232: Are you asking the right questions?

Are you asking the right questions? It is sometimes so obvious that people are just floundering and I don't want you to flounder… I want you to get the right answers to the questions that you actually need in order to accomplish your online goals and dreams. Have you booked a call with me recently? If not, go to https://callwithjaime.com and do it now. The first thing that we need to do in order to ask the right questions is to know what we're actually trying to understand. I have three concrete examples for you for this episode… I get a lot of questions about software tools and for 95 or 98% of those questions, the answer is it doesn't matter what the tool is, it matters how you implement it. People don't need to ask me which of the software solutions should I be using (you usually know which one that you’re looking at.) These questions are either seeking outside validation that they're making a good choice or because they don’t actually know what they’re doing. Instead of this question, a good question would be to ask for guides or guidance for implementing this particular piece of software into my music school. That's going to give you a lot better answers! That's going to tell you how to do it, how to do it, cut and dry, easy peasy getting started. It doesn't matter most of the time which software tool you're going to implement. The key is to make sure that you are implementing the software fully completely and succinctly. When we're asking advice on what kind of tools to use or what kind of system to implement or what kind of pricing plans to have, you already know what you want to do, it's more a matter of making sure that you have the right strategy to implement that properly. The next type of question that I hear asked all the time. is for recommendation or referrals to other professionals. The question is, does anybody know a piano teacher in this city or a piano teacher who uses this methodology. I've got a student for them. That's not the right question. When we're looking to grow our referral network, the right question for us is to ask for recommendations on other teachers who have similar philosophies to us, or contrasting philosophies. It doesn't matter the instrument that that teacher teaches, obviously that will get drilled down later on, but we want to make sure that we understand the character of the people that we are potentially going to be sending business to. It's really understanding the essence of their teaching and their teaching methodologies and things like that. Yes, of course, we want to make sure that it's a piano teacher, not a saxophone teacher. If we're looking to grow our network of piano teachers, but you get the idea, we don't care what they teach, we care how they teach. And similar to that, we also don't want to be creating posts on our social media that are saying that we have lessons available or that we have an opening or things like that because you're not going to necessarily get the best right student for that spot. Instead of saying I have lessons available and I use this methodology, pose your question asking for people to envision your next student. Does someone know of a student or a child or an adult or whatever it is, who is interested in this and this and this and has tried this or that or another thing! By asking a question in this way we are allowing people to create an image in their mind of the ideal student for you. This makes it so much easier for them to say, I know somebody! Wrapping up Even though that first question about software seems drastically different than the post saying you've got availability in your studio for a new student, they're actually coming from the same place and being directed to the same people. The same place, meaning these questions are coming from a place that lacks specificity and they are coming from a place of generalities. The same people, meaning when you post on social media, you're attempting to listen to a lot of voices and the voices that are coming in are not necessarily expert voices or people who even understand what you offer, what you need and what would be best for you. This is why I think it's really important when we are asking our questions online that we ask the right question with lots of specificity and the ability for someone to paint a picture in their mind of the right answer. Instead of asking a million people their opinion on something that really isn't going to sway you, ask one person that you trust implicitly and go with that or go with your gut. You are asking the better question when it’s moving a decision into action. Paint a picture for the people who want to help you and they will have a far easier time interacting and engaging with your question to provide you with something that is tangible. I hope that this conversation has helped you with reframing some questions because social media is a great place to get feedback and advice. Don't stop asking questions. Think about what the question is and why you need the answer and of course how to paint the picture, so people give you an answer that you're going to actually be able to use! It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.