Big shoutout to Samuel for setting up this topic and leading the discussion! Great job!!!
What makes a discovery call great?
• Go in with an open mind
• Not just about qualification, but uncovering customer needs
• Research -
○ who are you talking to?
○ News items
○ Account exec - what are they doing?
• Preparation
• Once you are on the call?
• Technical conversation - what do you want to learn?
• Use discovery to determine how ready the client is for your kind of solution.
• SPIN - know what you can about their situation, don't appear to be lazy.
• Don't make your questions an interrogation
• Use context and stories to open up and capture their interest
Using forms to get the information outside of the meeting?
• Context is important
• Customers don't want it to be too generic
What types of questions are there
• Open ended questions (WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW)
• Have you looked into this problem before
• Be careful with WHY questions
• Tell us about your current state
• Don't overfocus on the one issue. They might feel other problems are bigger.
• What would be the impact if you could solve this issue?
• Finding out what metrics are relevant to the problem?
Immature discovery stops too early
• Don't stop if you find out your preferred problem in that customer.
How do you do discovery calls with people who aren't influencers or decision makers
• Part of good discovery is finding out the organization's key players and who you need to work with to solve the issue.
• Get to know them, and start mapping out the organization
• Work out who the key players are
• Learn about values & their culture.
• Metrics can also be linked to people & their goals
• Who would benefit if we improve this metric.
What are your options following a good discovery call?
• Move ahead in sales stage
• Qualify out?
• What is the next step?
○ Demo
○ POV
○ Offer?
○ Follow up on their questions
• Qualifying out is a good thing - it saves you effort on suboptimal deals
• Better to get out early, rather than waste all of your effort.
How do you walk away in the right way?
• Put them on the marketing list
• Record what is preventing them from being a customer now. What would make them an opportunity.
• Tell your product team about any gaps.
• Farmers - people who sell to existing customer base.
• Partners- don't want to let them down with their opportunities. Education opportunity & helping them better recognise deals.
Find out how they will buy
• Infosec
• Future steps
• Influencing them
• Motivational interviewing
Inception & Presales!