When I first started IA a number of years back, I was on the phone late with someone from online banking support trying to resolve an issue with our business account. At one point he asked me to look for an item on the web page which simply wasn't there. He followed up with, "Have you scrolled all the way down to see the entire page?" Now as I mentioned, this was late and at the end of a 27 hour day in the early dawn of Intuitive Analytics so this question was not graciously received. My gruff response was approximately, "Now I'm sure asking that is perfectly appropriate and reasonable for many people you find yourself speaking with throughout the day, but for this conversation to be productive, you're going to need to increase the quality of your questions."
The quality of your questions is a tremendous indicator of the
level of thinking you bring to the table. In fact, many job interviewers say they weigh far more heavily the questions a candidate asks than the answers s/he provides. So as preparation for your next meeting with your client or potential client, what do you ask? You DO take the time to call the client and get the information necessary to have a wildly productive and memorable meeting don't you? If clients are willing to spend an hour plus of their time with you, shouldn't you have the courtesy to make sure the time is as valuable to them as possible? In return, isn't it in their interest to spend 15 minutes on the phone to ensure their hour+ is valuably spent?
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