Discovery sales calls can be daunting; however, they are the central plank to uncovering if an opportunity exists for your product or service with the customer. That said, a discovery sales call is a great opportunity to understand your prospects’ business and their challenges and introduce yourself to them. It is important to note that usually salespeople get one shot at these types of sales conversations. This is your stage to build credibility, show that you care about their business, and take the first steps in creating value, which will set you on the sales process path.
Think of the answers you receive from the sales questions as the framework upon which you will build your value proposition and proposal. If the framework is weak, not constructed properly, or vague, it will fall. This is the difference between a sale that flounders on rocks and a deal that builds a successful relationship.
The Purpose of Needs Discovery
To be really successful in sales, it’s important to know what your buyer needs. To maximize your ROSE (Return On Sales Effort), there is no point in wasting your precious time trying to sell to a company that has no need or is not in the market for what you are offering. Asking powerful sales discovery questions is a key part of the sales process. The right questions allow you to uncover opportunities and craft a solution that’s relevant and effective.
Discovery Sales Call Checklist- Before the call.
It begins with researching the person (and the company) you will be having the conversation with. If your company has already had conversations with that person or others at their company, review those notes to find out what they have said they care about. Check their website and LinkedIn for insights on news, announcements, product and market information, and personal notes on the person. Make a note of these, so you can show that you care. So,
- Find some time to research about your prospect.
- Draft a discovery call script that builds on your expertise
- Jot down a list of questions that aligns with the buyer journey
- Make sure you schedule calls after considering all the possible factors
- Set a clear agenda for discovery calls
- Be ready to answer questions or objections
Discovery Call Checklist - During the call.
Every great meeting or discovery call accomplishes three things. It sets the expectations of what you’ll accomplish, the time you have allotted to meet, and the end goal of the meeting. Sales discovery calls need to be two-way conversations, not one-way sales pitches. The prospect needs to know they are being understood, they are being listened to, they are the priority, and they feel that their concerns will be addressed.
- Open the call conversationally and confidently.
- Introduce yourself briefly.
- Demonstrate your industry and product knowledge
- Be ready to answer questions or objections
- Prepare to correctly frame your pricing
- Build trust with customer testimonials and proof
- Keep to your scheduled time
- Schedule your next steps
- Build rapport (This part will be based on the research you did earlier.)
- Provide helpful resources
- Get them to open and dig deeper into their pain points
Use the three types of questions for powerful needs discovery:
A. Broad open-ended questions: These get people to open up and start talking.
B. Specific open-ended questions: These uncover latent needs that buyers may not be aware of.
C. Closed-ended questions: These are great for diagnosis and uncovering needs that buyers may not yet perceive as a problem.
Expert Tip on Opening A Sales Meeting or Call.
Thank the prospect for their time, and then quickly move on to tell the prospect what you plan to cover during the meeting/call. Then ask, “What else do you expect to hear or get out of today’s meeting?”
This open-ended question is deceptively powerful. It will cause your prospect to pause for an instant, and if they answer, it’s usually their number one priority or issue they want to solve. Learning their top focus in the first 90 seconds of a call is incredibly valuable.
Here is a list of discovery questions you can ask to uncover needs and opportunities.
- To help me understand your expectations, when you look back at this meeting and think, “That was time well spent,” what would we have covered? The professional way to run a meeting is to make sure you cover exactly what matters to the buyer. Plus, this question gives you a steer on the future outcomes the prospect wants to achieve, which ensures you’re not only focusing on pain points or challenges.
- Why isn’t this particular technology/service/product/situation or issue working for you right now? What would you change? Many buyers are willing to talk to salespeople because something they’re doing or using right now isn’t working for them. It’s important to know what you’re up against.
- Some of our customers tell us they experience problems with A, B, and C. How are these areas affecting you? What do you think about them? This is a great way to establish expertise and industry credibility. It also asks the buyer to think about their challenges in a different way or consider challenges they hadn’t identified previously. The idea is to ask specific open-ended questions that show you know the area well.
- Where have you identified that is impeding you from reaching your revenue—or profit, or other—goals? Learning about obstacles early in the conversation is imperative. If the buyer believes an obstacle is insurmountable, it’s up to you to show them why it’s not and how to get past it.
- So, I can understand a little deeper. What goals and objectives do you have in general for your business? For this particular area? Finding out about your buyer’s hopes, goals, and aspirations allows you to focus on the positives during your conversations and uncover needs the buyer hadn’t previously considered but should.
- If the buyer set the meeting. Thanks for your time. What do you want to get out of our conversation today? You may already know why the buyer set the meeting, but it doesn’t hurt to revisit the question to make sure you’re on the same page. It’s also possible there have been developments since the meeting was set, so it’s useful to see if there are any updates.
- If you [the salesperson has set the meeting] As I mentioned earlier, I’d like to share a few ideas that have helped our clients succeed in the X, Y, and Z areas. Before we get going, by the time we’re done with this meeting, what else might you like to cover? It’s possible the buyer had something else in mind when they accepted the meeting with you beyond what you proposed. This is a good way to check in before you start talking to ensure the meeting is as valuable as possible.
- What’s your sense of what needs to happen to improve that/make progress here/change that? Knowing your buyer’s perspective on the situation and how they think it can be addressed will give you an idea of things like company culture, how receptive they’ll be to your ideas, and how to frame your solution, service, or product.
- What kind of opportunities do you see for improvement in this area? This is a great question to uncover both aspirations and afflictions. By getting the buyer to articulate the opportunities for improvement, they’re likely to talk about both the problems they have in this area—the afflictions—and their vision for what it could be like—the aspirations.
- What have you done in the past to address this issue or try to reach this goal? As you’re formulating your solution, you don’t want to suggest something the buyer has already tried and failed. You either want to build on what they’re doing or change it altogether, neither of which you can do without this question.
- Tell me about your business’s financial, customer-related, and operational goals. Are you having problems in [area as it relates to the product]? What problem are you trying to solve? Have you tried to address it before? Have you purchased a similar product before?
BONUS: 3 Open-Ended Sales
Questions to Keep Buyers Talking
How so? Understanding the buyer’s perception of a situation will not only give you further insight into how to address it but also a glimpse of the buyer’s thought process.
Can you tell me a little more about that? Whether you don’t understand, want to know more, or think there’s an opportunity in this area, digging a little deeper will give you the clarity you need.
Why? Asking “why” a few more times can open the door for new insights as you get to the underlying cause of the problem. This allows you to create a better, more durable solution.
Discovery Questions That Disqualify
Confident salespeople also ask discovery questions that might disqualify the prospect so that they don’t waste valuable selling time. Find out more about the decision process, from budget to schedule. It’s just as important to disqualify the prospect as it is to qualify them so that you maximize your ROSE.
Are there any roadblocks to implementing this plan?
Do you have any timeline in your mind for implementation?
Can you share your approximate budget for solving this problem and implementing our product?
Needs Discovery Questions For Next Steps
Lastly, ask questions that move the prospect along the pipeline. The next steps are to provide a solution and establish the next steps. However, before moving forward, be sure to ask:
- Is there anyone else who will be involved in finalizing the vendor?
- Do you have written criteria for choosing a vendor?
- Have you purchased a similar product before?
- What’s the process for actually purchasing the product once you decide on it?
- Are there legal or procurement reviews?
- Who are the end-users of the product?
- How can I help to make this process easy?
- How will this solution help you reach your business targets and goals?
- Can I follow up with you on mm/dd?
Sales Discovery Questions Wrap Up.
Hopefully in this article we have shown you how important it is to be thoughtful and disciplined about the sales discovery process and how to use various types of questions to determine if you can win or should walk away. The discovery questions shared in this article are just one component of a comprehensive sales skills package. A sales training course that incorporates all your key sales steps can increase efficiency, eliminate pipeline friction, and enable more effective sales conversations.
