How an Online Quiz Will Grow Your Email List and Your Small Business with Linda Sidhu -

Shannon Baker

So thank you for joining this joining us for this week’s episode. It’s going to be a wonderful conversation no different than usual, of course, but today’s guests, I’ve been excited for this chat! It is Linda Sidhu who helps business owners attract hundreds of subscribers on autopilot with a different type of lead magnet, personality quizzes. So I’m going to turn the mic over to Linda. And Linda, tell us a little bit about your background, how you get into this, and we’ll get going with that.

Linda Sidhu

Hey, Shannon, thank you so much for having me here today. And I’m really excited to talk to you about quizzes, because who doesn’t want to know more about themselves when they take a personality quiz? Am I right? Absolutely. I mean, I’ve taken disc and agram Human Design, like you name it, everything but Myers Briggs for some reason. But um, yeah. And then the funny thing is, is how I got started and quizzes was because I used to be a pharmaceutical sales representative. And I worked in the dermatology industry, and at the time, it was a very small company, but they invested in their sales force and taught, they basically had the DISC company come in and teach us how to understand our doctors personalities. So we spent a whole weekend training got DISC certified. And that allowed me to use my personality, I’m very nurturing, and respectful. And I really care about people’s relationships. So I actually took everything to heart, everything I learned. And when I went back into the field to essentially sell my acne products to these doctors, I really relied on the disc format. And the reason why is because a lot of these doctors are way smarter than me. Some of them actually did clinical trials for my products. And they were already using products in their, their office that was similar to mine. So it wasn’t like a mind blowing, new product that came out it was an acne product. And so what I would do is I would understand their personalities and show up in a way that made them more comfortable with me. And I built the relationship that way. And lo and behold, it was one of the best things I ever did, because it allowed me to be the top 10 in my industry for multiple years. But it also came into handy when I created my own personality quiz for my business.

Shannon Baker

Awesome. That’s like amazing. You’re the second person I know who used to be a pharmaceutical rep, or in that industry. So that’s interesting. So let’s dive right into this topic because quizzes for lead magnets are becoming more popular, but all of us don’t necessarily understand the entire process. Because let’s face it, we’re used to the same type of lead magnet, a worksheet or, you know, a mini training like things like that to grow our list, because we all know, you need to grab that person’s information via getting them to subscribe to the email list in order for you to nurture that relationship, so that they will possibly, hopefully convert to a paying client. But I’m finding of the quizzes that I’ve taken, they’re just so intuitive that it’s just mind blowing. So it obviously definitely works. We just may not understand all the logistics behind it but what would you say, makes a difference when it comes to knowing your ICA’s personality type? How do the quizzes help make this process easier?

Linda Sidhu

So quizzes first and foremost, it’s a low way to enter into your community. What I mean by that is people look at a quiz and if it’s a personality quiz, they typically like to take those. But it’s also fun, it’s engaging. And you know, with everything we’ve learned on social media, we realize that people are here for entertainment purposes, not necessarily to learn all the time, right. And I think with PDFs, guides, ebooks, and all that stuff is great opportunities to give value to your audience, but it’s not necessarily fun, you’re actually making them sit down one afternoon and crank something out and people just don’t have the time anymore. And so it’s easy for them to take a quiz and learn something more about themselves, have fun doing it. But in exchange, what you’re doing with the new leads as a business owner, especially if you do it with personality based is you’re first of all, you’re welcoming your new lead in and giving them A very warm welcome because you’re really stroking their ego making them feel seen and heard, because every personality type has amazing strengths. And that’s what you want to focus on. And you’re like, Hey, you know, Shannon, you’re amazing because you’re very systematical. And you have a logical approach. And you’re very thoughtful, and when you can share those things you feel seen and heard as you’re entering the community. But what it’s doing for the business owner is is also helping them understand your buying decisions. And, you know, I was telling you this before we started recording the podcast, but I think when it comes to selling to people, I don’t view it as like selling or anything sleazy or slimy. I think most entrepreneurs really care about their audience and their community. And they’re going to, they’re willing to do everything they possibly can to help them achieve success when they buy from them.

So with that said, if you can show up understanding somebody’s personality on a discovery call, for instance, you can make them feel more comfortable with you. So for example, when I was in pharmaceutical sales, when I would go into these offices, and I knew the doctor was very dominant, and I could not tell him what to do, he was going to call the shots. What I wanted to do is be efficient with his time to respect him. I wanted to get to the results and hit the bottom line quickly. And I also wanted to give them options based on what he was already doing, and have him decide on how he would use my products. So what does that look like in real life? I would say, hey, Dr. Patel, you know, good to see you today. I just wanted to show you this study, and here’s the F is efficacy on the certain product. How are you currently using this acne product in your office? And maybe the doctor would say, Well, I’m using it for teenage boys, or adult females? And I’d say great, do you think for the next, you know, female patient that comes in, you can try my product, he essentially told me what he would use the product on and I closed, you know, I closed it by asking for the business and that aspect. And it was seamless, it didn’t feel weird. The doctors appreciate that. Because they you know, they know you’re there for a reason, right? And so it goes back to your clients, if they’re interested in your product, and you are able to communicate in a way that’s going to make them feel comfortable based on their personality. Now the exact opposite personality, somebody who’s very heart centered, someone who’s very thoughtful and relationship oriented, those people are not going to buy for you For several years, sometimes one to three years.

So it’s a different approach, you would treat that doctor or that customer correct. So in the pharmaceutical industry, I would do lunches with those physicians, I would build the relationship, I would gain their trust and not ask them to do too much too quickly. I would also invite them to speak or programs so they could hear some of the dominant doctors who are having success with my products. And they could then hear those success stories and then eventually try it on their patients, right. So it’s just a different approach. At the end of the day, you know, your product or your service will do exactly what you’re trying to say. It just depends on you know, when they’re going to take the chance to try it out.

Shannon Baker

Okay. But it is interesting and it is sounds complicated. But we know it’s we shift to cater to people based on the personalities that we know by example, we can kind of cut down the discovery phase by using a quiz like you help business owners with then it will be totally great because it will save us time and would increase the probability of it save them nurturing someone to the point where they buy in the future, or more importantly, approaching it to know when to ask for the sale the right way and at the right time. So knowing that it takes this kind of finessing approach to the sale, like is they a personality quiz, right for all businesses? Or do you find that it works more specifically, with a certain type of business?

Linda Sidhu

I think most of my clients end up being coaches and course creators, however, Interact. The quiz platform has a plethora of case studies on their website and one of them in particular was primarily pure. Do you know that company? It’s a product based company and I think they sell clean products and they had a quiz that was like what deodorant is right for you. And I believe that they generated over $30,000 with that quiz by selling just a deodorant. So the person would take the quiz. I actually took the quiz and it said my product for my personal deodorant product of choice was lemon grass. But the funny thing is I did not buy the lemongrass one, I bought like a mint one that I did try it out. It was really interesting. But it was very quick, there was not a lot of nurturing, and there was no welcome series or anything like that. But it was a very low ticket item, I think it was like 10 bucks, right? And so there are a lot of quizzes out there that could cater to e-commerce. I don’t specialize in those. But that’s an example of a really good ecommerce quiz. I think ZGallerie did quizzes at the beginning for market research, and they learned a lot of information from the market research and the questions, they were asking people that they were able to use that information moving forward to have success with their business. So you can use it as market research.

And then course creators and coaches, those people are great candidates for personality quizzes. And what it does is it allows you a fun way, you know, to ask people to join your email list. It helps you nurture them but it segments your list based on the personalities. And then what you could do with that information, what I was trying to get to before is then you can personalize your marketing to your clients. Now I’m not saying that you have to write four different emails in four different ways. However, when you are to the point where you’re talking one on one, someone with a discovery call that information is very useful, because you would know how to set things up. Or if someone’s super dominant, they don’t want to know all the details, you know what I mean, they’re already interested, they want to know the options. And if you can be considerate and approach it that way, they’ll appreciate you much more. But if they’re somebody who’s again, like the heart centered, maybe, maybe a 20 minute discovery call isn’t enough for them, maybe you actually need to do 45 minutes to an hour, you need to gain their trust, ask them more about their business, let them have more of an opportunity to understand who you are and how you can help them right.

Shannon Baker

Okay, that definitely makes sense. So now, we decide we want to take the leap and kind of move to more of a quiz based lead magnet as opposed to the standard sit down complete this worksheet kind of thing. What are some common mistakes that you’ve seen entrepreneurs make when they decide to implement a quiz as their lead magnet?

Linda Sidhu

Okay, this is a great question. So some of the mistakes I see is people start the quiz off wrong. So they start writing the questions first. But really, you need to write the results first. So you want to know kind of like your offer, you want to work backwards from your offer. So you want to work backwards from each result. So I would technically write each result for the D, the I the s and the C. And I would have all four results written before I actually start asking questions, because then the questions determine I’m working on a sales quiz right now, for example. And I was trying to think what are good questions for you know, sales is like, maybe asking them what kind of sales strengths do they have? What are three words that would best describe them? And then I would do each, you know, three words for each personality. And so you work backwards from result, then the questions. The other thing that I’ve seen is when people don’t have a welcome series attached to it, and this is so sad, but I think only 50% of businesses have a welcome series. And it’s really important to do this. Because, you know, when someone’s taking a quiz, first and foremost, they want their results. So this is important, because when someone hits you know, gives you your name, and their email address, they’re expecting an email back from you with the results. So they go straight to your email, which is huge for you. Because when somebody clicks on your email, they’re saying, Hey, I like this person, I want to talk to them, I want to communicate with them.

So they’re letting their email provider know that let more of these emails come through first and foremost, then it builds your know, like and trust factor. And then that way, people aren’t just getting dumped into an weekly newsletter where they’re like, Who the heck is this person, they might have actually forgot that they took your quiz and without a proper introduction, they’re gonna unsubscribe from your email list and you don’t want that you want to make sure they know who you are, that you want to make sure you validate them, then make them feel seen and heard and give them an example of where maybe you messed up your first quiz or, you know, like a validating and whatever, whatever your biggest struggling pain point is for your audience, like at least acknowledge that that you’ve been there.

You want to introduce yourself, give yourself credibility so that they continue to follow you. You also want to offer valuable tips. Maybe you could share a podcast interview that you loved getting give them additional value. And then they’ll say, hey, this Linda girl is really showing up. You know, she’s giving me all this great value, I got this great quiz, I learned about myself, she shared a podcast interview, and you just really kind of warmed them up and primed them to be ready to buy from you, right. And again, Biden’s not bad. Sally is not bad, you, you know, when it comes to your email list, you actually want a list full of people who are going to buy from you, you don’t want people on there that aren’t supposed to be there. So you want those people to be repelled. And so this is with the welcome series, I actually get a little aggressive with mine, typically, I send it out five days in a row. So if you took my quiz on Monday, you would get a, you know, an email from me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And what I’m doing there is I’m for the people who are really interested in my product, I’m giving them loads of information, a ton of value before I ever tried to sell to them, right. But for the people who are like, this is annoying, I don’t want to hear about this. I’m, you know, I’m basically encouraging and encouraging them to get off the list. Because again, you want a healthy list that’s looking at your emails, that’s replying to your emails that’s interested in your product.

Shannon Baker

And it’s one thing I look at, like you mentioned, as I send out my regular broadcasts, and I get those unsubscribes they used to, like rattle me, but now to me, I use it as insight. Because as you know, I see the unsubscribe when the email goes out. And then I look at their history of whether or not they’ve actually read my previous messages, how long they’ve been on the list. Whether or not I’ve gotten any replies from them, had they click through to anything? And then I see they don’t know like, Well, fine, thank you for doing me a favor and getting off my list because you weren’t my people anyway. So yeah, it does make a big difference. So with this, you know, in my head as a logical thinking person, all I could think of is, what type of technology Do we need to bring together to make this whole thing work, other than, of course, an email platform that you want to use to deliver the welcome series?

Linda Sidhu

What kind of technologies? So you want to write your quiz, and so you need to do some research to start off with. If you don’t know yourself well enough, it’s really important to ask yourself, what do you stand for? What do you stand against? What’s your big idea? What’s your offer, so you need to do some fact finding on yourself to get really, really clear, before you start working on a quiz that’s going to be on automation and doing a ton of work for you in the long run. Next step, you want to do some ideal client research on your audience. Ask them questions, three of my favorite questions, I like to ask my audiences, what are you struggling with when it comes to my area of expertise? What’s holding you back from working with me? And how would you feel if you actually had a quiz that generated over 500 leads in the first seven days that came out? And so when I get the answers to these questions, I can get really good insight on what they’re interested in, what are they struggling with, and maybe tweak my offer, maybe not offer what I thought I was going to in the first place, right.

So everything is based on my audience and what they want. So now that I know that I’m on target and my idea matches with their needs, then you can move forward to start creating a quiz. And you want to match it up with your offer. So you want to work backwards from your offer. And my new quiz that I worked on recently is lining up to my group coaching quiz program. So I worked backwards from that offer. And then I created the results pages, created the questions and then you use Interact. I personally love Interact. Interact is a quiz platform, fairly easy to use. And that’s where you build the quiz. Now Believe it or not, I’m learning to share some vulnerabilities about myself, but I’m not a copywriter. And I’m not very great with technology. So with my clients and myself, I actually have an award winning copywriter that I work with that looks over my work. I’m a personality expert. So I can do the psychology I can help you set up everything in segmentation so you can better understand your clients and then you know walk you through how to promote your quiz based on your strengths, and then also how to show up and sell to those people who are attracted to your offers, right.

But I do have a copywriter I work with that looks over everything and she enhances it to make it more fun. And then we hand everything over to a virtual assistant who then builds all the landing pages and then puts the welcome series together and so all that technology is done there. And I personally would be held back if I thought I had to do everything. So I want to give people permission that if it’s not in your zone of genius, it’s okay to hire out. And matter of fact, it might help you move faster. So yeah, so that’s really you know, within it all kind of comes together, and then you have a link ready to go. And I was just telling you as sometimes it feels like it never ends, because I’m almost done working on my quiz. And then it’s like, okay, now I have to do the landing page for that final offer, where I’m going to offer my three day challenge to nail your quiz idea, right?

So then you’ve got that landing page you have to do but, you know, once you do it, it can last for such a long time. And then you’ve also developed a system where you can use it as a tool for your business. And so it’s not just a quiz to generate leads. Ideally, a good quiz is going to help your clients. For example, I created a quiz for a TEDx speaking coach. And it was a personality quiz. Yes, it generated leads for her. But what it also did is it helped them identify their strengths and weaknesses as a speaker. So when they eventually did their TED Talk, they went out there and they leaned into their strengths. And they weren’t like you didn’t have a Britney brown trying to be Tony Robbins, right? You had Bernie brown being Bernie Brown, being brilliant of who she is, right? And, and Same goes for Rachel Hollis and Tony Robbins, like they’re gonna have their own personality where they’re jumping up and down and really excited. But you lean into your strengths, you know? So hopefully that answered the question. I know, I got a little off on a tangent, but I can do that with personality stuff. Because it’s, I think it’s incredible. And I think it’s such an easy way to learn your audience, learn about yourself and marry everything that you have to better serve your audience in the end.

Shannon Baker

No, that’s good. So we got that, that process of how to get ready for the quiz. And the minute mentioned the technology, which is Interact. So of course, my first question or the question I have in my head is, what other platforms does Interact integrate with? Because despite everybody already has an existing email platform.

Linda Sidhu

You know, I wouldn’t really worry about that. I think they pretty much integrate with everybody, you might have to use Zapier or however you want to say it. But they’ve pretty much done all that. It’s you can build the quiz on Interact, and then figure out that existing piece. It there, it’s available. I haven’t come across where there’s one where you just can’t do it. Put it that way.

Shannon Baker

So it works with the majors ConvertKit Miller Lite ad campaign. campaign. Yeah. And that’s just about what just about everybody uses. There’s some others in between. But you know, I’m a big Zapier user anyway, so but doesn’t integrate directly, we can find a way around that. Now, this is great to help everyone get started thinking about especially as this episode airs, we’re focusing on talking about sales. It’s a great time right now, to think about what’s one, you know, what are you going to do to present your business differently moving forward into the new year to improve the results that you get, you know, this year, the time that this episode airs? So I have one other bonus question for you before we wrap up our conversation today, though. So I know you aren’t necessarily a systems type type of person like me, but either in your business or personal life. Is there a system something you know, you do routinely, that you can’t live without?

Linda Sidhu

Yeah, so I love this question. Because it’s, your, your audience is going to love this too. So in my quiz, the welcome series, I have a survey in the PS of one of my emails, and it’s in one of the first emails where because people are coming in hot when they take a quiz, they’re excited, they want to learn more. So I believe it was on email, too, or Yeah, I think it’s email to the PS, I’ve added a survey. And what I do is I tell people, like take this two minute survey, as like, help me understand to be a better entrepreneur and show up in a way that can serve you better. But I also offer a 30 minute strategy session every single month, and the chances are, a lot of people aren’t going to take the time to do this survey, but you have a high chance and honestly I started doing this about a year ago and I have over 100 people that’s taken the survey today and what I do with this information, so it’s all on automation, right? New people coming in who are excited to learn about quizzes are filling out this questionnaire. What does it help me with? It helps me with my email writing. It helps me with my sales pages. It helps me figure out what new offers I want to create. So it is basically a survey that’s on automation that I don’t have to ask people to take or go to Facebook. And it’s given me a wealth of information to better understand my clients. So I know that I’m always serving them and showing up in a way where they want to do business with me where I can shine the light on my strengths and my expertise and help them maybe with something that they’re having a hard time to put together themselves, or we come together, and we do it together and whatnot. Right? But that is my tip. I think everybody in their welcome series should have a automated survey. So they can reflect back on when they need it. When they’re developing different offers and different things and take a look and see what people are saying to them.

Shannon Baker

Yeah, this built in market research, can you say you don’t have to put that extra ask out there, it’s already you got a multipurpose email that is awesome. So now the freebie everyone wants to make sure they grab from Linda is discover your quiz to cash strategy, because you need a strategy. So this works. Don’t just throw a quiz out there to start collecting a bunch of names are you gonna lose people? So if you want to do it, right, make sure you start with getting that freebie from Linda. And then that freebie also is like the prelude to a new offer from Linda, tell us a little bit about that. And then we’ll wrap up.

Linda Sidhu

Yeah, thank you. So the quiz to cash strategy is how to align your personality based on your personality strengths. So yes, you want to do a quiz. But from there, what do you do with your launch? And how do you have a successful launch? So I’m really excited about the quiz. And then I’m, I’ve created a free three day challenge that’s going to be coming out soon. And it’s to nail your quiz idea. And how I decided to do this was because the number one thing people were telling me was, I don’t have an idea for my quiz, I don’t know I don’t have a topic. So I use the number one thing that people are struggling with struggling with, and I’m going to help them break through that barrier. So that they can feel good and confident to create their own quiz. And then I’m doing this, mainly because I’ve had a lot of feedback of, you know, wanting more support with quizzes. Because yes, obviously we’ve under uncover that there’s a lot of moving parts with quizzes. And not only that, but even with copywriting people aren’t confident in their writing. So this fall, I’m launching my very first group coaching program, where I’m going to help you write a quiz from start to finish. And then we even have a copywriter on board that’s going to help you with your copy, look it over do some edits. So you feel really confident in your work. And then I’m even bringing in my virtual assistant who’s going to give tutorials on how to how to set it up. So it’s the first time you can work with me in a group coaching setting. And there is limited spots, mainly because I want to deliver on my course promise, I want 80 to 90% of the people to come out of that with a quiz. And I can’t do that for hundreds of people. I can only do it with like a handful of people where we just go in there there for intentionally and we’re there intentionally to help them. And I cannot wait I’m so excited. So this will line up perfectly if you have something something to launch in the new year.

Shannon Baker

So now Linda, where can everyone connect with you online? I mean, the links are gonna be in the show notes, especially to the freebie as well, but where can they find you online?

Linda Sidhu

Yeah, the best place to find me is on Facebook in my Facebook group, which is Quiz Creators. So if you search Quiz Creators, I show up there. I do case studies, I have lives where I interview different entrepreneurs, sort of like a podcast, but not a podcast. But where yeah, I’m there to help. I love a good community. And I think moving forward, marketing is going to be more personalized. And I also think it’s going to be about building trust, just like it was back then when I was doing the pharmaceutical stuff like it was all about building trust and just you know, showing up in ways that can best support other people. And so yeah, quiz creators a Facebook group.

Shannon Baker

Okay, great. Well, thank you very whetting our appetite for using quizzes Linda and sharing this wealth of information with us. So we have enjoyed this chat and look forward to grabbing that freebie so we can create that strategy and improve our results with our marketing and with our sales.

Linda Sidhu

Thank you, Shannon. It was a pleasure to be here and I look forward to everything that’s to come and both of our business.

Shannon Baker

Yes, me too.

To hear my chat with Linda listen to episode 83 of the podcast. Click below and tune in on your favorite platform.

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