Questions Make the Difference

What would you think is at the heart of so-called consultative activity - what makes it consultative? The answer? Questions - but not just any questions, questions that help the prospect discover for themselves their needs and wants. Questions stop us presenting our full story too soon.

My kids complained recently about the size of my glasses. They were concerned that they looked like 'patio doors'. So off I trotted to the opticians in my home town of Basingstoke. The lady clinician - the consultant - put me through the usual rigmarole: hard chair, strange lights, uncomfortable seating position. We went through red and green circles, oxo and crosshairs. She sat me in front of an intimidating-looking piece of machinery and without warning squirted some strange liquid in my eyes. At the end of this reasonably intolerable performance she said, and I quote, 'Mr Oliver, you need vari-focals.' It made me angry, and as I left the consulting room I made up my mind to stay with the patio doors and just put in some new windows.

I went through to the fitter with my mind made up, but watch what happened. He began to ask me about my work, how big were the seminars, did I use my notes frequently and did I interact with my delegates? Then he asked me this one question: 'Mr Oliver, when you have been interacting with your delegates and then you come back to your podium, do you find it takes you quite a long time these days to focus on your notes?' What has he done? He has acted as the real consultant by asking incisive, penetrative questions that have my good at heart. Questions give us a consultative air that will add to our authority and add to what we uncover from the counterpart. And just in case you're feeling smug and saying to yourself, 'I am never as bad as the clinician in the story', let's remember that all she did wrong was to present the solution before she had uncovered the real value.