Where deals are won or lost: Discovery & Demos

Discovery, Demos

Who is it for?

For sellers refining how they diagnose problems and translate them into effective demos.

When to use?

Use when strong interest fails to convert because discovery is shallow or demos are disconnected from pain.

5 Jan 2026

Most deals are shaped before procurement, pricing, or legal ever appear. This piece explains why discovery and demos do the real heavy lifting.

Discovery is probably the most crucial thing we do in sales, especially early in the deal but also as you go on throughout the engagement.

Does the prospect have a problem you can solve?
Does it matter enough to invest time and money in solving it?
How are they going to decide that your solution is the right one?
Who is going to be involved in that process?
What might they do instead?

These are things we need to find out early and we need to continue validating them as the discussion continues as new people become involved.

The next stage is typically a demo, and I see a lot of bad ones!

Salespeople on autopilot just clicking through the screens.
Prospects drifting off or checking their emails because they've completely detached.
Most importantly, not addressing the key challenges which we identified in Discovery.

To kick off the new year, here are some resources that you are welcome to use with your team:

Discovery and Demo training frameworks

A custom GPT to evaluate each of these.

In both cases, just upload the transcript and get immediate coaching and feedback. Feel free to use them, share them, and let me know what you think.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment here or reply.

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Engage the Economic Buyer earlier

Deals often stall because the real decision-maker enters too late. This piece explains why engaging the economic buyer earlier improves deal quality and speed.