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11 Ways Challenges Can Help Your Small Business

Published on by Gail Gardner
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10 Ways Challenges Can Help Your Small Business

Have you noticed that a lot of companies and small businesses have been running “challenges”? Running challenges is a great way to help prospects gain and build their skills quickly, see results and ultimately become loyal and engaged customers.

In this article, you’ll learn about challenges, what they are, how they work and why you might want to run a challenge for your business.

Let’s start with some examples.

Canva has gamified their tutorials and called them challenges.  These challenges are really simple tutorials that don’t take much time, and also build your skills so that you can get the most out of Canva.

A lot of coaches and consultants also run challenges to train their prospects and prepare them to become more successful with their coaching or training programs.

In short, challenges are a fun, gamified way to engage your community, train them, educate them and prepare them as customers.

BizSugar Launches Challenges to Help Small Business Grow

Starting this month, BizSugar is adding challenges for small business owners. Every month, you’ll find a new challenge to help you build and grow your business. Start taking the first of them here.

Take the BizSugar Mastermind Challenge

The first challenge is about QR codes. During the pandemic, QR codes were everywhere because they are an easy hands-free way to access websites and videos.

Future challenges will include topics that the BizSugar Mastermind says they wanted to learn according to a recent BizSugar survey.

You might have seen challenges like these across the web and communities that you are a part of and wondered if they might work for your business.

Why You Should Start Adding Challenges to Your Business

Challenges can help grow your business in these 10 important ways.

1. They teach your prospects new skills

Adding challenges to your marketing strategy is a great way to teach your customers (and prospects) new skills.  They offer a simple guided approach to learning and usually a community with which to share what you’ve learned or get help from like-minded individuals if you get stuck.

Teaching your prospects and customers new skills can help them become better, smarter consumers and build your company’s credibility.

2. They hone existing skills.

Challenges help your community hone their existing skills.  This is especially useful for businesses that want to pre-qualify prospects to become good customers.

The challenges you choose to post can help your customers and prospects become better at what they do and hence, upgrade their requirements from your business.

3. They identify skill deficits.

There’s an old saying: You don’t know what you don’t know. Challenges offer a way to identify where your community’s skill sets may be weak.

This is great for your business because your community will have a clear understanding of the value that you provide.

4. They establish your expertise and build your credibility.

When you run a challenge for your community, you have the opportunity to feature your expertise and everything that’s involved in doing a good job.

When you allow your community to try the challenges, they will gain a deeper understanding of all of the elements that are involved in doing everything from basic design to creating a marketing plan. Whatever your business, a challenge will give your customers the opportunity to ask questions and allow you to feature your expertise to answer their questions.

5. They allow cross selling to customers.

Your customers may be unaware of all the different products and services you offer. A challenge is a great way to expose your prospects and customers to all of the different ways that you can solve problems for them.

6. They create connections in your industry.

Challenges attract participants interested in a specific skill set – and sometimes a particular industry. Use interactions with others taking challenges related to your niche to build your network.

Someone taking a marketing plan or social media calendar challenge for example may be a perfect future partner – or future client. Take the time to learn more about others taking the challenges related to skill sets in your industry.

7. They build community.

One of the best things about challenges is that they help build community. When you participate in a challenge, you’re engaging with others who have similar interests and skills. This can help you build relationships with potential business partners or customers.

In addition, many challenges offer a community forum where participants can interact.

8. They create engaging content.

If you have a Facebook page, group or maybe an internal community of virtual employees inside your company, you want people to engage and talk to each other. Running a challenge is a great way to get people inside your community to talk to each other and take action.

Whatever the case may be, incorporating a challenge into your company strategy is a great way to build community both inside and outside your company.

9. They train future customers.

Running a challenge on your business website or on your social channels is a great lead generation strategy. You can attract potential customers or users who can have a sampling of your product or service. And use it to actually qualify themselves to become a good customer.

10. They generate leads.

If you make your challenge open to the public, you can attract new prospects or leads to your business. Again, challenges are a great way to give potential new customers a free sample or taste of what your business has to offer.

11. They add some FUN to your business and marketing.

Let’s face it. Everyone needs a little more fun in life. And when you can combine fun with engagement, learning and growing your business — what’s not to love

If you’re looking for a way to jumpstart your business, or simply add a little fun and engagement to your marketing efforts, join the BizSugar challenge!

Not only will you develop new skills and expertise, but you’ll also build community and make connections with others in your industry.

After doing the BizSugar challenge, why not start one for your own business?

Start the first BizSugar challenge now

Don’t wait to strengthen your small business skills. See all our BizSugar Mastermind Challenges or take the QR code challenge today!

Use the link or scan the QR code below to go to the challenge page.

qr code

First Image: Depositphotos.com

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