Predictive ROI Strategist Libby Stinson Examines How Purposeful Questions Build Trust and Demand

Stephen Woessner [00:00:08]:
Over the past decade, we’ve had more than 1,200 conversations with CEOs, bestselling authors, and agency leaders. And here’s what we’re seeing. Agencies that had built an authority position no longer struggled to be seen. Instead, they struggled to activate latent demand. Agency leaders have said to us, it’s exactly where we’re sitting right now. Authority without demand. So welcome to the In Demand Agency Podcast presented by Predictive ROI. It’s sparked by research from the Harvard Business Review, Edelman, Gallup, Agency Core, all showing that trust has moved upstream.

Stephen Woessner [00:00:49]:
In today’s marketplace, authority earns attention.

Libby Stinson [00:00:52]:
Yes.

Stephen Woessner [00:00:53]:
But demand is what turns attention into action. Each episode deconstructs the science of demand from behavioral psychology, decision-making research, and the cross-industry strategies behind why and how B2B buyers make their decisions. We interview the world’s leading behavioral scientists, agency network leaders, and strategists from industries far beyond ours, experts who are reshaping how demand works. I’m your host, Stephen Wessner, and in each episode we’ll translate their insights directly into the agency world. And these conversations are now being heard by a community of over 30,000 agency owners and their teams. With me for today’s episode is Libby Stinson, strategist here at Predictive ROI, and Libby has an unusual background for a strategist. Before joining our team, she spent years in law enforcement and then a decade conducting forensic interviews, hundreds of hours of training in interviewing, linguistics, memory, and questioning techniques, and then thousands of hours of doing it in the field. In forensics interviewing, the stakes are high.

Stephen Woessner [00:02:17]:
You do not get to go back and re-ask the question. You do not get to assume you know what happened, and you absolutely cannot let your assumptions shape the answers you get back because a defense attorney will destroy you in court if you do that. What Libby brought with her into the agency world is a skill most salespeople have never been taught, and that’s how to ask a purposeful question. Listen to what comes back and let the answer determine where the conversation goes next. We see it all the time in our work in the field. Agencies try to wing it when it comes to a biz dev conversation. They wing it with their questions. They wing it with their research and prep.

Stephen Woessner [00:03:07]:
They oftentimes fly by the seat of their pants when meeting a prospective client for the first time, and then If they happen to strike gold with a question, they do not mine it all the way to the bottom. Candidly, they waste the answer. And that is what Libby and I are going to deconstruct today. And I believe it is going to change how you approach your very next sales conversation.

Libby Stinson [00:03:36]:
We are already thinking about question number 2 that we have on our sheet. We’ve actually moved on in our brain before they have even finished talking. So while we think we know and are thinking about what we’re going to ask next, they may have said something that we completely missed. We should have caught something that they said. Maybe it’s a— they mentioned a meeting or a conversation, or maybe they tried something that didn’t work. Maybe they said something that should have perked our ears up because every answer leaves clues. And a lot of times that is where the next question lives, is in that clue.

Stephen Woessner [00:04:15]:
Libby, thanks very much for joining me. I am so over the moon excited, thrilled for our time together.

Libby Stinson [00:04:22]:
I am so excited to be here. Thank you for asking me to join you, Steven.

Stephen Woessner [00:04:25]:
Well, thank you for saying yes. I appreciate that very much. And I think what is going to be so insightful about our conversation is this going to be maybe at least I’m making the assumption, and I know that sometimes assumptions are bad, but I’m going to make the assumption that these perspectives, these insights, this experience that you’re going to share is going to be unique, different, new from anything else that our audience may have been exposed to or studied or learned before. So I think that is going to be incredibly helpful. So before we dive in with the, what I’m sure is going to feel like a litany, maybe an interrogation from sort of former life, we’ll call that interrogation. But before we dive in with that, Uh, give us a little bit of, uh, foundational context here. How, how did forensics, forensics interviewing, not wasting an answer, how, how did that become— I’m going to call it your superpower, maybe you’re going to disagree with me, but how did that become your superpower?

Libby Stinson [00:05:29]:
That’s a really good question, and I don’t disagree with you, but what is interesting is I knew it was a superpower in forensic interviewing, but what I didn’t realize was how much of it I would carry with me into a completely different career.

Stephen Woessner [00:05:43]:
Hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:05:43]:
So just as you said, I spent about a decade conducting forensic interviews. And before that, I was a police officer. I was in law enforcement. That was way back when polyester uniforms and Crown Vic cars were still cool. So it was a while back. But in looking at forensic interviewing, you are trained in a very specific way to ask questions. You have to follow certain protocols. You have to ask questions in a certain way.

Libby Stinson [00:06:11]:
Um, and the way we do ask questions is to give that person just as much space as possible to tell you what they remember. That’s the key. We’re going to come back to that probably later on about what they remember so that they can tell you in their own words.

Stephen Woessner [00:06:26]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:06:27]:
Um, what happened without me influencing that answer. So just like you said, I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of hours of training around memory and linguistics and questioning techniques, but I’ve had thousands upon thousands of hours of actually sitting across from people doing it. And one of the things I think that you learn really quickly in that is that people don’t just sit down and tell you the whole story, especially when you’ve just met them. Which is a lot of times in sales conversations, right? So the first thing they have to do is trust you. They have to feel safe enough to tell you what actually happened. And so even when people tell you things, they summarize, they leave things out. They’re, they may even assume that you know what they mean. And sometimes they don’t even realize a certain detail matters, so they don’t tell you the whole story.

Stephen Woessner [00:07:20]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:07:21]:
And And that’s one of the things I did not realize would translate so directly into the work I do now with Predictive. It’s that trust changes what people are willing to tell you. So you can have the best questions in the world, but if you have not created that environment where someone feels comfortable answering those questions that you’re asking them, you’re just not going to get the whole story. So my job— I know this is like a long-winded answer for you, but my job wasn’t to come into an interview with this brilliant list of questions. My job was to listen closely enough that when they told me what happened, it helps me know what to ask next. So when I came into the agency world and started listening and reviewing sales conversations, I started hearing the same exact thing happen. Someone would ask a really good question, the prospect would say something super important, and then we’d go right on to the next question. And I would be sitting there going, oh my gosh, wait, wait.

Libby Stinson [00:08:23]:
What they just said, how they just answered you, is your next question. So that is where that phrase, don’t waste the answer, came from.

Stephen Woessner [00:08:32]:
This is going to be so good. And, uh, everyone, just a little bit behind the curtain here, uh, Libby and I were meeting a few weeks ago and she told me about the, the, uh, the summarizing. And, and then, and then I think I may have just like given her an answer or whatever. And, and I said, oh my gosh, I just did that. The summarizing. So, so Libby, help us. Um, so when a, when a prospect gives the other person a summary instead of the real answer, like one, what does that sound like? How do you detect it? And then how do you start peeling it back? I know that the trust is certainly one of the key things to maybe, uh, enable the peeling. I get that.

Stephen Woessner [00:09:15]:
But like early on in the conversation when there’s not trust, Like, how do you, one, again, detect the summarizing? Like, what are some of the key things you look for? And then how do you start moving past that?

Libby Stinson [00:09:27]:
Well, actually, I think we need to go back even just a little bit farther before, before trust is the first thing to really understand is how people naturally communicate and not just in sales conversations. People are not natural narrators. We summarize in everyday conversation. So, Stephen, if I said, yeah, how was your weekend? You’re probably gonna say it was good. Well, actually, Stephen, if I asked you how your weekend was, you would probably actually say, holy bananas, it was great. Right? So maybe—

Stephen Woessner [00:10:01]:
I think that’s probably accurate. Yeah.

Libby Stinson [00:10:03]:
Probably accurate. And you may say, oh, we went out to eat. Right? But that’s a summary. You’re, you’re not going to start with Friday night, walk me through the entire weekend of every single detail that happened. And that would be weird in a normal conversation, right?

Stephen Woessner [00:10:18]:
Yeah.

Libby Stinson [00:10:18]:
So we naturally summarize. So I think that’s the first thing that we have to, have to realize what we do. Um, and we do that exact same thing in sales conversations. So when we’re in sales conversations and I’ve listened to several of them, someone might say sales have been slow. Or maybe something like our marketing isn’t working, or most of our business comes from referrals. They, they all sound like answers because they are answers, but a lot of times they are, they are the summary. So when I hear things like that, this is where we’re kind of peeling back the layers. When I hear that, my forensic interviewing brain, it kicks in and it thinks, okay, you just gave me a headline.

Stephen Woessner [00:11:03]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:11:04]:
Now I need to understand that story beneath that. So just because someone says, you know, sales have been slow, I don’t want to assume that I know what they mean by that. So I need to understand what actually happened. Then I’m going to peel back those layers and, and figure it out.

Stephen Woessner [00:11:21]:
Okay. So, so give us a, give us a tangible example here. So somebody says our sales have been slow. You activate the forensic interview brain of yours. And so then what would be your, your next, uh, your next question? Because, you know, and then I’m going to hook this into what you like to say, don’t waste the answer. You just mentioned that a couple of minutes ago. So they just said that, you know, sales have been slow. Now what?

Libby Stinson [00:11:48]:
Yeah. So sales have been slow. Okay. Well, I’m first of all going to want to know, well, what are your sales like? What do you mean by slow? Does it mean that you’ve sold 50 whatevers in the past month and now you’ve sold 49. Is that slow to you? So my next question would probably be, tell, you’ve said sales have been slow. Tell me more about that. And then I’m going to get in probably here in just a little bit when we start talking about memory. I’m going to tell you how to do that a little bit, a little bit more.

Stephen Woessner [00:12:18]:
Okay. So is that, is that what you mean by, or maybe it’s, maybe it’s even bigger than that. Is that what you mean by don’t waste the answer? Like help, help our audience be. be able to better understand like all the nuance that goes in the phrase. Because it’s really cool. The first time you said that to me, when you said, don’t waste the answer, I’m like, holy bananas. There it is again. Holy bananas.

Stephen Woessner [00:12:39]:
That is awesome.

Libby Stinson [00:12:41]:
That’s right. Yes. Don’t waste the answer in any of your conversations. Because when we’re thinking, let’s take it back to sales, is the questions that we prepare, that starts the conversation, right? But the answer determines where that conversation goes.

Stephen Woessner [00:12:59]:
Okay.

Libby Stinson [00:12:59]:
So if I had asked someone about, you know, how are your sales? Well, they’re slow. Okay. Well, that could mean a whole lot of things, right? So that answer is gonna determine where that conversation goes and where we waste the answer is when we do finally ask a really good question. And by the way, how is your sales? That is not the question I would want you to ask. So once we finally ask a really good purposeful, it’s a very keyword, purposeful question, and the person starts answering us, what happens? We are already thinking about question number 2 that we have on our sheet, right? We have, we’ve actually moved on in our brain before they have even finished talking. So while we think we know and, and are thinking about what we’re going to ask next, they may have said something that we completely missed. We should have caught something that they said. Maybe it’s a, they mentioned a meeting or a conversation, or maybe they tried something that didn’t work.

Libby Stinson [00:13:59]:
Maybe they said something that should have, you know, perked our ears up. Because what I like to say, going back to my police background, is every answer leaves clues.

Stephen Woessner [00:14:09]:
Hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:14:10]:
And a lot of time, times that is where the next question lives is in that clue. So when I say don’t waste the answer, what I mean is listen for those clues in their answer and follow them. And you’ve actually heard me say this, Stephen, and if any of our clients are listening to this, they’ve heard me say this, is form your next question from what they just said. So you’re going to, whatever they just said, form that next question. From what they just said, follow that trail until you understand it. That’s the key, because you want to understand it. And then when you’ve exhausted that trail, then go back to your list of questions that you prepared, came prepared to ask.

Stephen Woessner [00:14:55]:
Well, I’m going to demonstrate that here with you right now.

Libby Stinson [00:14:58]:
Uh-oh, he’s looping back.

Stephen Woessner [00:15:01]:
Uh, so all joking aside, uh, one, I think you did just give me a new acronym. When you said really good purposeful question, I’m like, oh, a GPQ, a good purposeful question. Uh, but so, um, but then, but then you said just a minute ago, you said every answer leaves clues. And so when you, when you said that, I, I literally wrote in, in, in my notes, you, you can’t, because my handwriting is terrible, but I literally had every answer leaves clue clues, and I drew an arrow back to. Good purposeful questions. If we don’t ask, friends, if we don’t ask good purposeful questions, then how can we expect it to leave clues? If we’re just being haphazard, if we’re just throwing it together, if we’re just winging it, like I said in the introduction, then how can we make sure that we get every ounce of value out of those answers? How can we expect every answer to leave a clue? if we didn’t take the time to actually architect good, purposeful questions.

Libby Stinson [00:16:04]:
And that’s exactly right, because at the beginning, we talked about we’re not natural narrators. So we don’t ask questions naturally to allow someone to narrate. We ask yes/no questions, or we ask questions that we think we know the answer to, so they give you a 3-word answer. So you do have to ask a purposeful question. to get an answer in return that provides you clues that there’s more information that you need to find.

Stephen Woessner [00:16:32]:
Amen. So you draw a distinction between these 2 words, explain versus remember. So help us better understand why those 2 words are completely different. And maybe asking questions with those words, one or the other in them, can make a big difference. So tell us about the distinction that you draw between the word explain And the word remember.

Libby Stinson [00:16:57]:
Yeah. So this is where I’m gonna nerd out just a little bit. Okay.

Stephen Woessner [00:17:01]:
Okay. We’re bracing ourselves, Lib.

Libby Stinson [00:17:03]:
I’ll, I’ll try not, I’ll try not to go too deep, but when we’re asking someone to explain something or ask them to remember something, we’re asking the brain to do 2 different things, right? So if you ask someone, what do you do when sales slows down? Let’s go back to that analogy.

Stephen Woessner [00:17:22]:
Okay.

Libby Stinson [00:17:22]:
Now, what do you do when sales slows down? They’re probably gonna explain to me what they generally do. That’s the keyword, generally do. So that’s explaining. What do you do when sales slows down? But if I tweak that word, I’m sorry, that sentence just a wee bit and put that forensic interviewing in on it, and I say something like, tell me about the last time you realized sales were slowing down. Now I’m asking you to remember, I’m asking you to go back to an actual memory because I’m asking you about a specific moment in time. Tell me about the last time you realized sales were slowing down. So an example I use when I’m explaining this, um, when I’m teaching this is, you know how a song can take you back? Like you hear a song you have not heard in years and suddenly it’s like you’re sucked back to that moment. Like, Yep.

Libby Stinson [00:18:16]:
You remember the campfire. You can hear everybody laughing. You can hear the crackle of the fire. You remember who was there. Like, you may even remember, like, the air felt crisp, right? And what you were doing when that exact song came on. And that song that you have not heard in 20 years after that campfire, guess what? It didn’t give you the details. The song didn’t. It helped you access that memory.

Libby Stinson [00:18:42]:
To where those details are stored. So that’s what I’m doing when I’m asking a very purposeful question and I’m anchoring in a time. I want to get you out of telling me what usually happens and help you get back to that actual experience. Because once you’re back there, you’re going to remember in sales conversations, you’re going to remember the meeting, you’re going to remember who was in the room. You’re, you’re actually going to remember what they said. And those sensory details. They help us get beyond the summary and summarizing and into the fuller story of what actually happened. And that’s where you can really start to understand their experience and understand their pain.

Stephen Woessner [00:19:24]:
Well, and when you’re like in your situation, when you’re working alongside an agency, explain versus remember something, and you go down the path of remember that. something, then that gives you, as a strategist, you, Hannah, Eric, gives you then the context that you need to be able to be helpful in either solve a problem or fix a thing or put a new strategy in place. But if you don’t have all the variables, then you can’t run the equation. And so, I love this and how you talked about how taking someone back into an experience, into a story, and there’s emotion involved, there’s sensory, impact involved. There’s all of those things that can make it very vivid. And then it brings new layers to life that would’ve been super easy to either forget or just gloss over as unimportant. And they could be very important for what you’re trying to solve, right?

Libby Stinson [00:20:18]:
That’s exactly right. And you just said layers, and that reminded me of, it’s like an iceberg, right? When, when we ask just a surface-level question, we’re going to get a surface-level answer. But there is so much more underneath, underneath the surface, right? You’ve got the whole iceberg underneath it, and that’s what we need to mine or dig down to get really what’s going on under experience.

Stephen Woessner [00:20:43]:
So, let’s take this experience piece a little bit deeper. So, you’ve got these 3 openings that you like to use. You know, one is, take me back. Another one is, Looking back. And then another one is, how did you decide? So why, why the 3 openings? Do they each have different uses? Like how to know which one to use and when? Uh, so based on your experience, like how, how, how do you like situationally decide when is the right one to use?

Libby Stinson [00:21:19]:
Right. Okay. So when we talk about take me back, looking back, And how did you decide? There, it’s really 3 different things that I’m trying to understand. So it’s a moment, like a moment in time is taking me back. I’m looking for a pattern in looking back, or I’m wondering about how they came to a decision. Clearly, how did you decide? So what I would actually love for everyone to do is take out a piece of paper. Uh, obviously don’t do this if you’re driving and listening to this. We— safety first, everybody.

Libby Stinson [00:21:53]:
We don’t want anybody getting tickets or anything like that. that.

Stephen Woessner [00:21:55]:
So, um, coming from a former police officer, that’s exactly right.

Libby Stinson [00:21:59]:
That’s exactly right. So I want you to take out a piece of paper, draw 3 columns, and we’re going to label them just what we said. The take me back. The second column will be looking back. And the third column is, how did you decide? This is going to help you build your questions for your prospects. Okay. So take me back is really, you know, what we were just talking about with the song and the campfire. I want you to get out of the generalization and get out of asking for a summary.

Libby Stinson [00:22:33]:
I want you to get them back into a real moment. And so I’ve, I’ve put these 3 headers. I’ve put those in lay terms because what this is actually called, taking me back, what it’s actually called in forensic interviewing is episodic memory. I want to get them back to an episode and sort of like the old TV sitcoms that, you know, you had a new one every Friday night, right? Family Ties or Facts of Life, whatever. I’m, I think I’m telling my age.

Stephen Woessner [00:22:58]:
Wow.

Libby Stinson [00:22:59]:
Um, but you want to get back to one episode, right? So that is really what take me back is. So let’s just say someone tells me, you know, we lost a pretty big opportunity last month. Well, guess what? They just said last month. That tells me there’s a moment in time and I’m going to follow that thread. So what I’m going to say is, take me back. Take me back to that opportunity you said that, that you lost last month. Tell me everything about it or what happened, however you want to phrase, phrase that part of it. So now they might actually start telling me about the prospect and how they met them or the conversations they had, maybe.

Libby Stinson [00:23:43]:
If they got to the proposal stage and then they were ghosted, you’re taking them back to that experience with that specific opportunity. And I’m going to follow that thread until I understand what actually happened in that moment. Okay. Now we’re going to go to the second column. So your second column is looking back.

Stephen Woessner [00:24:05]:
Okay.

Libby Stinson [00:24:06]:
The first one, take me back, is to a moment in time. Looking back, I want to look over a certain period of time because I’m looking for patterns. So I might say, okay, well, thank you for telling me all about what happened last month. Now, looking back over the last 6 months, are there other times that you’ve seen something, you know, similar happened? And they may stop and realize and go, oh, we’ve actually had You know, whatever, 3 or 4 pretty significant opportunities get all the way to that proposal, and then they get— we get ghosted. So now we’re seeing a pattern that this may not have been an isolated event, right? So I’m going to follow that thread, and I’m going to get more information, and I’m going to keep asking until I understand, because then I may find a pattern of what’s really going on. And their pain points and what they, they will eventually possibly need help with. Okay, so one more column. Let’s go to that 3rd column.

Libby Stinson [00:25:10]:
How did you decide? So while they’re telling me all this information, I’m seeing if it’s a one-off, I’m seeing if it’s a pattern. They may say something like, well, after we went through that, we decided to change our proposal process. Oh, okay. Well, how did you decide what What needed to change, right? How did you even decide it was the proposal process that was the problem? So I’m going to, again, peel those layers, pull that thread. They can walk me through, you know, everything they’ve noticed and who was involved and all of the things, right? But guess what? When you ask the question about how did you decide, you may not get any of that. They may say, well, we didn’t decide and that’s why we called you.

Stephen Woessner [00:25:55]:
So.

Libby Stinson [00:25:56]:
You, you just never know what you’re going to get with a question like that. But it’s important to just keep following those threads until you understand. Then when you understand, then you can prescribe how to help them. So again, a question based on take me back is helping me understand what happened in a moment in time. A question based on looking back helps me understand whether it’s an isolated event. Or if there’s a pattern over a period of time. And a question based on how did you decide helps me understand what they did about it and what drove that decision. So, yeah.

Stephen Woessner [00:26:33]:
This is so brilliant. One, because not only did you break down the 3 columns with precision, which is great, but you also taught how to use them in sequence and how they stack and how they either stack, interlock, whatever metaphor you want to use, and how one feeds into the next one. And in your examples, I could see, because you just taught us about don’t waste the answer, I could see that like you didn’t move to looking back before you were done with take me back.

Libby Stinson [00:27:05]:
Right.

Stephen Woessner [00:27:05]:
And then you moved to looking back. You didn’t do take me back and then hop forward to, well, how did you decide? Like, it seems like this sequence is intentional and on purpose. Is that correct?

Libby Stinson [00:27:17]:
That is correct. It’s very intentional because again, you want to see, was it a one-off? If it was a one-off, okay, well, let’s talk about a different thing that’s going on in your, in your business. Right. So it’s very important to follow that sequence.

Stephen Woessner [00:27:32]:
Boy, this is so fantastic. Um, okay, friends, we’re going to take a, uh, Libby and I are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we’re going to start, uh, looking at, well, we’re going to ask Libby to help us better understand The clues, like the clues your prospect or prospects are leaving you, uh, and then how, how you sh— how you and your team should best be listening for those clues so that when somebody says something, a prospect says something, you’re like, ah, okay, that’s a clue. Um, so that’s what we’re going to, to work on next, uh, after the break. We’ll be back in just a minute. Hey friends, I’d like to share a free resource my Predictive ROI team built for you based on the insights and wisdom That Libby Stinson is sharing with you right now during this episode. If you go to predictiveROI.com/questions, you can download our free guide called Don’t Waste the Answer. It’s 5 questions, 3 minutes, and the guide will show you exactly where your biz dev conversations are strong, where you might be leaving clues on the table, and what your team needs to change before your next sales conversation.

Stephen Woessner [00:28:42]:
Again, that’s predictiveROI.com/questions to get your free guide. Okay, everyone. So now we’re going to dive back in. And at the break, Libby and I were talking about, you know, the clues piece that I just had sort of set up before the break, that that’s where we’re going to pick up again. And then she said, oh, but hang on a second. With the pieces that we were just talking about, you know, the 3 openings, there’s one more piece that we need to cover. Before we move on. I’m like, oh, awesome.

Stephen Woessner [00:29:13]:
And that is like, so how do these 3 openings, how do they work differently than the typical discovery question that, you know, here at Predictive ROI, we talk about, you know, killing the discovery call. We don’t like it. We don’t teach it. We don’t recommend it. In fact, Libby just walked you through, you heard her say a few iterations of, Help me understand. We believe that your first conversation with a prospective client should be about help me understand, not what’s your budget? What’s your authority to make a decision? What’s the need? What’s the timeline? And all that. No, those can come later, but your first goal is help me understand because that’s how you start to build trust. So Libby, how do these work differently than the typical discovery?

Libby Stinson [00:30:05]:
Yeah, you just gave really good examples of what we hear when we’re looking and listening to different sales conversations, because a lot of that discovery is the, you know, how big is your team? What do you have, a CRM? What is your budget? Um, we’re gathering information that we need, right? And I’m not saying that those questions don’t matter because sometimes we do need that information, right? But I teach our clients that every question should be purposeful. We talked about that at the beginning. You need to know the reason you’re asking it and what you’re actually trying to understand. And, and whenever possible, that question should actually bring some value to the person answering it.

Stephen Woessner [00:30:48]:
Truth.

Libby Stinson [00:30:49]:
So, so it’s, I love the type of questions that we use in the Help Me Understand because Not only am I learning something, but hopefully they are having a self-discovery. They’re discovering something while they’re answering it too. And I think that’s what’s so important and so different than the typical discovery calls and discovery questions that we hear on a daily basis.

Stephen Woessner [00:31:15]:
Well, let’s go back to the trust piece that we were talking about before, because when you’re asking these questions with sincerity and you really truly want to understand, help me understand. Uh, it does build trust. You start showing up as an advocate, as opposed to somebody who’s trying to close them into something, which feels yucky. Nobody likes that. Uh, and you’re giving them a completely different experience. Um, and, and so through that process, through the, the conversation, through using the openings that you just taught us, uh, and then, and then not wasting the answer and going 1, 2, 3, following that sequence, your prospective client is inevitably going to leave then clues. So how do you really like maybe fine-tune your listening skills to make sure that you are hearing the full story? How do you know what to be listening for? Like, what are the clues that when somebody says something, you’re like, ah, that’s a clue. There might be something underneath that clue to explore further.

Libby Stinson [00:32:20]:
Almost like I’m on Scooby-Doo. I’m listening for the specific clues.

Stephen Woessner [00:32:24]:
And if it wasn’t for the kids, we would have gotten away with it.

Libby Stinson [00:32:27]:
That’s exactly right. But I, I’m actually listening for a lot of, a lot of things, all kinds of things. Um, and that’s actually probably the part that becomes so automatic for me because I’ve done it for so many years. So people listening probably feel like they’re You know, drinking from a fire hose because they’re like, oh my goodness. But, but what I’m listening for is words that perk my ears up, right? I’m listening for people. Maybe, uh, you tell me that your sales director said something or the owner wasn’t on board. I’m thinking, oh, wait a minute, there was a conversation there. So I want to know more about that conversation.

Libby Stinson [00:33:10]:
Um, I’m asking, or I’m sorry, I’m listening for moments in time.

Stephen Woessner [00:33:14]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:33:15]:
So we covered that a little bit. I’m listening for a meeting, a phone call, um, a lost deal, something that happened last Tuesday, you know, in the example we gave, something that happened last month, because now you’ve given me a door into an actual experience that I can pull those threads from. The other thing that I’m listening for, and you can be watching for if you’re in person, you know, on online, you can see from like the collarbone up. So it’s hard to. Hard to watch all the body language, but I’m listening and I’m looking for emotion. Maybe your tone changes, maybe there’s hesitation, maybe you get really excited about something, or maybe I can hear some frustration when you talk about it.

Stephen Woessner [00:33:57]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:33:58]:
And if you see that, you’re going to want to go down that rabbit hole. You know, I, I see that you hesitated, or I heard that you hesitated. Tell me more about that. Don’t be afraid to be curious. You’re, you’re there to understand, right? So, and the other thing that sometimes people do is I’ll hear something that they, they almost say in passing, right? They don’t think it’s important. They just keep going, but I’m sitting there thinking, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. We got to go back because just like we said before, every answer leaves clues.

Libby Stinson [00:34:31]:
So I’m listening for that little thing that makes me think. Ah, there’s more there. And then I’m gonna, I’m gonna pull that thread. And that actually reminds me of something that just happened with a client a couple of weeks ago.

Stephen Woessner [00:34:43]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:34:44]:
We had worked through and walked through a framework that we built, um, about some questions, right? So the next session, I was talking with them and asking if they had had a chance to use it yet. And, and they said, well, no, not yet, but I’m, I’m gonna use it next week. And I was like, oh my gosh, that’s so great. I was so excited because I was like, oh, they’re using something we built together, right? And then I went, wait, well, what are you going to use it for? So I almost glossed over his answer. I almost wasted it. And when I asked, wait, wait, wait, wait, let’s talk more about that. I found out this amazing story of how they’re using this framework and It just turned into this really amazing story that I would have completely missed had I glossed over that answer.

Stephen Woessner [00:35:34]:
Yeah, because I wonder if I’m thinking of the correct story. It had something to do with like an RFP response and it was for like a significant project and whatnot. So, the work was like directly applicable to that RFP response. Am I thinking of the same story?

Libby Stinson [00:35:48]:
That is, that’s correct. Yes.

Stephen Woessner [00:35:49]:
Yeah. Amazing. And then, What we’re doing there, friends, and by including that in an RFP response, and when I say what we’re doing, I don’t mean predictive. Like if you’re following Libby’s advice and doing what she is saying, and you’re doing that in an RFP response, what we’re talking about is you’re creating differentiation. You’re stepping away from the sea of sameness, like you’re going to hear in the next episode with Scott McCain, episode 6. This is episode 5 that you’re listening to right now. You’re showing up distinctive. You’re showing up so far from just different because when they read your questions in an RFP response, they’re like, wait a minute, um, nobody’s asked us this before.

Libby Stinson [00:36:35]:
Exactly. Yep.

Stephen Woessner [00:36:38]:
Yeah. So a few minutes ago you said your ears perked up and, and I know that there’s other keywords that make your ears perk up. So like, Uh, when you hear things like usually, when you hear things like always, or you hear things like never, or you hear things like pretty good. So why, why do those words— one, why do those words make your ears perk up and why do they matter? Like, why do those words matter?

Libby Stinson [00:37:06]:
Well, the little words can mean so much, right? And I listen for those specific words because They’re generalizations. They’re summarizing. And it, it, there’s nothing wrong with them because we all talk that way, right? But when I hear one, my brain goes, wait a minute, what did they actually mean by that? So if, if someone says something like, our sales team usually follows up. Wait, what? I, I’m immediately curious about usually. Well, what do you mean they usually follow, follow up? Well, what happens when you follow up? What happens when you don’t follow up?

Stephen Woessner [00:37:41]:
Right.

Libby Stinson [00:37:42]:
And then you use the word pretty good. So what if someone says, you know, our sales process is pretty good? Well, wait, what is pretty good? What does that mean to you? Right? Because words mean different things to different people. So I don’t want to put my definition of pretty good onto what they just said.

Stephen Woessner [00:38:00]:
Mm-hmm.

Libby Stinson [00:38:00]:
We had talked earlier about assumptions and assuming what a person means. I want to understand what they said. And what they mean by pretty good. Um, and actually in a client session another couple of weeks ago, I asked a question because clearly I was wanting to understand correctly. And I said, you know, was I understanding that correctly? And they actually responded. They said, well, that’s generally right. And I went, wait, there’s a word I need to follow up on. And I said, wait, wait, wait, that’s generally right? Because What do you mean by that? Because I want to make sure I understand and I get everything right, not just generally right.

Libby Stinson [00:38:41]:
So the same things with words like always and never and the ones you just said, that they’re generalizations. And instead of assuming I know what they mean, I want to understand more. So those words are just small, but they’re big clues that can tell me that there’s probably a story underneath them. Wow.

Stephen Woessner [00:39:08]:
Okay, so I know we need to start thinking about coming in for a landing, but I want to add this piece before our last question. So what you’re just describing made me think of conversations that I’ve had over the years with Robin and Steve Bowler, who run the Mercer Island Group. And our audience, probably many of them, if not all of them, are going to be familiar with the Mercer Island Group. And Robin and Steve have this amazing sort of unprecedented access because large brands and companies who are doing a search for their next agency will hire Robin and Steve to help them run the search process, sit with them during the agency pitches and all of those things. And real collaborative environments. So they see the good, the bad, and the not so awesome, uh, in that process. And what Robin says is like, and Steve too, is that you need to ask questions that are going to help your prospect lean in and say, you, you want your prospect to say, oh, that’s interesting, or no one’s asked us that before, or so. So what, friends, what Libby is giving you here is this framework, this process, this sequence to be able to ask questions that are showing your prospect that you are intentionally picking up the clues that they’re putting down on the ground.

Stephen Woessner [00:40:35]:
You’re picking up all of those diamonds and they mean something. Their words matter. And when you use those words back or you ask them to go deeper, it shows that you give a rip. And I promise you, the other agencies are not doing it. So when we talk about being in demand, part of that is showing up in a way that the others don’t. And Libby just gave you the blueprint for how to ask questions that set yourself apart. So let’s come in for a landing here with respect to Prescription, because we see this all the time, that the agency steps into a quote unquote sort of standard discovery call and they go through sort of the BANT method, you know, that was developed in the ’80s or whenever it was. And, and then they walk out feeling like it was great success when the, when the prospective client was pressured to say, sure, give me a proposal.

Stephen Woessner [00:41:38]:
Like that’s some sort of win. Um, so help our audience better understand what it looks like, in your opinion, when an agency prescribes too early before they really properly, before they really actually understood or understand the problem, the pain, the business issues and challenges, they just went right to prescription.

Libby Stinson [00:42:04]:
Ah, this is what we hear. From agencies quite often. Um, and the perfect example is SEO. We hear it a lot. You know, a prospect comes to them and they say, the prospect says, we need SEO. And the agency’s like, yep, great. They need SEO. That’s what we do.

Libby Stinson [00:42:24]:
And our next question is, what’s your budget? Right? But my question is, how do you know that’s what they need?

Stephen Woessner [00:42:32]:
Yep.

Libby Stinson [00:42:32]:
We need to understand what’s actually happening in their business. And clearly they may absolutely need SEO, right? But what I don’t know yet is the reason they need SEO. So what has been happening in their business that’s led them to that conclusion? My forensic brain thinks when I hear we need SEO, it’s like, wait, something has happened that makes this person believe that SEO is the answer. So I need to understand what happened, right? So I want to start broader questions and help me understand what was happening that made you start looking for help, right? Because maybe they’ll tell me their traffic dropped. Maybe they’re getting plenty of traffic, but it’s the wrong traffic. Or maybe the leads are coming in, but they’re not converting. So I don’t know. And that’s the point.

Libby Stinson [00:43:25]:
SEO could still absolutely be the answer. But now we understand the problem that we’re asking SEO to solve. So again, I don’t want my assumption to decide where that conversation goes before I’ve had a chance to understand what’s actually happening. So if I prescribe SEO just because the prospect walked in and asked for it, then I might be doing a really good job of solving the wrong problem.

Stephen Woessner [00:43:52]:
100%. And So I want to address something that maybe some of our audience, some in our audience might be thinking. And that is because I’ve heard agency owners and their teams say, or I’ve heard colleagues of mine say this in other agencies where I’ve worked throughout my career. And that is, well, Stephen, if I ask all those questions, I could kill the sale. And my thought is, wait a minute. If your relationship is that fragile because you’re asking a good thoughtful question about their business, then perhaps you shouldn’t have the sale anyway, because it’s going to be a pretty transactional relationship. Or I’ve heard people say, Stephen, you can’t ask that question. That’s rude.

Stephen Woessner [00:44:37]:
Well, that’s like their business. That’s none of our business. And my response to that is, it most certainly is. If you’re going to be trying to help them, improve their business, then it is your business to know their business.

Libby Stinson [00:44:52]:
Right. And it’s, it’s not, we don’t feel like it’s a natural way to ask questions. We’ve been so conditioned to ask questions in a certain way. And so this is a completely different mind shift, right?

Stephen Woessner [00:45:05]:
100%. And friends, in-demand agencies ask these questions because in-demand agencies provide their prospects with a unique and different experience. A prospect steps out of a conversation with an in-demand agency going, oh, that felt different. Like they didn’t ask about money and they, like, they really truly wanted to get to know us. And did you hear that question that Libby asked? Or did you hear that question that Hannah asked? Like, we’ve not been asked that question before.

Libby Stinson [00:45:36]:
Yep. That’s exactly right.

Stephen Woessner [00:45:40]:
Libby, I know we need to come in for a landing, and I’m so looking forward to our encore or series of encores. This was so much fun, and I know that we’re just scratching the surface, but I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for your time, your generosity in sharing your expertise at depth in full transparency, as you always do. You have a teacher’s heart and that was on full display here. So I’m very, very grateful that you said yes, sincerely. And I look forward to us continuing the conversation in an encore at some point, but this was magic. Thank you.

Libby Stinson [00:46:18]:
Thank you, Steven.

Stephen Woessner [00:46:22]:
Okay, friends, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Libby Stinson as much as I did. Holy bananas. That was awesome. So I’d like to share with you some of my biggest takeaways from what Libby just taught us. So takeaway number 1, people are not natural narrators. As you heard Libby say, your prospects are not going to sit down and tell you the whole story. They’re going to summarize. They’re going to give you the headline.

Stephen Woessner [00:46:52]:
They’re going to say things like, sales have been slow. Our marketing’s not working. Most of our business comes from referrals, and, and those indeed sound like answers, and they are answers, but they’re summaries. And the real story, the one that tells you exactly how to help them, is underneath all of that. And if you accept the summary, you will prescribe based on incomplete information. And I loved it when Libby said, you might be doing a really good job, Of solving the wrong problem. Huge insight. So takeaway number 2, every answer leaves clues.

Stephen Woessner [00:47:33]:
This is where in-demand agencies separate themselves from the sea of sameness. When your prospect says something, the next question is not, and probably won’t be, on your sheet of questions. The next question you should ask is hiding inside What your prospect just said, what they just shared with you. Libby calls it, don’t waste the answer. And I think that that phrase should be painted on the interior walls of every agency so the team can see it before they step into a biz dev conversation with the prospect. Because here’s what happens inside the typical agency. The prospect is talking and the person across the table is already thinking about question number 2 or 3 or whatever question they’re on, on their list. And by doing that, they miss the clue, they waste the answer, and they will never know what they just lost.

Stephen Woessner [00:48:30]:
So takeaway number 3, the 3 openings, as Libby calls them. So Libby gave us a forensic framework that I believe you and your team should adopt immediately. 3 openings, each one She designed to help take your prospect deeper into fact-finding, deeper into understanding their situation, the business issues and challenges that you and your team may be able to help them solve. Those openings were, take me back, and that gets them out of the generalization and into a specific moment in time. As you heard Libby talk about episodic memory, A campfire, the song that takes you back 20 years. You’re asking them to remember, not explain. And then second one was looking back. That reveals whether the problem is a one-off or maybe it’s a pattern.

Stephen Woessner [00:49:25]:
And patterns are where the real pain lives for your prospect. And then the last one, how did you decide? And that uncovers their decision architecture. What drove the choice? Or And this is the golden moment. Maybe they say something to you like, we did not decide. That’s why we called you. That sequence, the sequence that Libby shared with you, the 1, 2, 3, don’t skip ahead because she put it into that order with intentionality. 1, 2, 3. That’s the way that it works.

Stephen Woessner [00:49:59]:
Okay. So takeaway number 4. The clue words. So Libby taught us to listen for the small words That hide big stories, in her opinion. Words like usually, pretty good, generally, always, or never. When you hear those words, your forensic brain— I’m taking that from Libby— your forensic brain should activate because those are generalizations. And as you heard her say, underneath every generalization is a story your prospect has not told you yet. Stories like, our sales team usually follows up.

Stephen Woessner [00:50:39]:
And then you heard Libby say, wait, wait, what? What happens when they don’t follow up? Or, our process is pretty good. And then you heard Libby say, wait, what does pretty good mean to you? Again, those are small words, but they’re doors, and the typical agency can easily walk right past them. All right. So here’s the final takeaway. In-demand agencies provide a different experience. When your prospect steps out of a conversation with you and says, wow, that, that felt different. They did not ask about money. They really wanted to understand us.

Stephen Woessner [00:51:17]:
No one’s asked us that before. That’s when you know you’re operating at a new level. That is what purposeful questions do. By asking purposeful questions, you separate your agency from every other agency in consideration. Those types of questions build trust and they help you move from authority to demand. So here’s my challenge to you. Before your next biz dev conversation, please pull out a piece of paper. Please draw 3 columns and then label column 1, Take me back.

Stephen Woessner [00:51:56]:
Label column 2, looking back. And label column 3, how did you decide? Build your questions around those 3 openings. And then when you’re in the room, don’t waste the answer. Be curious, follow the clues, and let the prospect’s answers determine where the conversation goes next. As always, friends, uh, thank you for being here. Uh, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day, and I am incredibly grateful that you chose to spend some of your time with Libby Stinson and me today. And we look forward to you joining us again, uh, for another episode next week too. But until then, onward with gusto.