A players are 55% better at Discovery

Too many Sellers are poor at Discovery, but there are easy steps to improve.

Discovery is THE most important skill in Sales. And it is often done really badly. But what is it?

1️⃣ In the early-stage, we need to determine if the prospect has a real need for our solution.

2️⃣ Mid-stage, we need to discover if the new people we meet have the same concerns as our early contacts.

3️⃣ Before a trial or POC, we need to be really clear on what matters to them and what defines success.

4️⃣ Late-stage, we need to discover the detailed path to contract.

At every point in the process, discovery is about

⭐ asking great questions

⭐ showing genuine curiosity

⭐ listening

⭐ finding the real concerns/pain points

⭐ creating engagement and interest in the solution

The Ebsta report does a nice job of setting this out.

But… 💣💣💣💣

I repeatedly find that experienced sales people do a poor job in discovery.

😱 They jump into a sales deck.

😱 They ask machine gun questions without digging into the responses.

😱 They do not follow-up when the prospect makes a great point.

😱 They get to the end of the call with no next step.

And… 💣💣💣💣

😞 Way too often they overestimate the success of the conversation.

😞 They think it went well, when actually they had a nice chat and identified no real pain.

😞 Or maybe there was some pain, but the person they are speaking to isn’t interested in urgently pursuing the conversation.

How do I know this? I’ve listened to many calls in Gong, Glyphic, Fathom, etc. I’ve gone through training with AEs many times. I consistently hear the same issues in the calls and consistently see the same overconfidence in reviewing them.

Golden rules:

⭐ Ensure you are speaking less than half the time.

⭐ Ask a single straightforward question and then be quiet.

⭐ Listen to the answer and ask follow-ups. If nothing else there are great standard options: “Could you tell me a bit more about that?”, “ Sounds like that’s quite impactful, what problems is it causing?”

⭐ Leave a good five minutes to agree next steps.