You will never get the right answer until…
I have been training and teaching people for over thirty years and I still struggle with some of the most basic concepts of communication.
Maybe you do to.
One of these areas is, I struggle with getting the right answer to questions I ask. And as I work with people I also see this same scenario playing out.
I just helped someone on a business question. They were asking me how to use PowerPoint. Now if you have been any kind of teacher, presenter, or communicator at all you should know how to use PowerPoint. So, knowing this premise I asked what will you be doing? And the answer was, making a PowerPoint Presentation on Business Networking.
Now you all understand that one area of my expertise is business networking. I just finished my newest book on Professional Networking and so you might understand if I wanted to just jump in and help this client with the topic also!
But, I resisted. They had not asked me or invited me to help them on the topic that I was an expert in. They had invited me to help them use PowerPoint.
And that question needed to remain the topic and not how I can teach them about networking.
And all I said was this, remember in using PowerPoint Slides that less is more. And I referred her to TEDTalks to watch a couple of videos and how they so expertly utilize the power of video and slides to enhance their presentations and not to make a presentation.
The person thanked me and then realized they wanted to go a completely different direction in order to make their networking presentation more meaningful to their audience.
Along with that, I was helping someone else look for an answer on their computer. They asked, how can I do this… and my response was, you can’t do that in this operation. And as they sat their contemplating how they couldn’t do that, they tried to find their information another way. As I stood watching them, I suddenly realized that the question they asked was not the question they had, even though they thought it was.
And I asked them a few other questions and found out that they really wanted to see this information. That was all. They didn’t need that other program. They didn’t need to put this here and that there. What they needed was to see this information. And I said, so what you really want is to access this info fast when you log in. YES!
And then I showed them a completely different place to access the information that proved out to be faster and easier than if they had been able to do if from the location of their first question.
You see. Being able to ask the right question is truly the key to your success. Asking the right question will produce and answer. Asking the right question will make life easier.
And that is also what I do when I coach relationships or business networking. I teach people by asking them the right questions that get them to think differently so they can get the right answers.
Do you know how to ask the right questions? Do you understand how vital that one skill will be to your success?
You will never get the right answers until you learn how to ask the right questions.
Come to one of my seminars and learn how you can be great at whatever you are doing simply by being better at what you do. And I can teach you to be better.
Steve Sapato
www.mentalprosperityblog.com
www.stevesapato.com/book
