Most salespeople struggle to do a proper discovery

I bought > 10 tools for my team in the past year, and not a single discovery was done properly

Sales reps do not manage to go deep enough, let alone understand the impact of not acting

Many piss off buyers by asking lazy and ego-centric questions

Most salespeople think it is enough to hear “I struggle with onboarding and am looking for a solution to make that process faster”

When they hear something like that, they immediately go to a demo

🤦🏼

Or, the buyer says: “Just show me your product”

Five words that, understandably, pushes sales reps immediately off track – and deep into the nitty-gritty of their product

That is not only disastrous for the salesperson, but also for the buyer

This playbook should help salespeople to do a proper discovery buyers will love

And avoid the above situation altogether

Let’s start with four reasons why discovery is important:

1️⃣ It will uncover the magnitude of the challenge at hand and therefore gives an amazing means to have an estimation of the urgency for the buyer. Most of the time you will realize that the challenge is not that urgent and the impact not too large. That will help you as a sales rep to either go deeper and “create” urgency or at least to report that deal correctly

2️⃣ Salesreps build most of their authority and trust through asking great questions. Or lose it through asking lazy questions. We will come to those lazy questions later. Sales reps do not build trust through telling. That does not work the same way questions work

3️⃣ You do not want to show ALL features and functions to the buyer in the demo. You want to be conscious of their time and use it wisely. In order to focus on 2-3 key features, you need to know first what the struggles of the buyer are

4️⃣ If you cannot establish value first, your buyer will ultimately say “this is too expensive”. In case you experienced buyers saying this, and you were surprised about it, the reason is that you have not established value first

Now we understand that a discovery makes sense for both, the seller and the buyer. There are probably many more reasons why that is so

Let’s go on the learning journey together and cover some basics first:

👉🏻 A discovery call is usually the first scheduled call with a buyer

👉🏻 The discovery call can change slightly inbound vs. outbound generated. I will talk about that difference at the end

👉🏻 Schedule 30-45 min for the discovery call

👉🏻 Send an agenda beforehand (either by putting it in manually or by implementing it into your calendar booking software)

👉🏻 Your talking time should be below 50% for these calls (Measure and check it!)

👉🏻 NEVER use BANT for outbound generated discovery calls. Reasons follow

👉🏻 The key goal is to find a compelling (quantifiable) event that is a priority for the buyer. Everything else is nice-to-have

Now let’s go through the script you want to be using

▶️

Amanda joins the video call (let’s call our buyer Amanda)

You: “Great to meet you, Amanda – are you currently in Copenhagen as it says on your LinkedIn profile?”

Amanda: “Good to meet you. Yes, I am. Have you been to Copenhagen?”

(📝 Learning 1: Some crisp small talk that shows you have done some research (max. 3 min)

You: “Amanda, shall we dive into the topic we want to cover together today?”

Amanda: “Let’s do it”

You: “Great. Do you have a hard cut at 11:45?”

Amanda: “No, I have the next meeting only at 12:00 but need to prepare 5 min”

You “Sounds good, I will definitely consider that. Is it okay for you if we record this call? I will send you an automatically generated summary and a link to the summarized version of the discussion we have today?”

Amanda: “Sounds fancy, let’s do it”

(📝 Learning 2: Always ask for the time in the beginning – and record every call!)

You: “Can I make a suggestion for today’s agenda Amanda?”

Amanda: “Sure”

(📝 Learning 3: If you ask for permission, people will not be against your proposal)

You: “Let’s do a quick introduction round. I know already a lot about you but maybe you have some important things I need to know for the call today I could not find on LinkedIn. Then, I would like to understand the reason you are taking time today so that I can give you very precise information in a third step on whether and how we can help. This way, we do not waste each other’s time. Do you have anything to add?”

Amanda: “No, sounds great”

(📝 Learning 4: Set an agenda and give reasons why it is beneficial for all to follow that agenda. Amanda unlikely will follow up and say “I only want to see the product”)

You: “Okey, I will start with my introduction. What brought me to my company is….., and the reason I am still here is….

You “My goal for today is simple: I would like to find out together whether it is worth spending more time together”

(📝 Learning 5: Talk about how you got to the company and why you love selling the product. Then, state your goal of the meeting)

You: “I already know that you are the CSO at Acme and have around 30 salespeople according to LinkedIn. What else is necessary for me to understand?”

(📝 Learning 6: Show that you have done your research. Never say “Can you introduce yourself” without giving some more context. You will miss a huge opportunity to build trust and show your preparation)

Amanda: “So the reason I am taking this call is….”

(📝 Learning 7: Most of the time, if you do it the way above, participants will state the reason why they take the time. If they don’t state that reason, that is the first question you need to ask)

👉🏻 You: “What are your reasons why you are taking the time today Amanda?”

We are at a very critical place in the discovery call now. The success of the call will be decided right here. Amanda will talk about her reasons for taking the call. She will make some shallow statements like “I want to make onboarding faster” or “We realized that our methodology is not followed properly”

If this happens, make sure you always have these three tactics in mind:

1️⃣ Ask “What else comes to mind Amanda?” (they will come up with more stuff. And the more use cases, the better for everybody). Do not stop until they say “that is all”

2️⃣ Think and ask IMPACT: “In case you cannot solve that issue in due time, what is the impact?” Most salespeople assume impact but never explicitly ask. You need to hear it from them! If you feel uncomfortable asking, maybe this helps: “Besiday obvious impacts such as missing revenue goals because of slow onboarding, what other impact do you see?”

3️⃣ Summarize very very regularly what you have understood and learned. That will ensure you actually understand and most likely lead to more information

(📝 Learning 8: Always keep those tactics in the back of your head)

However, maybe Amanda does not come up with a good reason she took the call. She may say “Hmm I am just looking around and your message was interesting. I do not have a particular challenge”

If that happens, be prepared to show this one slide (yes, this is the only slide that can eventually be shown if necessary – but you can also talk about these without using a slide):

Go through the 3 main challenges you solve for similar other companies and ask: Which of these three resonate the most?

Then ask deeper questions and go with the three key tactics above

(📝 Learning 9: Use one slide with the key challenges to get something you can focus on)

It is really important to listen really well and ask follow-up questions about what you have heard.

Furthermore, it is absolutely key that you understand the distinction between “Ego-centric” and “Customer-centric” questions

If you use too many ego-centric questions, you will piss off the buyers and likely hear:

✋🏻 “Just show me the demo now”

✋🏻 “I know what you are up to. I do not want to answer all those questions”

Let’s quickly dive into the important distinction between ⭕️ ego-centric and ✅ customer-centric questions:

⭕️ Ego-centric questions:

• Only have ONE possible answer
• Only help the sales rep. There is no perceived benefit for the buyer giving that information
• Are not triggering the thought process of the buyer
• Lead to “Ah just show me the product” answers of the buyer

📍 Examples:

• How does your onboarding process work?
• How many salespeople do you have?
• What is the percentage of low performers you have?

Use those questions really really scarce. The more trust you built, the more you can ask those

✅ Customer-centric questions:

• Have several possible answers
• benefit the seller and the buyer
• Are triggering the thought process of the buyer
• Keep the buyer engaged

📍 Examples:

• When you think of that challenge, what are the impacts of not solving it?
• From the challenges I mentioned, which one do you feel the most?
• What are some key KPIs we need to positively impact in order to be relevant for you?

(📝 Learning 10: Use more customer-centric questions, and fewer ego-centric ones. Your buyer will love it)

One of the key goals of the discovery call is to find a QUANTIFIABLE impact on the buyer

Most salespeople try to find it with a bunch of ego-centric questions:

• What is the average target achievement of your salespeople?
• What is their target?
• How many quota-carrying salespeople do you have in total?

Buyers hate that approach. Try to find the impact through customer-centric questions:

• Do you think there is some potential in helping your worst performers become better?
• What would the impact look like financially?
• What are crucial factors we need to consider so that we can actually help some of your salespeople?

Same result

Better conversation

A buyer who is not pissed

And you understand what the buyer actually believes to be true right now

In case you have that quantifiable business case and/or compelling event to move on, you can summarize everything again and continue:

⏯

You: “Okey Amanda, now let’s look at how we can help you solve this. Let’s look at the onboarding challenge first. How can we help there?”

Explain how your technology helps to solve these challenges, and to what results it has led.

You may want to show a sneak peek into the technology – but only a sneak peek! Try to avoid that if possible. You do not want to go too much into details yet

Then you continue:

You: “I think it is worth our time exploring a bit more. I can imagine you are a visual person and probably want to see this in action. From what you have heard so far, do you think it makes sense to deepen the conversation and go into more detail next time?”

Amanda: “Yes, that would be great”

Book the next meeting, and prepare a demo that perfectly fits the challenges and impact that have been mentioned

⏹

What do you think?

I have seen this script in action hundreds of times by the best sales reps – and it worked in 99% of the cases

Do not let yourself be put off – guide the buyer through your process

One last thing👆🏻: What are the differences between inbound and outbound discovery calls?

A few facts about Inbound:

• Buyers have done some research in advance and definitely have a key reason why they want to talk to you
• Buyers are more open to talking about those reasons
• Buyers may already have a timeline, budget and decision criteria

👉🏻 You have to find out at the very beginning where they are in the buying cycle and then add a few more questions about budget, decision criteria, and timeline

And Outbound:

• Buyers are curious and want to learn more about the product first
• Buyers most likely have no allotted budget, no timeline, and no decision criteria. They sometimes don’t even know what they want to solve

👉🏻 You really have to set the stage perfectly as shown above and focus on those customer-centric questions. Buyers who accepted a meeting through cold outreach do not want to go through BANT (because at this stage, it is a waste of time. It is simply not defined yet)

✌🏻 I wish you amazing conversations in your discovery calls

If you are more like a listening kind of person, you may want to listen to episode #78 of Europe’s B2B Tech Sales Podcast