Possibly the most important business question?

When I first became self-employed, I joined a local business networking group that was about to launch, in a naive hope to promote my new business. I was told that as soon as we get four more people on board, the group will launch formally and we can all benefit from the business referrals (there were about twelve people in the group at that time).

Two months later, there were only ten members left, and we now needed 6 more members to launch this group formally. Another couple of months later,  this group was about to collapse.

As others were aware of my background in NLP training, I was asked to run a 20 minutes long (or short) meeting in hope to get members more motivated to do invitations, phone calls, and other things necessary for successful group launch.

Something strange happened. After that meeting, this business networking group launched within three weeks with solid 25 members. The place was buzzing, and everyone started to see benefits of their hard work.

Of course, this could be purely coincidental, but the fact is that immediately after my short meeting I have noticed a massive change in everyone’s attitude. Simply put, everyone was working their socks out for the next few weeks to get the launch out of the way.

One could easily think that I did a lots of ‘NLP magic’ during that meeting. The truth is, I didn’t. I went round the table and asked all existing members a simple, four word question:

“What do you want?”

That was it. Seriously.

The power of questions

I never cease to be astonished by the power questions have. Wisely structured question can engage others and change their mindset. Questions can empower or disempower, drive knowledge and growth, as well as promote creativity and critical thinking. Sales professionals are trained to ask intelligent open ended questions to engage their customers. Coaches are trained to ask their clients questions to elicit their needs, beliefs, values and cause of their problems.

There are plenty of powerful business questions I favour, but if I were to hierarchy them, “What do you want?” would have to be a question of my choice. Apart from the fact it is one of the first questions we should ask when talking to clients, it also gives us a mine of valuable information.

So where lies the power of this simple, almost too simplistic question?

“What do you want?” elicits outcomes

Our behaviour and thinking is largely driven by the “Pain & Pleasure Principle”. We either do something to avoid pain, or  to gain pleasure. As human beings, however, we spend more energy to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. This is reflected in our thinking. Human brain thinks more often in terms of what we don’t want, rather than what we want.

By asking “What do you want” we direct our client’s thinking towards “gaining pleasure”. Contemplation of this question often guides our clients beyond boundaries of their natural thinking, and it is not rare that they simply never fully contemplated what is it that they actually want.

We are far too quick to know what we don’t want, yet often we need a gentle push, perhaps a repetition of this simple question, to clarify direction in which we should go. Essentially, this question gives direction to your client’s mind.

For instance, if the client’s outcome is “more productivity”, they will mentally rehearse “more productivity”  in their mind, and will be much more likely to achieve it. Incidentally, they will also indirectly link this desired outcome with you.

For even better impact, you could follow up with a question: “How would you know that you’ve got what you wanted?”. This will elicit the “evidence procedure” (in NLP terms) for your client and you can remind them of it later, once they achieved what they wanted. It could go something like this:

“When we first met, you said that you would know you are more productive if you were able to make 15 – 20 phone calls every day. From what you have told me now, you are doing over 20 phone calls every day, so we have definitely achieved what we wanted, haven’t we?”

This will gently reassure them that your product  or service was of a great value to them.

“What do you want?” taps into motivational strategy

This is what probably happened with the group of business networking professionals mentioned at the beginning of this article. By answering this simple question they clarified why they were doing what they were doing and this triggered their motivational strategy. At times, it is very easy to get lost in a myriad of details that success requires. When bigger picture is lost, motivation usually ceases too. Clarifying what is it that we want helps us to restart this motivation strategy and increase our productivity.

This is why having a clearly written personal and professional goals is a must for maximum results in life. They keep us focused, motivated and on track.

“What do you want?” facilitates successful sales

Have you spoken to a sales person that couldn’t stay quiet for a second lately? How annoying is that? Going through an extensive list of benefits seems to be a logical way to sell for many, yet we all know that listening to something we don’t need to hear doesn’t help.

When sales professionals know what their client really wants, it is then much easier to describe their product or service in these terms. In other words, they can link their offer to customer’s wants and needs. And this is much more powerful than going through a list of generic information and mind reads.

“What do you want?” improves the quality of presentations and meetings

I wouldn’t start a single NLP course without asking all delegates this simple question: “What do you want from this training?”. Even though the content of the training may remain exactly the same, the delivery of it always changes. Knowing what my delegates want allows me to relate the information to them on a personal level, rather than deliver generic information.  This makes a big difference, both for me and course delegates.

“What do you want?” is an excellent way to start any meeting, presentation or talk, especially with a smaller groups of people. Attention will be higher, they will enjoy it more, and they will get more value out of it.

“What do you want?” builds rapport.

This is probably the most important effect of this question. It is my belief that, independently on the context, all communication should be client focused. It is not about how great we are but how can we serve others with what we have got. The client’s unconscious mind can easily pick up this small difference in our attitude, and it affects the rest of the communication.

“What do you want?” allows the client to be heard, to be understood. Essentially, this question shows that you care. Unless, of course, you ask “What do you want?” very loudly and with annoyed look on your face.

What is your favorite business question? And – what do you want?

 

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