Lesson #2 on Communication and Prospecting from my Conversation with the Jehovah's Witnesses

Several days ago I wrote about my conversation with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses and one of the lessons I learned about communication and prospecting that I believe applies well to building an effective USANA business:

Lesson #1:  Don't just dive right in to what you want to talk about

Here's the second lesson about communication and prospecting that I learned from that conversation:

Lesson #2: Ask questions!

A great way to build rapport and establish trust is to actually find out something about the person you’re talking to. The obvious -- but often under-utilized -- way to do that is to ask questions.

I found it interesting that my two visitors never once asked me anything about me. How long have I lived in the house? Do I like the neighborhood? Do I currently attend a church? Am I married? Any kids? Do I believe in God?

Those would have been perfectly appropriate questions to break the ice and get me to open up.

More than that, however, they might just have learned something about me that would have given them a better idea of where to begin the conversation! For example, if they’re going to launch into a discussion about Doomsday, don’t you think it would have been helpful to know whether I even believe in God? Or rather than using Scripture as some sort of authority about their opinion, doesn’t it make sense that they should know something about what I believe about the Bible (i.e. is it Truth, inspired by God? or just some work of history without any relevance today?)?

Instead, as I mentioned in Lesson #1, they pretty much just launched in to their agenda and lost me along the way.

Here’s a take-home message for you: He who asks the most questions, controls the conversation!

It was funny -- about halfway through the conversation, after they read me a few Scriptures, I started asking them questions. From there on out, I controlled the rest of the conversation. I think at one point it sort of confused them; they probably never had anyone do that to them before. But the truth is, I got the sense that they actually liked it. I was showing an interest in them. I was asking them questions. They got to talk about things that were important to them, and my esteem went up in their eyes.

It’s an interesting phenomenon to see happen in a conversation, when you ask questions. Try it with sometime you talk to today!

To be continued...

(check back tomorrow for Lesson #3!)