Tips to ask questions
Have you been in a situation where you meet successful people, experts, or celebrities in some seminars, workshops, parties etc and you really want to talk to them but have no idea how to start a conversation?
Then, this post is definitely for you. Especially, if you are an aspiring entrepreneur then meeting people and building a great connection is very important to your business. And if you are super good with the question you ask to them then definitely it’s a great marketing.
Before that you should know that there are two level questions:
1. 1st level question: It is casual kind of question. How are you? How is it going? What do you do?
2. 2nd level question: Deeper, what’s that like? Why did you do that?
1st level questions are general questions and it finishes after hi, hello and how are you. Here, we are talking about the 2nd level question to get into a deeper conversation.
You know when you ask good questions then people will take you as an interesting person.
Here we have five great questions to break the ice and start deeper conversation to learn from them.
1. Why did you/Why didn’t you do that business/pursue that career?
Ask them Why they are doing the thing they are doing. And to add up, you can go to deeper conversation asking how they realized their dream, how it happened etc
2. What should you have done differently?
(They might have some regrets or thinking about if they have done those things in another way it might have been better. If they could answer this to you, you might gain lots of insights.)
3. Could you tell me what it is like to be the richest person of the country/owner of your own company etc?
This question will really help to understand them more deeply and they would feel happy to answer this question.
4. What should I do differently?
Now it is your time to say something about yourself. Say what you are doing and let them guide and suggest you by asking this question.
5. Who else do you refer for the thing that I am doing so that I can get help from them?
They definitely have lots of contacts. And if they could refer you to someone who could be more interested in your project or who has been doing similar things then it could be of great help for you. Maybe you will find a mentor or collaborator.
AUTHOR: SUDHA SUBEDI
The article is based on the workshop given by Ann Tardy; the Mentoring Expert, Entrepreneur, Author and Cyclist. The author atteneded the workshop on San Francisco while competing in finals of global competition your big year of world merit.