Don GrandyQ3 "The Power of Three Questions"

When I started thinking about a name for my company, I had a number of ideas; unfortunately most of them included the word consulting or some similar connotation.   I didn’t want to be a consultant; I wanted to help people, so that makes me a helper.  OK, how do I want to help? 

During the last 30+ years I have worked in a several positions with different organizations, but the one that stands out in my mind over and over again was the company that built a very successful business by asking questions.  Here’s my story.

In the early part of my career, my mentor, who happened to be the President of the company where I worked, would go with me for the first meeting with a new client.  At first this intimidated me and made me feel unworthy for the task.  When I observed how he approached the client, I was totally dumbfounded.  We took no sales information and no business cards.  I remember thinking, this can’t be happening. 

The meeting I will always remember was with the head of public relations for a major municipality.  The purpose of the meeting was to pitch our company to be the provider of a number of processes, including Project Management, Communication and Negotiating Skills.  I had worked very hard to get this meeting.

As we were sitting in the lobby waiting, I said to the President; “do you think we have everything we need for the meeting”?  He responded “What are we missing”?   So I said, “For a meeting as important as this, why didn’t we bring any materials, brochures, binders etc.  He responded, “If I had known what to bring, I would have done just that.  We don’t know what he wants” The purpose of the meeting was to ask questions.

So, having reflected on that experience, which by the way resulted in successfully winning the largest contract in the company’s history, I decided to call my company Don Grandy^Q3 “The Power of Three Questions”

So what’s your story?  What are the three most important questions you can ask yourself?