Is it their concern or ours?

Many times during workshops or training sessions attendees will present a wide range of issues and concerns that they feel a prospect may some day bring up. The unfortunate part of this process is that those issues are generally our’s and not the prospects unless we give it to them. Too many times this occurs because we are fearful of having a question presented to us that we can not answer. Therefore we try to imagine every known scenario that could possibly come up so we will be (in our minds) prepared. My question would be this…how could we possibly be prepared for every scenario that could arise? The answer is “we can”, but not in the way most of us think. we can never prepare to have the answer for every question. But we can be prepared to handle and control the question and answer situation. The best way is to have a system or technique for uncovering the reason for the question. The reason why they are asking is of far greater importance than the actual question alone. If we can determine why they have asked that question or the motivation behind it we will then be prepared to handle, control and ultimately answer. The point being that they may not be asking because they want that specific answer, they may want the information to solve some other issue or concern. Therefore having a systematic approach to handling and controlling questions will serve us far better that just simply having a portfolio of canned responses. Have a great day!