How Jaclyn Mellone Books Coaching Clients Through Her Quiz

What was the inspiration behind your quiz?

Interestingly enough, my movie villains quiz is actually the second quiz I created. My former quiz focused on helping entrepreneurs determine if they were on their way to being booked out or burned out.

My team and I felt like my old quiz was too buttoned-up and businessy. The old quiz seemed to tell my audience, “Hey, you’re stuck,” instead of going deeper into why it keeps happening.

I wanted to have more fun with my second quiz and include more pop culture references. In the previous quiz, I made a few references to Disney characters in my follow-up emails, and my audience really loved it.

Since topics like identifying self-sabotage tend to feel overly serious, adding pop culture references helped me make stronger connections. People are usually more receptive to what you have to say if you add humor and have fun with it!

Which movie villian is sabotaging your success quiz cover
Key Takeaway: If you’ve already created a quiz but feel like it could be improved, don’t be afraid to revamp it! Luckily, you don’t have to start building your quiz from scratch. Take time to reassess how your quiz is performing and if it’s an accurate representation of your brand. Then, decide which quiz elements you want to keep, discard, or edit.

How did you come up with your unique quiz topic?

Through my work as a business coach, I’ve realized how impactful a person’s inner critic can be. In learning more about my own inner critic, I’ve been able to relate to clients and better understand what their inner critic sounds like. 

As a coach, I see patterns that keep people stuck. Creating a quiz pushed me to dig deeper into my own work to create a framework. It’s led to more thought leadership content and has helped me teach women of all backgrounds about their self-sabotaging patterns.

I specifically chose fictional villain characters to represent my three result types because I wanted to personify the inner critic and give them names. I often get on client calls and say, “Oh, that’s just Ursula talking.” This makes it easier for my clients to separate themselves from the negative self-talk that often holds them back.

When someone is self-sabotaging, they need humor as a way to step outside of themselves and hear their truest voice. Using well-known villains from movies helps me disarm such a heavy topic. The fictional villains also have a cultural connection with my clients. We can all relate to them on some level. This shared language helps us so much in the coaching process!

quiz question about what your inner critic sounds like
Key Takeaway: Using humor is a brilliant strategy to lighten an otherwise serious topic! Jaclyn does a great job of educating her audience about self-sabotage from a place of positivity and fun. If you are planning to choose a more serious topic for your quiz and want to lighten the mood, listen to our interview with Jaclyn on the Creator Stories podcast!

What problems were you hoping to solve with your quiz?

I had some speaking opportunities coming up and wanted the quiz to serve as a new email opt-in. My main goal with the quiz was to invite leads into my community and get people thinking about self-sabotage in a new way.

I also wanted the quiz to give them a memorable introductory experience. Since then, I’ve realized quizzes are a great tool for conversion! I’ve found this to be especially true when it comes to lower-priced offerings and courses.

We also use the quiz internally as a team so we’re all using the same language with each other and clients. I couldn’t be happier with the quiz!

podcast pitch offering
Key Takeaway: With a higher average conversion rate than other lead magnets, quizzes are a favorite among business owners and coaches like Jaclyn! If you’re not sure what your quiz should lead to, we recommend taking Jaclyn’s advice and testing a lower-priced digital product. You can even run social media ads that point to your quiz to help increase your business revenue!

What kind of results have you seen from the quiz?

It’s been a great way to engage my existing audience while at the same time introducing my brand to more women than I dreamed of. 

The villain result types come up all the time in my conversations with clients. Whenever I run a new program or course, I use it as a fun ice breaker question. I never thought one quiz could be used in so many different ways!

Key Takeaway: A quiz can certainly help you grow your email list and increase conversions, but qualitative feedback is just as important as quantitative data. When you collect quiz data and compare it with the stories you hear from your audience, you’ll be able to strengthen your offers over time. 

We love how often you use GIFs! How did you choose the right ones?

When selecting the right GIFs, there was usually a moment or character I knew I wanted to feature. I tried to use as many GIFs of women as possible since my business community is tailored to women.

Filling in the other GIFs was sometimes a challenge, but it helped to use keywords when searching the GIPHY database inside Interact. First, I searched for emotion-based GIFs that might convey what I was looking for. Then I pulled some research from Google to give me more direction.

The hardest question to find GIFs for was definitely the question about which movie character best represents your expert-level status. I knew I wanted to use Sue Ellen Crandall right away, but I had to get creative with some of the others. I’m happy with how it turned out!

Which movie character best represents your expert status
Key Takeaway: GIFs are one of the best ways to engage with your audience through your quiz. Not only are they easier to skim, but they’re also more interactive than plain-text answers. Did you know over 90% of the top-viewed quizzes have answer images and GIFs? All signs point to adding GIFs to your quiz!

Tell us about your strategy behind defining your villain result types.

I started by modeling my three main result types after my clients, friends, and mastermind members. I considered how people responded in different self-sabotaging situations and what it says about their inner critic.

In the middle of fleshing out my result types, I heard another quiz creator talk about how she modeled her result types after the DiSC assessment. Talk about a light bulb moment! That sounded so much easier than what I was doing, but I was in too deep to change all of my result types.

Instead, I found myself inspired by the three Enneagram triads, which focus on your heart, head, and gut. It didn’t take me long to notice how similar they were to each of my result types. I then used the Enneagram triads to gain confidence in rounding out my result types while running with my own ideas.

Since each result type represents a self-sabotage style, every fictional villain character takes on the voice of an inner critic. The inner critic’s focus is to distort something that’s usually your superpower.

The movie villains I chose—Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Miranda Pressli from Devil Wears Prada, and Regina George from Mean Girls—came to mind pretty easily. I had a few other villains on my list, but these three ultimately won. 

inner villain is Ursula quiz result
Key Takeaway: It’s becoming more common to see quiz creators use other personality assessments and frameworks to add depth to their quiz result types. If you want to take your quiz one step further, find inspiration in personality frameworks like the Enneagram, DiSC, Human Design, Myers Briggs, and more.

What’s your best piece of advice for new quiz creators?

Don’t feel like you need to reinvent the wheel!

Take time to zoom out from the quiz itself and think about the people who are taking it. What do you want to know about them? What do they need to realize about themselves to take the next step in the transformation you offer? 

You want your audience to come away with an “aha” moment after finishing your quiz, so make sure you add a lot of value. Above all else, have fun with it!

What is the best quiz for you business?

Quizzes are super effective for lead generation and selling products. Find the best quiz for your business by answering a few questions.

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