2.04 (V) When To Ask Impact Questions

We've talked about how impact questions are your most powerful type of question, but power comes with responsibility. You have to earn the right to ask someone an impact question. Here's just a fun example. What if I walked up to you at a networking event and I said to you, 'Hi there, I'm Craig. It's nice to meet you. What do you want your life to be like?" You would run away from me in horror. You would get out of that situation as fast as you possibly could. It would be incredibly awkward because I haven't earned the right to ask you that question. But here's the deal, I bet you if I had 20 minutes and we had a conversation about what we do, where we're from and things like that, then I could say, "Okay, here's a crazy question for you. What do you want your life to be like?" And you know what, I bet you would answer. That's the simple difference made by earning the right to ask these questions. This is also like other forms of questions. Closed-ended and open-ended questions are still good questions, and you should use them. They warm up the conversation and keep it moving forward. So, as you collect impact questions and build that sales tool, just remember you need to earn the right to ask these questions.