What’s the difference between DiSC and an SMA Assessment Quiz? 

We make Specialised Marketing Assessments (SMA), but we want you to be happy with your choice of assessment tool, so we’re here to give you information on all the options, not just what we provide. 

We want you to be able to choose the right type of assessment for you, so let’s talk about how SMA compares with DiSC by looking at each model in terms of: 

• Purpose 
• Benefits  
• Common pitfalls 
• How they are facilitated 

But first, let’s explain what DiSC is and what a Specialised Marketing Assessment is. 

What is DiSC? 

DiSC is a behavioural assessment that businesses and other organizations sometimes use to determine employees’ and managers’ leadership strengths and weaknesses. It aims to provide more self-awareness and insight, potentially improving operations and teamwork. The name DiSC is an acronym that stands for the four main behaviour types that the model is based on. They are: 

• Dominence 
• Influence 
• Steadiness 
• Conscientiousness  

What is a Specialised Marketing Assessment 

The Specialised Marketing Assessment (SMA) is our signature Assessment Quiz. We work with our clients to create a lead-magnet marketing assessment quiz that is unique to their business needs and the needs of their current and prospective clients.  

All SMAs are based on own framework and technology that we have developed through years of research and experience. SMAs are used to achieve a variety of business goals by over 700 of the world’s leading coaches, consultants, trainers, and service-based companies. 

How do DiSC and SMA compare? 

Purpose 

Aside from meeting various business and/or learning goals, every type of assessment has a main purpose, that purpose can fall into three categories: 

1. Assess to determine a person’s existing knowledge 

2. Assess to determine if a training programme or other type of initiative is working 

3. Teach the person taking the assessment something about themselves 

The purpose of the DiSC model is to teach people about their own behavioural styles and preferences relevant to those of others. So, DiSC remains firmly in category three, as detailed above. 

The SMA framework can be applied to all three categories. Here are some examples:  

a.) Let’s say you want to assess someone’s prior knowledge of a subject or topic. We can apply a concrete score to each answer option that tells you if their knowledge is of the standard that it needs to be.  

b.) If you wanted to assess whether a task, initiative, or course someone is undergoing is working, we can create an ongoing and actionable assessment that can tell you: 

c.) Let’s say you want to help someone to self-identify barriers that may be preventing personal or business growth, skills gaps that are holding them back, or discover their preferred communication style. We can create a behaviour, personality, or archetype style assessment that will reveal this information. This can be based on your own model or on an established theory like DiSC or Myers Briggs. 

Benefits of DiSC 

DiSC assessments offer many benefits to a company and their individual employees. These are some of the most impactful: 

• It raises self-awareness by helping employees understand their strengths and weaknesses. This allows them to make positive changes to the way that they deal with conflict, stress, and tasks 
• It improves teamwork by enabling people to communicate more effectively. The data gathered helps team leaders to delegate the right tasks to the right people who are best equipped to get results. For example, if one team member falls strongly into the dominance quadrant (they would be called a ‘high D’ in DiSC lingo) they could be best placed to lead a project. If another member falls into the influence quadrant (known as ‘High I’), they may be the best choice to give a presentation 
• It strengthens sales and customer service skills. Knowledge of all four behaviour types helps a salesperson to identify them in their clients and communicate with them more effectively. It also helps sales teams to prepare presentations in a way that resonates with all the behaviour types 
• It enables managers to give employees tasks they are naturally suited to. This makes those employees feel motivated and valued, which leads to increased productivity and improved morale 

Common DiSC pitfalls 

• Occasionally DiSC assessments can unwittingly be used to pigeonhole employees; everyone has a blend of behaviour characteristics; they may present more strongly as one particular type but that doesn’t mean it’s their only type. Furthermore, not everyone who gets the same score will behave the same way. So, it’s important to avoid making assumptions about people based solely on their primary behaviour style 

• DiSC can often be mistaken as a personality test, but it is actually a behavioural assessment, only looking at four traits within our personality. Therefore, it should not be used in isolation to make management and hiring decisions 
• DiSC is a theory that has been taken up by many providers who have created and sold their own versions of it, with different language, different levels of accuracy and different pricing. Costs and products vary greatly so you will need to do a lot of research to find the best option for your needs 

Benefits of SMA 

• Gain leads faster by offering people the incentive of receiving their results at a point when they are already emotionally invested having taken the quiz. This strategy enables you to target, nurture and convert those leads faster 
• Segment your SMA quiz leads and target the ones that are the right fit for you and are more likely to convert. You can do this by asking specific questions and segmenting into categories based on their answers 
• Create a personalised experience with questions that tap into your audience’s specific pain points and dynamic, tailored feedback and calls to action 
• Keep your audience engaged by making them active participants with a three-minute interactive quiz 
• Grow your audience as people share their results with their professional network 
• Measure the ROI of your quiz by tracking leads and KPIs through SMA Digital’s internal analytics and through integrating your quiz with your CRM. Read our article ‘What’s the quickest way to get an ROI from a Specialised Marketing Assessment?’ for more information 
• Boost trust and credibility by helping your ideal client to self-identify that they need your help, provide targeted advice, and feedback and position yourself as the trusted advisor they need 
• Our versatile and innovative technology allows you to create a customised assessment quiz that can do anything you want it to 
• Our expertise in our field is proven by our track record, meaning you get the guidance and support you need to create a successful and meaningful assessment tool that will delight your prospects and clients and create a legacy. Find out more by checking out ‘The SMA Digital Difference’ 

Common SMA pitfalls 

• It can be tempting to turn your quiz into a sales pitch, avoid this by keeping it focused on your ideal client and what they want to know 
• You must promote your SMA creatively to ensure people take it. To find out how, look at our article ‘How to promote a quiz’ 
• You must have a good follow up in place. You’ve got their attention and already put yourself at the top of their mind as the solution to their problems, but if you don’t take action to persuade them to take the next steps, they will go cold. Read our article ‘How to follow up with leads after they take your quiz’ to learn more  

How are SMA and DiSC assessments facilitated? 

DiSC is completed online and can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes to complete. There are many ways to use DISC in your organisation, from assessments to workshops and training days. It’s often suggested that to get the most value out of DISC profiling, someone within the organisation should become certified to deliver DiSC and ensure that it is embedded in the company. This person is often an HR or learning and development professional but occasionally team managers may get certified. 

SMA can be published anywhere. You can embed it on your website or share the unique URL on your social media, blog, other websites, the list goes on. Once your SMA has gone live all you have to do is promote it and set up your follow up strategy, which can be automated through our integration with your CRM. You can set up regular performance reviews and make changes at any time in the quiz portal. Our team is always on hand to get you set up for success and support you to get the best out of your quiz. 

Conclusion 

As you can see, there is a big difference between SMA and DiSC. DiSC is a prescriptive process that an employer may decide to impose on a group of employees to get better results from them.  

With SMA you decide on the concept, it could be a model you have developed yourself, for example. It can be used internally within an organisation to improve working relationships. But it is also a powerful tool to take your business to the next level by attracting more of the right type of leads, growing your audience, boosting your trustworthiness and increasing revenue. 

DiSC is an excellent indicator of priorities and behavioural trends within the four areas it measures, but it is limited in what it reveals to the user. With SMA, the sky’s the limit.