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In our last Tip, we introduced the term "Translation" in support of the idea of developing more compelling business fit statements. We broke Translation down to 4 steps. The first step is, of course, gathering the right knowledge about the customer by asking business and solution-oriented questions. In other words, doing your research.

While it's easy for us to understand this step on the surface, that doesn't mean it's easy to execute. To do this effectively, we need to leverage good interviewing skills - asking creative, interesting questions while listening actively and effectively to the answers.

In order to understand the potential business fit between us and the customer, we need to ask questions that lead to a better understand of their business, such as:


"What are the CEO's top priorities?"
"How does your company measure success?"
"What are some of the organization's critical business objectives this year?"
"What strategies are being leveraged to help achieve these objectives?"
"What are some of the issues that could stand between where you are now and where you need to be by the end of the year?"


In order to understand the potential solution fit between us and the customer, we need to ask questions that drive to a clear understanding of critical applications and processes, and bring to light unmet needs and previously unidentified opportunities.

Once an opportunity is uncovered, we need to ask questions that help us understand the current and desired future state, such as:


"How is that process being implemented today?"
"What's working? What's not working?"
"How do others in your industry do this?"
"How would you like it to be different?"
"If you could start from scratch, how would you design the solution?"
"What does a perfect solution look like?"
"What capability do you lack that you would like to add to the process?"


While these are generic, short lists of questions for you to consider, they serve to illustrate that one of the most important requirements for a strong business fit is a healthy degree of curiosity.