Best Questions to Ask Consulting Clients

Part of what sets elite consultants apart from inexperienced ones is knowing what questions to ask the client. The right questions can change the course of an entire sales conversation. Elite consultants know what questions to ask, how to ask them, and when to ask them. With the right questions, you can elevate yourself from being just another run of the mill consultant to the one that they absolutely will have to hire. While it’s true that anyone can ask questions, the best consultants know how to ask questions that position them as the expert, uncover their clients’ needs, and demonstrate the value that they’ll bring to the business.

While it may be tempting to start asking questions right away at your next meeting, you want to make sure that you start by listening. Listening is the key to making any consulting project a successful one. This is an important step to helping you understand your clients’ needs, which then allows you to offer them the best solution to help them achieve the results they want. By listening, you build rapport, which is essential to a business like consulting which relies on building relationships.

Asking questions enables you to deliver the highest level of value to your clients and establishes your authority while helping to build your credibility. You want to avoid questions that are too vague, or even worse, amateurish. If you need guidance on what kinds of questions to ask, try some of these to structure your sales and prospective consulting conversations.

“What is your top priority for this business unit during this fiscal year?”
This question helps the client to clarify their priorities, which informs their goals. From there, you can take the conversation to help them look at ways you can help them to achieve said goal. It’s a good idea to document this and reflect back to it to help keep your client focused.

“What is unique about your business compared to your competitors?”
There are many ways to ask this question, but many clients may have trouble answering it. In asking this, you are trying to find the quantifiable reasons for why the marketplace would choose your client over the competition. This helps your client to clarify their value proposition and competitive advantage.

“What was your main reason for meeting with me?”
When your client isn’t engaging with the conversation in quite the ways that you want them to be, that is a great time to introduce this question. It puts the focus back on the client to tell you why they wanted to meet, and this reason can be used to remind them of the value that you provide. It allows you to focus the discussion on their goal or issue so that you can provide them with tangible solutions.

Originally published on ThinkGrowthConsulting.com