A big use case for quizzes is helping people understand where they’re stuck.
Someone may already know that something isn’t working. They’re putting effort into their business, their habits, or another part of their life, but they’re having trouble moving forward. What they need help with is understanding where that difficulty is coming from.
If you can properly pinpoint an area where they feel stuck, your quiz builds trust with them. They can see that you understand something about their experience. And that opens up the possibility of a deeper conversation.
That’s where I would start when creating this kind of quiz.
Think about the patterns you recognize through your work with your audience. What do people repeatedly get stuck on? How does each of those situations show up in everyday life?
Those patterns give you the basis for your outcomes. Your questions help you understand which pattern best fits the person taking the quiz.
For example, imagine a business coaching quiz for people who feel like they’re working hard without making progress.
Two people might describe that same frustration but need different guidance. One keeps changing direction before giving an idea time to work. Another has a clear direction but takes on so many competing commitments that they rarely get time to pursue it.
Both feel stuck. Understanding that difference changes what you would recommend.
Your questions should help you see what happens when they try to move forward. What do they spend their time doing? What gets postponed? What happens after they decide on a next step?
Then your result can describe something the person recognizes.
For an illustrative outcome, you might write:
“You have an offer you’re excited about, but you keep revisiting the wording, pricing, and details before sharing it. You’re putting in effort without getting the customer feedback that would help you decide what to change. Your next step is to put the offer in front of a few people and listen to their questions.”
That gives someone a specific place to look. They can connect the result to what they’ve been doing and understand why the work hasn’t been giving them the feedback they need.
The accuracy of that connection matters. A result should follow from what you’ve learned through their answers. Use language that reflects their situation, and keep the explanation as specific as those answers support.
Jaclyn Mellone’s quiz offers a useful historical example. In a 2022 interview, she explained that her earlier quiz told people they were stuck without going deeply enough into why. She developed a new quiz around patterns she recognized in her coaching work, using fictional movie villains to represent different inner-critic voices. She said that language continued to come up in conversations with her clients.
What I like about that example is how the insight carried into the coaching conversation. The quiz gave people a way to recognize and talk about something they were experiencing.
That’s a useful role for a quiz. It gives the person and the coach somewhere to begin.
When you write your outcomes, explain how the pattern shows up and quiz help people understand where stuckffer something useful the person can do with that understanding. Give them enough clarity that taking the quiz was worthwhile on its own.
Then an invitation to work together can continue the same conversation. You’ve helped someone identify an area where they feel stuck. Coaching may give them space to explore how that pattern shows up in their particular situation and work through what to do next.
The invitation should connect directly to the help they just received.
When you review your quiz, look closely at each outcome. Can the person recognize a specific part of their experience in it? Does it help them understand that experience more clearly? Have you given them a useful place to start?
That’s the foundation for the deeper conversation you’re hoping to have.