It is common sense that the discovery is one of the most important stages in our sales cycle and that it can easily make or break a deal.
In this post, I am going to share with you one of my favourite questions to ask during your discovery call.
And how to use your clients‘ response to this question to change their mind and avoid pushback.
One of the core objectives during your discovery call is to identify your clients‘ motivation to change.
Why are they looking for a solution, and what made them get in touch with you in the first place?
Usually, it takes some time and a couple of „why“ questions to get to the underlying business objective.
Most clients‘ will respond with a fluffy problem statement such as „We need to reduce time to market“.
It is your task then to dig deeper and continue asking for the consequences.
Why is time to market an important topic, and how does this affect your business?
Ultimately, they might tell you that they are losing significant market share because one of their competitors keeps pushing new innovations into the market.
This is the kind of information we need to gather.
And once you have reached that level, you can easily build your pitch and demo around re-gaining their market share by accelerating time to market.
Again, uncovering the underlying business issue should be common sense. The discovery call is not about you.
And be careful not to be fooled by superficial problem statements.
But my discovery does not stop here. I’m just getting started with my favourite question:
„Why haven’t you changed already? What barriers or roadblocks are stopping you from implementing a solution?“
The more you can learn about what is preventing your client from changing, the easier it is to help.
We know why they need to change – because they are continuously losing market share.
But in most discovery calls, we do not investigate further – why haven’t they changed already?
And rather than pushing our clients towards changing and buying our products with features and case studies, we can easily leverage those insights to guide our clients.
Those who know me know that I’m really passionate about the topic of buyer enablement.
My personal USPs is to help my buyers navigate their buying journey and anticipate any potential roadblocks.
Because far too often, buyers are getting lost in complex purchase decisions and buying group panels.
This is a great way to differentiate in competitive markets and will become increasingly important in presales.
Pushing your clients will result in pushback and increase their reactance to change. Even if you are addressing their business objectives.
But by addressing their roadblocks that are actually preventing them from changing, you can directly address the issues which are stopping them from buying your solution.