Five value questions you can ask clients that really demonstrate your value and get clients or anyone you are working with to feel that you understand their challenges.

Last week a teacher said to me she will be using these questions with her students.

In my experience, the questions you ask are everything, the way you ask them, your timing, listening, and genuine curiosity can go a long way.  Here are the five questions you can ask:

  1. What is it you really want to achieve here? Objectives
  2. If you get this in the way that you want it, what would that look like? Getting them to imagine the future
  3. What will happen in you don’t do this?  The risk of inaction
  4. How will you measure that this is a success? This question creates joint agreement and provides clarity. It gets the prospective client to say this is what I need to see or feel etc
  5. What is it worth to you to get this done?  The underlying value of moving forward and how it will benefit the

Often, we don’t ask enough questions, or listen and allow people to finish what they are saying.  Many people fail at this as they are too keen to jump in early and talk.

Being able to handle awkward silences takes patience and it’s an invaluable skill to be able to hold the space in the ‘silence’ gap. Also learning how to paraphrase confirms you understand what you’ve heard and builds rapport

Clients can leave the meeting feeling they ‘get me’ and this can alone minimise haggling over fees.