Quizzes are a great tool for getting more traffic to your website, increasing audience engagement, and raising brand awareness. They’re also a fantastic way to get qualified leads into your sales funnel. But, once they’re there, how can your quiz turn those leads into loyal, longstanding clients?
That’s the question we’ll be answering in this article by looking at the biggest barriers to closing sales and how a quiz can help you smash them. We’ll also share some practical tips on implementing your quiz into your sales strategy to help you seal the deal.
What are the biggest barriers to closing sales and how can a quiz overcome them?
Every business has its own unique challenges when it comes to sales, but some are common across the board. Especially in these tough economic times when salespeople are having to use exceptional skill and creativity to sell effectively. In the table below we’ll look at the four most common reasons deals can fall apart and how a quiz can prevent that happening.
| Barriers to closing sales | How a quiz can help |
| Relationship building | A quiz enables sales teams to source and qualify leads, empowering them to recognise and develop the highest value relationships. The quiz asks the questions for them and allows them to really ‘listen’ to prospects’ needs. This means they can communicate more effectively and quickly develop a rapport that turns into a trusting and long-lasting client relationship |
| By far the most important aspect of sales is building lasting relationships. And not just with anyone, it must be the right people. Knowing who to pursue and who is going to be a waste of time can be tricky to get right and could cost the business a lot of time and money | |
| Communication | A quiz is great way to communicate your offering to your prospect in a simple and accessible way that focuses on what you can do to help them with their specific goals and challenges. It captures their attention by using language they can relate to and expresses the benefits to them without being overcomplicated |
| When selling a niche product or service it can be easy for the salesperson to slip into industry jargon and abbreviations that can leave the prospect confused and alienated. Often in a small business, the person doing the selling is very close to the product and can easily get carried away with the specifics and the technology, leading to information overload for the buyer, who is not being supported to understand what the product or service can do for them | |
| Identifying and exploring the prospect’s problems | A quiz can operate as a needs assessment by asking the right number of powerful questions that not only uncover problems and concerns but can also help the prospect to quantify the extent of their problems and recognise how they are impacting certain areas of their lives or work. By taking a quiz, prospects are more likely to give honest and accurate answers and by self-identifying their needs they are much more likely to act than if they are being pitched to by a salesperson |
| Problems are the driving force behind a prospect’s needs, but they’re not likely to talk about those problems unless they’re asked. Even then, they may deny they have the problem. If you can’t identify the potential areas of need and the prospect’s concerns, they are not likely to recognise that things need to change and they need your help | |
| Connecting your product or service to their needs | A quiz gives you the opportunity to provide your prospect with tailored feedback and calls to actions that are based on the answers they give and are therefore appropriate, meaningful, and unique to the prospect’s specific challenges and goals. The information you provide is quantified by their quiz score and explained through engagement formats like video and visuals aids to ensure the right message gets across loud and clear. |
| Often, having uncovered their prospect’s needs, salespeople fail to connect the right product or service that will help them. This can be because although they know what the product can do and can recall the list of features like the alphabet, they are unable to see how it can be applied to solve the prospect’s problems. Or perhaps they are just not explaining it explicitly enough. Prospects need total clarity to be able to see how something will benefit their needs. |
How to implement your quiz into your sales strategy
More than just a marketing tool to drive traffic and raise awareness, your quiz can be a valuable part of your sales strategy if you integrate it properly. To do that, you must design your quiz with sales in mind. Here are our top tips:
- Ask the right questions
Help the prospect identify and quantify the extent of the problem and how it impacts them with questions like:
- What is blocking…?
- How does that impact…?
- What will happen if that continues?
- Make use of segmentation questions
Not every quiz lead is going to be one that you pursue. Most salespeople will have a qualification checklist to help them assess the value of a lead. Build this checklist into your quiz by asking two or three simple segmentation questions such as:
- How long have you been in business?
- What’s your annual turnover?
- How many people do you employ?
- Give valuable feedback and show your credentials
Sharing insight and actionable tips, based on your prospect’s score is how you provide them with real value and gain their trust, laying the foundation for a great relationship. By demonstrating your expertise, their confidence in you grows. Show that you have a deep knowledge and can provide the solutions they need. Include testimonials with the quiz results to show how you have solved similar problems for others
Once you have your quiz up and running its time to use the data you are gathering to successfully close the sale. Follow these steps and you will be converting quiz leads in no time at all:
- Before scheduling a sales call with a prospect, you must proactively encourage them to take your quiz if they haven’t already. This will enable you to gather valuable information about them that will guide your call. So, if you gain a lead via social media, a referral, networking, speaking, an ad or PR activities, the first action you must take is to send them a link to your quiz
- Any prospect who completes the quiz but doesn’t take up your call to action must be contacted within 24 hours, by phone if possible. The goal is to set up a sales meeting. Believe us when we say this works
- Once you’ve locked in your sales call, do your homework by looking through the prospect’s quiz report and the answers they gave. This will help you understand their biggest challenges and what to focus on next, which will help guide the conversation and close the sale
In closing
You can avoid most common pitfalls that jeopardise your sale by simply planning before you interact with a prospect. Having their quiz report at your disposal gives you all the information you need to develop a targeted conversation strategy in advance and be in the best possible position to close the sale.
