You are here: Home

Andrew Sobel: Power Questions

January 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Interview with Andrew Sobel

Andrew Sobel

Sometimes, the best questions you could ask your clients in interviews, sales meetings, or casual conversations don’t occur to you until after the encounter. That’s happened to me more than once while driving home from a meeting.

Now you can be ready before your meetings with help from the new book, Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others, by Andrew Sobel and Jerold Panas.

The book highlights 35 conversations with CEOs, clients, and friends to illustrate the impact of thought-provoking, incisive questions.

In this podcast, I ask Andrew to share his best power questions, especially those that can help you through a sales process. We also talk about the questions you shouldn’t ask.

7 Power Questions (out of 337 in the book)

  • How did you get started?
  • What in your life has given you the greatest fulfillment?
  • What has surprised you?
  • What did you learn?
  • What parts of your job do you wish you could spend more time on, and what parts less?
  • Can you tell me more?
  • If an effective solution is found, how will it affect your own job?

Adapted from Power Questions, by Andrew Sobel and Jerold Panas

You might also be interested in our print interview, Andrew Sobel: Building Client Partnerships.

Podcast run time: 17:52

Intro music exluna by Jakub Koter

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In the News: Quick Takes

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Here’s a roundup of news items, trends, and market data that I’ve come across recently.

Tim Berry, business planning specialist, gives us The Top Ten Business Plan Mistakes. You can also read an interesting article he wrote for us about business planning for consultants.

Over the past 30 years, Tom Peters has given more than 2,500 presentations. That’s a lot of time on the stage (and in airports). Peters now plans to publish a 23-part “mega-presentation” called “Excellence Now.” Every two weeks in 2012, he will release one section of the presentation materials in PowerPoint format. You can see Peters in a short video giving you a preview of what’s to come.

Facebook has become a target for cyber crime. You might want to consider these tips to keep your account safe.

Here are Gartner’s predictions for the IT sector in 2012 and beyond.

Want to be more organized? Try cutting in half the time you spend organizing yourself.

“No” is the new “yes.” Here are four practices to re-prioritize the things in your life.

What are the best US airports for business travelers?

Harvard’s Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin released the findings of their study on US competitiveness, Prosperity at Risk.

The unintended consequence of open office concepts, project teams, and group learning: Reduced creativity. Some privacy in the workplace makes us far more productive.

Checking the Foundation

January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever bought or sold a house, you know that, as part of the deal, a home inspection will have to be done so buyers know what they’re getting into. The inspector assesses the foundation of the house, the walls, floors, plumbing, and so on. Then, you get a report on ways to shore [...]

[Continue reading...]

Daniel Goleman: Leading with Emotional Intelligence

January 16, 2012 By 2 Comments

Daniel Goleman is the bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, and the co-author of Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times, and received the American Psychological Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his media writing. His latest [...]

[Continue reading...]

News You Can Use – January 2012

January 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Atos, the French IT company, has banned the use of email within the company. It’s just too much time-wasting noise, they concluded. Looking for a searchable list of consulting firms? Recruiters at The Consulting Bench put together a comprehensive, indexed directory for US firms. Wonder what’s next for the consulting industry? Fiona Czerniawska, of SourceforConsulting.com, offers a 12-minute [...]

[Continue reading...]

Dan Roam: The Antidote to Blah, Blah, Blah

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

“We have become so enamoured of our ability to talk that we often delude ourselves into thinking that, if we can talk about an idea, we understand it well.” In this podcast, I talk with Dan Roam, author of BLAH, BLAH, BLAH: What To Do When Words Don’t Work. Roam’s mission is to help us solve [...]

[Continue reading...]

Top Tools for Content Marketing

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Anyone in a professional service business knows that content marketing has exploded in recent years, and the trend shows no sign of slowing. But which content marketing tactics work most effectively? How are organizations investing their time and money in content marketing? To address these questions, the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs surveyed more than 1,000 people and published [...]

[Continue reading...]

Under Construction

January 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We’re making big changes to the site, its content, and even converting it to a blog platform. For the next couple of days, we’ll be making the conversion. You’ll find that most things work just as you’d expect, but some may not–at least not yet. Thanks for your patience! Mike  

[Continue reading...]
« Older Posts