Use same column type and values on multiple columns

I tried to duplicate a dropdown column in a sheet but had no luck. I do have a possible solution but i hope someone else has a better one than this. 

I import a lot of excel sheets into smartsheet and I find that when a column has very little variation in values that also repeat, smartsheet often automatically defines the column type as a drop down.  I tested importing 5 columns of data.  Each column contained 5 values that will become drop down values.  I then copied the block and pasted it twice so that each value exists three times in each column.  

I imported this excel sheet into smartsheet and each column imported as a drop down list with the same 5 default values. 

Then all you have to do is delete the original rows if data . 

Potential issue: the drop down was populated with the five values in alphabetical order (fifth,first,fourth,second,third) not the order that they appeared in the sheet (first,second,third,fourth,fifth)

Also the primary column is always going to be imported as text/number