Seth never fails to amaze me with his wisdom. Today he has made a post — How to be lied to — on his blog in which he says that the answers you get from your target / prospect depends on how you ask those questions.

Say, you ask questions like :

“Hi, welcome to our store. Can I help you?”
“Why didn’t your VC firm fund us?”
“When do you think you will be ready to invest in this solution?”
“How am I doing?”
“Do you like this product?”
“Would you recommend us to a friend?”

These questions will not get you an honest answer most of the times. It’s no brainer why would people not want to answer these questions. Most of the times people look for an easy way out of the situation.

Answer like “I’m just looking” to the question “Can I help you?” is an easy way out. Why? By giving an answer like this and sliding away from you, he will not have to hear your sales pitch which may make him buy something he didn’t need.

The same is the reason for all other questions : People will not want to sit and brainstorm to give you the real answer, they will just want an easy way out and most of the times it is to lie.

Shocking but true.

So, is there a way out? Yes and the trick to get the correct answers is to ask exact questions rather than open ended questions. Answer to a question like “Do you want to see what’s on sale today?” would most probably be “yes.”

The same way, questions like “What is the best thing about our product? The worst?” and “Now that you’ve read our business plan, if you could change one thing about it, what would it be?” would get you the right answer that you were looking for.

Next time you need to get the right answers to question, keep this tip in mind. However if you are using questions to help make the sale, then that’s a different story.