13146: Getting The Right Answers By Asking The Right Questions

Raw transcript:

I love that some of my clients and
students have moved on once they’ve
acquired information and experience to
having their own clients and students
and helping others uh the way they were
helped by me and by others and what’s
interesting is that they find out that
sometimes the questions that they’re
being
asked
require answers that the questioner did
not expect so let’s talk about asking
the right questions to get the right
answers in this episode of the vo Heroes
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podcast one of my clients and students
had a client and student of their own
who said well you know I’d love to you
know uh figure this all out what do you
need to uh have uh a voiceover what what
kind of software do you need to use to
do voiceover work not audiobooks in
general or or in specific but just
voiceover in
general and in particular they were
asking what software do you need to use
and as you know I recommend audacity
most of my students stick with audacity
some of them expand out into other areas
because they’re doing other things with
voiceover or other categories but she
said well I recommend
audacity and the person said oh yeah my
computer is so old that it won’t even
run
audacity well so the
question that needed to be asked because
if your computer is so old it doesn’t
run audacity it’s not going to run any
other piece of software either because
all of the other pieces of software are
more complex and have a bigger footprint
and require stronger hardware and uh
more modern operating systems if your
computer is so old that it won’t run
some version of audacity then the
question that should have been asked is
hey I need a new computer what kind of
computer should I buy because mine is so
old it doesn’t even run audacity and you
know I get that people are trying to get
the value out of what they purchase
there are some people like why would I
upgrade my computer every few years I
want to buy one and use it for two
decades well best of luck
there but it is important that if you’re
trying to help people out that you
get to the Crux of what really is their
issue and sometimes that takes a little
digging uh sometimes it’s presented to
you with a followup to your answer like
what happened here oh my computer is so
old that blah blah blah so but
understand that sometimes people phrase
their questions phrase their asks for
support or advice in ways that make
sense to them but may not be serving the
actual problem they’re trying to solve
and so one of my favorite phrases is I’d
like to answer a question you didn’t ask
would that be okay with you uh or let me
ask let me answer that in a way that you
may not expect by answering a different
question or there’s a different question
that you need to ask I I in some way I
prepare them for what might not be the
answer that they
expect um so it’s okay to dig and if you
really want to help people you want to
meet them where they are and they may
not know enough about their problem to
even pose a question that is completely
well-formed and makes all kinds of
sense so sometimes the question that’s
asked isn’t the question that needs to
be answered and I’m wondering if there
are any questions that you’ve asked me
in the past or you’ve asked others that
have had surprising answers like yeah
well you know I I I think I’d like to
answer that in a slightly different way
or have you experienced a way to do that
I’m wide open
for ways to say that so that the person
doesn’t feel insulted or feel like I’m
talking down to them I would love to
know what your thoughts are on that let
me know in the comments below if you’re
watching on vooh heroes.com you can
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I’d be happy to do that except for the
breaking of the like button part I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th I thank you so
much for watching and for listening and
I will see you in the next episode of
the vo Heroes
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podcast

(from YouTube)