From fitness to using up craft supplies, there are dozens of challenges out there that help followers build a new habit and, depending on how you’ve set up the challenge, get to know you better. 

The most common challenges out there are fitness challenges – like the Squat challenge where you build up from 50 squats in a day to 250. Another common challenge is a gratitude journal challenge, where you document 3 new things each day that you’re grateful for. 

These kinds of challenges are nice, but you can grab them on any quick Google or Pinterest search. 

We’re going to create the kind of challenge that gives your audience a significant and lasting change while building your credibility (and your email list!)

We will use professional educators’ scope and sequence techniques to develop lesson plans beyond just their primary curriculum to create the challenge. It sounds pretty advanced, right? The cool thing is – it’s not. Scope and sequence are just how we will document what is covered in the challenge (or course) and which order. It gives the user an idea of what they’ll be able to do at the end. 

Here’s how to apply scope and sequence to a challenge. 

1. Understand the problem that your audience is facing. What new habit do they want to create or challenge do they need to overcome in their personal or professional life? 
2. What’s a realistic, achievable outcome that you can deliver? The result should give them a taste of success, build your know-like-trust factors, and lead to other solutions that you provide. This is the scope of your challenge.
3. Identify the steps they need to take to accomplish the outcome. This is the sequencing. Break the work into relatively small steps that they can do independently with your guidelines. In most cases, your actions should take between 15-30 minutes per day. Remember, it’s a challenge, not marathon training. 
4. Determine a timeline for them to accomplish the goal. Your timeline should be based on how big the outcome is, how many steps there are, and how long each step will take. The most common challenges are 5-7 days up to 30 days. The longer your challenge is, the fewer people will make it all the way to the end. 
5. Decide how you’ll deliver and support your challenge. This is where your email list and other technology comes into play. Since the reason we’re developing this challenge is to grow your email list, you’ll want to deliver each day’s challenge piece via email – to get and keep them opening your emails. Many challenges also add a social media component (for accountability). 
6. Develop the instructions. How do your customers know what to do each day? It may be as simple as a few sentences, but you may need to create videos, worksheets, or printable materials. If you’re building your challenge from 1:1 work or pre-work for one of your courses, then you may have success stories to share from your customers. Sprinkle those throughout each day’s instructions to help encourage your subscribers to keep going.
7. Set up your challenge.  After you’ve got everything created, it’s time to set up your challenge in your email and delivery system to deliver everything automatically. 
8. Promote! Finally – start promoting! Let’s get those changes going!