When you ask better questions, you get better answers. If you’re struggling to get the information you need, look no further.
Check out these tips on how to ask effective questions the first time around.
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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Ask Better Questions Get Better Answers
Ask better questions and get better answers. The end.
Now, on an average day, I get lots of questions that funnel into our office from all across the world. And they come in via instant message, through the contact form on our website, through YouTube and through Facebook.
They come in through instant messages on Facebook, texts, phone calls, group coaching, private coaching, lots of questions.
What is a Good Question?
So, what is a good question? A good question is a question that has an end in mind. So, when you ask a question, what exactly are you hoping to achieve by asking the question? So, for example, if somebody calls and says, “Can you help me?” “Well, I don’t know, can I, or can’t I? What seems to be the problem?“ “I’m stuck.” “Oh, let me recommend a great adhesive remover.”
And they say, “No, I’m stuck in my business.” So, I still don’t know any information. “Are you the business owner? Are you the employee? Or are you a lead on the job? Are you an investor in the company? Where in the company do you fit?”
So, when you ask a question if you don’t give enough information, the answer you’re going to get back is going to be limited and it might not be helpful at all. It might not be the answer that you’re looking for.
We Ask Questions Looking for a Specific Result
When we ask questions because there’s a specific result that we’re hoping to achieve. If you go in search of something, you’re hoping to find something. But if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you will never recognize it when it arrives. So, before you ask your question, what is it that you are trying to do?
What problem are you trying to fix? Is the person that you’re asking the most qualified person that would be able to help you answer this question? So, for example, if a homeowner calls a house cleaner and they say, “Hey, how do I clean my bathroom floor?” The house cleaner wouldn’t know. There’s not enough information there to actually answer that question. So, the house cleaner wanting to please might say something like “with a great cleaning solution.” And the homeowner says, “No, I have problems with my bathroom floor.” The house cleaner says, “Well, I have a special mop.” And they say, “No, there are more problems with my floor. It’s a grout problem.” And they say, “Not a problem. I have a special grout brush.” And the homeowner says, “No, there’s still another problem. The grout is dirty and crumbling.”
A Good Question Makes Everything Easier
It would be so much more helpful if the homeowner led with that. A good question makes everything easier. If they said, “Hey, I have a question for you, maybe you can help me. I have a 19-year-old home and it has the original ceramic tile that was on the floor when the home was built. It was a sanded grout that sealed the tiles together. And every time I vacuum now, it’s old and it’s crumbling and pieces and chunks of it come up in my vacuum.
So how do I clean my bathroom floor without more chunks of my grout falling apart?” Now, that is a very different question than how do I clean my bathroom floor? Because the house cleaner was going to come and just bring a steamer, or bring some special cleaning solution.
So, the solution they were going to give you is very different if you give them different information. Now I know as a business owner, I can only answer questions based on the information I’ve been given.
Faulty Information Leads to Faulty Answers
So, I tell my team members all the time, if you give me faulty information, I’m going to give you a faulty answer. It’s going to be based on my experience, my best information based on the information that you gave me.
And so, if you skip stuff, leave stuff out, forget details and you don’t tell me what the end goal in mind is, I don’t know where to direct you. It’s like if you jump in your car and you’re going for a drive, but you don’t know where the destination is, I don’t know how come you’re not already there.
If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t recognize the destination when you arrive. And that’s the same with asking questions and finding answers.
Write Your Questions Down in Advance
So if you are a homeowner and you are hiring a house cleaning company, it’s important to write your questions down in advance and find out what the exact result is that you’re looking for so that you can have a conversation with them and get the answers you want.
Or you have a house cleaner come over and they do a walkthrough of your home, and you’re asking for pricing, that you can give them very, very specifics so that they know how to price your home.
For example, you might say, “Hey, I have a house it’s a 5,800 square house and there are only two people that live in my house. All the children are grown, and they’ve gone off to college. Our house is vacant. We’ve got four guest rooms in our house. We have one bathroom that’s used all the time, a kitchen, a living room, and then of course the master bedroom and the master bath. Can you come to price our home based on this type of usage?” And they say, “Oh, yes.” Now in their mind, it’s a very different job than if your five kids still live with you and you have two dogs.
The Information You Give Them Will Come Back to You
It’s a very, very different conversation. So, based on the information you give them will be based on the information you get back. And the accuracy of the answer depends on the accuracy of the question. So, ask better questions and get better answers.
Resources
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Simply Said: Communicating Better at Work and Beyond – https://amzn.to/2XWZB7h
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