What Was This Session All About?

While many businesses struggled in 2020, The ASK Method Company and Ryan Levesque created a new way to make their virtual events better than their in-person events. This strategy took three major pivots, and the results were spectacular. 

If you are looking to learn survival techniques for the pandemic, Ryan’s team has a story for you. If you’re looking for help in your business, you can also learn from this story how Ryan’s business created something that can help anyone.

Who is Ryan Levesque?

• CEO of The ASK Method Company
• Author of “Choose: The Single Most Important Decision Before Starting a Business,” and “ASK: Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Formula to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy...Create a Mass of Raving Fans...and Take Any Business to the Next Level”

What We Learned

Ryan’s company made three big pivots in 2020 to generate an $8.59 million Product Launch in less than 55 days. They also grew their net income by 302% and produced their single most successful year by making a massive shift in their business model in the middle of COVID-19. 

Pivot #1: Personalization

This pivot came about by noticing a trend in their business and their client businesses. They realized the more personalized and customized they made their content, the more they sold. So, they created a quiz funnel. 

The quiz was called “What kind of Funnel is Right for Your Business?” Users could click on the link on their website and take the quiz easily. They received a free quiz funnel report. They also offered A quiz funnel workshop. 

Why It Worked

Incredibly Cheap Leads: They took their cost per product down from $5.23 a lead to $.47 per lead. 

Quizzes are compelling. You are tapping into the power of self-discovery. Quizzes get a ton of engagement because people like them. They share them. This process leads to free residual traffic. 

How They Convert

They went from a 2-3x conversion rate to a 3.2 conversion rate. About 22,000 people took the quiz. You learn a lot of individual data about people when they take the quiz, including which “funnel” they fit into. The information allows you to customize the information people get from their quiz answers. 

They hand-selected people’s quiz results (featuring them on the website) and how they helped them. This tactic tells success stories that result from taking the quiz. They had various types of businesses have success stories, including millions of dollars in profit resulting from taking the quiz. 

You have to match the right success stories because you don’t want to discourage quiz-takers. You will have a testimonial mismatch.

The prescription was a significant key. When you customize these quiz results, they feel like the whole case study has been designed for them. 

They created a 10x lead volume, resulting in 21,564 conversions.

How the Quiz Worked

• Attract: It attracts people who seek information.
• Diagnose: Figure out the problem
• Prescribe: Give a solution. 

Quiz #1: Type: You are identifying the type of funnel they are in. The psychology of categorical perception: We look at the world in a spectrum and constantly organize things into different categories. 

Quiz #2: Killer: This identifies the “killers” that are killing your business and identifies your mistakes. The fear of loss is more powerful than offering the promise of gain.

Quiz #3: Score: You help people identify the score of where they stack up in their life, where they should be, and where they compared to their peers. It uses Social Comparison Theory: Our brains are constantly comparing ourselves to other people. We want to know why we aren’t where others are. 

Pivot #2: Presentation

When COVID-19 first hit, Ryan’s company had to switch from in-person events to virtual events, their first event was 17 days after quarantine; they asked how they can make it better than in-person events. 

They had their highest attendance rate and highest sales conversion rate. Two hundred fifty people were in attendance. So, they asked themselves what they can learn from this. 

They introduced a webinar. They’d been doing them for years, but they wanted to change how they did them. 

Multi-Modality Presentation 

They studied how video constantly changes the video to keep people interested. They discovered a constant desire to balance three aspects: Smile, screen, and sketch. The “smile” is where the person in the video is talking to you; then, they switch to a “screen” where they have slides. 

They make the experience interactive with “sketch” by literally making live sketches on a tablet. You can do this in Zoom meetings. This strategy is the framework for making your content interactive. 

The “Real Appeal”

They also take people behind the scenes, and he finds it incredibly powerful. You can show your audience where you are, how you’re filming, and they can see you in that situation. Studies show that a formal setup with no information about what’s going on behind the scenes is impersonal and creates distance. 

People love to see where you live, what your life is like, and so much more. 

The “Winterview”

They invited past clients to come in and interview them. This demonstration transfers immediate proof of your methods right before their eyes. People see your content through a new light. 

Proof, Proof, Proof

People see overwhelming proof that your methods work. From the quizzes to behind the scenes and incorporating success stories, people have the proof right in front of them. They provided all the numbers about their business and even the magazines and publications they were featured in, proving their success strategies. 

From Pre-Recorded content to Live Content

They discovered conversions increased through live events compared to pre-recorded. Ryan suspects this has always been the case, but in 2020 it was even direr. This fact shows that the desire for live content is only going to increase as well. 

Pivot #3: Productization

They asked how they could make the experience better with live video, compared to making it just as good as in-person events. 

They used the pandemic to accelerate their plans. They did double shifts on their development teams, working round the clock on their quiz. They rolled out an easy-to-use a canvas-style quiz creator. 

They added a full-functional page-building solution. You can build all your pre-quiz and post-quiz pages on your account. They also introduced quiz templates so they can select what they want on the quiz. 

Even after all these changes, people still struggled. So, they made a shift to a complete “Done For You” component. They asked how they can create leveraged productization. 

Virtual Book Camp Model

You can come to their business with nothing more than the desire to build a quiz funnel. They created a three-day format. The three days are combined together in such a way that you walk away with a finished quiz on day three. 

It’s all designed to overcome the biggest obstacle to success: technology. So, during the three-day boot camp, users fill out a simple PDF document. At the end of the three days, you just need to turn in the PDF, and their team takes the information and builds the quiz. They took it out of people’s hands and did that for them.

At the end of the day, people don’t want to learn how to cook. They want you to cook for them, along with the dishes, putting them into their mouths, etc. They don’t want to do any of the steps. 

In three days, they built over 300 quizzes. They had never done or seen anything like this in their business. 

Prediction

For 2021, Ryan predicts there has never been a more critical time to engage in partnerships. Business leaders should focus on pursuing partnerships instead of doing it all alone. Ryan predicts there will be more of that and that it will only get more valuable.

If you have a business you think could benefit from a business funnel, Ryan recommends reaching out to him and his company to partner and see how he can help you and your business. 

What Do You Think?

If you watched his presentation at T&C or are familiar with his work, I want to know what you think.

Leave a comment below and share your story of using his techniques to grow your business.