The Art of the Ask

I've written in previous posts about the importance of staying in touch with customers, constituents and contacts.  In the age of e-mail, instant messaging and social media I think people are actually delighted to have face to face or person to person conversations today.  At least all of those over the age of 21.

So it occurs to me and I've been reading up a lot lately, how do you get people to slow down and find out what is really going inside and around the people you're meeting and talking with?  It is my experience, especially in a situation where you may be trying to get someone to think differently and to take on your way of thinking that both parties will try to do whatever they can to begin and end the conversation as quickly as possible.  If you get people to say "yes" enough times then the thinking goes they will say "yes" when you ask them to agree with your line of thinking or buying what you're trying to sell them.  This model is as outdated as command and control corporations where the marching orders are read every morning and the soldiers fall in line or they get replaced. 

In another attempt to verify the old adage of my father is absolutely 100% correct I can say again if it was easy anybody could do it.  Most people don't, though.  What's that you ask?  My answer is yes!  If you're not totally confused yet hang in for another sentence or so.  To answer your question with another question (one of the techniques that shows you are mastering the skill) my question to you is "How good are you at asking questions?"  It seems obvious but just in case I don't mean innocuous yes or no or mindless questions such as:

• How are you today?
• What's new with you?
• How's business?
• Can you believe the weather we're having?

You have just asked questions that require slightly less thought to answer than you put in to asking them.  In fact if you're asking them of people who have limited time to talk to you anyway you're wasting both of your times and on some level outright looking stupid in their mind's eye.

The quality of your questions gives you a leg up on 95% of the population (and your competitors) for several reasons.  Here is a list of a few and I assure you there are more:

• It shows people you care
• It causes people to open up and be more honest about their feelings and motivations
• It demands that you become a better listener
• It takes the pressure off of your meeting, especially if it is with someone you just met or are trying to sell to or persuade to think differently about a product, service, or point of view
• It puts you in a position of leading the conversation while the other person feels like they are the ones doing all the speaking and thereby in control
• It produces results

Try it out for a week and see if you don't get different (better) results in your personal, professional and social conversations.  Need a few suggestions?  Let me get you started:

Instead of....
How's business?
Give this a try...
What are your business goals for this month?  Quarter? Year?
Followed by....
What are you focusing on to help deliver these results?
Further enhanced by...
How are you partnering with your vendors and involving your employees to ensure the results you need?

One more...
Instead of...
How are you today?
Try...
Tell me the most fun (insert any other adjective, i.e. exciting) thing that happened to you today?
Drop the...
What's up?
Instead say...
What are you planning for fun this upcoming weekend?  Next week?  This month?

You get the idea and you can come up with better ones than I did.  The key is to practice - every day.  The goal is to get people to talking about themselves, to tell you what has their attention, what they are interested in and what motivates and moves them.  All of this from a simple question?  I'll close again by answering a question with a question:

How do you expect to get different and better results in all areas of your life if you're not willing to try something new?  I'm just askin'.....