Proper discovery is the most important part of any sales cycle. Properly gathering information during this phase about your customer, their pain points, and decision-making processes will enable you to better understand their goals and challenges so you can help them get where they want to go.
Although it is true that in-depth knowledge of your customer, your solution, and the pain points it solves will enable you to conduct a much better discovery at the beginning of a sales cycle, you do not need to have mastered all of this information before you begin.
In fact, when armed with some basic questions, you could be dropped into any situation and still gather vital information—regardless of what you are trying to sell.
These are the five golden discovery questions. They apply to any problem, any customer, and any industry. If you can gather in-depth answers to just these few questions, you will be far ahead of 80% of other sales reps.
These questions should be used to facilitate discussion. Dig into the answers you receive for each one with follow-up questions. The goal of discovery is to learn and understand.
The Golden 5:
- How long has this been an issue/problem?
If this problem has just surfaced and is quickly gaining momentum, you will want to act fast to capitalize on that urgency. However, if it has been a problem for 20 years and the customer has never addressed it, the chances are low that they will act—unless there has been a change in leadership. - How have you tried to solve it in the past?
What solutions have they already attempted? Why didn’t they work? Are they feeling burned and hesitant to move forward with a new offering? Have they been trying to handle it internally but now realize they need external help? Have they never tried anything? Why? - How is this affecting your company?
This is where ROI calculators and business cases are born. Is failing to solve this issue increasing costs? Is it eroding revenue or profit? Is it causing customer satisfaction issues? Is it increasing employee turnover? Are they losing ground to competitors? Do they need to reach new markets to grow? Is it making them less competitive in their industry? - Where does this rank in your company’s priorities for this year?
Is it number one or number ten? Or are they unsure? What is ranked higher on their priority list, and why? This is a great way to gauge the client’s urgency. We all know they want us to hurry up and submit proposals right away—even if the project is actually three years away. Prioritize your valuable selling time accordingly. - What happens if you do nothing? (My all-time favourite!)
Your biggest competitor is usually the status quo. Very few people get fired for keeping things the way they are, but many careers have ended due to large, expensive projects that failed.
If the client believes they can get along just fine without making any changes, you have a lot of work to do. You’ll need to dig into their pain points and quantify just how much this problem is costing them. Sometimes, the pain doesn’t justify the cost and effort of change—but more often, the client simply needs to be nudged out of their comfort zone. This is done by showing them that their comfort zone isn’t really comfortable—it’s just familiar. And it’s costing them a lot of money!
You can sit down with anyone facing a business challenge and ask these questions. You will gain valuable insights into their problem and how they operate.
And if you're a brand-new sales rep, coming back to your manager or technical consultant with answers to all these questions after a sales call will quickly make you a rising star.
- Log in to post comments