How many times has someone said something to you and you have responded back immediately with an answer or a view point only to find that you are on a completely different subject or idea than what the original person was talking about?
Let me give you an example, just the other day I was speaking to someone about the potential of partnering with me in my opportunity.
This lady informed me she had “seen something like it before” (I have heard this) line so many times before!” So I proceed to ask “What have you seen?”
To cut a long story short someone else had given her a portion of information on the industry and had not filled her in completely.
Human beings generally tend to then fill the gaps in for themselves and make assumptions so they feel they ‘know’ how everything works.
After a series of questions I established this ladies idea on how my business worked was so far from how it did actually work.
She had the idea that she would have to go door to door and sell a product!
I have NEVER gone door to door and never would. It is a very poor sales method, is very time consuming and has a low conversion rate, not to mention invasive.
You could imagine she had some resistance to the idea of working together, that was until I helped her get clarity on how products were sold and that there was no door to door method.
Once she realized this, everything changed for her and she was extremely interested in working with me!
If I had not of questioned her on what she meant so that I knew exactly what her perception was and whether or not it was false or correct.
I would have, like so many people do, accepted her statement that she knows this and how it worked, thought to myself “This person is not interested, she already knows what I’m talking about” and just left it there!
Can you relate to this?
As good communicators it is our responsibility to ask good questions when someone asks us something or state something to us, so we can get clarity on exactly what they mean!
Until we can confirm exactly what they are talking about, we can not give them accurate answers or value. Confirming their meaning is critical to authentic and accurate communication.
This mis-match happens all day everyday, someone says something that person may take it as an insult all because no one took the time to ask the questions, and get clarity on what they actually meant!
I promise if you take the time to get clear understanding for both parties, your sales, coaching and results will sore!!