ve done well over $5 million of revenue and are impacting thousands of lives all over the world. All of this on the back of learning how to use free masterclasses and/or paid challenges, and you’re going to get to see how I’ve done all of that from the inside out.
There’s nothing I’m not going to show you in this course. Everything we’ve done to build and scale our movement is part of what you’re about to see. Not only have I used challenges to build our core business and an awesome community, but I’ve even used challenges to win very prestigious
launches.
Getting Started
First, you need to be clear on why you run the challenge.
Is it about launching a new product or service?
Are you scaling an existing business?
Are you trying to learn more about your target audience?
Are you trying to earn money or add a new income stream?
Do you need testimonials from your followers?
Are you about to promote an affiliate launch?
Are you trying to discover hidden opportunities in the market with valuable feedback from the challengers?
Are you trying to discover a golden niche you can expand upon?
Who’s Your Who?
In order to run a successful challenge you need to understand who you are trying to serve.
As I have already discussed in a previous article, this should be any brand’s main goal, reaching out to their target audience. It’s the most basic rule for success in business.
It doesn’t matter if you create the best products or offer the best services in the world. Unless someone is interested in your offerings, listens, watches, and reads what you do, say, produce, and write, you can’t expect to be successful in the highly competitive marketplace.
If you are not targeting the right kind of people that actually need your solutions and offers you will be wasting time, energy, resources, and money.
You perform market research. And you brainstorm groups of people you want to target.
You can choose based on demographics, personal preferences, age, gender, who do you want to work with, what problems do people face, and so on.
Another basic of marketing is that not all customers are equal. There are good and bad customers. Not all money is good money. You don’t want to work with everyone. You want to select a group of people you are thrilled to serve.
Attract those you want and repel those you don’t want.
Before you move and invest time and resources to plan out your challenge, you need to answer these questions.
What problem is your challenge solving?
What is the outcome people need?
How does your challenge help your audience?
The 3-Step Movement-Maker Framework
- Carve a micro-niche
- Movement-based messaging
- Crush challenges
Micro-niche examples
John Lee Dumas – Case Study 2012.
John wanted to start a podcast back in 2012, he got pretty early in the podcasting world.
But he also profound to understand that there is competition and he wanted to do something different.
He knew he wanted to be in the entrepreneurship space, this is the main industry. And the sub-industry was podcasting. And his niche was ‘business’.
But he discovered that were 300 business podcasts already. He did not want to be #301.
So he researched for a sub-niche. Business podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. He discovered 7 of them.
You might think that 7 is just a small number, but John was looking for something special. He did not wanna be just another guy doing what everyone does.
So, he carved a micro-niche. He created the first-ever daily business podcast interviewing entrepreneurs.
Noone was doing it daily. He decided to give it a go. And his podcast, entrepreneurs on fire exploded.
This is the real power of a micro-niche.
Pedro Adao – Financial Planner Case Study.
If you a traditional service provider, this incredible story is for you.
Pedro took a stand for retirement-age residents in Solano county of Northern California. He helped those people become retired & free. This was the main slogan.
He was able to apply movement-based messaging in a very boring job whatsoever, as he reveals.
He understood that many people that were retiring were afraid. They were insecure, nervous, and worried about going broke before they know.
This was a huge problem that Pedro chose to solve.
He took a stand against the classical Wall-Street investment industry. The giant companies were not explaining things to their customers clearly, they were keeping them confused, so they had no idea what was really going on.
He decided to speak to those people in plain language, to give them clarity to understand their options, so they can make well-informed decisions.
He organized some small events and parties where he explained his financial plans in easy-to-understand language.
The industry: financial services.
Niched offer: one core product, no fees and he added a principal-protected account. He chose only one product, he did not want to represent every financial company out there, in a $3 Trillion industry. He also guaranteed that people’s savings will never go down. The thing is that people had no idea that such a product exists and the vast majority of financial agencies were not even willing to sell products like this.
Micro-niched audience: Vacaville + 20 miles, 55+ age, female, nurses, single, and Christian.
He then was able to target that group of people by publishing a short book that was designed specifically for them. The title was “Retired + Free”, the colors were pink and orange, feminine, showing a lady in the car.
This campaign quickly took off like crazy.
Stephen and Chelsea Diaz – A Couple (students of Crush it with challenges)
They had a product already that they could not sell it effectively. A training program teaching people how to make money on Amazon with FBA.
They could not sell it because there were hundreds if not thousands of similar programs.
They listened to Pedro’s advice, and they micro-niched an audience.
As parents, they were affluent with parents, and they decided to target stay-at-home moms.
They created a challenge and they called it “The 7-day rainmaker challenge” that aimed to help stay-at-home moms start an Amazon business during nap time.
The first challenge attracted 3,000+ members, and since then they run successfully 4 consecutive 7-figure challenges.
They managed to sell a course in a very crowded space by using movement-based messaging and challenges.
Movement-Based Approach & Messaging
Whoever loves most wins. This is Pedro’s mantra and I could not agree more.
Whoever cares the most gets all the attention of people in need.
What makes a movement a movement?
All movements have a cause. If your brand is only selling products and services, you don’t have a chance to create a mssive movement.
There’s got to be something more.
Take for example ClickFunnels, the software company we referred to earlier.
They do not just sell the software that helps business owners automate sales funnels.
They invite their members to become part of their movement, #funnelhacking. They use this hashtag, they have merchandise, apparel, they organize live events, and every member is a funnel hacker.
They are united under a common cause.
Movements take a stand for something. And they also take a stand against something. When you take this stand, you’ll be able to create copy, messaging, and marketing.
Movements allow people to unite in a shared interest, passion, or cause.
Movements have a leader but they also transcend the leader. The movement has to be bigger than the leader. A greater cause.
Movements require passion. You don’t have to yell or shout or go off the charts, but you gotta be passionate about what you do. This will be reflected in your followers.
A leader is passionate, certain, and confident.
Movements have a restlessness. there is a sense of urgency that gets people to move now into the future.
Movements typically seek to eliminate a problem, a clearly articulated dissatisfaction.
Movement makers are the market’s leaders that can clearly articulate these specific problems the best.
Movements are all about belief in action. And most importantly, the most impactful and successful movements are all about giving people a new identity.
Like funnel hackers for ClickFunnels.
Movement maker mistakes to avoid:
- Overthinking
- Trying to plan too far ahead
- What if people think I’m stupid (this happens anyway, no matter how good or expert you are)
- I’m not famous, I’m not an influencer, nobody knows who I am
- Surely someone else is more qualified to serve those people (it might be true, but who is more willing to go above and beyond to serve them?)
- Listening to normal people, a leader is not a normal person.
- Being too high in the clouds and not taking action
- Be careful to not connect to the wrong fuel. Movements that are organized around being a victim will always die…Anger can get you started but it can’t sustain you…plug into love
- Trying to be too fancy too soon
- Don’t worry about being political correct…offend away just make sure you are offending the right…
- Make sure you pick the right enemy, most movements fail because they pick the wrong enemy
How to accelerate your movement:
- Take a powerful stand for truth and righteousness
- Gather testimonials of breakthrough and transformation, modern-day miracles
- Create an environment where people in the movement naturally want to connect and spread the good news of the movement
- Understand the problem better than anyone else
- Clearly articulate what success looks like and provide the path to it
Leaders of movements:
Great leaders usually have been great students of other leaders and mentors.
Also, don’t make the mistake to think you are so damn ready to create a movement. By humble and you won’t have a problem.
Pedro’s Influences
Pedro admits it, he’s not the creator of the movement-based messaging. He was influenced by Russell Brunson who wrote the book “Expert Secrets” among other influencers and mentors he followed.
And, of course, even Russell Brunson is influenced by other leaders and mentors. This movement-based messaging is an approach that exists for so long. It goes back in time.
Anyway, it’s a book I read last year but I did not have the time to publish a review.
It’s an amazing book that discusses movements. Russell is not referring to challenges in this book at all. He uses other marketing channels.
But the thing is movement-based messaging works damn well.
Pedro borrowed the movement-based approach and packed it up with challenges. I tell you, this mixing is extremely powerful.
Creating a mass movement
As Russell explains in the diagram, the movement has 3 main components:
- A charismatic leader (attractive character)
- The cause (your culture)
- A new opportunity (the vehicle of change)
The charismatic leader is you, the brand that attracts a target audience. If you work for a team and you’re not the business owner, then you support the charismatic leader.
That is why companies create fictitious characters in their marketing. Like Disney created Mickey Mouse.
People are drawn to these characters, they can identify themselves in them, these characters create movements.
The cause is the movement you are creating.
The new opportunity is the change you bring to the world, the new identity you give to your followers.
2 types of brands:
- Problem aware – aware of challenges, but can’t solve
- Problem unaware – unaware of challenges, so can’t solve
Movements: The Journey From…To
Your micro-niche (who) is here, is problem-aware, and needs help. And ideal “who” has a problem and knows about it and wants to solve it. It’s better to target people looking for solutions, rather than targeting people that are not problem-aware. In that case, you would need to educate them.
You, the charismatic leader, lead them through a process/path. You are not their savior, you’re just guiding them. You enter the scene, grab their attention using specific language, and calling them out by name.
You then make a promise, to solve their problems and present the results they are going to achieve.
Take, for example, Moses.
There were Israeli people, slaves, in Egpyt (the problem), Moses led them out of Egypt (the path), to a new land of freedom (the promise).
Clarity Is Power
This is a great exercise to help you become very clear on who you serve, how you do that, and what is your promise. Fill in the blanks after the 3 dots…
I help…your micro-niche (who you serve).
Achieve…the outcome they really want or to eliminate…(something that is causing them pain), this is your what.
With…your product, your process, your service, a new opportunity, this is your how.
Here’s an example of Pedro’s financial planning business:
I help 55+ female nurses in Solano country (who) achieve financial certainty (peace of mind) (what) with our retired & free retirement planning process (how).
Another example of one of Pedro’s students:
I help women who want longer fuller hair (who) achieve beauty and confidence (what) with NBR (natural beaded rows) (how).
An example of Stephen and Chelsea’s campaign:
We help stay-at-home school moms (who) achieve additional income without taking time out of the family (what) by launching an Amazon FBA during nap time (how).
Other things you want to consider as a leader
Be authentic (there’s no room for hypocrisy).
Be transparent, speak the truth only. No BS.
Listen to your people, be humble, get valuable feedback.
Share pain with real emotion and powerful stories, either yours or from other people.
Training Material
Here’s what’s included if you enroll in the training program:
- Lifetime access to the training ($4,995 value)
- 4 main training modules with video training content
- 1 bonus section with additional training and downloads
- Downloadable PDFs, worksheets, workbooks, images, templates for graphics, ads, and other assets
- 4 Weeks Of Live Group Coaching with Pedro and his Head Trainers ($4,995 value)
- 2 VIP access tickets to a live 2 or 3-day extremely well-produced virtual event taking place April 29 – May 1, 2021 ($995 Value)
- An in-depth niche identification process worksheet ($995 value)
- An in-depth offer creation worksheet ($995 value)
- Challenge Traffic Mastery: Filling your Challenges with Paid & Organic Traffic with Kasim Aslam and Rachel Miller ($2,995 Value)
- Winning With High Ticket Offers & Sales: Coaching with Russ Ruffino ($2,995 Value)
- Facebook Ads for Challenges Mini-Course and swipes ($495 Value)
- Seven-Figure Challenge Funnel Templates ($4,995 Value)
- Ticket Map For Virtual Attendees with Pete Vargas ($995 Value)
- Crush It With Your First Live Event Training with Bari Baumgardner ($995 Value)
- Challenge to book 1-day intensive with 100x publishing ($2,995 value)
- Challenge secrets: top takeaways from in-depth challenge training ($995 value)
- Challenges for service-based businesses with Krista Mashore ($995 value)
- 6-months of challenge hub subscription ($995 value)
- Recordings of exclusive backstage pass with Pedro Adao, John Lee Dumas, and surprise guests ($995 value)
- Fitness challenges with Alex Hermozi ($995 value)
- Fast-action bonus: submit your challenge design worksheet and get it reviewed for expert feedback
Training Curriculum
Introduction
- Intro – get started and learn how to launch, grow, or scale your business with this game-changing strategy!
- Course materials – workbook, checklist, course overview
- Challenge checklists: step-by-step guides to launching your challenge – challenges and Facebook checklists
- Not all challenges are equal – A well-designed challenge will crush it and will probably flop if it’s not. Pay attention because the design is the greatest indicator of a successful challenge.
Design
- Who’s your who? Watch as Pedro guides you through a series of questions to process how to identify your who and, if you know your who, how to go way deeper into your who.
- What problem is your challenge solving? What problem can you solve for your who? Learn why it’s important that you know the problems of your audience and how to make sure your challenge delivers the outcome(s) most important to your who.
- What does your challenge promise to deliver? the difference between a hard promise and a soft promise, while also learning how to deliver that promise to your who.
- What’s the challenge called? Something so simple, but so important. It needs to be appealing and raise curiosity. These, among other elements, are important to giving your challenge a name
- How long should your challenge be? 5 days? 7 days? 30 days? Pedro delves into the importance and distinction of the length of your challenge.
- When should you run your challenge? Everyone asks, “When should I launch my challenge?” Pedro has a great answer!
- How much should your challenge cost? Pricing is an important piece in the challenge framework. Watch this video to find the best way to price your challenge.
- What day should I make my offer? To launch, grow, and scale your business, you need to know when to ask for the sale. Take some notes as Pedro discusses best practices about making offers to your audience.
- Build trust by showcasing your expertise – Pedro shares how challenges have completely transformed his life and business over the last two years! He shares how challenges were the key strategy to showcase his expertise with a new audience while being intentional in building trust, and attracting clients.
Run
- How do I run a challenge? Pedro shares the key components that you need in order to run a successful challenge. Take notes on the must-haves, nice-to-haves, and fancy stuff.
- Should I include guests in my challenge? Having guests join you in your challenge is great to establish credibility and for 3rd-party edification. Watch the video below to decide what is best for your challenge.
- How should they buy? Should you send them to an order page or perhaps a phone close? What about considering a hybrid model? Watch this lesson to decide on what mechanism is best for your challengers!
- How to set up a Facebook group – Watch this step-by-step tutorial by Stephen Diaz to learn how to set up a Facebook Group – challenge style!
- Content strategy – Your content should be delivered in alignment with your who, your personality, and the outcome you want to achieve. Watch this video to choose the strategy that’s best for all of the above!
- Does your challenge require pre-training? Will your challenge members need to do any “homework” or pre-training before the challenge begins? You will want to watch lesson to learn how to create critical momentum!
- Challenger experience – Providing a great experience means mastering the details and communicating them in clear, concise ways. In this video, Pedro discusses the importance of eliminating confusion from the start. Hint: communication is key.
- Earn or learn? Launching or scaling? Your reason for launching a challenge is an important question that is best answered when considering where you are in the lifecycle of your business, offer, or idea.
Scale
- How to present your offer – This is not your ordinary bonus on offer presentation! Prepare yourself for an inside look, with candor, about setting up your offer, delivery modalities, and more. Be sure to listen for Pedro’s advice on how to create Maximum Offer Impact.
- Onboarding – From Thank You pages, to Welcome Emails, to Facebook Challenge Group rules – it’s all in this lesson. The ways you set and communicate boundaries to your challengers will pay you back in time and energy later. Be sure to take notes!
- Funnel strategy – From no funnel to fancy funnel, watch this lesson to learn about the ins-and-outs of funnel setup, strategy, and best practices. Pedro even offers a pre-built funnel for you to customize for your own!
- Traffic strategy – Organic, paid, and affiliate traffic. What does it mean and how do you get it? Pedro unpacks strategy to fill your funnel with traffic.
- How to set up Facebook ads – Have no fear, you’re about to receive a step-by-step walk-through and instruction on how to build your Facebook Ads for a free challenge. You’ll want a few extra pages of notes for this lesson!
- Creating your Facebook pixel & Facebook conversion ad – Pedro shares the key components that you need in order to run a successful ch