Offer 01 · Kids4 Weeks
The 4-Week Kids Challenge
For kids, no experience needed. A fun, low-pressure way in that hooks them and hands you a beginner to convert.
You sell toThe parent
A challenge is the front-end offer we recommend: a short, low-risk first step that turns a stranger into a student. Here is what it is, why it works, and how to run it.
01 / Why we do this
A challenge has a finish line, so you are selling a solution, not an open-ended commitment. That one difference makes it far easier to convert, and far more profitable, than the offer most schools run.
People will pay far more for a clear, time-boxed result than for “come and train”. A defined endpoint feels like a solution they can say yes to, so more of them do, and at a price that means something.
Because they pay properly up front, the challenge can cover what it cost you to win them. The advertising pays for itself, so you can keep spending without cash flow becoming the bottleneck.
It also lets you run an offer that is genuinely yours. Most schools run the same bland line, “book a free trial session”, which only lands with people already sold on martial arts and ready to start. A specific, named challenge reaches people far earlier, and sells them a result they actually want.
02 / The two challenges
Same system, two audiences: one you sell to the parent, one to the adult. Everything that follows applies to both.
For kids, no experience needed. A fun, low-pressure way in that hooks them and hands you a beginner to convert.
For complete beginners. A short, believable goal that turns a curious adult into a committed member.
03 / Week by week
Onboard them like any new member, make the first offer around the halfway mark, then ask again at each checkpoint until the challenge ends. Same spine, whichever length you run.
04 / The goal
At onboarding you agree a goal with each member: a personal finish line that makes the result feel real. Set it after their first session, once they have a feel for the sessions. Here is a starting point for each challenge.
The default goal: complete every session.
Just showing up to all of them is proof in itself. They made the time, and they put the work in. From there, set something that fits the challenge.
Log your calories in MyFitnessPal and share them with a small group each week.
Introduce yourself to five new people, and make one community session.
Make every session. Turning up is proof you put yourself first.
Lead the warm-up for the whole room in the final session.
Hold your own in a one-minute defence drill at the end.
Lead the warm-up for the whole group on the last day.
Sit still and wait their turn for the entire final session.
Last the whole session, start to finish, without a grumble.
Make all eight sessions across the four weeks.
Show their skills in a one-minute match at the last session.
It can be as small as getting through the warm-up without gassing out. The size of the goal is not the point; the point is that everyone has one to chase.
05 / Cohort or rolling
Keep a rolling intake running all year so no lead ever waits, then add seasonal cohorts when fresh-start energy peaks, in January and September.
Beginners join any week and never wait for a start date. It can sit on your sales deck as the “6-Week Beginners Challenge”: a steady, predictable flow into your fundamentals sessions.
A group starts together on a set date, usually under a seasonal name. The fresh-start moment does the selling, and the deadline drives sign-ups.
06 / The name
The delivery barely changes from one challenge to the next. The name is what makes the offer feel built for one person.
On its own, a “6-Week Challenge” speaks to no one. Add the word that names what they are really after, a “6-Week Confidence Challenge”, and the same offer cuts through to the person who has exactly that problem.
What follows are levers you can pull, not steps in order. Most names use one or two.
6-Week Challenge
Scrolls right past.6-Week Confidence Challenge
Stops the right person.Every challenge cures a pain, so name it after the result they want, not the activity. A few for each audience:
Notice the self-defence one: the pain is conflict, but you name it after the outcome, self-defence, the words they would actually use. Always name it in their language, not yours.
Then talk to your customers more. We build the habit in and set it up with you:
How precisely you word it is a choice, with a trade-off. Take one pain, feeling overweight, and dial only the wording from broad to emotive. These are not set names, just the same idea turned up.
Tap a point, or drag, to compare
Names the activity, not the result. The widest audience and plenty of cheap leads, but it is too broad to feel personal, so fewer convert.
Neither end is “correct”. Broad reaches more people and keeps an ad running longer; emotive speaks to fewer but hits a nerve, so it usually converts harder. You are trading audience size for resonance, not necessarily fewer leads, just a smaller pool. Test both and let the numbers decide.
Name the audience, by sex or by age, and the offer feels built for them. It shrinks the pool, but everyone left feels spoken to.
Some pains spike at a certain time of year. Wrap the challenge in that moment, the New Year, the run-up to summer, back-to-school, and it feels made for right now. You can even build it around the season: a kids back-to-school challenge might be about focus and discipline, can they make all eight sessions? Plan a year of them in and you never run out of angles.
You will not use every lever every time. Pull one or two on top of the name and stop. The only test that matters: said out loud, does it sound right as a headline?
The headline does not have to say everything, or even name your martial art. Lead with the hook, then let the subheadline fill in the rest.
Summer Shredded, for Men Over 30
A simple 6-week plan to get you fit for summer. No experience needed.
07 / The value
What you wrap around the challenge so it feels worth far more than they pay. Ideas to pick from, plus one bonus when you can.
A standout bonus, ideally worth as much as the challenge itself, makes it hard to refuse. It is also the easiest place to add urgency (a deadline) and scarcity (limited places).
08 / How to price it
We set your actual numbers together. These are the principles behind them, so they make sense when we do, and your team can hold the line.
Always give more value than you charge for it.
Get this right and the number almost takes care of itself. Get it wrong and no clever pricing will save it.
This is the number every later price is judged against, so set it high. Even if nobody takes the challenge, it has already done a job: it makes your monthly membership look cheap next to it.
Just do not set it so high that nobody buys. You want a healthy share to say yes, because that upfront cash is what funds your ads.
Covering your ad spend is only the floor. The real aim is to take in twice what it cost to win a student, in cash, within their first 30 days.
The challenge fee does most of the work, and every annual sign-up brings a year of fees forward to lift the average. Clear 2x and each student pays to win the next two.
The challenge price only holds if your membership has a real minimum commitment.
Put a £300 challenge next to a £100 membership they can cancel on day one, and a smart prospect just takes one month, buys the kit separately, and leaves. They have found a cheaper trial than your challenge.
You will layer offers on top: a discount, a prize draw, bring-a-friend, and credit toward membership.
Leave enough margin that those still work, so a single discount never puts you underwater.
09 / Front-end stacks
Extra incentives on top of the same offer, to tip the decision to enrol today. The challenge and its value do not change.
Generous and simple, an easy reason to act today.
Say 10 to 20%, enough to nudge a decision now.
Roll the number and the challenge is free. (See the note on free.)
Turns one lead into two and makes starting easier.
10 / Free
It is the highest-leverage offer you can run, and the one that feels riskiest to you. Used properly it is neither reckless nor a giveaway, it is the fastest way to fill a challenge and the smoothest run onto a membership.
Build a challenge worth £300, then make it free to anyone who earns it: complete every session, get every penny back.
They still pay up front, exactly as before. The condition lives in the headline, which keeps it honest and legal. Free does not mean worthless, it means earned.
The fear is natural: run it free and you hand six weeks back. In practice you almost never do.
You could offer a money-back guarantee anyway. Anyone can ask for that refund at any point, happy or not.
Maybe one in a hundred. People’s sense of fairness runs deep; they are not out to take six weeks of coaching for nothing.
Most miss a session across six weeks, through no fault of yours, so the full refund rarely triggers. The kids’ four weeks are no easier.
Win or not, you want the money to land as membership credit, not cash. Cash lets them drift onto month-to-month, or pay their own way and skip your year deal. Credit rolls them onto an annual or six-month plan.
For the many who fall short, be generous: “You didn’t quite finish, but we’ll credit every penny toward your membership.” They had written it off, so it lands as a gift.
For the few who do finish, they have earned the refund. The uniform makes the choice easy:
Full refund, and the uniform comes back.
The fee rolls onto your plan and the uniform is yours to keep, free.
Keep the refund, but buy a uniform: new, or the one you’ve used at about 60% of RRP.
We feel a loss harder than a gain, so paying for a uniform you’ve grown into stings more than the refund is worth. The credit becomes the obvious choice, and it rarely even comes up: anyone who trained every session is usually joining anyway.
You cannot call it free if cash changes hands up front. So let them win it (a chance, like the dice) or earn it (a condition, like completing every session), and put that condition right in the headline.
This is a starting point, not legal advice. UK ad rules (the ASA and CAP Code) are strict and change often, so get your exact wording checked before you run it. Keep any free route genuine too: if they can win it or earn it, that path must really exist and be honoured.
11 / Back-end stacks
Make the offer while they are still on the challenge, not after it; by the end you have often lost them. There are a few ways to structure the credit, all worth having on the table. The skill is knowing which one to reach for.
The whole challenge fee comes off an annual plan. The biggest lock-in and the cleanest credit. Lead with this.
The whole fee off a half-year plan. It wins more conversions, but it is a shorter commitment.
Half of what they paid, off an annual or a six-month plan, whichever you prefer. Still a real reason to stay, and gentler on your numbers.
Keep the sticker price and take the credit off month by month. The calculator below works it out.
Work out the discount that credits the challenge fee back over a membership.
That is £25 a month off a £100 membership. They pay £75 a month for 12 months, and the £300 fee is credited in full.
12 / Start to finish
Now you have the parts, here is how they fit together. Each move is unpacked in the sections above.
Shape the offer: the weeks, the value you bundle in, and one standout bonus that makes it worth signing up for on its own.
Put it where your audience already is and point everything at one clear action. How you stack the offer, and the word “free”, come later.
Win the enrolment with a front-end stack, and take enough upfront to cover what it cost you to reach them.
At the right moment, make the back-end offer and move them onto a membership with a real minimum commitment.
Fold them into your normal sessions and keep delivering, so the commitment renews itself and they stay for the long run.
13 / Common questions
A handful come up again and again once challenges are live. Here is the short answer to each.
No problem. Extend the challenge by however long they are gone, so they still get the full run of sessions. A week away simply moves the finish line by a week. The experience stays complete, and your window to convert them stays open.
Get them in rather than lose them, but do not just slash the price. Two clean ways. First, take something out: drop the money-back guarantee for, say, £50 off, or remove a bonus or the kit, so the lower price is earned rather than a plain discount. Second, split the payment: half down now, half in two weeks, with the full offer left intact. A lighter version, or a split, beats a no.
Yes. Treat them exactly like a new member, if anything a little better, because you still have a conversion to earn. The card keeps their progress visible to them and gives you a natural reason to check in every session.
Yes. Set them up like any other member. The more the challenge already feels like membership, the smaller the decision when you ask them to stay. Give them an account that lets them:
Your normal sessions, from day one. They should feel part of the school, not held at arm's length, and being around real members is what makes joining feel obvious. The exception is the seasonal cohorts, January and September: if you have the capacity to run a dedicated group, it can be worth it, but it is optional. Otherwise keep them in your normal sessions, so you are not changing how you deliver.