Advice is Cheap — Context is Priceless

“let me show you an example from someone we both know who’s doing it right.”

He laid out the ideas so cohesively that it felt like a polished board deck. He cussed, but wasn’t disrespectful. He spoke with intelligence andintolerance. “Here’s how they think of these three areas. Boom, boom, boom. What are you waiting for? See how you can look at your company differently?”

First Round Review – Advice is Cheap, Context is Priceless

The very simple way to reroute a conversation to growth is reframing the questions that you ask or that are asked of you. As I've mentioned before, I often get these questions:

• When you started KISSmetrics how did you start your blog?
• When you hired your first salesperson where did you find them?
• When you raised your first round of funding how did you do it?

What I ask in response are these questions:

• Are you trying to figure out how you should do marketing for your business?
• Are you starting a sales team and trying to hire the first person?
• Are you thinking about raising money for your company?

This would have been a better line of inquiry to start:

• I’m figuring out how to do marketing for my business. What should I be thinking about?
• I’m starting a sales team and trying to hire the first person. How should I approach it?
• I’m thinking about raising money. Where should I start?

This would have been their best line of inquiry to start:

• I’m figuring out how to do marketing for my business. Here’s what we’ve tried out and these are the few tests we’ve found to work for us. What should I be thinking about next?
• I’m starting a sales team and trying to hire the first person. Here is who our target customer is, our average revenue per customer and what our sales process looks like. How should I approach it next?
• I’m thinking about raising money. I raised my seed six months ago led by this firm, it seems the profile of this partner is the best fit and these are the reasons we’re raising a round right now. What should I do next?
  
  

There are a few key takeaways in the evolution of these lines of inquiry:

• Favor questions with verbs in the present participle versus those in the past tense. 
• Reframe questions to orient around the advice seeker.
• Provide context like a constellation. 
• Ask what you should do next.