ON COMMUNICATIONS || How to Give Actionable Advice and Ask Specific Questions for Helpful Results
I recently encountered two scenarios where I learned two things: 1) How to give better, more actionable advice, and 2) how to ask better questions to help an adviser give me a more specific response to my inquiry.
HOW TO GIVE BETTER, ACTIONABLE ADVICE
My day job is in marketing, and when I went to get my nails done the other day, my nail artist asked me, "I want to get more sales on social media; how should I do that?"
If this were a meeting with my team, I would ask them to frame their questions more specifically, but let's skip this part because my nail artist isn't a marketing specialist. So, I took a look at her YouTube and Instagram accounts, and there were a few things I noticed:
Her YouTube bio was entirely in Japanese. However, she told me her clients are usually local, English-speaking clients.
She told me her highest-performing YouTube videos are how-to tutorials, precisely one on how to make nail extensions.
Her Instagram bio starts with her services - soft and hard gel nails, acrylic, nail art, etc.
There was no starting price for her services. This meant she would gain interest from clients who DM her for pricing but thought she was too expensive.
There was no mention of her years in the industry, which would highlight her expertise.
I explained how making changes in the above areas would be a good start because it would help attract the right audience, and sharing details like starting prices would help prospects opt in or out of her services. Her eyes seemed to glaze over, and I knew I needed to start again and pick a different starting point to help her understand. I took a few steps backward to explain the purpose of various social media channels and how end users interact with each channel; this laid the foundation for me to explain why it's no surprise the knowledge-sharing video performed the best because it's likely nail artists wanting to learn a new skill. However, social channels for prospective clients looking for nail design inspiration, like Instagram or TikTok, would be better for promoting her services.
My revised advice made more sense to her, so I hope this gave her some ideas to change foundational things, such as her profile and bio, to attract more clients.
Before dishing out advice, ask more questions to understand where the other person is coming from and their level of understanding about your field, before you determine your starting point and how in-depth your explanation needs to be.
HOW TO ASK SPECIFIC QUESTIONS TO GET A HELPFUL RESPONSE
One of the key things I live by when advising my clients is not to assume that they understand marketing. If they did, they wouldn't need my help. In my interactions with experts in other fields, I find that most of them reflexively incorporate jargon in their responses, which goes way over my head (I'm in the position of my nail artist in this case).
A case in point is my question asking my accountant whether I can deduct a car purchase from my company's taxable income. At first, she gave me the Corporate Cost Allowance details for gas versus zero-emission vehicles. I needed to understand how this related to my question because it didn't tell me whether and when I could deduct the expense. I sent a follow-up question to clarify: Great. I understand there's a different amount for a Capital Cost Allowance depending on the vehicle type, but does this mean I deduct the total amount the year I purchase the car?
She got back and said the yearly rate is 30%. Her response triggered a series of other questions, including: if the first-year deduction rate is 30%, what are the subsequent annual rates?
My response laid out what I thought would be the deduction rates each year (ie. 30% in the first three years and then 10% in the fourth year to a total of 100%) I really just wanted to know exactly how much would be deducted and not the percentage, so I could better budget for my vehicle expenses. So, seeing that my accountant either cannot or will not read between the lines, I finally narrowed down my inquiry to the following: Can you tell me exactly how much I could deduct on a [insert price tag] car and how many years this percentage-based deduction would go on for? Is there a benefit to me buying a car outright versus leasing/financing a car and paying a monthly percentage? I wanted an answer to a practical business problem, not a technical problem (which is what she gave me by sending me the Captial Cost Allowance percentage).
Whereas my scenario depicts a conversation between my accountant and I, another profession where it would be total nonsense for the professional to communicate in jargon would be the medical profession. Imagine if your doctor told you the name of the medicine but not the practical knowledge of what it’s used for, how to use it and its side effects?
The above scenario shows I could have done a better job getting to the refined question, which is why I am sharing it to show you how to get down to it in the first email and ask the super specific question right away to get a helpful response. I felt like I spent four emails back and forth but got no definitive answer that would give me the information I needed to address the real problem.
So, there you go. In future interactions, try to understand where your counterpart is coming from, whether you are in a position to answer or ask a question. What is their level of expertise in the field? How can you avoid using jargon? What examples would help illustrate your answer to make it relevant to them? Starting here helps to prevent confusion and get to the point much quicker than diving right in.
