# 3 big questions and a discussion guide

> How to prepare for a customer interview: pick your three big questions, keep one list per type of person, research instead of asking, update the list and turn it into a one-page discussion guide.

- Course: [Customer Development: Talking to Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews.md)
- Module: Asking what matters
- Lesson 8/15, ~40 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/three-big-questions

## How to prepare for a customer interview

**Alex Tutor:** Still on CatChow's product team, still interviewing cat owners. Today: how to prepare for a customer interview, starting with your call with Andrew.

**Sofia:** The call with Andrew went well! He's never paid for anything cat-related in advance, and he changed shops once, when prices went up. Two scary answers.

**Alex Tutor:** What made it go well?

**Sofia:** I wrote my questions down the evening before. Whenever I wanted to drift into small talk, the list was right there.

**Alex Tutor:** Make it a habit. Before every conversation, write down your **list of 3**: the three most important things you want to learn from this type of person.

![In a pet-shop aisle, a person chatting with a cat owner glances at a small card with three bold dots clipped to the back of her phone.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/three-big-questions-illustration-2.webp)

**Sofia:** Why three? Why not ten?

**Alex Tutor:** Ten turn into a questionnaire, and you'll rush through them. Three fit in your head, even in a five-minute chat. And choosing them calmly in advance is how the scary ones survive the awkward moment.

> **Exercise:** Why keep three big questions rather than a list of ten?

## How to choose your three big questions

**Sofia:** So how do I pick them?

**Alex Tutor:** Ask yourself: what's the riskiest thing we believe right now? Which answer would change the plan? At least one should scare you. And don't agonise: they'll change soon anyway.

**Sofia:** My draft for cat owners: 1. Does running out of food cost them real time or money? 2. Do they ever pay for pet things in advance? 3. Who decides on the food and pays for it?

**Alex Tutor:** Good. Notice these are things you want to *learn*, not lines to read out. On the call you reach each one through honest-answer questions about the past.

**Sofia:** So “Who decides and pays?” becomes “Who bought the last bag, and whose card was it?”

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. The big question is the destination; the conversation is the route.

**Alex Tutor:** Try that move once yourself. Two ways to reach question two on a call. Which one would you say?

> **Exercise:** Sofia's big question two is “Do owners ever pay for pet things in advance?” Which line should she actually say on the call?

**Alex Tutor:** Let's make sure that difference sticks.

> **Exercise:** On the call, Sofia should read her big questions out word for word, for example: “Do you ever pay for pet things in advance?”

**Sofia:** So the list stays on my page, and the call just sounds like normal talk.

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Nobody should be able to guess your list from the questions you ask.

**Sofia:** Then let me check my draft. Are these even the right three?

**Alex Tutor:** Good idea. Look at what earns an item its place on the list.

![A winding path passes small scenes of a chat, a cat and a shop, and climbs to one orange flag on a hilltop.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/three-big-questions-illustration-3.webp)

*You don't read the big question out loud; you steer the chat toward it.*

> **Exercise:** Which items would work well on Sofia's list of three big questions for cat owners? Select all that apply.

## One list per type of person

**Megan:** Can my team borrow your list? Next week we're calling the pet shops that stock CatChow.

**Sofia:** Hmm. My questions are about cat owners. Shop owners are a different story.

**Alex Tutor:** Right. Each type of person gets its own list. A shop owner can't tell you how Olivia feels about paying ahead.

**Alex Tutor:** But a shop can answer the question that worries us most about shops: how will they react when CatChow starts selling directly to their customers?

**Megan:** Oh. That one scares me. Half our revenue goes through those shops.

**Alex Tutor:** Then it goes first on their list.

> **Exercise:** Match each type of person to the big question that fits them best.

## Don't spend a question on Google

**Sofia:** Should I also ask shops how many cat owners live in their district?

**Alex Tutor:** Could you find that out without them?

**Sofia:** Probably. City statistics, maybe the shop's own reviews online.

**Alex Tutor:** Then find it first. Anything you can learn from the web, the CRM or the analysts, learn before the call. A conversation is too expensive to spend on facts that are just lying around.

**Sofia:** Like asking Andrew how long he's been our customer. I nearly did.

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. The CRM already knew.

> **Exercise:** Which item should Megan's team drop from the pet-shop list and research before the calls instead?

## Not everything from everyone

**Sofia:** What if a call is short and I only get through one question?

**Alex Tutor:** That's fine. You don't need all three from every person. Question one from Olivia, two and three from Andrew: together they complete the picture.

**Sofia:** And if I already have solid answers to question one from six people?

**Alex Tutor:** Then stop asking it. Pick up where you left off and spend the time on what you still don't know.

**Sofia:** That makes every call shorter.

**Alex Tutor:** And short calls are much easier to get. More on that next lesson.

> **Exercise:** For the data to count, every person you talk to has to answer all three big questions.

## The list changes as you learn

**Sofia:** After eight calls, question one has an answer. For owners with a shop nearby, running out is cheap: ten minutes, no drama.

**Alex Tutor:** So for them it's a vitamin. Anything else in the notes?

**Sofia:** Two owners have cats on prescription diets. Their food is often out of stock, and one of them drove across the city for it twice last month.

**Alex Tutor:** That's your next list. The old question one is answered, so it goes. New segment, new risks, new three.

**Sofia:** Doesn't that mean my first list was wrong?

**Alex Tutor:** It means it worked. Each list gets you onto firmer ground and shows you the next questions. A list that never changes means you've stopped learning.

![A person crosses a river on stepping stones, each with a small card of three dots; the stones behind are crossed and a new card waits ahead.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/three-big-questions-illustration-4.webp)

> **Exercise:** After eight calls Sofia learned that for owners with a shop nearby, running out of food is cheap: ten minutes and no drama. But two owners had cats on prescription diets, and one had driven across the city twice last month for food. Write Sofia's new list of three big questions for owners of cats on prescription diets. One line each; mark the scary one.

## Prep as a team

**Megan:** My team wants to add one for the shops: “Would you like to sell CatChow subscriptions in your store?”

**Alex Tutor:** What would you do differently depending on the answer?

**Megan:** Hmm. Everyone will say yes. It costs them nothing to say it.

**Alex Tutor:** Then it won't teach you much. Prep together instead: fifteen minutes before a round of calls, everyone brings their best guess and scariest question, and you agree on three.

**Sofia:** Should the developers come too?

**Alex Tutor:** Yes. They'll spot product risks the rest of you miss, and once they've helped choose the three, they'll trust the answers. That's **conversation prep**: short, shared, before every round.

> **Exercise:** Megan's team wanted to ask shops: “Would you like to sell CatChow subscriptions in your store?” Write (1) the big question hiding behind it, as a learning goal, and (2) one question a sales manager could actually ask on the call.

## Megan's list

**Sofia:** So Megan's team needs its own three for the pet-shop calls, chosen together.

**Alex Tutor:** Yes. Write a draft with them. And keep your owner list on your phone too.

**Sofia:** Why on my phone?

**Alex Tutor:** Because the best conversations aren't scheduled. When you meet a cat owner in a shop queue, you'll know exactly what to ask. That's our next lesson.

> **Exercise:** Prepare the pet-shop list for Megan's team.

## Turning the list into a discussion guide

**Alex Tutor:** Before Megan's team dials, turn their three into a **discussion guide**: a one-page plan for an interview with the questions you need answered and a few prompts to reach each one. It's not a script to read aloud. It keeps the call on track while the talk stays natural.

**Sofia:** What goes on that one page?

**Alex Tutor:** Four parts. A broad opening, like “How do you order stock for the shop now?” Then the three big questions. Under each, two or three past-behaviour prompts: “When did that last happen?”, “What did you do then?” And one closing ask at the end.

**Alex Tutor:** Before we write one, put its parts in the order they'd appear on the page.

> **Exercise:** Put the parts of the discussion guide for Megan's pet-shop calls in order, from the top of the page to the bottom.

**Sofia:** Let me try the scary one: how shops will react when CatChow starts selling directly.

**Alex Tutor:** Prompts could be: “When did a brand you stock last start selling online? What did you do about it? What happened to your orders?” Each one asks what they did, not what they would do.

**Sofia:** And the closing ask?

**Alex Tutor:** Something that costs them a little: a look at last month's orders, or an intro to another shop owner. Keep the guide short enough to glance at mid-call: one opening, three questions, nine prompts at most, one ask.

**Alex Tutor:** Your turn: pick the closing ask for the pet-shop guide.

> **Exercise:** Which closing ask fits best at the end of a first call with a pet shop owner?

## What to remember

**Megan:** Fifteen minutes of prep, and my team finally knows what the calls are for.

**Alex Tutor:** And the answers will come back to all of you, not just to whoever made the call.

> **The list of 3**
>
> - Before every round of conversations, write down the **three most important things to learn** from this type of person.
> - Pick the riskiest beliefs; at least one question should scare you.
> - They are learning goals: reach them through questions about the past.
> - One list per type of person: customers, partners, colleagues.
> - Research anything you can look up; don't ask it.
> - Not everything from everyone; stop asking what you already know.
> - Update the list after each round, and prepare it as a team.
> - Turn the three into a one-page **discussion guide**: a broad opening, the three questions with past-behaviour prompts, one closing ask.

**Alex Tutor:** Next time: how to use the list outside meetings, in quick, casual chats that people don't even notice are interviews.

- Previous lesson: [Scary questions you avoid](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/scary-questions.md)
- Next lesson: [Keeping it casual: conversations, not meetings](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/keeping-it-casual.md)

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