Don't Ask Me To Touch The Carpet

The doorbell rang! I jumped because it was the middle of the day and I wasn't expecting anyone. It was a day off for me and my only plan was to chill out, watch TV and...well...do nothing. But, sigh, the doorbell rang and I went to see who it was.

I peeked out the window and there was a man standing in my driveway with a display board. On the display board were some peculiar looking squares. My curiosity piqued, I opened the door and greeted him.

"Hi, my name is Mark," he began.

"I'm in the neighborhood selling carpet. I have a lot of different styles. And on my display board here are some swatches. I have berber, high pile like Austin Powers shag, I have quite a few different styles and feels. Go ahead and feel them."

So, I casually reached forward and slithered my fingers over the little squares. Surprisingly, I wasn't excited by this experience (::insert sarcasm::). After, running my fingers through the carpet, there was silence. I waited for his next words but nothing came. He looked at me expectantly and...I peered back at him, thinking, "Dude, what's next?"

After what seemed like an eternity, really about 5 seconds, he asked, "Want to know more?"

I reached back, opened my door and showed him my floors...my hardwood floors...and told him my entire house was hardwood.

"Thanks for your time," he said, as he folded his display board and began sauntering towards the next house.

What went wrong here?

"Mark" did what so many of us do in business. He started with the sale instead of looking for the story.

We enter a meeting for a presentation and we hear, "Good morning, my name is Jerry and this morning we want to talk about the Googly Moogly Widget Whatseemahooses 1000!"

SNORE!

We jump in without finding out about the audience interest, what drives them, or what they need. Starting with your audience can save you so much time and anxiety inducing silence.

So, what can you do? In some cases, you can find out about the audience before the presentation or the conversation. However, there are times where you may have to find out about the audience on-the-fly. How do you do this?

Here's your answer...ask a question. Questions are like a cheat code. Asking questions gives you information about your audience's immediate thoughts or help you guide their minds in a specific direction. Here are a few examples:

• How many of you remember the last time you had to call tech support?
• What was your last project that went smoothly and wrapped on time?
• How do you feel when new initiatives are introduced without any warning?

Get your audience, your team or your group to mentally and physically participate by using this brain hack...yes, questions.

**Want some help with figuring out good questions, send keyword 21questions to 410-936-4049**

Let's go back to "Mark." What could he have done differently? How about this...

"Morning sir, my name is Mark and I've been going around to some of the neighbors. Let me ask, how are you feeling about your heating bill lately?"

My response would have been, "UGHHHH!"...and now we're having a conversation.

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