Using Power Questions-Your Week 10 Client Growth Challenge

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Using Power Questions–Your Week 10 Client Growth Challenge

[Please note: this article, and the rest of the articles in this series, together constitute the 15 emails in the It Starts with Clients Client Growth Challenge. Please subscribe here to receive them on a weekly basis over the next 100 days]

In Week 10 of your client growth challenge, you’ll develop three Power Questions for a client.

For the critical background you’ll need to complete this week’s challenge, be sure to read Week 10 of It Starts with Clients, “Use Power Questions.” (If you don’t have a copy of It Starts with Clients yet, please do buy one here, on Amazon. It contains all of the detailed “how-to” for growing your client base. It is the foundation for succeeding at this Growth Challenge).

The greatest minds have always focused on asking the right questions.

The greatest minds have always focused on asking the right questions. Click To Tweet

“Computers are useless” Pablo Picasso, the 20th century’s greatest artist, told a journalist in the 1960s. He added, “They can only give you answers.”

The 1988 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Naguib Mafouz, said,“You can tell if a man is clever by his answers.You can tell if a man is wise by his questions.”

And the great physicist Albert Einstein once wrote to a friend, saying “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”

Client executives understand this. One CEO told us,“When someone comes into my office to pitch their services to me, I can always tell how experienced they are by the quality of the questions they ask.”

Answers are important. But if you want to create the great conversations that build deep, powerful relationships, you need to become skilled at asking thought-provoking questions. Indeed, our greatest thinkers, artists, writers and inventors have always focused on asking the right questions rather than coming up with quick, easy answers.

TIP: Bring three thoughtful, thought-provoking questions to every client conversation.

Bring three thoughtful, thought-provoking questions to every client conversation. Click To Tweet

I now spend a good portion of my meeting preparation developing the questions I want to ask. I try to come up with questions that will advance my understanding of the client’s priorities and goals, and that will also strengthen our rapport and trust. I focus on the following criteria:

Open-ended
Surprising
Focuses the conversation on the right issues
Uncovers the other person’s agenda
Identifies root causes
Explores the full context
Create a personal connection/personal knowledge
Engages through self-assessment

Your Week 10 challenge: Develop three Power Questions

Here’s your Week 10 Assignment: Complete pages 36-37 in the Growth Guide. You can also click here to download this assignment as a separate PDF: Week 10 Assignment.pdf

In seven days I will send you your Week 11 Challenge: Bring Big-Picture Thinking to Your Clients. So keep an eye out for the next email.

All the best,

Andrew Sobel

Founder and CEO