Online Assessments: Should You Add Them to Your Product Mix?

Let us pose a couple questions to our readers:

Do you want to understand your clients better? (We’d guess the answer is “yes”!)
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!

What are Online Assessments?

Online assessments are tools composed of various tests or questionnaires designed to evaluate specific abilities and characteristics of candidates. These assessments can include tests for memory, concentration, and language skills, tailored to the requirements of the position applied for. They also open up clearer avenues of communication between employers and candidates by providing structured, objective insights that guide better hiring decisions.

Reasons to Consider Using Online Assessments

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.

Should You Add Online Assessments to Your Product Mix?

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:

Personal coaching of individuals, partnerships or teams
Helping your clients with employee recruitment, selection and training
Creating a passive, recurring revenue stream
Collecting objective data to use in articles, interviews or speeches
Building a mailing list to market other products or speeches

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.

Using Off-the-Shelf Assessments

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 Your Own Custom Assessment

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:

The names of the rater groups (these are the people who give assessment feedback to the end users, such as manager, colleague, direct report, client, etc.)

When creating your customized assessment, you’ll need:

The competencies being measured (such as decision-making, persuasiveness, drive and persistence, etc.);
The questions per competency (typically 5-8 questions per competency that are used to measure each competency);
The scales used to measure the competency on any given question (such as strongly agree to strongly disagree, always to never, etc.) or the mathematical algorithm to compute the answers
Whether or not you want open-ended feedback questions for the raters to add additional comments after every competency or at the end of the entire questionnaire.

The end user report structure:

“Static” report (same report copy for all end users with only their results graphs being different);
“Dynamic” report (the report copy changes based on the end user’s answers to either individual questions or competency scores);
Will the report be delivered in html format right after the end user submits answers to the questionnaire?
Will the report be emailed in PDF format to the end user?
Will the end user have to log into a website to access their report (usually used with 360º assessments when the end user needs to send requests to raters)?
Do you want to use demographic questions (such as age, gender, education, etc.) within your assessment? This information allows you to slice/dice/analyze your data to use in presentation slides, articles, media interviews, etc. It lends research credibility to your assessment results.

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.

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:

Saves raw data on a SQL database for analyses, articles, interviews, etc.
Has multi-rater and company/team composite scoring capability
Can generate “dynamically programmed” reports with integrated data charts/graphs
Allows end users to log onto a home page for their results, report, etc.
Provides shopping cart integration
Includes merchant account, gateway and SSL for automated secure credit card transactions
Provides end users with results, rater results (for 360º assessments), composite results of everyone in their company/team, composite results of everyone who’s taken the assessment, etc.
Has an automated way to send reminders to end users, raters, etc.
Allows reseller and corporate account dashboards
Includes a built-in affiliate program
Allows “white labeling” for your own design and branding as well as for your clients
Includes technical support and help desk for the end user, resellers, and corporate clients

FAQs

Can online assessments detect cheating?

Yes, online assessments can detect cheating through various methods. For example, they might use advanced monitoring to measure the time spent on questions while taking the test, tracking navigation away from the test window, and using proctoring tools like webcams and screen recording to ensure exam integrity.

How to qualify for online assessment?

To qualify for an online assessment, people typically need to meet the specific requirements set by the provider, such as registering for the test, meeting eligibility criteria, and ensuring access to a stable internet connection and compatible device.

About
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Dr. Tony Alessandra

Dr. Tony Alessandra, a renowned expert in turning prospects into promoters, pioneers online behavioral assessments as the Founder of Assessments 24x7. Continually improving tools like the DISC profile and Emotional Intelligence 360, Tony revolutionizes how businesses leverage human behavior.

Author of 31 books translated into over 50 languages, including best-sellers "The NEW Art of Managing People" and "The Platinum Rule," Dr. Alessandra helps organizations build stronger relationships with prospects, customers, and co-workers.

When not developing new assessment tools, Tony explores cutting-edge business communication trends. Connect with Dr. Alessandra on LinkedIn to learn how his innovative approaches can boost your team's performance.

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