August 13, 2025 • 30 mins
Join Bev Roberts, Wholistic Business Mentor, as she unveils the power of creating an in-demand Signature Quiz. In this episode, you'll discover three key strategies to craft a quiz that not only generates leads but also aligns prospects with the products they need at the right time. This insightful discussion will help marketers shift their approach, focusing on heart-centered engagement to drive business growth.
Listen on Podbean:
https://brainworkframework.podbean.com/
Connect with Bev Roberts:
Company Website: https://bevroberts.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/bevrobertsmentor
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bevroberts/
Connect with Chris Troka:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-troka-3a093058/
Website: https://focused-biz.com/
Website: https://christroka.com/ #brainwork #framework #business #quiz #growth #mentor #strategies
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I have taken a lot of guidance and advicefrom coaches and mentors, but my advice
to anybody if I was talking to that personback then is listen to your own inner
wisdom and your own moral compass, right?
Honestly, you do have within youeverything you need to be successful
(00:22):
in your business because you havevalues, and that's why I move
towards consent driven marketing.
Because the aggressive marketingstyles that I was being taught
did not sit with my values.
So for me, I would say come backto that inner wisdom and inner
guidance, and go from there.
(00:42):
Make your decisions about yourbusiness and your life from me.
You are listening to Brainwork Framework,a Business and Marketing podcast,
brought to you by Focused-biz.com.
Welcome back to another episode.
With us today is Bev Roberts.
She is the holistic business mentorwith her company Living Fabulously.
(01:02):
They teach heart-focused marketershow to use a signature quiz so you
can start building a lead generationsystem and lead prospects to the
right products at the right time.
Bev, so excited to have you on today.
How you doing?
I'm really great.
It's early in the morning forme and I believe it would be
later in the evening for you.
It is.
Good morning.
We appreciate you taking the timebut we always like to ask our
(01:23):
entrepreneurs, tell us about your journey.
What were you doing before that kind ofled into the business that you have today?
Great question because I've gotan interesting story to tell.
I was an award-winning executive ina global company and one of my things
was using my master's degree inbusiness strategy and transformation
(01:43):
to make a big impact on businesses.
But I found I was very lonelyat the board table as a female.
And it was exhausting, to be honest.
I'm talking back several years beforeperhaps there was some evolution and
acceptance for women at at board tables.
And what I did do though is I took allthat sort of skill and knowledge of
(02:06):
transforming businesses into profitableones and started my own consulting
business but the habits don't die easily.
So that way of working extendedhours and those kind of things.
But I loved it because I had influenceover the executives that I worked with.
So I was working mainly with blue chipin Australia, big publicly listed company
(02:29):
executives and getting them to leadfrom a point of human way of leading.
Not just about profit, not just aboutpeople, you can get opposite ends,
overly people oriented and then underfocused and proper but trying to get
that balance right also led a lot ofcompanies through the global financial
(02:51):
crisis into optimizing their businesses.
But I think that the testing thingthen was, you're gonna like people
but what are you gonna stop doing?
And for me it was always howdo we manage that person as a
whole being and support them.
Transition to what they need to do.
(03:12):
So it was a very rewarding but alsochallenging in a lot of ways but I
loved it because I never took gigsthat didn't report to the CEO because
often there's so much politics and
you get involved in a businessthat it stops progress.
And I don't know if it's fortunatelyor unfortunately a invisible chronic
(03:34):
illness stopped me in my tracks and Ilost my cognitive function and my ability
to talk and my ability to process.
So that meant that my livelihoodas a business consultant was
basically done and dusted.
I couldn't function.
So I had to exit the big project Iwas working on to take care of myself.
(03:56):
I think it was a big wake up call interms of executive burnout that I'd
probably been going through that.
The stage was ripe for me tothread that in my own life.
It was a lesson and I learned very much.
But what I did is I navigatedthese past 10, 12 years.
(04:17):
What is my mission?
What is my purpose?
Why am I here and can I dothis in a different way?
And I had a lot of timespend retraining my brain.
And one of the things I did was to studyas an integrative health coach because I
thought my coaching skills were inherent.
They just were part of me.
I didn't have to think about itbut I couldn't remember anything.
(04:39):
I couldn't call common objects, like passme the thing and that would be the salt.
I wouldn't remember what it was called,so it was a long journey back to myself.
But a good one in hindsight.
And what I did in that moment was mydoctor said to me, you are very different
to most of the other people that I treatand I think you should write a book.
(05:02):
And I thought, well, there's challenge.
I can't even remember anything.
I can't write coherently,I can't speak inherently.
So I decided that I would use mindmapping, which is a beautiful technique
of bypassing words and things.
So you sort of just jotting ideas.
And I took that and I used speechto text and I basically dictated
(05:26):
a book that became a bestseller.
So my book, hope in a Dark Tunnel, itwas about navigating an invisible chronic
illness and took back power 'cause a lotof times when you're really unwell, you
throw your power into the hands of themedical team who are taking care of you.
And what I realized thatwasn't going to help me.
(05:47):
It was going to hinder me.
So I made a very practicalbook and it still sells today.
I find it quite interesting that sometimesI get these little royalty texts for
the books that are selling today.
But in 2020, we all know whathappened in 2020, I got that urge.
I thought, how can I sit back and watchother people lose their livelihood
(06:10):
when I know exactly how to take abusiness online, bricks and mortar
business and take them online?
So I basically pivoted from integrativehealth coaching and focused primarily
on helping coaches and practitionersget their businesses online.
The only people I couldn't help wereanyone that was touch therapies,
(06:30):
like massage therapists orchiropractors or those kind of people.
And I feel that it sort of ignited backthat fashion of creating solutions in
business 'cause that was my signature.
I could problem solve myway out of any dark basket.
It sort of really ignited that for me.
Now I specialize in consentdriven marketing and this growth.
(06:54):
And you mentioned in my intro that Iteach people how to use a signature
quiz because it's not only a great leadgeneration system but it also gets you to
intermittently know who your audience isand then you create unique content that
actually meets them where they're at.
And the most important thing, 'causewe're all in business and we are
(07:17):
in business to make money, is thatyou make more sales consistently.
So it's our journey and I'm reallypassionate about making a difference.
Bev, that is such an incredible journey.
I loved YOUR sharing that and justto hear some of the obstacles and
challenges that you had to overcome,even when things seemed so bleak.
And just how you wereable to overcome that.
(07:37):
Truly incredible.
And now you're helping tosolve more problems here.
I was gonna ask if you were still doingthat type of human focused services
for those other businesses 'causeimmediately in my mind, there's so many
American companies here that desperatelyneed that to focus more on the human
being and how do we invest in them?
But instead, that's not their viewpoint.
But I'm so glad that you can stillbe proactive and still bring your
(07:59):
knowledge and wisdom to share witheverybody else now and I love this
idea of the quiz because it's givingsome insights into a potential buyer.
I almost feel like you don'teven need the content yet
until you get some feedbackfrom the quizzes, right?
You don't have to have a bigcontent structure built out yet
(08:19):
you could learn from the quizzesand then create the content.
Do you think that's afair strategy to go for?
Or do you like to look at it in adifferent way and kind of pre-build
their content structure first?
I think 'cause you've hit thenail on the head, that is the
one of the nuggets, right?
Because what I've observed is that weare driven to produce content so we
(08:44):
think what people might want and wethink of offers that people might want
and we think of courses that peoplemight want but we have no basis on which
those would be consumed, thosewould be sold and make money.
So obviously you have a position, right?
You are a specialist in some area.
(09:05):
You wanna share your wisdom andyour knowledge and you know that
there's certain types of peoplethat you would be able to support.
What I've found with a quizis that you are not doing the
one size fits all marketing.
So what happens is when you start inbusiness and I'm also a proponent of
you do not need a website to startselling because it takes time to
(09:29):
evolve your messaging, it takes timeto really land in that niche where
you can make the biggest impact andmake the biggest transformations.
So I would say if somebody was inthe startup phase of their business,
get clear on who you wanna serve.
Some people call it an avatar andgo beyond the traditional things.
(09:51):
So we don't just want to know their age,we don't just wanna know the demographics
around them but we want to know moreabout them in terms of what you can serve.
There's no use getting generalknowledge about the person.
We also want to know what thepsychographics are, the way that they
make decisions and those kind of things.
(10:12):
So for example, in my business, what I'mable to do is to look ahead and say, okay.
I have three areas in my businessthat I am wanting to focus on.
I focus on startup businesses.
(10:34):
I focus on businesses who are goingthrough some growth and I'm start
focusing on businesses who are scaling.
If I just do a general lead magnet, Idon't know where that person sits and
obviously they may be on this continuum.
So for any business, they don'tusually only offer one thing.
(10:54):
So what we wanna do with aquiz is to highlight where is
somebody on the client journey?
As a business entrepreneur,take them, right?
So it's not about general businessand it just allows you to really
get to understand that person.
So I think that was a verygreat observation of yours.
(11:15):
I love your approach to building outthe quiz specific to them 'cause like
you said, their business name or theirname or their age doesn't tell you
anything about how they need to behelped or what you can market to them.
It's actually irrelevant at that point.
I feel like you really need morein-depth knowledge about where they're
at in the buyer's journey with theavatar or who they might be like.
(11:36):
All great advice 'cause we're allalways trying to seek validation.
We build out these productsthat we think are gonna fit.
We spend all this time buildingit out and we never even ask our
ideal audience what they thinkor what would be helpful to them.
So no website needed toget product validation.
Just go out there and startasking people, what do you think?
And when you get them involved in theprocess, you get that insight from
(11:56):
all of those customers and clients orpotential prospects that you might have.
Correct, because what somebodyneeds from me and when they're in
startup versus when they are scalingwith large launches of courses or
something like that is quite different.
So my content and my approachto them is different.
(12:17):
For example, if I choose to onlywork with one end of that spectrum.
That would be easy.
I could just go, okay, let mecreate a quiz that's designed to
really identify in the first stagesof business, where are they at?
I'm sort of macro, I'm sort of comingback out and going how far have
(12:37):
they gotten their business journey?
And then for example, when I talkabout list growth, when we talk about
the startup phase of business, whatI'm trying to identify is what is
the quick win that audience of theirsneeds if they're in the startup phase.
But just a good example of aquiz and it's not necessarily
(12:58):
related to stages of business.
One of my clients is apsychotherapist and she specializes
in highly sensitive people.
So she knows that there arespecific traits that identify if
you are a highly sensitive person.
We created a quiz with her thatdemonstrated how much you identify
(13:24):
with these traits and what werealized is the top percentiles.
Were exactly her ideal audience?
She could support them becausethey have not yet had any support
or they haven't taken any actionyet to address the sensitivity.
The ones in the sort of middle percentileswere those that have probably started
(13:47):
some work and they've done some thingsand they've supported themselves in
some way but the bottom percentile.
And I think we made it aslow about from 50% below.
Not her audience.
They're absolutely not her audience.
So we didn't invite themafter they took the quiz.
We just said, you're sucha great resilient person.
(14:09):
Keep up the great work.
Keep doing what you're doing.
And we didn't invite them to join our listbecause we've got the other two segmented.
She knows those who are exactly rightfor her therapies and those who are
possibly need more group work now.
Maybe they've movedbeyond just one-on-one.
So it's a great way to reallyidentify your audience.
(14:31):
And then where are they at andthen how do you serve them?
How do you support them withthe offers that you make?
That is brilliant.
And just think about the cost saved.
Half of the marketing list thatpeople would traditionally market
and send all these emails toare completely off the list.
Now they've already been pre-qualifiedor disqualified and now you have a
much better list to work with that'sgonna increase your conversion
(14:53):
rates and just gonna save a lot oftrouble with all your marketing.
And when you build out these quizzes.
Not to say a set template buttips and tricks for the guidelines
on how you structure it?
Is it like it has to be a minimum ofseven questions and no more than 15?
Or is there a structure that youlike to follow that typically kind
of works best for people beinghonest and going through the stages?
(15:14):
First of all, you need to workout the format of the quiz.
So what end result are you looking for?
Are you looking for like that exampleof mine that I gave you, I'm looking
for a category type quiz, right?
Which category do you belong to?
Are you startup?
Are you just growing or you scaling?
(15:35):
Whereas with that particularexample, with the psychotherapist.
She was doing what I wouldcall an assessment style quiz.
That's the format because weare assessing where they're at.
So a lot of health practitionersare interested on the
continuum of where they're at.
Some of my clients will look at
(15:55):
things specific to areas oflife or areas of business.
She deals with people who arein the third act of life.
There are mature citizens, maturewomen who are thinking like, what now?
I've retired.
So she's looking at areas of their life
that could improve.
It's also an assessment type butit shows where she needs to focus
(16:20):
her efforts and support them more.
So format is number one.
You need to choose thecorrect format for that.
The other thing is with questions.
Somebody will keep answeringquestions, so you need enough questions
to get the result that you need thatcould support that person but you
(16:43):
minimize the number of questions.
So I would say no less than eightbut probably no more than about 20.
And that's just generaland it's not prescriptive.
But if you can ask eight really succinctquestions that would categorize people,
you'd ask the question and then if Iwas doing a category style quiz, I would
(17:07):
have say four or five categories thatI'm looking at and I make statements
that people will then alarm to.
Whereas if I'm doing anassessment quiz, it's more.
Well, how much does this sound like you?
Is it a hundred percent, 80%,or strongly agree, strongly
disagree, those kind of things.
(17:28):
So you use different kind ofways of positioning the quiz.
But there's also in terms of quizdesign and what I didn't mention
back in the dark ages, I didstatistics in my undergraduate degree.
And there's a particular way towrite a question so that you get
an outcome that you really need.
(17:50):
there's an art and scienceto designing a quiz.
A lot of people will lookat the fun aspect of a quiz.
That's why people like to take quizzes.
But it's more about the design.
So you get the design.
There's three elements to the design.
It's format.
The way that you style questionsand then it's sort of positioning.
Just an aside but whenever youuse odd numbers in a scale for
(18:14):
quizzes, people will fence it.
It's a natural phenomenon.
So if I have three, they'lloften sit in the middle.
Gonna have far, they'll sit on 0.3.
So it's people who wanna hedge theirbacks, that often will sit in the middle.
So you will definitely be using evennumbers so there's no fence sitting.
That's about quiz design.
(18:35):
That is so fascinating to hear.
Just some of the psychologicaland behavioral considerations when
building quizzes and how we kindof ask questions because you're
right, depending on how we ask aquestion, we could alter the outcome.
So if we're looking for truefeedback or are we trying to nurture
them to provide a certain answer.
It's just something thatwe need to keep in mind.
(18:55):
But I love the way youreverse engineered it.
What's the outcomeyou're trying to achieve?
And then that's how you build.
No more questions than you needto ask but enough where you're
actually get a really good idea.
A big picture.
Look at what kind of problemsthat they're going through.
Yeah.
And I feel that if it's easyfor them to point, click, point,
click, they could answer 20.
(19:16):
So with the hypnotherapist,psychotherapist.
She had 20 traits but it was easy.
Either strongly identify or I don't.
So it was very easy.
You wanted the quiz to take at leastno more than five minutes, right?
Because people have very short attentionspans nowadays, I always start with more
(19:38):
and then get people to take the quizbefore you've published it to the general
public and then you get some feedbackand they go, well, i've had enough.
That's really useful information'cause actually question 10
was the pivotal question.
Having got that experience, I don'tdo that as much anymore but with my
clients, if you think that's reallyimportant, test it, always test it
(20:03):
and then you're gonna get the answer.
And this is the otherthing I find with quizzes.
A lot of people said is, please,when I did my first set of research
around, why I wanted to focus downon quizzes, and I said, what do
you dislike the most about quizzes?
And they all said, withoutfail the deception.
(20:24):
I said, what do you mean?
And they said it in different ways.
Well, either you ask me for myemail address up front and I dunno
what's coming or I'll happily dothe quiz and at the end to get my
results, you ask me for my email.
So I've actually designed a protocoland format that I don't do that.
(20:46):
So it's secret sauce.
I can't talk about all the detailsbut basically, I give them a small
set of subset of the results.
I love that.
Some great practical insights into how weshould be building it out without giving
it all away 'cause of course you haveto keep some of the secret sauce within
'cause that's the benefit toworking directly with you.
(21:07):
Not just for quizzes but I feellike the plethora of business
and marketing experience thatyou're bringing to the table.
Can I ask kind of a just ageneric business question.
So there's lots of talk right now, 2025,about an impending recession, right?
A lot of uncertainty.
What should businesses be focusing onright now to kinda weather the storm?
(21:27):
Do you think they shouldbe taking a certain approach?
Should they kinda lower their overhead?
Should they kind of goa little bit further?
I think it depends on thekind of business, number one.
So for example as we worked outin 2020 when businesses were
face to face and in person.
(21:48):
They could not operate, right?
So if the market conditions change, Ithink you need to create enough variety
in your business that can weather that.
So for example, if you arelocation based as a business now.
I would actually as a recession proofinginstead of shrinking in and cutting costs
(22:11):
that would be sensible to do at any time
but I would be looking at howcan I get my business online and
service more than my own local area.
And for example, if somebody needs alicense to operate in another state,
well maybe that's worth it but maybe youhaven't actually looked at what's just
(22:32):
in your further than your own front yard.
So how could you takeyour business online?
Because it's incrediblehow successful you can be.
I've always had a blended businessand now I've gone only to online.
So you can have in-personand online business.
And also think about things thatare not just discretionary spend.
(22:56):
So what is it in your wheelhouse?
What are you an expert at that is notjust discretionary feel good spend.
What is imperative to living a fulland rich life or having a business
that is successful through a recession?
So I think you've gottathink a little differently.
And I would say, it's alwaysgood practice at any time to
(23:20):
work out what I call our money leaks.
So look at the things you've paid,subscriptions you're paying for
that you do not need anymore.
You've either outgrown them or somethingbetter has came along and you bought that.
So do that at any time.
But I think in a recessionyou've gotta think of
the big picture of how can I best servicepeople that it's not discretionary spend.
(23:43):
So a lot of us aremulti-passionate, right?
We don't just do one thing.
And that's why I was saying why hadjust started getting my brain retrained
by doing integrative coaching.
But I know that deep insideme, streamlining and supporting
business growth is where I'm at.
That's where my passion is at.
(24:04):
So find that thing, even in yourcurrent business and just zone in
on something and extend it beyond ifyou're already in an online business,
I would say look beyond your own state,your own country, those are things.
Consider the time zones.
So for me, my audience is Australia,New Zealand, Canada and the USA and
(24:27):
the times of the year where it gets alittle challenging because obviously the
time zone changes and I'm in a state inAustralia where we do time zone changes.
So sometimes it gets a littlebit tricky but it's still doable.
I belong to courses andmasterminds in the States.
And yes, sometimes I am up at 6:00 AM andsometimes my audience are up at 8:00 PM.
(24:51):
So it depends but you can work that out.
I'd say extend, don't contract.
That would be my message.
It's so funny 'cause I was kinda leadingtowards being more cautious and should
we contract a bit and be a bit scared andhold onto our money and you're like, no,
this is the time to expand, time to grow.
If you're not doing this, trythis and think about expanding.
Honestly, I think that's theright approach 'cause I was
(25:12):
just sitting here scared.
Now this should be something that boostsour confidence to help us just go further.
And it's not that you'regoing to spend more money.
So if you think of it, the tools ofmy trade are a calendar that has time
zones that change when the person books,so it's booked in their time zone.
(25:33):
I set up that calendar to say, thisis my availability in my time zone.
Can I make sure that there's flexibility?
I don't want to work withEurope because it requires me to
work at night in my time zone.
So, you'd have a tool that's a calendaringsystem, scheduling system that allows for
you to and pay right book and pay book.
(25:56):
And my time zone paywould be the first tool.
Definitely have a tool like Zoom.
We're using Zoom today.
Have a tool like Zoom that you canconfidently get quality recordings
have one-on-one sessions and groupsessions and those two tools alone
(26:16):
will be less than 50 US dollars.
So taking yourself from thein-person and extending your reach
by having places elsewhere because
one of the things that I was doingat that time, whether everybody
else was contracting, I was runningvirtual retreats, so I was using Zoom.
(26:37):
I had a specific agenda that I couldactually set that there was some pre-work.
And I did some one-on-one retreats andI did some group small group retreats
because I could manage three people,their businesses, their questions
and they loved the cross pollinationbecause they weren't competitive in
the market and the idea generation.
(26:58):
So think outside the box.
I run this workshop in a venue.
How can I turn it into an onlineevent that would be very impactful
for people beyond my own suburb.
That kind of thing.
I love that Bev.
Absolutely.
Now, where can people connectwith you and find you online?
You can find me @bevroberts.com andon socials, my handle is Bev Roberts
(27:20):
mentor and I'm also on LinkedIn.
So if you're on LinkedIn,just type Bev Roberts.
Absolutely.
And for those interested, you cango down to the show notes and the
description and we'll have thedirect links to Bev here as well.
Wanted to ask, what are youlooking forward to in 2025?
Is there anything new or exciting thatyou're coming out with or are you just
kind of sticking with all the amazingstuff that you're doing currently.
(27:40):
Well, I'm relaunching yoursignature quiz course.
And as we said, it's a way to attract yourideal audience and transform the way you
create your content and most of all you'recreating things offers that will sell.
So making more sales.
I love running that course.
I'm gonna do a LA round probably in April.
(28:02):
And I'm really looking forwardto getting that running again.
I've got some ideas that I want toshift, so when you run something a few
times you kind of start getting, okay.
I feel people are gettingstuck here and there.
So I'm excited to relaunchyour signature quiz.
That is so exciting.
And one thing you mentioned wherepeople get stuck, I usually call
(28:24):
that the friction in the buyer'sjourney, where it's like, I got stuck.
And if you remove that friction, wow.
Suddenly that buyer's journeybecomes so much easier.
Suddenly they're scheduling calendarappointments, they're using your
payment link, they're bookingand just making things easier.
So I definitely agree utilizinga lot of the tools that we have.
And then instant customer feedback
to improve everything that you built upon.
Nothing needs to be perfect, right?
(28:44):
We're always kind of adaptingand learning as we go.
So I love the approach that you have.
Bev wanted to ask if is thereanything we haven't talked about yet?
Just wanted to open the floor for you,for any advice to entrepreneurs, maybe if
you had to restart your business today,what would be your approach and strategy?
I have taken a lot of guidance and advicefrom coaches and mentors but my advice
(29:09):
to anybody if I was talking to thatperson, back then is listen to your own
inner wisdom and your own moral compass.
Honestly, you do have within youeverything you need to be successful in
your business because you have values.
And that's why I move towards consentdriven marketing because the aggressive
(29:33):
marketing styles that I was beingtaught did not sit with my values.
So for me, I would say come backto that inner wisdom and inner
guidance and go from there.
Make your decisions about yourbusiness and your life from there.
Gotta trust your gut and your intuitionand just take the feedback and
things we learned from mentors andleaders that have come before us and
(29:55):
use that to make better decisions.
Bev, we appreciate your time andsharing your tips and wisdom with us.
Appreciate everything.
Congratulations.
Thank you, Chris.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Of course.
It was a pleasure.
Thank you.
I have taken a lot of guidance and advicefrom coaches and mentors, but my advice
to anybody if I was talking to that personback then is listen to your own inner
wisdom and your own moral compass, right?
Honestly, you do have within youeverything you need to be successful
(00:22):
in your business because you havevalues, and that's why I move
towards consent driven marketing.
Because the aggressive marketingstyles that I was being taught
did not sit with my values.
So for me, I would say come backto that inner wisdom and inner
guidance, and go from there.
(00:42):
Make your decisions about yourbusiness and your life from me.
You are listening to Brainwork Framework,a Business and Marketing podcast,
brought to you by Focused-biz.com.
Welcome back to another episode.
With us today is Bev Roberts.
She is the holistic business mentorwith her company Living Fabulously.
(01:02):
They teach heart-focused marketershow to use a signature quiz so you
can start building a lead generationsystem and lead prospects to the
right products at the right time.
Bev, so excited to have you on today.
How you doing?
I'm really great.
It's early in the morning forme and I believe it would be
later in the evening for you.
It is.
Good morning.
We appreciate you taking the timebut we always like to ask our
(01:23):
entrepreneurs, tell us about your journey.
What were you doing before that kind ofled into the business that you have today?
Great question because I've gotan interesting story to tell.
I was an award-winning executive ina global company and one of my things
was using my master's degree inbusiness strategy and transformation
(01:43):
to make a big impact on businesses.
But I found I was very lonelyat the board table as a female.
And it was exhausting, to be honest.
I'm talking back several years beforeperhaps there was some evolution and
acceptance for women at at board tables.
And what I did do though is I took allthat sort of skill and knowledge of
(02:06):
transforming businesses into profitableones and started my own consulting
business but the habits don't die easily.
So that way of working extendedhours and those kind of things.
But I loved it because I had influenceover the executives that I worked with.
So I was working mainly with blue chipin Australia, big publicly listed company
(02:29):
executives and getting them to leadfrom a point of human way of leading.
Not just about profit, not just aboutpeople, you can get opposite ends,
overly people oriented and then underfocused and proper but trying to get
that balance right also led a lot ofcompanies through the global financial
(02:51):
crisis into optimizing their businesses.
But I think that the testing thingthen was, you're gonna like people
but what are you gonna stop doing?
And for me it was always howdo we manage that person as a
whole being and support them.
Transition to what they need to do.
(03:12):
So it was a very rewarding but alsochallenging in a lot of ways but I
loved it because I never took gigsthat didn't report to the CEO because
often there's so much politics and
you get involved in a businessthat it stops progress.
And I don't know if it's fortunatelyor unfortunately a invisible chronic
(03:34):
illness stopped me in my tracks and Ilost my cognitive function and my ability
to talk and my ability to process.
So that meant that my livelihoodas a business consultant was
basically done and dusted.
I couldn't function.
So I had to exit the big project Iwas working on to take care of myself.
(03:56):
I think it was a big wake up call interms of executive burnout that I'd
probably been going through that.
The stage was ripe for me tothread that in my own life.
It was a lesson and I learned very much.
But what I did is I navigatedthese past 10, 12 years.
(04:17):
What is my mission?
What is my purpose?
Why am I here and can I dothis in a different way?
And I had a lot of timespend retraining my brain.
And one of the things I did was to studyas an integrative health coach because I
thought my coaching skills were inherent.
They just were part of me.
I didn't have to think about itbut I couldn't remember anything.
(04:39):
I couldn't call common objects, like passme the thing and that would be the salt.
I wouldn't remember what it was called,so it was a long journey back to myself.
But a good one in hindsight.
And what I did in that moment was mydoctor said to me, you are very different
to most of the other people that I treatand I think you should write a book.
(05:02):
And I thought, well, there's challenge.
I can't even remember anything.
I can't write coherently,I can't speak inherently.
So I decided that I would use mindmapping, which is a beautiful technique
of bypassing words and things.
So you sort of just jotting ideas.
And I took that and I used speechto text and I basically dictated
(05:26):
a book that became a bestseller.
So my book, hope in a Dark Tunnel, itwas about navigating an invisible chronic
illness and took back power 'cause a lotof times when you're really unwell, you
throw your power into the hands of themedical team who are taking care of you.
And what I realized thatwasn't going to help me.
(05:47):
It was going to hinder me.
So I made a very practicalbook and it still sells today.
I find it quite interesting that sometimesI get these little royalty texts for
the books that are selling today.
But in 2020, we all know whathappened in 2020, I got that urge.
I thought, how can I sit back and watchother people lose their livelihood
(06:10):
when I know exactly how to take abusiness online, bricks and mortar
business and take them online?
So I basically pivoted from integrativehealth coaching and focused primarily
on helping coaches and practitionersget their businesses online.
The only people I couldn't help wereanyone that was touch therapies,
(06:30):
like massage therapists orchiropractors or those kind of people.
And I feel that it sort of ignited backthat fashion of creating solutions in
business 'cause that was my signature.
I could problem solve myway out of any dark basket.
It sort of really ignited that for me.
Now I specialize in consentdriven marketing and this growth.
(06:54):
And you mentioned in my intro that Iteach people how to use a signature
quiz because it's not only a great leadgeneration system but it also gets you to
intermittently know who your audience isand then you create unique content that
actually meets them where they're at.
And the most important thing, 'causewe're all in business and we are
(07:17):
in business to make money, is thatyou make more sales consistently.
So it's our journey and I'm reallypassionate about making a difference.
Bev, that is such an incredible journey.
I loved YOUR sharing that and justto hear some of the obstacles and
challenges that you had to overcome,even when things seemed so bleak.
And just how you wereable to overcome that.
(07:37):
Truly incredible.
And now you're helping tosolve more problems here.
I was gonna ask if you were still doingthat type of human focused services
for those other businesses 'causeimmediately in my mind, there's so many
American companies here that desperatelyneed that to focus more on the human
being and how do we invest in them?
But instead, that's not their viewpoint.
But I'm so glad that you can stillbe proactive and still bring your
(07:59):
knowledge and wisdom to share witheverybody else now and I love this
idea of the quiz because it's givingsome insights into a potential buyer.
I almost feel like you don'teven need the content yet
until you get some feedbackfrom the quizzes, right?
You don't have to have a bigcontent structure built out yet
(08:19):
you could learn from the quizzesand then create the content.
Do you think that's afair strategy to go for?
Or do you like to look at it in adifferent way and kind of pre-build
their content structure first?
I think 'cause you've hit thenail on the head, that is the
one of the nuggets, right?
Because what I've observed is that weare driven to produce content so we
(08:44):
think what people might want and wethink of offers that people might want
and we think of courses that peoplemight want but we have no basis on which
those would be consumed, thosewould be sold and make money.
So obviously you have a position, right?
You are a specialist in some area.
(09:05):
You wanna share your wisdom andyour knowledge and you know that
there's certain types of peoplethat you would be able to support.
What I've found with a quizis that you are not doing the
one size fits all marketing.
So what happens is when you start inbusiness and I'm also a proponent of
you do not need a website to startselling because it takes time to
(09:29):
evolve your messaging, it takes timeto really land in that niche where
you can make the biggest impact andmake the biggest transformations.
So I would say if somebody was inthe startup phase of their business,
get clear on who you wanna serve.
Some people call it an avatar andgo beyond the traditional things.
(09:51):
So we don't just want to know their age,we don't just wanna know the demographics
around them but we want to know moreabout them in terms of what you can serve.
There's no use getting generalknowledge about the person.
We also want to know what thepsychographics are, the way that they
make decisions and those kind of things.
(10:12):
So for example, in my business, what I'mable to do is to look ahead and say, okay.
I have three areas in my businessthat I am wanting to focus on.
I focus on startup businesses.
(10:34):
I focus on businesses who are goingthrough some growth and I'm start
focusing on businesses who are scaling.
If I just do a general lead magnet, Idon't know where that person sits and
obviously they may be on this continuum.
So for any business, they don'tusually only offer one thing.
(10:54):
So what we wanna do with aquiz is to highlight where is
somebody on the client journey?
As a business entrepreneur,take them, right?
So it's not about general businessand it just allows you to really
get to understand that person.
So I think that was a verygreat observation of yours.
(11:15):
I love your approach to building outthe quiz specific to them 'cause like
you said, their business name or theirname or their age doesn't tell you
anything about how they need to behelped or what you can market to them.
It's actually irrelevant at that point.
I feel like you really need morein-depth knowledge about where they're
at in the buyer's journey with theavatar or who they might be like.
(11:36):
All great advice 'cause we're allalways trying to seek validation.
We build out these productsthat we think are gonna fit.
We spend all this time buildingit out and we never even ask our
ideal audience what they thinkor what would be helpful to them.
So no website needed toget product validation.
Just go out there and startasking people, what do you think?
And when you get them involved in theprocess, you get that insight from
(11:56):
all of those customers and clients orpotential prospects that you might have.
Correct, because what somebodyneeds from me and when they're in
startup versus when they are scalingwith large launches of courses or
something like that is quite different.
So my content and my approachto them is different.
(12:17):
For example, if I choose to onlywork with one end of that spectrum.
That would be easy.
I could just go, okay, let mecreate a quiz that's designed to
really identify in the first stagesof business, where are they at?
I'm sort of macro, I'm sort of comingback out and going how far have
(12:37):
they gotten their business journey?
And then for example, when I talkabout list growth, when we talk about
the startup phase of business, whatI'm trying to identify is what is
the quick win that audience of theirsneeds if they're in the startup phase.
But just a good example of aquiz and it's not necessarily
(12:58):
related to stages of business.
One of my clients is apsychotherapist and she specializes
in highly sensitive people.
So she knows that there arespecific traits that identify if
you are a highly sensitive person.
We created a quiz with her thatdemonstrated how much you identify
(13:24):
with these traits and what werealized is the top percentiles.
Were exactly her ideal audience?
She could support them becausethey have not yet had any support
or they haven't taken any actionyet to address the sensitivity.
The ones in the sort of middle percentileswere those that have probably started
(13:47):
some work and they've done some thingsand they've supported themselves in
some way but the bottom percentile.
And I think we made it aslow about from 50% below.
Not her audience.
They're absolutely not her audience.
So we didn't invite themafter they took the quiz.
We just said, you're sucha great resilient person.
(14:09):
Keep up the great work.
Keep doing what you're doing.
And we didn't invite them to join our listbecause we've got the other two segmented.
She knows those who are exactly rightfor her therapies and those who are
possibly need more group work now.
Maybe they've movedbeyond just one-on-one.
So it's a great way to reallyidentify your audience.
(14:31):
And then where are they at andthen how do you serve them?
How do you support them withthe offers that you make?
That is brilliant.
And just think about the cost saved.
Half of the marketing list thatpeople would traditionally market
and send all these emails toare completely off the list.
Now they've already been pre-qualifiedor disqualified and now you have a
much better list to work with that'sgonna increase your conversion
(14:53):
rates and just gonna save a lot oftrouble with all your marketing.
And when you build out these quizzes.
Not to say a set template buttips and tricks for the guidelines
on how you structure it?
Is it like it has to be a minimum ofseven questions and no more than 15?
Or is there a structure that youlike to follow that typically kind
of works best for people beinghonest and going through the stages?
(15:14):
First of all, you need to workout the format of the quiz.
So what end result are you looking for?
Are you looking for like that exampleof mine that I gave you, I'm looking
for a category type quiz, right?
Which category do you belong to?
Are you startup?
Are you just growing or you scaling?
(15:35):
Whereas with that particularexample, with the psychotherapist.
She was doing what I wouldcall an assessment style quiz.
That's the format because weare assessing where they're at.
So a lot of health practitionersare interested on the
continuum of where they're at.
Some of my clients will look at
(15:55):
things specific to areas oflife or areas of business.
She deals with people who arein the third act of life.
There are mature citizens, maturewomen who are thinking like, what now?
I've retired.
So she's looking at areas of their life
that could improve.
It's also an assessment type butit shows where she needs to focus
(16:20):
her efforts and support them more.
So format is number one.
You need to choose thecorrect format for that.
The other thing is with questions.
Somebody will keep answeringquestions, so you need enough questions
to get the result that you need thatcould support that person but you
(16:43):
minimize the number of questions.
So I would say no less than eightbut probably no more than about 20.
And that's just generaland it's not prescriptive.
But if you can ask eight really succinctquestions that would categorize people,
you'd ask the question and then if Iwas doing a category style quiz, I would
(17:07):
have say four or five categories thatI'm looking at and I make statements
that people will then alarm to.
Whereas if I'm doing anassessment quiz, it's more.
Well, how much does this sound like you?
Is it a hundred percent, 80%,or strongly agree, strongly
disagree, those kind of things.
(17:28):
So you use different kind ofways of positioning the quiz.
But there's also in terms of quizdesign and what I didn't mention
back in the dark ages, I didstatistics in my undergraduate degree.
And there's a particular way towrite a question so that you get
an outcome that you really need.
(17:50):
there's an art and scienceto designing a quiz.
A lot of people will lookat the fun aspect of a quiz.
That's why people like to take quizzes.
But it's more about the design.
So you get the design.
There's three elements to the design.
It's format.
The way that you style questionsand then it's sort of positioning.
Just an aside but whenever youuse odd numbers in a scale for
(18:14):
quizzes, people will fence it.
It's a natural phenomenon.
So if I have three, they'lloften sit in the middle.
Gonna have far, they'll sit on 0.3.
So it's people who wanna hedge theirbacks, that often will sit in the middle.
So you will definitely be using evennumbers so there's no fence sitting.
That's about quiz design.
(18:35):
That is so fascinating to hear.
Just some of the psychologicaland behavioral considerations when
building quizzes and how we kindof ask questions because you're
right, depending on how we ask aquestion, we could alter the outcome.
So if we're looking for truefeedback or are we trying to nurture
them to provide a certain answer.
It's just something thatwe need to keep in mind.
(18:55):
But I love the way youreverse engineered it.
What's the outcomeyou're trying to achieve?
And then that's how you build.
No more questions than you needto ask but enough where you're
actually get a really good idea.
A big picture.
Look at what kind of problemsthat they're going through.
Yeah.
And I feel that if it's easyfor them to point, click, point,
click, they could answer 20.
(19:16):
So with the hypnotherapist,psychotherapist.
She had 20 traits but it was easy.
Either strongly identify or I don't.
So it was very easy.
You wanted the quiz to take at leastno more than five minutes, right?
Because people have very short attentionspans nowadays, I always start with more
(19:38):
and then get people to take the quizbefore you've published it to the general
public and then you get some feedbackand they go, well, i've had enough.
That's really useful information'cause actually question 10
was the pivotal question.
Having got that experience, I don'tdo that as much anymore but with my
clients, if you think that's reallyimportant, test it, always test it
(20:03):
and then you're gonna get the answer.
And this is the otherthing I find with quizzes.
A lot of people said is, please,when I did my first set of research
around, why I wanted to focus downon quizzes, and I said, what do
you dislike the most about quizzes?
And they all said, withoutfail the deception.
(20:24):
I said, what do you mean?
And they said it in different ways.
Well, either you ask me for myemail address up front and I dunno
what's coming or I'll happily dothe quiz and at the end to get my
results, you ask me for my email.
So I've actually designed a protocoland format that I don't do that.
(20:46):
So it's secret sauce.
I can't talk about all the detailsbut basically, I give them a small
set of subset of the results.
I love that.
Some great practical insights into how weshould be building it out without giving
it all away 'cause of course you haveto keep some of the secret sauce within
'cause that's the benefit toworking directly with you.
(21:07):
Not just for quizzes but I feellike the plethora of business
and marketing experience thatyou're bringing to the table.
Can I ask kind of a just ageneric business question.
So there's lots of talk right now, 2025,about an impending recession, right?
A lot of uncertainty.
What should businesses be focusing onright now to kinda weather the storm?
(21:27):
Do you think they shouldbe taking a certain approach?
Should they kinda lower their overhead?
Should they kind of goa little bit further?
I think it depends on thekind of business, number one.
So for example as we worked outin 2020 when businesses were
face to face and in person.
(21:48):
They could not operate, right?
So if the market conditions change, Ithink you need to create enough variety
in your business that can weather that.
So for example, if you arelocation based as a business now.
I would actually as a recession proofinginstead of shrinking in and cutting costs
(22:11):
that would be sensible to do at any time
but I would be looking at howcan I get my business online and
service more than my own local area.
And for example, if somebody needs alicense to operate in another state,
well maybe that's worth it but maybe youhaven't actually looked at what's just
(22:32):
in your further than your own front yard.
So how could you takeyour business online?
Because it's incrediblehow successful you can be.
I've always had a blended businessand now I've gone only to online.
So you can have in-personand online business.
And also think about things thatare not just discretionary spend.
(22:56):
So what is it in your wheelhouse?
What are you an expert at that is notjust discretionary feel good spend.
What is imperative to living a fulland rich life or having a business
that is successful through a recession?
So I think you've gottathink a little differently.
And I would say, it's alwaysgood practice at any time to
(23:20):
work out what I call our money leaks.
So look at the things you've paid,subscriptions you're paying for
that you do not need anymore.
You've either outgrown them or somethingbetter has came along and you bought that.
So do that at any time.
But I think in a recessionyou've gotta think of
the big picture of how can I best servicepeople that it's not discretionary spend.
(23:43):
So a lot of us aremulti-passionate, right?
We don't just do one thing.
And that's why I was saying why hadjust started getting my brain retrained
by doing integrative coaching.
But I know that deep insideme, streamlining and supporting
business growth is where I'm at.
That's where my passion is at.
(24:04):
So find that thing, even in yourcurrent business and just zone in
on something and extend it beyond ifyou're already in an online business,
I would say look beyond your own state,your own country, those are things.
Consider the time zones.
So for me, my audience is Australia,New Zealand, Canada and the USA and
(24:27):
the times of the year where it gets alittle challenging because obviously the
time zone changes and I'm in a state inAustralia where we do time zone changes.
So sometimes it gets a littlebit tricky but it's still doable.
I belong to courses andmasterminds in the States.
And yes, sometimes I am up at 6:00 AM andsometimes my audience are up at 8:00 PM.
(24:51):
So it depends but you can work that out.
I'd say extend, don't contract.
That would be my message.
It's so funny 'cause I was kinda leadingtowards being more cautious and should
we contract a bit and be a bit scared andhold onto our money and you're like, no,
this is the time to expand, time to grow.
If you're not doing this, trythis and think about expanding.
Honestly, I think that's theright approach 'cause I was
(25:12):
just sitting here scared.
Now this should be something that boostsour confidence to help us just go further.
And it's not that you'regoing to spend more money.
So if you think of it, the tools ofmy trade are a calendar that has time
zones that change when the person books,so it's booked in their time zone.
(25:33):
I set up that calendar to say, thisis my availability in my time zone.
Can I make sure that there's flexibility?
I don't want to work withEurope because it requires me to
work at night in my time zone.
So, you'd have a tool that's a calendaringsystem, scheduling system that allows for
you to and pay right book and pay book.
(25:56):
And my time zone paywould be the first tool.
Definitely have a tool like Zoom.
We're using Zoom today.
Have a tool like Zoom that you canconfidently get quality recordings
have one-on-one sessions and groupsessions and those two tools alone
(26:16):
will be less than 50 US dollars.
So taking yourself from thein-person and extending your reach
by having places elsewhere because
one of the things that I was doingat that time, whether everybody
else was contracting, I was runningvirtual retreats, so I was using Zoom.
(26:37):
I had a specific agenda that I couldactually set that there was some pre-work.
And I did some one-on-one retreats andI did some group small group retreats
because I could manage three people,their businesses, their questions
and they loved the cross pollinationbecause they weren't competitive in
the market and the idea generation.
(26:58):
So think outside the box.
I run this workshop in a venue.
How can I turn it into an onlineevent that would be very impactful
for people beyond my own suburb.
That kind of thing.
I love that Bev.
Absolutely.
Now, where can people connectwith you and find you online?
You can find me @bevroberts.com andon socials, my handle is Bev Roberts
(27:20):
mentor and I'm also on LinkedIn.
So if you're on LinkedIn,just type Bev Roberts.
Absolutely.
And for those interested, you cango down to the show notes and the
description and we'll have thedirect links to Bev here as well.
Wanted to ask, what are youlooking forward to in 2025?
Is there anything new or exciting thatyou're coming out with or are you just
kind of sticking with all the amazingstuff that you're doing currently.
(27:40):
Well, I'm relaunching yoursignature quiz course.
And as we said, it's a way to attract yourideal audience and transform the way you
create your content and most of all you'recreating things offers that will sell.
So making more sales.
I love running that course.
I'm gonna do a LA round probably in April.
(28:02):
And I'm really looking forwardto getting that running again.
I've got some ideas that I want toshift, so when you run something a few
times you kind of start getting, okay.
I feel people are gettingstuck here and there.
So I'm excited to relaunchyour signature quiz.
That is so exciting.
And one thing you mentioned wherepeople get stuck, I usually call
(28:24):
that the friction in the buyer'sjourney, where it's like, I got stuck.
And if you remove that friction, wow.
Suddenly that buyer's journeybecomes so much easier.
Suddenly they're scheduling calendarappointments, they're using your
payment link, they're bookingand just making things easier.
So I definitely agree utilizinga lot of the tools that we have.
And then instant customer feedback
to improve everything that you built upon.
Nothing needs to be perfect, right?
(28:44):
We're always kind of adaptingand learning as we go.
So I love the approach that you have.
Bev wanted to ask if is thereanything we haven't talked about yet?
Just wanted to open the floor for you,for any advice to entrepreneurs, maybe if
you had to restart your business today,what would be your approach and strategy?
I have taken a lot of guidance and advicefrom coaches and mentors but my advice
(29:09):
to anybody if I was talking to thatperson, back then is listen to your own
inner wisdom and your own moral compass.
Honestly, you do have within youeverything you need to be successful in
your business because you have values.
And that's why I move towards consentdriven marketing because the aggressive
(29:33):
marketing styles that I was beingtaught did not sit with my values.
So for me, I would say come backto that inner wisdom and inner
guidance and go from there.
Make your decisions about yourbusiness and your life from there.
Gotta trust your gut and your intuitionand just take the feedback and
things we learned from mentors andleaders that have come before us and
(29:55):
use that to make better decisions.
Bev, we appreciate your time andsharing your tips and wisdom with us.
Appreciate everything.
Congratulations.
Thank you, Chris.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Of course.
It was a pleasure.
Thank you.
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