[text_block style=”style_1.png” align=”left”]Asking questions puts you in control. We’ve talked about using questions to determine the validity of an inquiry; comeback questions help you regain control of a conversation.

Example:

Prospect: Do you teach offensive or defensive karate? (inquiry/concern)

You: That’s an interesting question. Why do you ask? (Feed it back to determine how to answer)

Prospect: My son is real shy and I don’t want him to beat up anybody, but I really would like to see him stand up for himself

You:

Mrs. Jones, I understand completely. It’s our goal that your child never has to use his karate outside of the school, physically. But mentally he’s going to use it every day, because it’s going to help his confidence and his ability to assert himself in a positive manner without having to get physical. When you bring him into the school to take the introductory course, he’ll see that you can use karate all the time and never throw a punch or a kick.

Who’s idea was it to get Joey into karate? (comeback question).

“Who’s idea was it to get Joey into karate?” is the comeback question that puts you back in control. This prevents Mom from pushing on to money issues or simply a game of 20 questions. It also is a question that provides you with some very powerful information. If her answer is, ” It’s his idea, he has been bugging me for six months to learn karate,” you have your work cut out for you. But if she answers, “My husband and I both want him to learn karate” then you are on your way to a new student, provided you listen and help them see that your school will best suit their needs. They too are tuned to WII-FM (What’s In It For Me?).

A word of caution: Feedback questions and comeback questions and all the other important questions that we learn are only as good as your sincere interest in the answer. We should not use these questions to coerce or deceive. In fact, you will have a very hard time coming up with any questions unless you have a burning curiosity about who this person is, why are they interested in martial arts, which is your love too, and why this person is interested in your school.

If you really want to help these people and have a strong sense of curiosity, then this will be easy. If you don’t really care and are just going to try to remember these questions so you can “bag a student” then this will be much harder and I’m glad.[/text_block]