Welcome to a special two-part series of Lochhead on Marketing, where I answer two of the most important questions in my life and career. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, give it a listen here: 2 Legendary Questions (Part 1). Go on, we’ll wait.

Now that you’re all set, here’s part two. Let’s go!

The Legendary Question at the End of a Conversation

If you are an avid listener of Follow Your Different, you have heard me ask this question multiple times. An old friend and mentor of mine named George Brown got me into asking the same question. It goes like this:

“Is there anything else?”

Now, why is that a powerful question, you might ask? First of all, if you went to Sales School, you know that there are two kinds of questions if you look at things on a higher level. There’s open probes and closed probes. A closed probe is a question designed to get a specific answer, while an open probe sort of leaves it to the one that was questioned.

If you listen to me on Follow Your Different, I tend to ask more open questions. Those are all open probes and they're designed to elicit a lot of information. So generally, when you ask an open probe, hopefully you'll get more information from the person you're in communication with.

Is There Anything Else?

Now, as to why this particular question is so powerful in a conversation, particularly at the end, it’s like this:

Often in any conversation, you get the most powerful information at the end. So when you ask someone if there is anything else, what you’re really saying to them is, “Hey, anything else on your mind?” This can elicit a feeling that they might not have given enough information before, and so it opens them up to share more, which you can then follow up with some close probing questions specific to the new information.

You will notice how often that question blows something wide open and when it does.

It’s also a good way to keep the conversation focused on a topic you might be interested in continuing the conversation on, rather than getting sidetracked by another topic. Particularly when the person turns the table and tries to turn the tables on you.

All right. That's our two-part series on Legendary Questions, starting with “Is this legendary work?”/ “Do you think this is legendary work”, and finishing with “Is there anything else?” I hope you put these two legendary questions to good use.

Bio

Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.

In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.