Mike Kim

I’ve really embraced writing about life, reinvention, and whatever the heck I wrote about (I have no plan)… but I’m still being approached for marketing so I’ve decided that at least every quarter, I’m gonna write one long @$$ “white paper” that saves me from doing a webinar, haha.

So for today: let’s talk diagnostics and frameworks. This is gonna be a long one, so bookmark this page so you can come back to it at anytime. Here we go.

The Map is Not the Territory

This is a popular mental model (just Google it or read Shane Parrish’s The Great Mental Models Vol. 1). The premise: a map is a reduction of reality. It’s useful precisely because it leaves things out. It can be dangerous if you overly rely on it, thinking that it’s actual, physical reality.

I take this quite literally. It’s the difference between looking at a drawing of an orange and actually holding one in your hand. Eat paper vs. eat an orange. 

This raises a fair question for many of us. I’ve spent 10+ years selling maps. Sometimes they’re called frameworks, methodologies, formulas, etc. and I’m good at making them, marketing them, and helping others do both.

A Framework Frames the Work…

…But it is NOT the work. Yes, AI is really good at making frameworks. I still don’t know many people who want AI to walk them through a framework. Humans want to be guided (for now) by humans… at least my generation and older does.

It was once possible to grow our audiences (and therefore, usefulness) through just showing people a framework. 

These days, I believe it’s necessary for our frameworks to do some work before people work with us. That leads me to diagnostics and assessments. I’m going to use those words interchangeably from now on to save space.

Most, if not all, of what follows is from “Queen” Maeve Ferguson (fans of The Boys will get my reference here.) I’ve gleaned this from her by both being in a mastermind with her, being a 2x client, and working on some projects for her. It’s been so profitable that I was able to finally afford a decent suit. 

Maeve’s words when it comes to diagnostics should be taken as gospel. Here we go:

3 Purposes for a Diagnostic:

1. Lead qualification. The goal of all marketing is the right message and the right offer in front of the right person at the right time. A diagnostic is the most efficient instrument for this at scale.
2. Segmentation engine. You learn where each person is on their journey, which means you stop sending one email to everybody and hoping something sticks, i.e. “spray and pray.” 
3. Market data. Where people actually are. What segments they fall into. What they’re able to invest. Most owners are operating from a name, an email address, and a phone number. No real data other than whether someone has purchased something or not.

How a Diagnostic Applies to Your Personal Brand

1. If you’re a speaker: the diagnostic extends the stage. We have clients put a QR code up, and it’s a much stronger offer than just “get my slides” or download a freebie. The assessment allows the people in the room to follow you out the door.
2. If you’re a prescriptive nonfiction author: Somebody buys your book, reads your book, thinks “that was a great book,” and puts it on the shelf. Maybe they tell a friend. You have a reader, you do not have a lead. A strong diagnostic creates a pathway for this. Build your diagnostic into the fabric of the book, reference it inside the chapters. 
3. If you’re in the expert business with programs, coaching, or consulting, it does two jobs at once. It positions you as the authority, and it sorts your list by where people are and what they can invest.

3 Types of Diagnostics

None of these are better than the other, it’s a matter of finding the right fit for your audience and business.

1. Quiz funnels are fast. A handful of questions, and people land in a bucket. Type A, type B, type C. The point is sorting, not depth.
2. Score-based diagnostics sit in the middle. You have pillars. People score themselves against each one, and the result is a gap. They see where they are today, see where they’d rather be, and your offer solves the gap they just identified for themselves. This is the type Maeve built with me (quiz.mikekim.com)
3. Multidimensional diagnostics are the far end. Two or more constructs measured independently, and the result is the blend of all of them. Myers-Briggs is one. Enneagram is one. These can become industry language. People say “I’m an INTJ” or “I’m a three with a four wing”… you get the drift and have probably taken some of these. This often requires a custom build, because the permutations outrun what off-the-shelf software can handle.

The sophistication of the instrument should match the sophistication of the IP underneath it. 

Start with Your Offers, Not the Diagnostic

Let’s say we have a coach and ask about her offers. She has:

• One-to-one coaching at $2,500 a month. 
• A group program at $2,997. 
• A self-paced course for $497.

Those three numbers become lead tiers. The people who can invest at the top are platinum, then diamond, or gold, silver, bronze. You also have a tier called “unqualified” which is not an insult – it just means some people can’t work with you right now. That’s fine.

Once the tiers exist, the diagnostic has a job: put each person in a tier, and make the appropriate offer. If your diagnostic tells someone their plant soil is depleted and your offer is a course on flower arranging, they will finish the assessment, agree completely with the diagnosis, and buy nothing. You have correctly identified a problem you do not solve.

How to Structure Your “Swirly” IP

First, let’s operate under the assumption that your IP works. It should be proven, by both reps and revenue. A lot of people I know just make up IP thinking that will sell, hence what I said earlier: established speaker, author, expert.

Maeve has a word for IP that has never been framed: swirly. Swirly IP cannot lead anyone anywhere because there’s nothing to break down. You end up guessing at questions, which is exactly why so many assessments feel random. The order goes as follows:

1. IP becomes categories.
2. Categories become subcategories.
3. Subcategories become questions.

This should make crafting your questions more clear. Every button a person presses is a data point. At the surface you get the ordinary metrics: click-through, start rate, abandon rate, completion, conversion on the results page.

Underneath that you get patterns of behavior. The app I used for my assessment (ScoreApp) tells me how much time a person has taken on the assessment. Obviously, someone who has completed it in 10 seconds is probably not as quality a lead as someone who thoughtfully took 5 minutes. 

Once enough people have come through (minimum 100 people), look at the ones who bought at the top of your ladder and ask which answers, weak points, strong points they had in common. Ask the reverse question about the people who bought nothing. 

Our market never fails to tell us what they really think of us and our stuff, whether we like it or not. People vote with their clicks, their feet, and their wallet.

If the analysis says you’re bringing in very few people who can invest at your top tier, that’s not a sales problem. More likely, it’s your Top-of-Funnel messaging that is attracting the wrong people. 

Might be time to change your copy, upgrade your design from 1997, or get some new photos. This is where branding, positioning, image etc. all come into play.

The Testimony Flywheel

Imagine working with a client for six months, then having them take your assessment again. That number should have moved in the right direction!

You can also build in checkpoints into your program at three months and six months. This becomes proof. You do the reps, the reps produce the framework. The framework becomes a diagnostic instrument. The instrument measures the results. The results become the marketing that brings in the next group.

“Should I Even Create a Diagnostic?”

The following are my opinions, not Maeve’s. Building a high-quality, non-lazy AI slop assessment will take time and money. Here are my qualifiers:

1. Proven IP that has already produced six figures or more. That means your diagnostic amplifies demand that already exists. The old saying goes, “There are a million ways to make a million dollars.” I believe that’s true, and as a result there are 100,000 ways to make $100,000. Your path may differ from mine, but the end result should be proven.
2. Proven skills at building an audience. The instrument is the pipe. You still have to run water through it. This is not a Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come” thing. 
3. A commitment to keep driving traffic to the diagnostic. This is not a set-and-forget asset. You have to keep your foot on the gas. Run ads to it, too.
4. Offers in alignment. See earlier.
5. An understanding that results take time. Typically if you have the first four, you already know this. It’s the newbies who want everything immediately, as though online marketing were a microwave oven. But, just want to put this out there.

Two Paths Forward:

1. ScoreApp: I built my first diagnostic, the Idea to IP Assessment on ScoreApp. Honestly – please don’t use some tool like Google Forms or Typeform for your diagnostic. 

This is supposed to be an asset and high-quality instrument for your business. Would you join a top-tier offer for someone whose diagnostic was a budget app and inferior experience? 

Find out more about ScoreApp here »

If you register using that link, my friend and ScoreApp sponsor Kevin Yee will give you a ton of resources to help you.

2. Maeve Ferguson Consulting: Maeve is the tip of the spear. Her clients include a host of New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors and prominent speakers I’m not at liberty to share. 

She also builds these for multi-million dollar companies in various industries that are very traffic-heavy, i.e. golf, consumer goods, and more. 

Even if you’re not at a place to invest with her, you’ll get a much deeper understanding of the diagnostic as an asset if you read her pages and newsletter:

Find out more about Maeve here »

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