10 Aug The Power of Questions
Have you ever noticed that when you walk into a large chain retail store that when greeted by a sales person they ask you a question? How about when you’re looking to buy a car in the sales yard? Or when you go to see your doctor?
Why?
So they can find out how they can “help you”. Of course. Simple isn’t it.
Tell me, why did I ask you a whole bunch of questions right here from the get go? (Why am I asking you another one now?)
Because I want to ‘qualify’ you. I want you to ‘be sure’ that you’re in the right place, that you’re reading the right article – that you’re hooked and already nodding your head because – you know this stuff.
And the same it should be for your business website.
In fact, my goal here is not to tell you anything magically new, but rather to remind you of what you already know and then help you see new possibilities to use what you know.
That’d be nice wouldn’t it?
Imagine being able to grasp a whole lifetime of experience in just a few minutes and then immediately be able to see new opportunities to use and benefit from that experience.
Imagine if you could create that magic online each and every time that you touched your keyboard –
Wow!
The power and potential of questions is unlimited. The difference between asking them in person and asking them on paper is only in the perceived response. When we asking in person we have the opportunity to pause, listen and then reply. When we ask on paper we have only our words and our wisdom (experience) to draw upon – and so we should also allow our readers to do the same.
So when we ask our questions, what are we looking for? A simple yes I understand, or no, I don’t.
Those who don’t cannot relate and are never going to.
I recently had a look around a few Sunshine Coast dental websites and on one I found this –
“Tell me, would you like your dental appointment next week to be less painful?”
Huh? I don’t have a dental appointment next week Paul, what are you on about. Yes, not everyone wants (or is interested) in what they were offering, they might just move on. But I was interested.
Questions allow us to immediately qualify our readers and quantify their decision (their answer) based on yes, this *is* there area of interest, or no, it’s not.
Then when we get a yes response we then need to help them “imagine” the response in images and emotions. Look at the above statement –
Imagine being able to grasp a whole lifetime of experience in just a few minutes and then immediately be able to see new opportunities to use and benefit from that experience.
Imagine if you could create that magic online each and every time that you touched your keyboard – “
I don’t know about know about you, but if I were about to write some sales copy for my new product, my new autoresponder or my new free eBook, I’d sure LOVE to immediately see the potential opportunities and “create magic” every time I touched my keyboard… wouldn’t you?
Of course, we all would!
Or would we? I know that right now, half the people who are reading this will say – YES, absolutely! The other half will be going, no way, I can’t write, I can’t do those things, it’s not me. The question is the qualifier.
Let me ask you this, when you write / post / publish things online, would like your people to get interactive with and respond (be that through a return eMail, Blog comment or product purchased)?
Yeah, you bet.
So how do we do that? (There’s another question again asking you to respond…)
We do that by asking questions.
So, with your next Blog post, why *don’t* you finish by asking a question? When you send an eMail to a prospective customer, why not finish it with a question to get them to respond? When you write your sales copy – shouldn’t you actually ASK them to buy from you / subscribe to your eCourse or download your eBook??
[Sidebar: take note of how many websites don’t actually do this, it’s incredible. They think that a ‘buy now’ button will do the trick.]
And finally, when you’re looking for new product ideas… don’t you think it would be a good idea to ASK your potential customers what they want *before* you try to sell it to them?
That’s a good question, isn’t it?
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(Question:) Leave a reply at the end of the page; What kind of questions could you ask someone who might be interested in buying your product or service?
