Are you asking the questions correctly?

As engaged learners, not only should we ask right questions, but we need to also ask the question right.

This gets reinforced to me every day in my media replication sales work.

Time and again I receive a phone call or e-mail inquiry asking me how much a certain service is . . . when really the question should be phrased as, "I have this item, and in the end, I want it to be converted so that it does . . . . "

The beauty of that latter syntax is that it leaves room for a smart salesperson to act as an advisor and be sure you are aware of all options, including something you haven't considered or wouldn't consider, even in your wildest dreams.

It's not that my clients on the other end of the phone are not smart.  Quite the contrary.  It's more often than not that they are in a hurry and feel they are expediting the sales process by just asking me what's the turnaround or the cost for a specific task.

Sure, some people do it as a defensive play, feeling that by narrowing their inquiry they limit the risk of being taken advantage of in regards to price.

Regardless of the reason behind it, the limiting approach to asking a question can backfire.

Here's an example:

An e-mail comes in from a client:

"I have a letter-boxed SD videotape, and I want to transfer it to a DVD with captions.  How much will that be?"

Sounds innocent and direct enough, and a harried salesperson migh just come up with a price and hit "reply,"  but in this day of unprecedented rapid change within our field, that question could be very limiting.

Here's how that question from the client could be improved:

"I have a letter-boxed SD videtape, and I want to transfer it to a DVD with captions and play that on a 4:3 and 16:9 monitor.  How best can that be done cost-effectively?"

See the difference?  The inquirer helps himself with the latter phrasing by alerting the salesperson to what the desired end use is.

So the wise salesperson, who sees herself as an advisor, takes the cue, does reverse engineering in a sense, and ends up asking the caller whether they have access to an anamorphic or even the original HD version of the program.  With those sources, the final DVD can be created such that it plays full-screen if displayed on a 16:9 monitor, or letterbixed on a 4:3 monitor.  The best of both worlds.

This is how we want to approach learning here at Online Media Workshops.

Let's not limit the questions.  Let's start by focusing on the desired end results, even if they seem a bit like wild dreams, then work backwards, thinking outside the box at times on how best to achieve those results . . . or at least get as close as we can.

Onward . . .