Good Marketing, Good Business

045: One Question, Big Results

• Shannon Stone • Episode 45

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The quality of your results comes down to the quality of your questions - so if there was a question that could help you achieve big results, you’d want to know about it, right?! 

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

  • A simple question that will have your working 100X smarter
  • Why this question will get your quicker and faster results in your business
  • How to put an end to procrastination in your business

This is one of my most favourite questions to raise with businesses because the answers that come from it are worth their weight in gold, it gives them clear, ROI-focused actions that map out the easiest, quickest and best way to achieve their business goals.

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Shannon Stone:

Hey guys, welcome to the podcast, super excited to jump into this episode today.

Shannon Stone:

Today we are going to be sharing one particular question that is going to help you to achieve big results and in a theme like last episode, we are making some pretty big claims but honestly, when you get your strategy hat on, it's almost like the world is your oyster. There's so many things you can achieve with a strategy lens, which is a big part of what I teach, what I talk about. But also, tying in with this episode, you may have heard I think it's a Tony Robbins quote the quality of your questions dictates the quality of your results, and that is 100%, absolutely true and I find in so many different ways. It is absolutely true. The quality of your questions equals the quality of your results, and I always, from a sales perspective. I always think the person who is excellent at sales, who has the highest conversions, is usually the one who asks us the right question. So it's not that you have to be a sales gun. You don't have to be a born salesman by any kind of regard. I definitely wasn't. My clients do not believe me in any kind of way because I teach them sales now, but all I know is what are the questions to ask? Obviously, there's a few other things to it, but you can achieve so much by knowing what the right questions are and when so many other people aren't asking those questions, it's very easy to stand out, to get to the root cause of what's going on for people and genuinely to honestly help people as well. So I'm going to share with you what this question is. It's my gift to you and I hope you take it with both hands and really use it in your business, because it's a great way to help you to fast track towards some of the results that you are working towards and maybe overworking to get towards those results as well. So I want to save you time, I want to save you frustration by giving you a smoother way to that particular result. I'm going to share the question in a very short moment, but I can't even share this with you without telling you how important it is to know what is the result or the goal that you actually want. Like so many people will say, I want to grow my business. Like that is not a very clear result. That is not a very clear goal. You have to be very clear as to what that specific result is.

Shannon Stone:

On the Good Marketing, good Business podcast, we often talk about strategies to get clients and things. So I'll frame this conversation around that growing your business, generating more clients, generating more revenue and profit. But you need to get really specific in that. What does that actually look like? A certain number of clients, what type of clients? What are you selling them? You want to get really, really clear on what that actually is, because you can have the right question to ask, but if you're putting it towards something that is too vague, you're probably going to think, oh well, that question was silly, but it's not that. You have to know what that result is, first and foremost, and anything that you do, any actions that you take, particularly and especially in business, you have to know what it is that you're doing it for and it has to match with those actions as well. So, if you already know what the result or goal is that you're going towards, or you've paused and you've had a little think about it, or you're going to come back to it.

Shannon Stone:

Whichever way works for you, let's dive into what the question is. So the question I'm going to share it in two parts or two ways. The same thing I'm going to share in two different ways. So the first way is the nice way to say the question is what would be the easiest, quickest and best way to reach this result? So what would be the easiest, quickest and best way to reach this result? The other way to say this and this is more of like a firm hand gun to your head how would you achieve this result? So if you had a gun to your head, someone standing there, how would you actually achieve this result?

Shannon Stone:

So, whichever kind of way, you need that question asked, whether it's a nice way or, you know, a straight down the barrel kind of way, what you want to do is think about what is that result that you would like to achieve and what is really the easiest, quickest and best way to achieve that. And you want to think about it like give yourself some time after listening to this episode, even 10 minutes is like honestly. I asked this question to a client recently and it was like a two minute conversation and we just got like the juice of everything they need to know and everything that they need to do. Very, it's almost like finish this sentence and that's what you need to come up with. But what you want to do with this question is, and the answers you come up with, is just don't have any preconceived ideas or notion of what the answer should be. So don't think okay, what is the best way to achieve this result? Or gun to my head how would I achieve this result right now or tomorrow or this month, whatever that timeframe needs to be?

Shannon Stone:

Don't come up with the your stock standard ideas and the things that maybe you think other people are doing or that you should be doing or that you've tried to do before, like almost like blank canvas stream of consciousness what would be the easiest, quickest and best way to get 10 clients into this package by this date, or whatever it ends up being for you. So don't have any preconceived ideas or notions around what the answer should be. There's no harm in just letting yourself dream up what the result, what the plan could actually be, or just answering that question Like, well, if I really really wanted to get these contracts or if I really wanted to work with these certain type of clients, what would actually be the easiest, quickest and best way for me to achieve that? Not without any boundaries. So it's not like you have to go and do that, and what I'm hoping is that you will come up with not big scary things, but out of the box things that are like you know what, now that I see that plan, I can see that I can achieve that result because of that plan. So you want that plan to like throw all your other plans out of the water, basically, and say, yeah, this is exactly what we need to do. We can 100% see how this would be the best way to achieve it and how simple it is as well. It's not that they have to be big shiny answers or big shiny plans that you come up with. It's that they have to be Possible to achieve the result. That's really all it's about, and sometimes it can be really simple. It can just be okay. Well, we want to work with these type of clients.

Shannon Stone:

Who are they? Let's get really clear on who they are. Let's find where they are. We finding their emails, their websites, like what? Where are we finding them linkedin? How can we reach out to them in an honest way, in an authentic way, and this doesn't have to be an overnight thing. You know, it's like maybe it is multi touch plan that you come up with. It's like you find the people, you reach out to them in some kind of way, you start a conversation with them, you start to get the ball rolling. Next step is inviting them to something, whatever it is. Let yourself dream up whatever it could be. Don't hold yourself back or put yourself into a box of. This is how it should be, because that doesn't help in any kind of way.

Shannon Stone:

So, coming back to the question, let's remind ourselves of it. So what would be the easiest, quickest and best way to achieve this result? And when I asked this to people and I love To ask this in the early days with my clients it's like, it's almost like that's why they've hired me. They like Shannon, we're hiring you for the ideas. And then I throw questions back at them like this what do you think would be the easiest, quickest and best way to achieve this result? Now that we've got clarity on what that result is and I asked the question and I give it to you as well because you are so much more smarter and knowledgeable and equipped with the answers then so many people give themselves credit for. And if you just have the right question to ask and I guess you know there's obviously perks and benefits of Like having certain skill sets at the table at the conversation when you're asking these questions but you have answers to these questions that are really going to help you. You have, you know, so much about your business, your industry, your connections, all the different things that you could come up with some really solid answers to this, which will create a really good plan for you. So just by asking this, like I know, you know a better way to achieve big results and if you would let yourself dream up the answers to this question, you might come up with an amazing plan.

Shannon Stone:

The other thing I love about this question is. It forces us to get to the point. So if it was gone to your head, how would you achieve this result? You're not going to fluff around with you know things that you're still testing, is still trialing. You're just going to get straight to the point and strip out everything that Is like slowing you down, taking up your time, like honestly, like forcing you to procrastinate in your business, like People can think they're doing amazing marketing. But is it really the easiest, quickest and best way to get you to the result that you're looking for? That's, I guess, what this conversations for. It allows you to kind of almost reset the business a little bit, to say, well, you know what? We've been spending a whole lot of time trying to get these things going on this kind of marketing, and now we see there's actually a much better way to do that. Let's run with this plan instead, or let's add this plan into it, and we can still keep doing the other things. Be consistent there, but now we see where our priority needs to be if we really want to get to the result that we've discussed.

Shannon Stone:

So action steps for this one. So, even though I've shared one question with you, I wanted to share a lot of the context around it, because you can give someone a very simple thing that is going to help them to radically grow their business. But this is like us as adults, us as humans unless we have the context around it, we're just going to brush it off, we're not going to do anything with it, like, oh yeah, that sounds cool, but I really want you to do something with this one. So, action step I want you to set aside that five to ten minutes. If you can do this with someone else, definitely do so. Share the podcast with them, get them to listen to it for their business and use can tag team, spend time on your business, spend time on their business With the VA, with the team member, whatever that looks like for you. But set aside ten minutes and the first thing to work out is what's the result that you want? You want to get so clear on this, because nothing else matters if you don't know what that is, especially in business.

Shannon Stone:

Action step number two is to ask yourself the question so what is the easiest, quickest and best way to reach this result? The other way that we asked the question was gun to your head how would you achieve this result. And what I actually love about the second variation of it is it adds a level of like. It shakes you up a little bit, like a level of urgency. It's like I'm not messing around here. I've got to figure out what is the best way to achieve this result. If there were to be a gun to my head, obviously it's very hypothetical. And action step number three. So number two is to ask the question and get the answers. And then number three is to take that plan and run with it. However simple or magical and complex that plan ends up being, I would actually imagine it's probably going to be something really simple. It's probably going to be three or five things that you come up with. So take that plan and run with it, start doing something with it.

Shannon Stone:

The last last thing I will say, almost like a caveat to the action steps and we've kind of touched on it a little bit is you might catch yourself falling back into doing things another way. You might start procrastinating in business, like just doing the norm, the other type of marketing that you would normally do, and there's a lot of reasons people do this. I'll share two other reasons. One human behavior. We just love to go back to what we know. Another reason is we have to resell ourselves, and I have to do this with my clients all the time. Resell them on the strategy, resell them on the plan. It's like oh, that's right, we're doing this plan because of XYZ. It's so much easier, so much quicker, it's the better way to do it Less wasted time, less wasted resources. So you might have to remind yourself often or however often is required that you need to come back to this plan. You've got to come back to the plan and you've got to keep running with it, and that is okay.

Shannon Stone:

People will often think that they've deviated from something because the plan wasn't right, but that is not true in any kind of sense. So come back to what the plan is and keep chipping away at it. So just to wrap up, just to close, that final question, one question that will help you to achieve super big results what would be the easiest, quickest and best way to reach this result? And the other way we said it was gun to your head how would you achieve this result? That's what I have for you today. I hope you have an amazing day.

Shannon Stone:

I can't wait to hear and see some of the answers and results that come from this, and you're always welcome to reach out as well. I love hearing how the podcast helps people in small ways and big ways and everything in between. So hope to hear from you and I will talk to you very soon.

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