Questions that are hard to answer dishonestly, because they ask about things that already happened.
- "Talk me through the last time that happened." The workhorse. Gets you the real workflow, including the parts nobody thinks to mention.
- "Why do you bother?" Finds the motivation under the task. Often the actual product is here.
- "What are the implications of that?" Separates a mild annoyance from a problem worth money.
- "What else have you tried?" Reveals the real competition, which is usually a spreadsheet.
- "How are you dealing with it now?" If the answer is "we aren't", the problem may not be painful enough to sell against.
- "Where does the money come from?" In B2B, the person with the problem often is not the person with the budget.
- "Who else should I talk to?" Turns one conversation into a pipeline.
- "Is there anything else I should have asked?" Costs one sentence, regularly rescues an interview.