This week we’re learning from Wendy and Linda from The Email Collection they’ve developed an ingenious method for building quizzes based on decades of experience doing in-person sales. They’ve taken the same methods that work for selling products face-to-face and turned them into a framework for creating quizzes that sell products and grow your list.
Listen in as they share the exact details of how this works.
Episode Transcript
Josh Haynam:
Hi everyone. I’m here with Wendy and Linda from the Email Collection. They not only have their own quiz that’s been really successful, but they also help other people create quizzes that are equally successful, if not more. And I’m really excited to talk to them about the methods that they use in their own company as well as for other clients in order to create these quizzes that are just performing super well. So thanks for coming on today guys.
Wendy:
Yeah, thanks for having us. We’re excited to be here.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. So give us some background. How did you get started and how did you come across this idea of quizzes, what stood out to you about it and why do you like doing it?
Linda:
Honestly, I think I heard a podcast last summer. I was on a walk and it was something that really stood out to me. It was Chanti Zak, the quiz queen, and she’s later become a mentor of mine. And so that was my initial finding out what a quiz is. And then Wendy and I talked about it. We loved the idea and we couldn’t help ourselves, so we just dove in within a few days after we got the fire under ourselves, and we said, “Let’s check this out and see what we can do.” And so within probably 30 days, we had something live and we were launching it to our audience.
Josh Haynam:
Wow, that’s amazing.
Wendy:
Yeah. And I come from the corporate world, so I was at Expedia for about 10 years, and there we play heavy on like gamification and giving customers feedback loops. So the quiz fits really well into engaging customers into your products and services in a really personal way. So like Linda mentioned, when we knew that it was something we wanted to do for our business from the get go, and we were so excited to dive in and get it done.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. So what happened after that, you listened to Chanti, who’s amazing and then what did you do next?
Linda:
So we decided to take Chanti’s Grow With Quizzes course, and we designed our quiz based on personalities. I don’t think I knew at the time that personalities were the best quiz you could possibly have for your business. But I did know that it was something that was really hot in pop culture. You know, the Integram was really popular last fall. And I come from a sales background. I was in pharmaceutical sales and they trained us heavily on personalities. So for me it was second nature to identify what personality somebody is, so I could speak to them in the way they know how to talk and learn. So it was a no brainer for us to dissect it and to find four different personalities to work with and then go from there to help these people find results and then eventually get introduced to our services so we can help them along the way.
Josh Haynam:
I really like that. That’s fascinating. I have never actually had a job, so I don’t know what they train people on, but it’s very interesting how this ties into lots of traditional industries. So let’s jump into that though, because a lot of struggle, and if I’m honest, it’s still hard for me to think about coming up with personality types. When people ask on building quizzes, how did you come up with those for your own business and how do you help your clients come up with the personality types within their quizzes?
Linda:
So based on the trainings I’ve had, there is, you’re either fast-paced or slow-paced, and you’re either people oriented or task oriented. And so the Bill Gates of the world, they’re going to fall into the category where they’re slow-paced and task oriented. And that is my exact opposite. So I’m actually completely opposite of Bill Gates. I’m fast-paced and people oriented. So when you’re reading emails or making decisions, the way I purchase things is going to be completely different than the way an analyzer would purchase something. And then there’s also the other two that I haven’t spoke of, which is the fast-paced task oriented people. Those people just want the bottom line. They’re usually your leaders, they’re your first time buyers, they’re the ones that are going to come up with the idea, flourish and other people are going to watch them and see how it goes for them.
Linda:
So the person that’s exactly opposite of them, they’re the slower-paced people oriented people. And those are the ones that aren’t going to buy from you for three years. They’re going to watch every email, they’re going to check every testimonial, and if they so happen to buy something from you on Black Friday, they’re probably going to return it. So it’s just really interesting to take an account and see if you understand each personality. And interestingly enough, when Wendy and I designed our quiz and we look at the results, it’s almost divided 25, 25, 25, 25, so there really is something, and of course you make up a portion of that whole pie, but you’re just going to fall in one quadrant over the other. And so that is fascinating to me. And when I really would focus on a personality type before I engaged with something or engaged with them, it would go way better than I imagined.
Linda:
So if I was talking to a dominant personality who’s bottom line, fast-paced, they already know what they want, I would ask them where my product and service fits in with their life. They would know where it fits in, tell me where it fits in and they would actually use my product or service from that point. But if you talk to someone who is slower-paced personality, who really enjoys the testimonials, they’re just going to need a little bit more nurturing and you need to earn your trust and likability factor with those people before they’ll ever do business with you.
Josh Haynam:
That is super smart. And the fact that it’s divided, because since we’ve been doing this the last eight years, one of the things that always comes up is that people will report back that one of their personality types is getting 70% of the results and then the other five get the other 30% and they’re like, “what’s wrong?” So that’s really amazing that you’ve built a framework that allows you to actually divide it equally. So let’s put this into real life. And you can use like an example of client that you’ve already used or you know, a hypothetical one, but how would you apply this framework for dividing an audience into four personalities with a client that you’re working with?
Wendy:
So, so I think customers, people love to hear about themselves and they love to learn about themselves. So the cool thing about quizzes is it makes it all about them, not all about your products and services. So if you look at what your product and service and what you’re offering and how it enhances your customer’s lives, then you can start to think about those personalities in those buckets. So for example, we did a fashion quiz with somebody, a coach that’s focused on fashion, and we broke the personality types into fashion types that were in alignment. So if you look at your business, we also did one, an artist and we broke the personality types into colors. So the dominant was red. And so it’s really fun to use the personality buckets as the leader and then tie your business into it. It’s all about the clients. So put the client first and how would the client identify themselves into your product? And you can have so much fun with them.
Linda:
And I wouldn’t be afraid if you get the wrong personality because again, most of the time people are, that you are made up of a whole pie. And sometimes when people read their personality they say, well that kind of sounds like me, but maybe I wouldn’t be the life of the party, but I can see myself resonating with this, that and the other. So even if the person doesn’t answer the questions 100% correctly the way you would like them to, they still resonate with your results. And once they resonate with the results, that actually builds your know and like trust here as well. And plus they feel a confidence boost. Because again, people are selfish individuals, they like to hear about themselves and they wonder how does this make sense for me in my life? And then it helps them digest the information when they move on to learn more about your products and service with the rest of the results in general.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, I’ve really like that. And what I was thinking as you guys were talking is, so basically what you’re doing is you’re taking personality, like the core of it and like Myers-Briggs-esque stuff, basic personality types, and you’re translating it over into something that is relevant to the client’s audience. And I think that gap I struggle with, and I think a lot of people struggle with. So how did you actually do that when you’re working with that client? I think the coach, the coach who correlates everything to fashion is fascinating because that’s almost like three layers, right? You have the bottom layer, which is the core personality; you have the middle layer, which is how it connects to their audience, and you have the third layer, which is, now you’ve translated the audience into fashion even though they’re talking about coaching. How did you actually do that?
Linda:
So I was a little intimidated by that one at first because I did say, “Oh gosh, what did we just sign up for?” when I realized what we were getting ready to do. But I feel really confident and just the training I’ve had on personalities to go back to the framework and just really speak to people and see them for who they are. So when it’s just very easy and very simple, if you just divide it into four themes, four personality themes and when you can clarify that somebody is fast-paced and task oriented, you know the questions they’re going to answer, you know the types of questions to ask to help them go into that theme, personality theme.
Linda:
So for example, Wendy is a dominant personality and she’s all about the bottom line. If you take her to a block party, she’s not going to want to talk to the neighbors about the weather. So she is going to want to just have a real conversation. But that’s like her worst nightmare is to go to a block party and talk to people about the weather. Whereas I’m sort of more people oriented versus task oriented, and so I could talk about the weather all day long. I can talk to people, I can have lengthy conversations and Wendy really just wants to get to the point, right? So when you divide the personalities and you know what questions they’re going to answer a certain way to, you know what questions to ask them. So it really starts with the personality. And then from there that’s where we add on the additional layer of, okay, so how does this make sense in the fashion world? So I really tried to lean in and say, well for the personality bucket that aligns with the dominant personality, I’m going to say that they’re sophisticated.
Linda:
So the Chic personality who’s a little bit more flamboyant, my personality, I decided to call it Chic. A little bit more playful, a little bit more fun. So then you can start working with the personalities and naming the results that actually matter to what the quiz results are going to be for your particular business. The slow-paced personality, who is people oriented, I thought it would be fun to name it Boho because that type of personality reminded me of a slower pace. Maybe they enjoy music and so I could really visualize. And these personalities came to life in the fashion industry. So that’s where … so I at first had to figure out the personalities, then we decided to come up with the themes of each personality on top of that and then work with the language from there on how we communicate with them.
Wendy:
I think Joshua, as you mentioned, how do you even get there? Linda and I are huge in knowing your customer, so we ask our clients a ton of questions about their ICA. Who is your customer? What are their hobbies? What do they love to do? Where do they shop at? What brands do they love? Because we’re working with other clients, we really need to get in the weeds and understand our client’s business and understand their customers. And it’s provided really great insight and clarity for our clients too around their business and how they look at their business. Because the cool thing about a quiz is it’s not tactical. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s energetic. And so you can bring in those things that light people’s fires and that makes them really passionate and excited about their business into the quiz. So once you ask all those questions, those personality types start to come to life.
Linda:
And one thing you mentioned Wendy, was just having fun with your audience and your customers. And that is why we love quizzes so much, is because it not only allows people to put their guard down and have fun and answer some fun questions and get to know a little bit more about themselves along the way. But for a business owner, you’re creating something that’s sharable and that’s huge. And that’s how you actually are able to leverage this lead magnet for your business and genuinely connect with the new customers and the new leads that’s coming in because people have fun with it and they reshare it for you.
Josh Haynam:
So this is genius. I think there’s two burning questions.I have: one, if you could give us just a quick overview of the four personalities and kind of watch what each one represents at the core personality level. And then two, something you said Wendy really stood out, is you ask people questions to help them understand their audience. What are those questions?
Wendy:
We ask a ton of questions. I mean it starts with really the basics, like what are your goals of the quiz? Because quizzes are really complex and it’s such a great way to learn more about your audience. So you know, what do you want to know about your audience? What do you want to know about your business? What do you want the outcomes to be? Are you tying this into a specific offer? So you need to lead them down a specific path. So we have a lot of questions about the goals of the quiz, but then also we know how important it is to tie in the business. And so what’s your business? What’s your brand? What do you represent? What do you stand for? What are you passionate about? What do you care about? Like what do your customers need to know? What do they not know?
Wendy:
And then like I said, we start with the customers. So what is your ideal customer avatar? And tell us about that person in so much detail so we can really talk to them and talk to them in a voice that they resonate with and that they feel comfortable and excited and connected with. And so that’s where you kind of take the A to Z and tie it all together and the customer doesn’t really know that it’s happening because it’s all kind of behind the scenes and it’s very subtle, but it’s customer first. So you’re putting the customer first and then tying your business in on the backend.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah that’s awesome. And like you say, the customer doesn’t even realize, right? Like, and I think that’s the best situation is when it just feels like this was just made for you. And we all have those experiences when you go onto a website or you’re checking out a product and you’re like, “Oh, this is just talking to me. And so of course this solves all my problems and that’s perfect.”
Linda:
[crosstalk 00:16:42] if I can go over the [Four P’s 00:16:45] framework that we came up with?
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, that’d be amazing. Just to give us an overview of what that framework looks like.
Linda:
So Wendy and I realized pretty quickly that we were onto something that a lot of business owners had difficulty understanding when they were trying to make a quiz. They felt it was really hard to find the results. And then when they did pick out the themes, they didn’t know how to ask the right questions to lead them to the right personality theme or whatever quadrant that they wanted to represent for their results. Oftentimes we saw business owners have seven different results pages, but really there was three of them that was the same personality. So when we started to realize there was a disconnect there, that’s when Wendy and I really decided to come up with our Four P’s quiz quadrant framework. And I think it’s genius because I think it really helps simplify the quiz process.
Linda:
So the dominant personality we’re talking about who’s fast-paced and task oriented, we named it The Powerhouse. The personality that’s fast-paced and more people oriented is the Passionate Personality. Those are your people who really, really want to hear more stories. They want to engage. Then you go down to the slower-paced personalities, which is the Pleasant Personality who is slower-paced and people oriented. So they’re your best friend. They’re your loyal fans. They’re the ones that’s going to read every testimonial before they ever purchase from you. And they won’t even buy anything for like three years by the way. And then the Precise Personality is the analyzer. They’re the slower-paced personality who’s really interested in task oriented items. So anytime you speak to that personality, you’re going to want to backup data, you’re going to want to have proof of where your claims are coming from. And that really resonates with that personality. So we’ve really divided it into the Four P’s personality, quiz, quadrant framework.
Wendy:
And then once you know those things about your clients, you can tie it into the results. So not only are you talking to them and their personality type and boosting their ego and confidence, but you’re also plugging your business in a way that really resonates with that customer.
Josh Haynam:
That’s yeah, that’s so smart. And the thing that stands out to me is that it’s so universally applicable. You have those Four P’s and you basically just divided the population into four different personalities and it makes it so much easier for anyone who’s looking to jump into making a quiz, and coming up with these personality types is complicated and confusing and then all of a sudden you’re just like, “Oh well there’s basically four general types of people. Divide them into that and then come up with names that makes sense for your business.” That’s perfect. And this is going to be really helpful.
Linda:
Well, it creates a win-win, it creates a win-win. So I can tell you my husband’s a Powerhouse Personality. And now that I know this, I can make my life easier. Instead of saying to him, “Hey, tonight let’s order dinner in, I’d love to order it from Jewel or I’d love to order it from Delancy, you pick.” Because he wants to be the decision maker. But I picked, the reason why I win, is because I gave him two suggestions of the places that I want to eat at anyways. So, and I would just a conversation you can have with your husband, it can make your life so much easier because he feels excited that he got to pick that he wanted Delancy and I’m happy as can be because that’s what I wanted too.
Josh Haynam:
Yes, that’s exactly it. Like you understanding how somebody operates and then you can be more helpful to them. You can be more thoughtful about what they might want. You can be just more personable and that’s so genius. Anytime you can learn more about somebody and then do your best to use that as a way of caring about them in a more personal manner, that’s perfect. So I love that that’s incorporated into this quiz framework. It takes it from being just like some tool and to being like, Oh now you’re actually just trying to help people. So that’s amazing. Wow, I feel like there’s just so much more we could say on this. We’re coming up on time, but where can people go to check out your quiz? Where can they go to learn more about this framework and what you both do?
Wendy:
Yeah, so our website is the emailcollection.com. The quiz is front and center. It’s right there. So sign up, take the quiz and then we’ll give you the framework in the Four P’s when you sign out for the quiz. We’re very excited. We’ve had a lot of success with it like you mentioned. And so it’s been really fun sharing these a-ha moments with other people.
Linda:
And the quiz that we designed, we based it on singers, and so we did the Dominant Personality is Beyonce and the Passionate Personality, the fast-paced people oriented is Lady Gaga. Then we have Taylor Swift and coming in at the pleasant personality who is more, she’s your best friend, right? She’s loyal. And then the person who we picked for the Precise Personality is Adele, and I think it just really makes sense. So you can see how we picked, you know, Beyonce is definitely dominant. She dominates the world. So you can really choose the face of your personality theme and make it come to life. And one of the cool things Wendy and I did, is once you get your personality and you find out more about yourself, we not only added some tips to help you with email marketing as an extra value added download, but we also added a Spotify playlist and put together a super fun playlist for each personality. So that was fun. So quizzes can just go above and beyond and really leverage your own personality and continue to have fun with people as you communicate with them.
Josh Haynam:
That is really cool. I’ve never heard of anybody doing that before, and I think that’s genius, slash something that I would want for myself. So that’s awesome. Kudos to you guys on coming up with that one. Well, thank you so much, Wendy and Linda for coming on today and I just really appreciate it. I feel like we all learned a lot today, so thanks.
Linda:
Thank you so much, Josh. We truly appreciate it and we’re excited to continue to helping people with personality quizzes.
Josh Haynam:
Awesome.