Master the Art of Asking Great Questions with This Simple 3-Step Framework (DF#143)

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Are we going for clarity? Are we going to just generate discussion? Are we trying to solve a problem? You really have to remember what it is is your goal of this entire thing, and that should guide your follow-up question. You should be thinking about questions that help you solve that problem. Aloha, folks, and welcome back to degree free. Unlike popular belief, there are stupid questions out there. And today, I'm gonna tell you how to avoid asking stupid questions. We are going to be talking about how to ask great questions, how to master question asking. I've interviewed dozens of people on this podcast, and most of the guests that I've asked after, they say I ask great questions or I've thought about it. And this is the framework that I came up with and I want to share it with you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:53]:
This is good for any time really that you need to ask questions, whether it's in a job interview, you're trying to land sales, you're trying to clarify what it is that you're supposed to be doing if you're working on a project with people in school, out of school, at work, pretty much any situation that you need to ask questions, you can use what I'm about to teach you. So to not bury the lead, I'll give you the formula now, and we'll add on the context in the episode, and we'll break it down bit by bit. Really, it's just three things, s q e. It's a statement, a question, and then an example. To expand on that just a little bit more, the first one is gonna be a contextual statement. Then you're gonna ask your question. Then you're gonna give an example, usually in the form of an example question. And then 4th is a follow-up.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:47]:
That's only if it's necessary. So I did wanna clarify what I meant at the beginning that there are stupid questions. There really are stupid questions. I used to think that there wasn't until I've asked a bunch of stupid questions. And then I was like, oh, yeah. That was stupid. But what really made all of the questions stupid? And what I found that makes stupid questions is it all depends on the context of where and how you're asking the question. Let me give you an example.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:20]:
Remember back, I used to be a firefighter. I used to be a fireman, and I used to go to, you know, CPR calls. We used to call them codes, and that's just like what we call them. So if you are shopping at the grocery store or you're doing something and then you get an alarm and they're like, hey, we just got a code. We gotta go. Even you ask, what is a code? That is a stupid question. And the reason why is because in the context, you should know what a code is. And that is just an extreme example of what stupid questions are.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:54]:
And it's really just you not knowing what things are in context or you asking a question where you probably should know the answer in context. I mean, there's a smarter way to go about asking that question, or if you forgot or whatever, but that's just an example of what a stupid question is. Now before I get into everything that we're gonna get into today, and this is gonna be a banger, I did wanna go over a few things. If you have a question yourself and you want to use this framework to ask me and Hannah to answer your question, go to ask.degreefree.co/question to ask your question, you can ask us there. Also leave us a review, all the usual stuff. Share this with a friend. This one's going to be a banger. SQE statement question example.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:39]:
Also, I am creating a little guide specifically for questions. You can ask your interviewer to be more prepared. You know, at the end of the interview and they're like, do you have any questions for me? And then everybody and their mother has the same ten questions. I've compiled a bunch of the same ten questions that people normally ask. And then I've put it through this SQE framework or I'm putting it through this SQE framework. And I am coming out with better questions that you can ask during your interview. If you want that, I will put a link in our show notes, degreefree.coforward/ podcast. I'll put it at the top.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:18]:
I'll make it prominent so that you can click it. Eventually, it'll have its own URL. I haven't made it yet, but I'm going to make it. V 1, just go to the show notes and find the link, and it'll probably have an email sign up there. I just wanna know how many people are interested and who's interested in this type of thing, but it'll be free. I hopefully have it done by the the time that this show comes out. In the case that I don't, it'll just be a landing page when you click the link and then just put your email in, and then I'll have your email. So I can email you it when it's done.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:50]:
I mean, it's gonna be simple. It'll just be a Google Doc or something like that, or a PDF that I'll send you. So if you want that, go to degree free dot c o four slash podcast. You can find it in the show notes there. Moving on. Before we get into the SQE framework, we have to go over some fundamentals and the foundations of effective question asking. This is going to be quick and everything is really simple, but it's all the things that I wish that somebody had explicitly said to me. And it's so simple that you listening to this right now, you're gonna be like, oh, yeah, no, duh.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:25]:
But having it explicitly said to you is also what might make you say no. Duh. You're really, like, yeah. I know that, but you never really connected the dots yourself because I didn't before I knew all this stuff. This is gonna be really simple, but we have to go through it so that all of us are on the same page before we go into the framework. The first thing and the most important is understanding the purpose of your question. Why are you questioning? That's the most basic of it all. Do you want to clarify information? Like, is there something that you don't understand or that you need to understand in order to understand the rest of the story? In order to understand the rest of the project, do you need some sort of clarity on something.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:04]:
You need this person to tell you more. Is it to just generate discussion? Is it just to get more ideas flowing and just be like, hey, this is something that I think we should talk about. I don't know where it's gonna go, but I think we should talk about it. Or are we trying to solve problems? Are we trying to be like, hey, are you a good fit for this? Is this what we're doing to solve this problem? Those are the different types of purposes for questions. I'm sure there are more, but those are the things that I could think of, you know, to clarify information, to generate discussion, solve problems. Second thing is that there are 2 types of questions. There's open ended questions and there's closed questions. Open ended questions, they encourage detailed responses, exploration of a topic, while closed questions, like, they typically just give short specific answers often just like yes, no.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:58]:
Open ended question would be, what inspired you to pursue a career in this field? A closed question. Did you study this field in college? What inspired you to pursue a career in this field? You can be like, well, my grandmother, you know what I mean? But first, it was the dinosaurs and blah blah blah blah. And then the close question is, did you study this field in college? No. I didn't. Did you study this field in high school? No. I didn't. Alright. We're done here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:22]:
They both have their purpose. Generally speaking, open is better than closed. Although closed questions serve their purpose when you're trying to get very specific information out of people. In today's lesson, I guess, in today's podcast, we're gonna be talking mostly about open ended questions, but I'll give you an example of when you'd want to use a closed question. And this is just one example. I'm sure you can think of an infinite amount of examples, but because we're gonna be talking about open ended questions, I'm gonna close the loop on these closed questions that I mean to do that. I don't know. So closing the loop on closed questions.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:00]:
Let's say you sell residential windows door to door. 99% of the time, you want to be talking directly to the homeowner because they're the decision maker. They're the person that's going to care and that cares about their windows. You wanna be talking to the homeowner. You don't really wanna talk to the kids, renters, the boyfriend, whatever. So, a good opportunity for a close question would be as soon as you knock on the door, knock, knock, knock, knock, hey, are you the homeowner? And they would answer, no, I rent. Okay. Thank you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:34]:
Have a nice day. Quick information exchange. Hey. Are you the homeowner? Yeah. I just bought this house last year. Perfect. Got it. Now we're into our sales pitch.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:43]:
You've qualified them through a closed question. You let them just choose 1, 2. Okay. Perfect. Done. So that is just an example of the purpose and why you would use a closed question. Why wouldn't the questions wouldn't just all be open? Then there's a couple more things before we get into the framework. This next one is really simple, but it is what has helped me ask good questions, great questions the most.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:09]:
It is listening. That seems super duper simple. Listening to them, having the context of the conversation, that is a superpower. And then if you can listen and you can pick up on everything that they're saying, then you can ask amazing questions and then amazing follow-up questions as well. There's really no tips to listening other than take notes. And if you're in a situation where notes are convenient or allowed or appropriate, then I would do it. Like, say that you're in a job interview. That's a completely appropriate place to take notes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:45]:
You just say, hey, I gotta take notes. And you just take notes right there. Say if you're in a meeting for a project and you're like, hey, I gotta take notes. Like, that's a super appropriate place. To be honest with you, I take notes everywhere because I'm a terrible listener, actually. I know that I just said I'm a really great listener, but I'm only good because I use active listening and I write notes down. I have a terrible memory, I should say, but I listen really well. But the only reason I listen well is because I have a external memory, which is my notes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:13]:
If I'm having a conversation, a social conversation with people, and I'm like, wait a minute, I wanna remember this. And then I just say, oh, do you mind if I just pull up my phone and then I just tap on my notes real quick? Okay. Sorry. Moving on in the conversation. Or do you mind while you're speaking if I just take some notes real quick? All of the times people are like, oh, taking notes of what I'm saying. Oh, I'm so important. You are important. The only reason why you're speaking, I'm guessing, is so that I could listen and that you want me to hear what you're saying.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:42]:
But then also, I just also have, like, a terrible memory. That is why I'm taking notes as well. Out of all of everything with the questions, that is the number one thing that has helped me ask great questions. The last one is a finer point. It's almost like a pro tip, and it's probably the only place where jargon is acceptable. You want to use jargon when it's appropriate when you're asking questions. And it's a really good use for jargon. And I hate jargon, actually.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:12]:
But I think this might be the only good use when you're asking questions. If you don't know what jargon is, jargon is about industry specific or context specific words that you use. Let's say that I was talking to a medic and then we were having a conversation like, what'd that guy die of? And he's just like, oh, he died of an MI. Be like, oh, that sucks. And for everybody else, you'd be like, what the hell is an MI? What's a myocardial infarction? And you could just say heart attack because that's what people say. What that tells you in there when using jargon in your questions in the SQE framework throughout it, what it can tell the person that you're asking the question to is it could tell you the level of knowledge that you have and how much you know what they are about to say. And then it also signals to them how they should respond. If you say, well, he had a heart attack, maybe that's a signal for you to just leave it at layman's terms, which is totally fine.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:13]:
We can communicate all day in layman's terms. That's fine. But if you say, oh, well, he had an MI, well, maybe you understand a little bit more. I can talk with a little bit more jargon. I don't have to use 7 different words when one word will do. Going back to the coding example as well. Oh, he coded. What's a code? Using jargon right there like, oh, I was working a code one day.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:35]:
This guy has dealt with that before. We're on the same page there. I think this is the only use case where jargon is like, okay, and it makes sense to use sparingly if necessary. Okay. So now we covered our whole foundation. Everybody's on the same page. Let's jump into the framework about actually asking the question. We've only now we've been thinking about asking the question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:55]:
We've been laying the foundation for asking questions. Now we're actually going to ask the questions. Once again, for everybody to remind everybody, s q e, contextual statement, ask your question, give an example, usually in the form of a question. And the example, the last one, that's optional. Doesn't always have to happen, but it's there for you. You could ask every question with that example in there, but every question has to be statement question and then you can add an example at the end if you want to to get fancy or to give more details and I'll explain here in a second. Okay. So what is the point of the contextual statement? The contextual statement gives context to the person that you are asking the question to.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:46]:
Well, just like the jargon does, it gives a little bit more context. It can signal to the person that you are asking the question to, your knowledge on the subject, your baseline understanding of the material that you're asking the question on. It could tell them where your interest is. If you have a pretty general question, like how was your ride in, you can add a contextual statement just saying, I caught red lights all the way over. How was your ride in? Mine was green all the way here. Whereas, like, how was your ride in? Oh, it was pretty chilly. You've given a little bit more context. You've given a little bit more hint of what you're interested to know about, like, specifically what you're interested to know about.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:33]:
Obviously, you can ask a better question, and that's the cue part. But the context itself right there can save a lot of that as well. So if you ask a bad question, the context could save you. And then, like I said, it also signals to them the level at which they should respond. If you're talking about something high level business or whatever, let me give a couple of examples here. The way these examples are gonna work is I'm gonna give the contextual statement and then I'm going to ask a question at the end of it, even though we're not at the question asking part of it. So example, given the recent changes in market trends, I'm curious about how our company plans to adapt. It's the question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:17]:
The next thing is, what do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months? Instead, if you just ask the question, what do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months? Right there, it's like, what are you talking about? Well, given the recent changes in market trends. Oh, I see it. Well, you're talking about market trends. You're talking about the business. Well, we're talking about the company and how we're going to adapt to it. Got it. What do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months? A better way that you could ask that question, you could say, given the recent negative changes in market trends, now you're signaling a direction of the market trends. I'm curious about how our company plans to adapt its marketing strategies.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:54]:
So what do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months? And now that answer is gonna be completely different than the first one that we gave. What do you see coming in the next 6, 12 months is the base question. I don't know. That could be literally anything. What are you talking about, bro? I was like, I don't know. Given the recent changes in market trends, I'm curious about how our company plans to adapt. Well, you've given more context, and then now they're gonna respond how they want to there. And then now that you've given even more context, given the recent negative changes in market trends, I'm curious about how our company plans to adapt its marketing strategies.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:28]:
What do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months? You're signaling that you have a high level of knowledge of the topic, and you're signaling to them at which level they should respond to you. So let's do another example. I was on your company's website and saw the recent green initiative you did. How would you explain the company's culture? Right? So the base is how would you explain the company's culture? But the context that you give is the recent green initiative. What did you do there? Well, you told them that you went on the company's website. You told them that you have knowledge, that they are a green company, that this green initiative, and that's what they care about. And so now you've skewed the answer about this, but you were able to signal. Let's imagine that this is one of those questions for the interviewer.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:16]:
Now you've signaled that you've done research because you're like, oh, I was on the company's website. And I did that. I'm like, oh, that's that's awesome. Okay, cool. This person, like, really cares. But how can we add even more context to that? How can we add even more? So let's go back to it. I was doing research for this interview on your company's website and saw that recent green initiative you did with the blank, you know, with the partner, with the beach cleanup, whatever, whatever, whatever. How would you explain the company's culture? That right there, instead of implicitly saying I was on your company's website, you can just tell them I was doing research for this interview on your company's website.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:55]:
And then, oh, this person was doing research on the company. Oh, that's great. It's all the great initiative that we did with insert company or whatever, insert organization there. Just to drive this home, I'll do one more here and I'll give one more example. The question is, what are your best performing lead magnets? Once again, context, it shows how much knowledge that you have. You know what a lead magnet is. You're asking your general question about marketing efforts, but the knowledge that you have is, okay, it's pretty specialized. You're using jargon.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:25]:
You're saying lead magnets. We're not doing great. Perfect. So this is how the person is going to respond. These are just examples of context statements to use to then make it much easier for the person across from you to evaluate how much you know about the subject and how they should respond. That's one of the ways that you get much better answers out of people. So now we've gone over the S of it all, the contextual statement. Now we have to go over the Q, the ask your question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:59]:
Formulating the question, we do have to discuss again the open and close question. And this is really the important part here, the actual forming of the question. There's a lot to go into, and I don't know if we have enough time for this podcast. So So I'm just gonna go over the open and close questions because that's, like, really paramount to this technique. For this technique, you wanna use as much open questions as possible. To do that, you want to start your questions with things like how, what, why, Tell me about dot, dot, dot anything to open up the dialogue instead of, do you like your job or what do you enjoy about your job? Do you like your job is closed. And then what do you enjoy about your job is an open ended question. I'll just go through a few examples of closed versus open.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:53]:
Did you finish the project on time? Closed. What were some challenges you faced while completing the project? Different question. You get the same outcome. What were some of the challenges you faced while completing the project? You're implying that this person completed the project. Did you finish the project on time? Well, I'm assuming that the project is completed. If it's not completed, you're going to tell me. Well, we didn't complete the project yet. We ran into this snag, this snag, this snag, this snag.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:22]:
Actually, we completed it a couple of weeks ago. There wasn't really many challenges at all. It went really, really well, and we finished a couple of weeks early. Oh, perfect. Are you familiar with the software we use? That's a closed question. Tell me about your experience with the software we use. And so that tell me about this. I use that all the time.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:41]:
It's not really a question. It's just like a statement. You're commanding that person to do something, but it still works as a question. Are you familiar with the software we use? Yes. No. Tell me about your experience with the software we use. Well, actually, I don't have any experience with this software. Let's just say that it's a CRM or something.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:58]:
I don't have experience with Salesforce, but I've used HubSpot a lot. I don't have any experience with this customer service app, but I have it with this customer service app. Did you meet your sales target this quarter? That's a closed question. Open question, what strategies did you employ to meet your sales target this quarter? Once again, doing the same thing that we did in the first question, which is we're just making an assumption about something. We're just saying, hey. You probably met your sales quarter. And if you didn't, I'm just assuming that you're gonna tell me that you didn't. And, yes, you could ask these questions straight up, but I'm assuming that we want to get more open ended.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:34]:
Those are some examples of closed versus open questions. While you can see in these examples, they're not asking completely congruent things, right? They're not asking the same thing at all. Did you meet your sales target this quarter? It's not the same question as what strategies did you employ to meet your sales target this quarter? But the answer from the second question is gonna be much better than did you meet your sales target this quarter. Did you meet your sales target this quarter? Yes. And then the follow-up, it'd be like, well, what did you do? That works too. But in my opinion, asking the open ended question first makes way more sense, especially if you couple it with the contextual statement at the beginning. Now, step 3. This is optional, but I say it's the SQE framework just so that you know it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:24]:
And this is going to be the example. So you could stop the entire question right here. I'll reread the example that we were using, the first one that we use. Given the recent negative changes in market trends, I'm curious about how our company plans to adapt its marketing strategies. What do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months? That is a great question right there. You can completely leave it and you could see what they give you from there. And I'm sure that it's going to be much better than what do you see coming in the next 6 to 12 months. The example at the end is going to help us increase the clarity.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:03]:
That's the name of the game here. We just wanna be really clear. We want to get a lot of transfer of information across to them so that they can transfer information back to us. We want to provide an example. It helps to ensure that, like, both you and the respondent, the other person, the other participant in this conversation are on the same page regarding what's being discussed. It clarifies the context and specificity of your question, and it reduces ambiguity, basically. This can't go wrong. Context, question, context.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:39]:
We are gonna get the right answer out of you. The example helps to increase the relevance of what you're saying, can help tailor your question to the person's experience, their situation. It can encourage more detailed responses when they understand the exact nature of what you're saying and then also of what you want from them to say. I have some guidelines that I'll go over in a little bit for these example questions, but I will go through some examples of these examples first. It's much easier to just give you examples than it is to explain to you what it is. I'm going to give it to you the entire question now, and I have 5 different questions that I will read, and I will read the full the entirety of it. Contextual statement, ask your question, and then an example. I've noticed that effective communication is crucial in maintaining a healthy work life balance, especially in remote work environments.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:41]:
What strategies do you recommend for improving communication with remote teams? For example, do you prioritize certain platforms or types of meetings to ensure clarity and connection among team members? That's a big word salad. The example question or the explainer question, however you wanna think about it, it helps to ask and clarify and specifically, like, what portion of this or what are we talking about? Do you prioritize certain platforms or types of meetings to ensure clarity and connection among team members? But in the greater question, what what strategies do you recommend for improving communication with remote teams? 2nd question, in today's rapidly changing business landscape, staying ahead of industry trends is more important than ever. How do you stay updated with the latest trends and innovation in your field? Are there specific websites, podcasts, or conferences that have been valuable for your professional development? The example is, are there specific websites, podcasts, or conferences that have been valuable for your professional development? If you stop me and you go back and listen to it, and you don't have to do that for this one because I'll reread it, you'll see that the contextual statement and question, they're solid. When I wrote these, like, this is solid. In today's rapidly changing business landscape, staying staying ahead of industry trends is more important than ever. How do you stay updated with the latest trends and innovations in your field? That's a solid question. You can go to town with that, and they're gonna give you a good answer. Narrowing it down even further, you can say, like, well, what I really want is I want, like, websites, podcasts, conferences that you've been to that have helped your professional development.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:19]:
That's what I really care about. 3, contextual statement. I've been exploring various investment strategies to diversify my portfolio and mitigate risks. The question, what are some effective approaches to diversification that you've found successful? For instance, how do you balance between stocks, bonds, and alternative investments to achieve a well rounded portfolio? In this one, you wouldn't have to explain what diversification is. We don't have to explain how you can diversify your portfolio because in your explaining question, in your example question, you've said explicitly that I understand that there are stocks, there are bonds, and there are alternative investments out there. How do you balance between them? Oh, okay. Got it. That's the question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:08]:
4, contextual statement, building a strong personal brand seems to be crucial for career advancement and networking opportunities. The question, what key elements do you believe are essential in creating and maintaining a strong personal brand? Example, who's someone whose personal brand strategy you admire and what do they do well? So this one gets them to be even more specific and like, okay. I want you to give me an example of someone's personal brand that you admire. Last but not least, I'm always looking for ways to enhance team productivity without overburdening individual team members. Question, what techniques or tools do you recommend for improving team efficiency while maintaining a positive work environment? So if you go back and listen to this and you're like, well, Ryan, why don't you just say the contextual statement? And then the example question should just be the question that you ask. If you read back and you go back through all of this, there's a lot that gets lost. There's a lot of context that gets lost between your contextual statement and the example question. And you really want your question to be in the middle and then just specifying like, oh, this is what the answer is at the end.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:21]:
I want the answer. You're funneling and filtering it down. Like, this is how I want the answer out of you, and this is the context of what I know. While you could just do contextual statement and example question, if you just want to get super specific, you can. I found the best to give the question a more broader question and then an example question underneath it. Remember that that example is optional if you want. Now this podcast and this lesson wouldn't be complete if I didn't talk about follow-up questions, at least for a little bit. And follow-up questions are really, really important because follow-up questions is what makes it a conversation.

Ryan Maruyama [00:29:03]:
Following up. If you think back to all the conversations that you have with like your mom or your dad or your brothers and your sisters, that is what makes it a conversation. They ask a question, you answer, they ask a follow-up question. You answer, you ask a follow-up question, and that's it. It just gets the ball. It just gets bounced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The follow-up questions are really important, and so I wanted to just touch on them. I won't spend too much time on this, but it is an important part of it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:29:31]:
The main thing that you have to remember when you are asking follow-up question is why are you asking the follow-up question? It goes back to the very first point that we talked about, which is, like, the purpose of your question. Are we going for clarity? Are we going to just generate discussion? Are we trying to solve a problem? You have really have to remember what it is is your goal of this entire thing. And that should guide your follow-up questions. Like, are you if you're trying to solve a problem, you should be thinking about questions that help you solve that problem. Hey there. I hope you're enjoying this episode of the degree free podcast. At degree free, we wanna help everyone thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. And the only way to truly reach everyone is with your help.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:17]:
If you're getting value out of this episode or if this is your second, 3rd, or 4th episode that you're tuning into, if you could just ship this to a friend, just click that one button and share it with someone in your contacts or on your stories. It would mean the world to us. And more importantly, get our message out to more people who need help getting out of their current situation. If you could do that right now, that would mean a whole lot. It's super intuitive and it's like a no brainer, but really, like I said, I wish that somebody had explicitly told me this stuff, and that's why I am explicitly telling you. Are you asking a follow-up question because you need more clarity to understand what the person just said? Like they said they were working 2 miles per hour and hit something. Do you need to know if they were running? Were they biking? Were they in a car? Like, we need to know those things maybe to understand the story better. And so the follow-up question is more about that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:15]:
Okay. Well, were you in a car? That helps you get more context and helps you understand and clarify. Are you asking the question to get the next part of the story, generate discussion? Do you want to know what happens next? Do you want them to expound on, like, one aspect of the story? He said he caught a fish big enough to sell at the market. Well, the follow-up question could be, did you sell it? What did you end up doing with fish? Like, what happened? Oh, no. I didn't sell it. I ate it. Oh, no. I catch a release.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:46]:
But it was big. It's huge. The world of follow-up questions is huge and right then that's where that important thing came into mind that you have to listen. In order to ask effective follow-up questions, you have to listen. If you're not listening, you're not going to ask good follow-up questions. And follow-up questions is really where the great conversations come from and the great answers come from. And the best way to ask follow-up questions is you could use this exact framework. Again, you can use the SQE framework because they're talking about something like they're talking about marketing, and they're off talking about like, oh, yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:21]:
So I was a marketing person at this company, and then you can just say, oh, well, yeah, I used to run our Google ads at my old company. What did you do at your marketing position? And then right. So you give a little bit of context, and then you ask your question. Perfect. And that's just s and q, and you can just stop it right there. That's a good follow-up question. If you wanted to do it more, like, did you do Google Ads too? Perfect. What type of efforts are you guys doing in that marketing position? With follow-up questions and questions in general, keep in mind to only ask one question at a time.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:57]:
And then you're gonna say, like, well, you're just told me to ask 2 questions at a time. Sure. But what I mean is asking one set of questions at a time. You might have a million questions, and you're doing active listening. If you're like me, you're good at listening, but you're bad at memorizing things. So you're writing things down. You're writing things down. I'm just literally telling you from my own perspective.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:18]:
You have like a big network of things going on on your paper. He said this, he said this, but I can't write fast enough. Well, he's talking about his fishing trip. He talked about his marketing role, and then he talks about this time that he went on his family trip to wherever. What do I want to talk about? I want to talk about it all. A mistake would be jumping around from thing to thing. You know, you want to just stay on one thing, pull at that thread, and then finish that. And then when you're done with that, you can go back and you can pull on the thread of something else.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:49]:
You just wanna make sure to categorize the questions you ask in some way. Normally, it's by function or by category. You know, we're going to talk about your family trip. We're gonna talk about marketing. We're gonna talk about fishing. And then within that, you talk about it chronologically. You talk about it in time. And And so you're just like, okay, well, then what happened next? Then what happened next? And what happened next? That's usually the easiest way to break this all down.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:18]:
That is the SQE framework. Once again, contextual statement, ask your question, example if necessary, and then a follow-up question if you want as well. And you can use the SQE framework in your follow-up questions. That's what makes the best follow-up questions, really. And if you have a question, go to ask dot degree free forward slash question and ask us your question there. You can use the SQE framework that I just taught you to ask us a question. And then once again, if you would like the common interview questions that you can ask your interviewer at the end of your interview, things like that, go to degreefree.coforward/podcast. Go to the show notes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:00]:
Sign up for it. I'm hoping that I get this finished by the time that this is released. If it's not, I promise I will get it to you. Just put in your email, and I will email it to you as soon as it's done. And that's pretty much it for this week, guys. Let me know how you like this episode. I enjoyed doing it. YouTube, Spotify, leave a review.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:19]:
Until next time, guys. Along.