Most salespeople treat discovery like an interrogation. The only thing missing is the light over the contact’s head and the duct tape holding them to their chair.
In the modern sales conversation, discovery is not gathering data—it’s about creating value as you uncover the root of the client’s strategic problems. The future of sales is here. In this new world, you may blunder by asking questions that you should already know how to answer. When you ask basic questions about your contact’s industry and their company, you signal that you haven’t done your research.
Modern discovery is not about asking the old and outdated questions from decades ago. Stop asking your contacts, “What keeps you up at night?” or “What problem are you trying to solve?” Prove your expertise and value by asking questions that help the client discover what they need to be able to make a rare decision, and get right on their first attempt.
There are a few key replacements you need to make in your discovery conversation to earn your client’s trust and prove your value.
Replace Qualification with Diagnosis
My favorite rule about qualifying prospective clients is that you should look for companies that buy what you are selling. If you sell tires, don’t waste your time calling a local pet store chain to ask them if they’ve considered how tires could improve their business. Following this rule means you are focusing on a narrow range of industries. There is no excuse to not know about the threats and difficulties they are facing, and the opportunities there for the taking. When you set a meeting with a client, you do your research on them, so by the time you walk in the door, you already know the answers to the questions that legacy salespeople will ask.
The worst way to open a sales conversation is by trying to qualify the client. By the time you set a first meeting with a contact, you should have a good idea about their potential problems and challenges. Part of this is based on your research and part of it on your experience with similar clients. This client should already be qualified. Your job is to diagnose their problem. That should be the main purpose of every question you ask.
Let’s compare the experience from the buyer’s perspective. Imagine you booked a meeting with a client, then asked them outdated questions about their budget and how serious they are about buying soon. There is no context for them to answer these questions because you haven’t diagnosed their problem to be able to understand its impact on their business or the scale of the appropriate solution. Salespeople who have been in their industry for some time will have an advantage when it comes to a diagnosis because they can ask about problems they know their clients are facing. These questions often help the client better understand their position and the root causes of their issues.
By contrast, ineffective salespeople believe discovery is about explaining how their solution is exactly what the client needs. Instead of a diagnosis, they frame their offering so it fits with the clients’ budget, timeline, and other superficial details that gloss over the actual challenges they are facing.
When you diagnose the problem using modern techniques, you can diagnose the entire problem, including its root cause and other important factors. Without providing a diagnosis and a greater understanding of the problem’s root cause, you may lose deals you should have won. And, if you win a deal but don’t fully understand the client’s problem, you might not be able to deliver. That’s the fastest way to destroy your credibility and damage your company’s reputation.
Replace Information Gathering with Insight Sharing
You may have to ask a number of questions during discovery, but most of your sales conversation should be spent sharing insights with your clients. Decision makers and stakeholders need to spend time with you to learn about the trends in the industry. To do this level of discovery right, you need to take your time explaining these threats and opportunities, and ask about how your client is experiencing them. This will give you both a chance to fully diagnose the problem and come up with an effective solution.
In a recent pursuit, 12 senior leaders spent two and a half hours in discovery with me. They asked a large number of questions. The person sitting next to me furiously typed up the insights I was sharing until I told him that I had a copy of everything, including the information he needed.
The major change in the 21st century is that our clients are spending time gathering the information they need, but they get to a point where they need your expertise. This same client asked me for another two-and-half-hour meeting two weeks later. I couldn’t calculate the huge amount of money they spent on those five-plus hours.
Replace Checklist Questions with Collaboration
It is okay to have a list of hard-hitting questions, but the goal should be to help the client learn something about how their business relates to the larger environment. Good questions cause a contact to blurt out, “That is a great question!” They are open-ended and get your client talking. Open-ended questions can help you and your contacts better understand the context of their problem. In the process, they will probably explain something important about how they do things that you couldn’t find through research.
Discovery is the best opportunity to collaborate with your prospective client. When you share valuable information with your contacts, you ensure you create value for the time your contacts give you.
Making these three replacements will help you make the most of discovery. This conversation is your chance to demonstrate your expertise, educate your contacts, and learn the key details you cannot get from research. Effective discovery is a win for you and your prospective client.
