Think back to the last purchase you made online where you didn’t know the exact product you wanted. How did you come up with that? How did you make that decision? Where did you purchase it from?

Right now, I’m in the market to buy another pair of workout shoes. Buying a pair of shoes can be a crazy experience. There are so many different types of shoes, which one is right for me? It can be overwhelming. For me, when I am faced with too many choices, the temptation is to push the decision off to a later date. And the sale never happens. Maybe you can relate. Well, I’ve been through this cycle several times. And, by the way, I did settle on a pair of shoes—but not from a name brand as I like to support small businesses.

The goal for most shoe-buying websites is to help you filter results to find the perfect pair. It’s hard to communicate.

9,652 results? That’s decision paralysis (Zappos).

I’m not selling shoes, and chances are that you don’t either. Anytime I’m looking for something, I’m trying to understand my own decision-making process: what makes me settle on what I am looking for?

Skip to: 04:08 What if I can help my customers find what they are looking for, and educate them in the process?

While this idea might not work in every industry, but this is an important idea. Not only will this increase revenue and keep people on the website longer, but you and I will also be the ones educating them. That has to be at least worth something BECAUSE they are on your website right now.

Let’s look at my story on this. My online store improves people’s quality of life: more time with family, more influence in their company. How do I do that? I sell books that help people become Magento certified. I have written a course as well, and I have built banks of practice test questions so that someone can get a good idea as to how they will do when they sit for the exam. You might say, “Joseph, but you sell information on how to get certified.”

Good point. But what is the result of someone making this investment? All of the above.

As I help people become certified, the question I have given much thought to is: “how can I help someone achieve success and not failure?” The material that I write is only as good as the investment that the buyer makes on actually learning this stuff. I could write incredible material, and if you buy it but don’t take the time to learn it, that makes me look bad, because you’re upset you failed.

Look at it this way, I am aware that there are some question dumps out there for Magento certifications. They are wrong, illegitimate and unethical. However, you could purchase it and still fail because you didn’t memorize the questions.

One way that I have found helps make my customers successful is education.

How do you prepare?What do you expect on the test?What tricks can you do to get through the test?

Skip to: 07:01 This education is good, but we just missed the most important topic of all! “Which test should I take?”

Here’s why this is important. I get regular emails from people who take an advanced test and fail. As someone who has invested hundreds of hours in preparing for tests, I understand the pain in failing. The simple answer is that they should have started with an easier one and then progressed up. Not only do they now have a much better shot at passing as the easier test is about half the difficulty, based on percentages, they will get more certifications to their name.

My first solution is to build a quiz. There’s only 1-5 questions and at the end. And the great part is that this does not involve my time in answering emails. This also keeps the customer in their own context, where they don’t have to pick up the phone or open their email client and email me.

Iteration #1 on Certification landing page

The statistics:

4% of those who saw the quiz clicked on it.They spend an average of 20 seconds taking the quiz.5% increase in revenue.1