To be successful with the people you serve you must always answer their unconscious-but-ever-present question: “What’s in it for me?”
Yes, your focus should be on meeting someone else’s needs. Every moment of every day every person is asking and answering one question unconsciously or consciously: “What’s in it for me?” It's how we are built. We start asking the question the moment we take our first breath and continue asking it until our last. While this may strike you as egotistical, it is how we answer the question that determines character. For now, just know that your clients are not just looking to you for information. They want you to help them take care of needs they may not even be able to articulate. Here is where your job really begins.
Ask positive questions, rephrase the answers, and give answers back to clients to facilitate identifying what they really want.
Having clients articulate what is motivating them to seek your input establishes what can and should happen in your interactions. Most people will have similar needs, wants, and desires, even if they call them by different names.
Define the Why.
Simon Sinek has a great TED talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” In that 20-minute presentation, he says effective influencers for good always start with why they are doing what they do. Only then do they go on to explain how to do it and what exactly needs to be done. It’s a terrific formula for any worthy project.
Start with why. Answer the question: “What is it that you and the client want to accomplish and why?” This is often the hardest aspect to master toward being an effective influencer. Usually, there are many equally good ways (the hows) to go about accomplishing something. However, if you want to get heartfelt commitment to the end goal and agreement on how it should be done and what should be done, first agree to why it should be done at all.
When you start with why, many problems are more easily solved or avoided altogether. Because you are clear about why the goal is important, you and your clients are free to be infinitely more creative problem solvers.