How to Ask Better Questions

Recently, I had watched a Google Developers — How to ask a question: Conducting research for startup. The whole video is more customer research on Product Use Experience or Product UX.

Tomer Sharon shared the best practices for conducting interviews.

But before we discussed the best practices, let’s define what interview is.

Interview is gathering information thru dialogue. It can be online. It can be offline.

Now, let me share with you the best practices in conducting an interview.

It must be noted that the presentation was made for user experience interview.

But after watching the video, I noticed that most of the questions can be used as well in interviewing prospects for the purpose of writing your effective copy.

Let’s begin.

Best Practice#1: The Why

Before anything else, you must know why you are conducting the interview in the first place.

It is to know their dreams, their pain points. It is to know their level of awareness on the product or service you sell.

Whatever it is, always start with why.

Best Practice#2: Look for Story

When you interview your prospect, listen very well to the stories they tell.

Observe the highs and lows of their voices.

Notice the unusual behavior when they talk something uncomfortable.

With this, you will know how to hit the emotional buttons when you craft your copy.

Best Practice #3: Ask follow up questions.

More often than not, the answer you will get from the first question is just the surface level.

It’s just the crème of the top.

What you need to do is to dig deeper. Ask follow up question like,

“Why do you think that happen?”

The rule of thumb is to ask up to 5 why’s.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules here. But as long your prospect opens us, the greater the chance you get to know more of your prospect.

Takeaways

These are most basic advice when it comes to conducting interviews.

What’s good about one-on-one interview, is the relationship you are building with your prospect.

Knowing that someone is doing some research to solve someone’s problem makes the prospect more open to his/her desires and pain points.

Thus helping you as craft a relatable and engaging copy.

Converse like a talk show host, think like writer. Understand subtext like a psychiatrist. Have an ear like a musician.

- Lawrence Grobel