- Building Modern Firms
- Posts
- My 3 Favorite Power Questions
Hey đź‘‹ - Brandon here.
Happy Saturday to 1,756 growth-minded accountants.
Here’s one growth tip for you and your firm.
Today’s issue takes less than 5 minutes to read.
(Note: I’m going to send these emails out on Sunday going forward. For me, Sunday is the day I catch up on content and news and it seems like many of you have a similar routine. If you feel strongly either way, shoot me an email).
As I’ve grown my firm, I’ve found myself making decisions based on limited information.
I try pushing decision making down as a result. People closer to the problem have more information than I have and they are typically qualified to make decisions, but sometimes they need direction from me.
Here are three power questions I use to cut through the noise, gather context, and point leaders in the right direction:
How do you know this is true?
This is my all-time favorite question and works especially well when subjective information or bad data is being presented.
It forces people to think about the inputs that led to the data they are analyzing.
I’ve used this to challenge my marketing team on lead attribution, sales team on closed-lost reasons, tax team on client experience issues, etc.
If you cannot prove that whatever you are presenting is true, then you have more work to do.
Where can this fail?
When rolling out a new idea, process, or change, it’s important to gather feedback from your team prior to implementation.
Sometimes, the best feedback comes from people closest to the work.
But because these teammates are often lowest on the totem pole, they aren’t inclined to speak up. It’s nerve-wracking and perceived as high career risk to say something wrong (especially to the CEO).
To cut through this, I ask “where can this fail?”
It’s a beautiful questions because it’s hypothetical - thus, there’s no risk in giving negative feedback.
Make sure to ask for specifics. Analytical people will often say “it’s impossible” which is never true… but you do want to learn why they perceive it as daunting.
What is preventing you from X in 12 months?
This is my favorite growth-related question that helps people identify the main issue preventing them from doing something.
Often, I will ask: “what is the main thing preventing you from 2x’ing revenue in 12 months?”
Whatever people say next is most likely a solvable problem.
For example, when asked this to firm owners they will say they can’t hire fast enough. But we’re talking about 2x’ing revenue here… if you really wanted to solve the hiring problem, you could hire a recruiter or a VP of Talent to focus on that issue day in day out.
This question works everywhere in your firm:
“What is the main thing preventing you from increasing NPS from 6 to 9 over the next 12 months?”
“What is the main thing preventing you from building an offshore team in the next 12 months?”
“What is the main thing preventing you from reducing turnaround time from 7 weeks to 3 weeks in the next 12 months?
12 months is a perfectly long and short enough window to think strategically but also tactically enough to walk away with immediate action items.
Try it out.
That's all for this Sunday. See you next week.
Cheers,
Brandon
Ready to grow your firm? Here’s how I can help:
→ Apply to join four15, the community I launched for ambitious firm owners doing $1M+ in revenue (17/30 spots filled)
→ Book a demo to get accurate salary data from B4Transparency so you can always attract top talent by paying top of market (I own a minority stake)
Reply