People come to me all the time to help them with what they don’t know. I’m thrilled when they find me, especially if they’ve come to me first (but unfortunately it isn’t the case) because it saves them from losing a lot of money to people who are willing to prey upon their lack of knowledge.
Here’s some quick tips that I can give in the industries I deal with:
Software Development
What do you feel is the best language to use for this project? (And why)
A lot of inexperienced programmers will say things like “this can be done in Ruby/Python/whatever language they know” simply because they are familiar with the language, but not be able to give a good explanation of why that would be the best framework for the project overall. Different projects lend themselves to different frameworks/languages, and a good developer will know that and not try to shoehorn a project into a language just because of their preference.
What else have you done?
If they are a software developer, they develop software, right? Ask for code samples, including fully executed apps that you can try out and what specifically their contribution was. Any reputable programmer will be happy to show you their work.
What is your preferred source control?
If they don’t have an answer to this, STAY AWAY.
Coaching
There are SO many people who call themselves coaches that it it can be difficult to know who to trust your money with.
Happily, there are certification bodies for Coaches, and curriculum that is approved for coaches to become trained to do what they do.
When looking for a coach, ask them:
What methodology do you use? (They should be able to tell you this clearly.)
What formal training have you received? (Note: There are some very good coaches who haven’t been trained, but it’s a good screening question.
SEO
There are so many people selling SEO services on the internet it makes me angry. Seriously. People get taken for this every day. And its one of the most common things people ask me to fix about their own website (give me SEO! I want more SEO!)
That’s not how this works.
If someone is trying to sell you SEO services, ask them:
“How much keyword repetition should I have on my website pages?
If they answer anything other than:
- Once in title
- Once in headline
- Two/three times in content
- Once in meta description
They don’t know what they are talking about.
If they try to sell you back links, targeted niche keywords, talk about keyword stuffing, etc, they’re relying on out of date methods that don’t work anymore and are extremely costly.
Angel Investing
If you are thinking about putting your money into a project and you don’t entirely know what questions to ask, that’s ok – it’s really neat that you want to diversify!
The only questions that you really ever need an answer to when someone is pitching you on a project that you are already interested in is:
- How will this make me money?
- Is this legal?
- How much money will this make me?
- When will I get my money back?
If the person pitching you can’t answer those questions in a satisfactory way, you might want to consider not investing.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/What-question-could-I-ask-to-determine-someones-expertise-in-your-field
Originally Posted On: 2016-02-02