looked forward to meeting you.”
Whoa—what's happening here? It occurs to me that I learned a great deal
about Margaret. She learned nothing about me. Nothing. She has no idea
what motivates me or what makes me get up in the morning. She's learned
nothing about my business.
Just think about what she could discover with some simple, open-ended
questions. For instance, “Tell me how you feel about the bank's services?”
Or, “Why did you decide to go into business for yourself?” Or, “You're an
important client of ours—how can we do a better job of meeting your
needs?”
Most important: “Really? Can you tell me more?”
An amazing torrent of conversation and information flows when someone
responds to a question of yours and you say, “Tell me more.” This simple
phrase, in fact, can be used almost anytime to draw someone out. “Tell me
more about that” is a powerful prompt you can use often. Probably daily.
I left the restaurant, shaking my head.
Back at my office, a colleague asks me about my lunch. “Was it a good
use of your time?”
“No!” I blurt out, before I could even think of a proper response.
“Why? What happened?” he asks. And as I think about the lunch, I
realize my banker did not ask me anything that helps me clarify my
thinking about my business or my career. Nor did she share with me, for
example, how some of her other clients, in similar businesses, deal with my
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