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FAQ – 360 Personal Brand Assessment

survey

This FAQ should answer most, if not all of your questions. It is broken into three parts:

  1. General questions
  2. Requestor questions (for those using the system to obtain feedback)
  3. Respondent questions (for those providing feedback)

1. GENERAL QUESTIONS

What is 360Reach?

360Reach is a personal brand survey that provides you with the external insights that are essential to success. Developed by behavioral psychologists and branding experts, it gives you a focused portrait of your professional reputation – one that is invaluable for ongoing professional and personal development.

Who is 360Reach for?

If you fall into any of the categories below, you can benefit tremendously from a 360Reach Survey:

  • career-minded professionals who want to develop professionally
  • people who are looking to change jobs
  • people who are currently in job search mode
  • executives who need to understand how they are really perceived internally/externally
  • independent consultants, entrepreneurs and small business owners who need external feedback to help guide their businesses
  • sales people and consultants who want to increase their visibility, presence and effectiveness
  • people who want to develop themselves personally and professionally
  • teams of people working inside companies
How does it work?

Registered users (Requestors) are provided login details. Using any standard web browser, they log into the system and enter the email addresses of all of those from whom they would like input. They can also request feedback from LinkedIn contacts and Facebook friends. By clicking ‘send’ they notify all of these Respondents that they would like some feedback. Respondents enter the system using uniquely assigned passwords and provide their input. When they hit ‘send,’ the data is sent to the Requestor’s account, without the email address or name of the Respondent. This ensures that Respondents provide candid responses. Requestors have a link on the main menu of the system that enables them to send the summary data to their coach for analysis. Requestors can continue to send requests to an unlimited number of Respondents until their account expires.

What kind of feedback does it provide?

360Reach enables those people you select (Respondents) to provide input about your rational and emotional attributes, your greatest strength and greatest weakness, skills, and team role that most suits you, etc. It also provides your Respondents with the opportunity to provide any additional comments they want to share. It includes two projective exercises to validate data and enable you to gain richer insights into what those around you think about you. The Premium and Enterprise versions of 360°Reach provide data analysis and consolidation which reveals Brand Personas and Leadership Competencies.

How is 360Reach different from other 360-degree surveys?

360-degree surveys completed inside the corporation are often focused on specific goals and objectives and do not provide bigger picture data about the participant’s strengths, weakness, rational and emotional attributes, etc. They usually include people from only inside the company and ignore critical feedback from external constituencies (like customers, business partners, networking contacts, etc). The feedback from 360-degree surveys conducted internally is often hard to rely on because Respondents are not always 100% honest in their responses. According to a study published in the Harvard Management Review, “The majority of managers filling out 360-degree feedback reports hesitate to criticize any aspect of their peer’s performance, particularly when raises and promotions may be on the line. Some also worry that negative feedback would strain their relationship with colleagues if it ever came out who had provided which ratings.” Here’s what makes 360Reach more effective and more valuable; it:

  • answers the question “Who are you?” not “How were you at X task?”.
  • enables you to obtain feedback from anyone with an email address (or your LinkedIn connections or Facebook friends). That means people from both inside the company and externally can participate
  • is administered by a third party. The data is not held inside the company, so Respondents can be assured that they remain anonymous. No one other than you and your coach (if you want) see the feedback.
  • allows for an unlimited number of Respondents, providing a larger sample of data.
  • takes just a few minutes for Respondents to complete, making it more likely that they will respond.
  • can be used by individual consultants, solo-preneurs and small business owners who otherwise don’t have access to 360-degree surveys.
  • is high value for money. There are free and fee versions.
What is the 360Reach Basic ?

360Reach Basic is completely free. Users get 15-day passwords, unlimited use of the system during the subscription period and access to the summary data. Access to premium features (data analysis, customized report, etc., requires an upgrade to premium) are not available. The need to upgrade is assessed on an individual basis.

Who do I contact if I need help while completing the assessment?

Please send an email to support@reachcc.com and let them know the problem you are experiencing.


2. USER (REQUESTOR) QUESTIONS

To whom should I send requests for feedback?

You can request feedback from anyone with an email address or from your LinkedIn contacts or Facebook friends. You should select people who know you fairly well. Those who are just casual acquaintances may provide questionable feedback and could make your results less reliable. It’s best to include people from all aspects of your life (colleagues, managers, employees, clients, business partners, networking contacts, friends, family, etc). This will give you a true 360-degree view of how you are perceived.

How many people should I send it to?

With 360Reach, you can send requests for feedback to an unlimited number of peers, managers, employees, clients, family members, etc. Having a minimum of 12-15 responses will provide you with actionable data. The average response rate (percentage of Respondents who complete the questionnaire) is 40%. So, sending it to 38 people would ensure valid results. Caution: It is best to send it to people who know you. Those who are just casual acquaintances may provide questionable feedback and could make your results less reliable.

How will I know when someone has responded?

You will receive periodic emails from 360Reach letting you know that you have received responses. None of the feedback will be associated with the people who provided it. That ensures their anonymity so your Respondents provide truly candid feedback. At any time (and as often as you would like) during your subscription period, you can go into the system and retrieve the summary of all feedback received to date. The summary consolidates all the input you have received.

Will Reach use the email addresses I put into the system?

Never. We will not rent, sell, or otherwise use the Respondent email addresses you enter into 360Reach. We take privacy very seriously at Reach.

For how long can I access my account and look at my response summary?

You have unlimited use of the product for 15 days . You can check the consolidated summary as often as you would like within your subscription period. As a Basic member, you must print out your summary before your subscription expires as you will no longer be able to access it after the end of your subscription period.

How often should I conduct a 360Reach survey?

Annually. You will want to track your progress to see if the consistency of results increases and to verify that the visibility of your strengths and positive attributes are increasing while negative attributes and weaknesses are decreasing.

Why haven’t I received any responses to my request for feedback?

You may not have sent them. After you enter your Respondent’s email addresses, you have to ‘Send’ your requests. Also, you are not able to send you requests until you have at least ten email addresses in your list.

How do I analyze the results I receive?

I will provide the analysis, coaching and personalized report. 


3. RESPONDENT QUESTIONS

I received a request for feedback. What is 360Reach?

360Reach is a personal branding survey that has been used by nearly a million people. Those who initiate the survey (Requestors) are seeking to understand their professional reputation. Unlike 360 surveys done in the work environment, 360Reach is designed to provide high-level feedback and insights that will be valuable to the Requestors as they make decisions about their career or business. It is focused on professional development, not performance.

Will you use my email address other than for this survey?

No. Our policy states that we will only use your email address to send you the feedback form, a receipt acknowledgement, a thank you email and reminders that are sent by the Requestor (reminders are only sent if you have not responded to the request for feedback). Once you have provided feedback and we have acknowledged it, you will not receive any other email from Reach and we will purge your email address from our system.

How long will it take for me to complete the survey?

About ten minutes. It was designed to be easy for the Respondent.

Why was I selected to provide feedback?

We provide guidance to Requestors that they choose people who know them well and whose opinions they respect. We also recommend that they include people with different relationships to them (colleagues, friends, managers, employees, family, etc).

Will the requestor know my identity?

No. After you complete your feedback and send it to the system, your responses will be combined with responses from others to provide aggregate data to the Requestor. We will never share the fact that you responded with the Requestor, even if asked.

What if I am still concerned with my feedback being traced back to me?

You can click ‘other’ in the category of Respondent section of the survey and you need not complete the comments field. Sometimes, Respondents provide comments that are so specific, those comments can be traced back to them. So please be aware of this as you provide feedback.

What is the point of the projective exercises (Car, Household Appliance, Breed of Dog, Breakfast Cereal)?

Although these questions may seem frivolous, they often provide the most valuable feedback in the survey. Often, it is easier for a Respondent to associate a Requestor with something that already has brand attributes. The most important part of these projective exercises is the ‘why’ not the ‘what.’ For example, if a Requestor provided this feedback: “Mercedes because you are sophisticated, reliable and respected,” the attributes ‘sophisticated’, ‘reliable’ and ‘respected’ are important feedback that can be used to validate the attributes that were identified in the first section of the survey.

Will I get to see the summary of feedback that the Requestor received?

If the Requestor chooses, he/she can send a copy of the consolidated feedback to some or all of the Respondents. This is up to the Requestor. We do not provide this data to anyone except the Requestor and if the Requestor chooses, his/her career or business coach.

How can I complete my own 360Reach survey?

15-day passwords to the survey are free!

Who do I contact if I need help while completing the feedback form?

Please send an email to support@reachcc.com and let them know the problem you are experiencing along with the name/email address of the person who requested your feedback.