What Great Questions Can You Ask?
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Free Download - What If You Stopped Trying So Hard? By Curt Skene |
A lot of what I speak on centres around asking questions. Questions that help companies attract and sustain profitable business. This month I thought it might be helpful for you if I shared just a few of the hundreds of questions I have created over the last two years. Your mission is to apply them to your business and see where they lead you.
Questions are fuel for your imagination, fuel that allows you to excel further than you have ever been before. Questions unlock creativity, unlock boundaries and allow you to step outside your current existence. Questions change your perspective, challenge your awareness and ignite your curiosity. Great leaders ask great questions, do you?
1. What other accessories could you build for your product/service?
Have you noticed that many companies have shifted to being in the accessory business? It’s no longer the clothes you wear but the accessories that go with it? Gaming units are practically given away so that more people can buy the games. You can get a great printer for less than $100 but the ink seems to last half the time. Dinner out now means the drink, the wine, the appetizer, the entrée, the dessert, the dessert wine and the cigar. You get the picture.
2. How could you build a gender specific offering?
What would happen? Would you use different colours, would you communicate differently, would you offer different services? Would you attract a more exclusive audience? Perhaps instead of gender, you segmented on target market.
3. If you could change one thing, what would it be?
Listen to your answer and ask why you haven’t done it. The ideas that will come to mind are usually very relevant.
4. What other companies could you bundle your product/service with?
Are there other companies that would benefit from selling your product/service as part of their offering? Can you create an exclusive bundle?
5. How can you deliver your product/service faster?
How can you go from order to delivery in half the time? What steps could you take out?
6. What if you had a “lite” version?
Could you create a teaser product/service that gets customers to start using an element of what you offer? A “lite” version reduces the barrier to entry, reduces customer risk and puts your product in more people's hands.
7. How can you get more “press coverage?”
What could you do to get more people talking about what you are doing? What could you do to create attention? Can you help a great cause? Can you do something unique? What would make you newsworthy?
8. How can you help your customers afford more of you?
Lee Iacocca founded the principles of auto financing based on this question. Can you bring customers together to share expenses, can you finance? Can you find financing partners for them? Can you pull from different budgets (i.e. capital vs. operation?)
9. What could you teach your customers that would give them more value?
Nobody knows your product better than you. What can you share? What new idea could you give them? How would you use it? Are other customers doing great things that you should be writing up? The more value you can create there more they will want to stick with you.
10. How could you double your business?
If you needed to double your business, what would you do? If you could do one thing to double your business what would it be?
11. What would your customer do?
What would your customer do if they were in charge? What would they change? What would they add? How would they do it differently? If you don’t know the answer, why not ask your customer.
I hope this month you will spend some time thinking about these questions and asking others. If you have any great questions I would love to hear them and share them with others.
What Great Questions Can You Ask - To learn more about this author, visit Curt Skene's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Kalena JordanKalena Jordan is the search industry’s first agony aunt, here to answer your tricky questions about search engines. Kalena is Co-Founder and Director of Studies at Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects. She’s been marketing websites online since 1996 and blogging about search since 2002. For her full bio, view Kalena’s Linked In Profile. When not working, Kalena likes to go geocaching, hiking or fishing. She also plays a mean darabuka. - Visit Kalena Jordan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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