Make the Sale Happen Before Lunch: 50 Cut-to-the-Chase Strategies for Getting the Business Results You Want (PAPERBACK)

RULE 44 Don’t React — Respond

I believe the most important weapon in your interviewing arsenal — and your best tool for evaluating obstacles at any point in the buy-in process — is a single word.

The question to beat all questions is the simplest one of all: “Why?” A contact tells you he’s considering revising his company’s quarterly goals. You ask: “Why?” Another contact tells you she was never really happy with the level of attention she got from the last person she worked with. You ask: “Why not?”

Asking “Why?” is a great way to encourage another person’s alert, engaged participation in a conversation. It’s also one of the best ways I know to take a potentially negative exchange and transform it into a constructive dialogue that yields information ...