The Most Important Question You Can Ask Right Now

The COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc around the world. The disease—and the government responses to it—have affected every industry, with impacts ranging from mild to devastating.

One of the best things you can do in this unprecedented environment is to ask questions:

• “What can we do to keep our employees and customers safe?”
• “How can we convert physical meetings to virtual ones?”
• “What impacts will this have on our business, short-term and long-term?”
• “How can we replace lost revenue?”
• “What expenses can we cut or postpone?”
• “How should we change our marketing messaging?”

I submit, though, that the single best question you can ask right now—and for the immediate future—is:

“How can I help?”

In my keynote speeches and seminars, I define sales as “Helping people acquire the things they want and need for a better life.”

That’s a pretty broad definition. And deliberately so. Because selling involves a lot more than persuading a person to part with their money. Selling includes:

• Educating people
• Making them feel comfortable and confident
• Solving their problems
• Assisting them in making good decisions
• Making them look good to others
• Finding ways to enable them to afford what they need
• Delivering value

At this very moment, you can do a lot of those things. And the key to figuring out which of the above you can accomplish is to ask the question, “How can I help?” (And alternatively, “How can we help?”)

Right now, everybody—your clients, your vendors, your employees, your partners, your community—is struggling with more challenges than ever before. So ask everybody how you can help them.

And make it clear that you’re not just looking for ways to sell something to them, but rather, ways to serve them. Because as I say again and again, sales is service and service is sales. And now—more than ever—the world needs our service.

Let me close this post by asking you—How can I help?