Transcription
If I told you the reason why you and I stop asking questions and give more answers as we age is because when we were kids going to school, our teachers recognized us every time we give the right answer. Not recognized us every time we ask the right questions. But innovators, entrepreneurs, creators are great at asking questions. Today, we're gonna talk to you about the power of questions and how we can help out your business life and your personal life. Okay.
So let's get right into a couple things we're gonna do. One, we're gonna look at a few studies that have to do with asking questions, then the power of sequence, sequencing of your questions, and then different formats of questions you can ask. So having said that, let's get right into some of these studies. The first study we're gonna look at is called the MIR Measurement Effect. It's a study done in nineteen ninety three by a few social scientists.
And the study they did was on forty thousand participants, revealing that simply by asking a question of the customers whether they were going to buy a car or not, increase the chances of them buying a car by thirty five percent in the next six months. What does this mean? Sometimes it's a simple question you ask. Have you thought about buying a home? I I don't I don't know if I have.
It increases getting into business? Have you thought about doing this? It's processing. They're thinking about it. Second study is by Journal of Applied Psychology asking citizens whether they're going to vote in an upcoming election increases likelihood by twenty five percent.
This is why you'll see a lot of people on both the left and the right will go out there and say, you gotta show up. It's all about us showing up. It's all about showing up because they are trying to persuade their party to show up to vote because the more they talk about it increases the chances of people going and showing up. A tech company did a study on five hundred thousand business to business sales conversations. Imagine you're listening to five hundred thousand business to business sales conversations trying to figure out what is the optimal range of questions to ask that increases the chances of selling.
And this is what they came up with. The magical number was eleven to fourteen questions. Anything above fourteen questions diminish the ratios of them closing, which means there is a right amount of questions to ask to get to the results that you want. Just because you're asking a lot of questions doesn't mean you're being optimal. You're just asking a lot of questions.
And the last study is by Harvard Business Review. I'm gonna share with you Mu Sigma. They pull two hundred clients. And this is what they asked them. They said, when you go home and you're spending time with your kids, what percentage of the conversation your kids have with you is statements with percentages questions.
They said seventy to eighty percent of the time when their kids are communicating with their parents, it's questions. Then the same poll asked the same clients, how about when you go out there and you're talking to your clients, what percentage of your communication is questions and what percentage is statements? They said fifteen to twenty five percent is questions. So their kids ask way more questions than they do. So why is that an issue?
Here's why that's an issue. Because when you look at the traditional educational system, we got recognized for answers. When you look at entrepreneurs, creative minds, you know, innovators, they get recognized for asking the right questions that lead to finding the right solution to a problem, which then they build a great business, and it ends up selling or they make a lot of money doing it. So now, you may be asking, Pat, who cares about these questions if I ask them or not? Listen.
The right sequence of questions helps you in sales, negotiation, dating. You're sitting there dating, talking to somebody. You're asking the question to get to a resolution of knowing if this is something you can pursue or not. Interviewing on a podcast. You're running a podcast, YouTube channel.
That's questioning. Parenting, coaching. It's all about questioning. Think about it this way. You are trying to get to an answer.
How many questions is it gonna take you to get to your answer? Start thinking about it in the right sequence because the right sequence of questions equals to optimized results. You're getting to what you want. For example, if I was in sales early on, I would sit with a lot of clients and I would spend an hour and a half trying to, you know, I'm working. I'm working with Stanley Dean Witter.
I want this person to be a client. Hour and a half later, they're not qualified. What a waste of my hour and a half. I was not experienced. I was an amateur.
So then I started clean up cleaning up my questions to know the sequence of asking so I don't need to go an hour and a half. Maybe I'm going ten minutes. Maybe I'm going twenty minutes. If you're trying to qualify somebody to buy a home, if you're trying to qualify somebody to go on a date with, if you're trying to qualify for somebody to be an investor. You're an investor.
You're trying to buy into business. You ask the right questions to see if this is even the right business for you to invest into. That's the right sequencing of asking questions. So now, I'm gonna give you a visual to help you see this a little bit more clear. This is a sequence of questions you ask.
You pose your first question. When you ask, you could get possibly two answers. And you typically know it could be a yes or a no. It could be a someone that's looking at investing over a million dollars or less than a million dollars. So you get that number.
Okay. If they say less than a million dollars, whatever the question may be, their answer the next question is based on that answer. Then you answer ask a question, you get two different answers. This is the answer. You get another question.
Then I you see how this is working out? It's kinda going because you're trying to get to what? The right answer to qualify them. This right here is why you gotta do a lot of role playing anticipation. So I would literally sit there and I would say, what could that client ask me?
And I'm sitting with a partner of mine that we're both in sales. They could ask this. Oh, if they ask this. If you ask this and they say this, what do you say? Then you say this.
Maybe we gotta eliminate this question. I don't think this is really needed, but I do think we need to ask this question to help us clarify on this part. I like that. So what if they say this, you say this. What if they say that, they say this.
We role play this so much until the sequencing was so perfect. We're like, okay. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Boom. Boom. This is an art. Once you figure it out, you cannot wait to go out there and sit with clients. By the way, men who are great with women get great at it because they're so confident because they know what questions to ask that leads to certain results.
Just like a salesperson, an investor, a CEO, a parent, a coach, all of them, it's based on questioning. Right? So now, different formats of questions to ask. Very basic. One of them, introductory.
How are you? What's your name? That's introductory. Next one is mirror. Hi.
How are you? Good. I'm I'm good. How are you? Mirror.
You're mirroring their questions. Right? So that's pretty basic of building rapport. Next. Transition question.
Hi. How are you? Tell me about yourself. Blah blah blah blah. And I'm from there.
By the way, how long have you been a business owner here? By the way, that's transition. We're transitioning. Or maybe you're going through a set of, things that you're presenting. So this leads me to dot dot dot dot.
And then you post your next question. Next one is follow-up questions, which follow-up questions, believe it or not, in here are one of the most valuable questions to ask because follow-up is you ask this, you ask this, they give this, then you give this. And then as you get deeper, it gets better and better. Great interviewer knows what question to ask afterwards, while a mediocre one will go completely here. You were about to get deeper on the topic where you were about to get to the point that's gonna be the climax.
Right? The same thing with business. So a follow-up question could be they say something. You ask the right follow-up question that's leading again to the result that you want. That's follow-up questions, clarifying questions.
So, you know, Bob, let me clarify this real quick. So are you trying to say that what you're looking for is somewhere a house that's gonna be close to a freeway, close to your kid's school? You would like it to be four bedroom. You don't want it to be two bedroom. A little bit of a backyard, but you're not some you're not somebody that wants to have a pool.
And you would like it to be designed is is that pretty much what you yes. That's what I'm asking for. Clarifying. Clarifying could be your kids. Hey.
Are you telling me that you would like to do something like this for your birthday? Yes. Okay. Great. Clarifying questions.
Right? Next one is bridging comparison questions. What does this mean? So, you know, John, based on what you just said here, how much of this applies to every industry? What do you mean?
Well, you just said that, you know, in the body building world, you know, the level of discipline it requires to be detailed about your diet, all this other stuff. How much of this also applies to somebody that's running a business? How much detail you think? Oh, very much so. You know, you're bridging the two different things together.
You're making a comparison to make a point to them. Right? And then the last one I have here is digging deeper questions. So you ask one layer of question, another layer of question, another layer. Now it's the dig dig and deeper question.
So in reality, is it fair to say that ta ta ta ta ta ta ta? Yes. So how do you feel about this? That's getting digging even deeper than up. And by the way, there's another thirty ways of asking this question.
The whole purpose of this video that's ten minutes is to help you think about questions in in a whole different way to help you in your business life and your personal life. Matter of fact, for five and a half years, many of you have asked me, Pat, we know you run a big sales organization. I got twelve thousand agents nationwide in the insurance business. I'm the founder, CEO. We have nearly a hundred employees here.
We have nearly a half a million square feet of office space nationwide. I run a very tight sales system, accountability driving, you know, the way of asking questions, all of that. You've been asking for it. Finally, we shot a course that's two hours plus long. And what I cover in this course is five things that help me have an edge in the marketplace.
And the course is specifically tailored in three different types of people in sales. One is the amateur that's getting involved. You're kinda little bit worried about what to do and you're watching all these different formats and styles. You don't know what way to go. The second one is for people that are making between a hundred to two hundred thousand dollar of your income.
You would like to get to a half a million dollar of your income, but you lack certain disciplines and focus to get there. We covered that as well. And the last one is for sales manager, sales leaders where you're running a business. You're netting maybe a half a million dollar of your income. You would like to get to seven figures, if not multi seven figures.
You need certain direction to help you with the conflicts you're having with your sales leaders. I talk about that in this episode as well. So if you'd like to know more about the sales course, click on the link below to find out what those five things are to help you have an edge, in your industry over your competitors. And last but not least, if you haven't yet subscribed to this channel, please do so. Thanks for watching everybody.
Take care. Bye bye.