After interviewing hundreds of people, I’d like to share one thing I’ve learned that can change the course of your conversations. It’s two questions that can be used in the first 60 seconds of networking conversations, can make mentoring conversations more valuable, can help craft your marketing messaging and more.
The two questions are “How?” and “Why?”
It seems everyone is talking about storytelling, so let’s do that here. Those two questions elicit stories. Think about a typical networking conversation: “What do you do?” then the other person answers and asks the same question back to you. Then you both discuss what you do, what you sell, etc. Often one or both of you are trying to sell or otherwise get something from the other person. Not fun.
After they answer you, instead of immediately talking about yourself, what if you followed up with “That’s interesting, how did you choose that career path?” or “That sounds exciting, why did you start your own business?”
This works for almost any business conversation. Have you ever had a conversation just halt and you had to think of a new topic quickly? Forget about that. Let the other person talk first and, no matter what they say about themselves, ask “Why did you (do what they just said)?” or “How did you (do what they just said)?”
Bam. You’re on your way to storyland. This approach will make you one of the most popular people in the room because you’re interested in other people, and you let them talk more than you do.
Think about mentoring. The same rule applies. If you’re a startup and your mentor shares that she’s built multimillion dollar businesses, instead of saying “Tell me more about your companies” you could ask her “How did you scale your businesses from a startup to seven figures in revenue?” The story she shares will provide you with possible ways to scale your business.
Think about marketing. Rather than writing marketing copy that you think people want to hear, get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Go to past clients and ask, “How did you find me?” The answer will tell you where to spend your marketing dollars. Asking “Why did you decide to work with me/my company?” The answer is what you put in your marketing copy.
I hope those two questions are as helpful to you as they are to me!
