In this episode of "Kickstart the Conversation," host Catharine O'Leary, aka the Quiz Queen, talks about the framework for kickstarting a conversation with your ideal clients. She emphasizes the importance of asking questions with intention and connecting with your clients on a personal level.
Catharine discusses how asking a well-designed series of questions can take your client on a self-discovery journey where they learn something about themselves, gain insights on what to do to help solve a problem or reach their goal, and get an opportunity to learn more from you, the expert in such matters. She also explains how a quiz can be a powerful tool for businesses to attract ideal clients and drive sales.
The five-step framework for kickstarting a conversation includes:
Catharine shares a real-life example of how she used this framework to triple her leads and double her sales for her network marketing business. She also invites listeners to check out her latest quiz at quizformybiz.com for a demonstration of the framework in action.
In conclusion, Catharine reminds listeners that asking questions with intention is essential for building relationships and growing a successful business. By using this framework, entrepreneurs can attract their ideal clients, engage them, and turn them into raving fans.
Welcome back to Kickstart the Conversation, the podcast for entrepreneurs looking to attract their best clients, engage them and turn them into raving fans. I'm Catharine O'Leary, aka the Quiz Queen, your host. And today we're talking all about the framework for kickstart in the conversation, to attract ideal clients and drive sales leading to business growth and success. And you guessed it is all through quizzes, kickstarting the conversation always starts for me with questions. When you meet somebody for the first time, you, you tend to ask a lot of questions, right? You ask them what their name is, where they're from, you know, what they do for a living? When we go on an interview, we ask a ton of questions, like, you know, what the role is? What's, you know, the salary level? Where's the bathroom? When we go to a party, we ask, who's gonna be there? Is there a dress code, you know, who's the host? Do I need to bring anything to help you out? You know, you get the idea. For some reason, when we start a business, and we get, you know, we get up in our heads about this marketing strategy or that sales technique. And we totally lose all interest in exactly who we're talking to, and what is important to them beyond what we can sell them. I know, that sounds really harsh, but sometimes that's how it seems if you, you know, take a look at it from the other side of the desk, it seems like, you know, we go straight from a marketing conversation into a sales call. And it and it feels creepy it you know, we were suggesting a solution to a problem, we haven't actually, you know, understood fully yet. And that's not the way to build a business that's based on relationships that can stand the test of time. I mean, we all want a business full of amazing clients that we love to work with. I know I love my clients, and I love to help them succeed. That type of for relationship, it just doesn't start off with like a slick marketing gimmick that goes immediately into a sales conversation. And I think, as entrepreneurs, it's up to us. And it's, you know, it behooves us to get back to the art of asking questions, and not just any questions, asking questions with intention. Here's what I mean by that.
Catharine O'Leary:I don't believe it's good enough to ask a question when you truly don't care what the answer will be. Without intention for asking the question, then, my question to you is, should the question even be asked, you know, with intention, then things get real and authentic conversation can take place, throwing questions out for the sake of doing so for the sake of collecting data or information that you're never going to use, people can feel that they can sense it, and it just feels like a big waste of time. So what I'd like to do is invite all of us all entrepreneurs to level up and ask questions, to get to know your ideal clients individual circumstances. A well thought out series of questions can take your client on a bit of a self discovery journey, where they learn something about themselves, they gain insights, you provide them on what to do to help solve a problem or reach a goal. And they get an opportunity to learn more from you as the expert in such matters, with a simple invitation to your next step. That step might be a webinar, where you have an offer might be a masterclass or a discovery call, maybe it's an invitation to a summit, whatever makes the most sense for them to continue the conversation and to learn more. Now, you've actually had a very short, very simple two way conversation with your ideal client, you know, where they're learning something about themselves in regard to a problem they're having or a desire that they want to achieve. You've learned a little bit more about their struggles and aspirations and you've learned how you can best serve them with your programs and offers. All of this can be accomplished with a well designed quiz for your business. So let's let's dig into how I have kind of five points that I want to one want to cover right now.
Catharine O'Leary:So if you've got a pen and paper handy, and if you don't go grab one, but the first thing when you're thinking about a well designed quiz for your business, is you have to start at the end. Right. So you are the chief navigator on this, you know, Discovery journey that your client is going to take them on, you need to know what the endpoint is going to be. So what are you offering your clients? What are they going to, you know, be do or have at the end of your offer? What's that transformation that they will experience means through your program. I'm not talking about all the modules or the how of your offer, I'm really talking about the client benefits. So not features so much as the feelings so much is that transformation. So in the client, you know, frame of mind and in their language and you know, what are those feelings? What are those benefits that they're going to get? Because that's what you have to have in mind as the endpoint that you're navigating to. So that's the first thing the first thing is starting at the end with your offer. The second thing is to kind of reverse engineer and go all the way to the, to the front, or to the start of a quiz. And that's, that's really understanding that 3am question that your clients are waking up struggling to answer, or maybe they're waking up wishing and dreaming for something that you can help them with? What is that 3am question? In their words? Let me say it again, that's in their own words, not in technical lingo, or in language, they'll understand maybe better after they take your program. Remember, it's that 3am question that they've just woken up worrying about, or wishing for something. What are the words they use to articulate that worrier wish? It's likely something quite simple and straightforward. That's what you need to tap into.
Catharine O'Leary:With that 3am question in mind, you can grab their attention with the questions the headlines as opposed to remarks or, you know, whatever to help them gain, you know, an answer to the 3am question. The third thing that you have to keep in mind is to know now that the trick is to connect the 3am question, with your offer, through a series of questions that lead your clients on a self discovery journey to the answers that you and your offers can provide. You can't go from the 3am question to solution. That's that slick, gimmicky marketing thing, right to a salesy thing is creepy, you want to find out more about their current business or issues, their current situation, the challenges that they're facing, and their aspirations, it's, it's so little, like a good coffee chat with a friend, the problem is identified, you know, discussed in more detail with a few questions back and forth to clarify and understand better what's going on. And then a few, you know, solutions are offered, along with maybe an invitation to continue the conversation over another coffee. This is, you know, this is an area that a lot of entrepreneurs tend to overlook, it's not enough to ask just a bunch of questions, or in a form that looks like you're gonna end up with a mortgage at the end of it. There has to be rhyme or reason. Or else, your clients are going to come away feeling like they've been tricked into an info gathering this session. And they're going to regret the minute or two that they wasted on your quiz. And that's really the last thing that we want. The fourth thing is, you know, the outcomes, the best thing that that comes out of, you know, putting your or giving your clients away to get to know like and trust you better through questions is that, you know, they feel heard. And that's more than can be said for a lot of other marketing strategies as you right now. So, you see, quizzes are, are ways that you can customize your suggestions and solutions. Based on that conversation that you're having with your client at the time, you're able to, you know, put them into outcomes, where you can talk to what's most important to them. This is how I describe it with my clients. So think of your program, like Hogwarts School of Wizardry. All the kids who are selected go to Hogwarts are aspiring witches and wizards, like your target audience, once it gets to Hogwarts are all sorted into different houses based on skills and needs and personality characteristics. Those houses are what I call your outcomes. Everyone gets to go to all the classes, everyone gets your offer. But they're sorted based on priorities and needs. They are heard and their houses are personalized to them. So your clients are heard in the sense that you understand what is driving their biggest worry or their biggest, you know, dream that they're looking for help with and you're able to actually customize and personalize your conversation with them. I'll get more into that in a minute. But that's that's the fourth thing.
Catharine O'Leary:The fifth thing that you know quizzes are brilliant at and that almost no other stuff IG has is the ability to invite your ideal clients to continue your conversation. So this is the cherry on top. That is the ability to offer suggestions, offer solutions, connect with them on their outcomes, connect with them, where they they're at and their priorities. And now invite them to your webinar, to your master class to your sales page, to your one on one call, like whatever makes the most sense at that time. So that you can continue that conversation they now know like and trust you, you have offered solutions, after hearing more about what problems that they are trying to solve or desires that they're trying to achieve. And you are offering a further conversation to get to the bottom of, you know, helping them out with that. That's more of a conversation than most people have with their ideal clients before, you know, getting into that salesy conversation. And that's the power of quizzes. So let's put these five steps into a real life example. Because I feel like talking you through an actual quiz will help solidify this. So the quiz that I created for my network marketing business that that helped triple my sales and or triple my leads and double my sales. I was, you know, helping people who weren't sure what type of online business they should start.
Catharine O'Leary:So I was in network marketing. And the the program that we had was personal development courses. And there was a way for people to basically sell those courses and make Commission's on them direct sales. Right. The 3am question that I realized that my ideal clients were having was, how do I pick the best online option, business option with the amount of overwhelming opportunities are out there? So the question that I used was, you know, what's your online business personality type? Start a business that fits your lifestyle, so your lifestyle doesn't have to fit your business? Everyone at my school, aka Hogwarts, was an entrepreneur ready to start a new business? By asking them about a 3am question, I only attracted the people who were looking to start a new business, not people that were looking for a job or a contract or looking to sell me something, or looking for somebody that I wasn't able to help them with just people that were looking to start an online business. So I was able to connect that 3am question with the offer that I had, which was a business opportunity to, you know, to represent these personal development courses. I asked him a few questions, you know, are you an introvert or extrovert? Are you looking to start a business add maybe a side hustle or full time? You know, what's driving you to consider starting an online business? Are you starting it for maybe legacy or community? Maybe it's freedom? Or is impact? What's your level of marketing and experience? Are you a beginner or an intermediate or an expert? And why are you looking for an online business? Is it time to shake things up, maybe it's an income stream, you know, conversation that you want more income, maybe you've had enough, enough, enough is enough of the nine to five, or maybe it's just time to leverage your experience and share more and be a mentor and impact people. You know, though, with those questions, that's enough for them to get some clarity as to why they wanted to start an online business, and enough information for me to suggest that they fell into one of the four groups that I was talking to so this is my Griffin door and slow there. And if you will, mine were visionary, you know, somebody wanting to build a business to leave a legacy, Freedom seeker, somebody looking for time, money and location, freedom, a super connector, somebody looking for business, but also community of like minded entrepreneurs. And a mega mentor, somebody looking for business with impact and can leverage and share their experiences with with other people. I created a report for each of these outcomes, and I gave a few tips on what each personality type should look for in an online business. The challenge is to watch out for and an offer to discuss it further.