You Have the Answers But Do You Know the Questions?

By Tom Seest

Is Your Business In Jeopardy?

When I perform the evaluation on a regular basis and wonder if my business is in Jeopardy, it doesn’t mean what you likely think it does. I’m not considering whether I have enough cash flow or revenue coming in to stay in business. I’m not wondering whether my competition has new products or services that will mean that my business may fail.

It doesn’t mean that at all.

Why Do I Wonder About Jeopardy?

Jeopardy is more than a word that means that a business is at risk. It was a popular TV show, hosted by the late Alex Trebeck, that aired over 8,000 episodes. I didn’t watch it much myself but watched it enough to understand the basics of the show. The game would show six categories of answers, and the contestants had to come up with the corresponding questions. The game involved wagering money and had many other facets, but the game focused on answers and then questions.

Do You Know the Answers?

If you are in business, you likely have answers to people’s problems and challenges in some form; either for them as individuals, or for them as business people.

So, you likely have a set of answers. But, do you have the questions? Do you know the questions your customers are asking? And, do you know where your customers are asking the questions?

Where Do People Go to Ask Questions?

That is the question. Where do people go to ask questions? In many cases, they may just come and ask you if they think you have all the answers in a specific business niche or have special expertise in that area. But, in many cases, people don’t ask other people because they don’t want to appear dumb or ignorant on a topic. So, they’ll use other means. In most cases, they will either use a search engine like Google or Bing to get ask the questions, or they go to YouTube or some other learning platform and ask the questions there. It is important to consider where your prospective clients and customers ask their questions and learn to listen to the answers being given to them in those circumstances.

What If You Could Answer the Public?

What if you had all the questions for the products and services that are the answer to the challenges of your potential customers and clients. That’s why I like the website https://answerthepublic.com/. While it’s not the answer to everyone’s questions, it allows you to type in an answer or topic, and then it presents you with many views of the questions people ask about that topic. This then allows you to structure your messaging and content to not only ask these same questions but provide the answers that point them to your products and services. I am not affiliated with AnswerThePublic and don’t know their specific algorithms, but I gather that they get their data from search engine questions and answers. In any case, I have found it to be a valuable tool when I compose messaging for my specific clients and customers.