Posted 5 years ago
Let us pose a couple questions to our readers:
(1) Do you want to understand your clients better? (We’d guess the answer is “yes”!)
(2) Do you want to make more money? (We’d guess this answer is emphatically “YES”!!)
World famous speaker and best selling author, Dr. Tony Alessandra, discusses the potential benefits of adding online assessments to your business. The good news is that in most cases, if implemented correctly, adding assessments to your list of offerings will get you that “yes” answer to questions 1 & 2 listed above. Not only does Dr. Tony explain the value of offering your clients access to online assessments, but he also does you the favor of breaking down the decision making process as to (a) how to decide if assessments are right for you; (b) what types of assessments are available; and (c) pros and cons of customized assessments vs. off-the-shelf. Dr. Tony has been working with online assessments for decades and has a wealth of knowledge to share – enjoy!
Online Assessments: Should You Add Them to Your Product Mix?
Within my speaking/training business, I always had a product mix to offer clients – books, audio & video programs, and assessments. I started offering paper-based assessments to clients in 1975. In 1996, when my Platinum Rule® book was released by Warner Books, I decided to create an online assessment for the sole purpose to sell more books. I was quite surprised that nearly 10,000 people were taking the Platinum Rule® online assessment and raving about it. Four years later, the blinding flash of “obvious” finally hit me – this could be a business unto itself – offering and using online assessments as an additional revenue source.
So, the big question for you is, should you consider adding online assessments to your product mix as an additional revenue source?
To help you answer that question, I will paraphrase Simon Sinek and tell you to “Start with Why”. First, an assessment product should be congruently aligned with your business – and your audience should be able to connect to it intuitively. The second thing to consider is how you might use assessments. There are several ways and reasons to consider using online assessments, such as:
If you decide that you do want to use assessments, the next decision is: do you want people to take them for free or do you want to charge a fee? The free assessment route is great for simply collecting data, building a mailing list or even selling other products based on how an individual scores on your assessment.
There are several sources you can contact to create a no-cost or low-cost assessment that you can have others take for free, such as Survey Monkey and others.
If you decide you actually want to make a business of online assessments, you have another decision to make – use off-the-shelf assessments or create your own unique assessment?
Off-the-shelf assessments are widely known, widely used, validated assessments such as DISC, MBTI, Motivators, Hartman, Emotional Intelligence, Learning Styles, etc. Many companies already use one or more of these assessments, so why not purchase them from you if they are one of your clients?
Using one of these “brand name” assessments lowers the barrier of entry, and since these tools are already well known, you won’t have the burden of explaining an assessment model with which your prospects and clients are unfamiliar. Additionally, certifications in these well-known tools can boost your perceived expertise. Most clients auto order their DISC assessments monthly to create tens of thousands of dollars of monthly recurring revenue.
Creating and promoting your own custom assessment can be quite costly but immensely profitable. There are several items to consider when creating your custom assessment, such as:
Self-assessment or 360º (multi-rater) assessment. If a 360º assessment, you’ll need:
When creating your customized assessment, you’ll need:
The end user report structure:
In addition to all of the above, you will need an expert, usually a psychometrician, to create your questionnaire, competencies, questions, scoring algorithm and, most importantly, statistically validate your assessment. Why validate? It lends credibility to your assessment and you are likely to be able to charge more for your assessment, particularly in the corporate world.
One last decision is where to host and manage your assessments? You are certainly able to create your own assessment system/dashboard but the cost, ongoing management and system updates may be prohibitive. Whether you decide to build your own system or use a reputable assessment vendor, make sure your assessment delivery system does most or all of these things:
Online assessments are not for everyone. However, they can be a significant profit contributor to your business. The beauty is passive, recurring revenue. Diversifying my speaking/training business into online assessments turned out to be one of the best business moves of my career. Not only did my speaking/training business help my assessment sales – my assessment business has opened opportunities for more and better speaking/training engagements.