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Good/Bad questions

Good/Bad questions

Topic
DecisionMakingBook
Type
Quick take

When it comes to customer interviews, not all questions are good.

Also, personally I judge someone's intelligence by the quality of his questions, not answers. You can disagree with that but I find this approach very useful.

Back to questions now, can you spot the bad ones in the following set of questions?

  1. Do you think it’s a good idea?
  2. What else have you tried?
  3. How much would you pay for X?
  4. How are you dealing with it now?

To deepen your understanding of customer conversations, consider reading "The Mom Test." The questions listed above are inspired by this book, which explains in detail why certain questions work while others don't. This resource focuses on the art of engaging with customers to gain meaningful insights.

The mom test rules:

  1. Talk about their life instead of your idea,
  2. Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future,
  3. Talk less and listen more.

A couple of rule of thumbs:

  • Opinions are worthless
  • Some problems don’t actually matter
  • people stop lying when you ask them for money
  • Ideas & feature requests should be understood but not obeyed

Link for the book in Amazon.de:

The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you

The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you : Fitzpatrick, Rob: Amazon.de: Books

www.amazon.de

The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you

Answers: 1:Bad, 2:Good, 3:Bad, 4:Good

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