Pay attention to the questions

What questions are you asking people? How do you ask the question? What questions do people ask you, and how?

You can consider this from a voice and tone perspective—are you speaking monotonously? What emphasis are you putting on each sentence? Are you scripted or flying by the seat of your pants?—but also from a relational perspective.

Do you sound more like a waiter taking orders? Are the clients telling you what their budget is, what they know the solution to be, and what they want? 

Or do you sound like a physician diagnosing problems? Are the clients telling you what brought you to their office, and then merely talking about their symptoms? Do they trust you more than they trust a Google search, and do you give them good reason to? Are you so familiar with the questions that you can anticipate them?

Questions are really telling of how your business and marketing will perform. I used to think that this was a mere job title problem, but it’s really a deeper situation: What is your expertise? Are you constantly feeling the need to sell yourself and, inadvertently, putting your client in a high pressure situation? Or are you offering value, asking pointed questions, and adding value until they know that the price is worth the benefit of what you can do for them?

In the so-called creator economy, aim to develop expertise and intellectual property. Coin your own terms. Creators, commentators, and clowns are a dime a dozen. Experts and leading thinkers are the ones who refine their craft, build a reputation as being the best for a specific problem or group of people, and eventually add the most value and make the most money.

Pay attention to the questions!

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