Questions are the answer.
A Zig Ziglar classic I learned while selling pots and pans door to door. Yep, that was my first sales job.
The cookware was high-end, selling for about five thousand dollars a set in the late 90s.
Our ideal customer profile was families of 4 or more with household incomes above $150K/year. For most families, the matriarch was the key kitchen decision-maker.
We sold the cookware through dinner shows.
How does a 20-year-old sell family matriarchs on cookware while cooking them dinner? The key was not to sell.
Through questions, pain and frustration related to cooking for the family were uncovered. In many instances, our cookware demonstrated a better way.
It was the power of questions that created the opportunity to show value.
Although Zig was the quintessential salesperson, the power of questions is not limited to just sales.
Is the ability to ask great questions the most potent leadership skill?
Questions are the answer.
There are many contexts to use great questions in our lives. Here are a few professionally focused contexts to ponder.
Questions with prospects and customers
Great questions are usually associated with discovery, a stage in the sales process after qualification.
If you value great questions, as a salesperson, discovery never ends. It is not a stage of a sales process; it is the oxygen of your profession.
Sales' bad reputation was created in the era of high-pressure tactics designed to convince people to buy regardless of their needs. It focused on the product's features, functions and benefits; the most successful salespeople were the ones who talked the most and were the most obstinate.
Successful modern sales organizations are value-creation-focused. Salespeople must understand their customers' businesses to diagnose problems worth solving. Salespeople can only prove tangible value if their solutions are mapped to the customer's specific conditions.
The diagnostic business development strategy is rooted in precise questions that challenge a prospect to think deeply about the barriers in their current business. Salespeople talk less and learn more.
The prospect determines value, and asking is the only way to know if you provided value during every relationship stage.
Questions you ask your team
A core function of leadership is to expand the capacity of the business. It means we need to create an environment where each individual and the sum of those individuals is capable of more tomorrow than they are today.
Marcia Reynolds's research discovered that when we tell people what to do, they access their short-term memory in the cognitive brain, where learning is least effective. To expand capacity, leaders must ensure that their teams maximize learning opportunities.
Though directing can seem like the fastest way to create action for your team, it is the least likely way to build capacity because your team is not actively thinking.
We can teach our team members to think instead of following instructions through questions. The strategy is to get team members to solve problems independently, increasing their capacity to work independently.
A secondary benefit is that their growing autonomy increases their engagement level.
Replacing instructions with questions is the foundation of the coach's style of leading.
Questions you ask yourself:
The questions we ask ourselves might be the most powerful and least considered.
When we ask questions of other people, we think about the question, we hear it out loud, and we get feedback, verbal and non-verbal, from the person we are asking the question of.
When we ask questions of ourselves, we often don't realize the impact they may be having or how they may be influencing our mindset. The questions we ask ourselves profoundly impact our thinking, behaviour, and overall life outcomes.
In the book "Change Your Questions Change Your Life" by Marilee Adams, she discusses the judger and the learner mindset.
You can think of the judger as the devil sitting on your left shoulder, negative, critical and looking for someone to blame. The learner is the angel sitting on your right shoulder who is curious and open, ready to learn and understand.
At any given moment, the devil or the angel can take control of the question center in your brain. As leaders, we have the power to choose, but we must be cognizant of who is asking the question.
Once we know, we can reframe and control.
What is the anatomy of a good question? That is a great question and a great example.
The best questions are open-ended, thought-provoking and clear. It is also helpful if your questions are concise and bias-free.
Your questions should inspire great conversation, not put another person on the defensive, especially the questions you ask yourself.
What should you do after you ask a great question? Well, that's a future newsletter.
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