Discover the power of sales discovery for Technical Support

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we all know the stereotype of the dodgy used car sales person but in contrary to popular belief sales isn't about tricking people into buying instead it's about giving customers the solution to their problem whether they know they have the problem or not but the tricky part for sales people is finding out if their solution is a good fit for their buyers needs is that buyer actually struggling with a problem that you solve do their needs align with what you can provide are they equipped with the resources that you need to make a deal happen financially and discovery calls are designed to give you all of this valuable information and more with this discovery information you can better qualify leads craft the perfect sales pitch and you're going to close more deals so in this video i'm going to help you uncover your buyers actual needs and hone in on what the underlying business problem is with a simple step-by-step discovery question process we're going to be looking at nine open-ended discovery questions along with 12 powerful follow-up questions as well [Music] hi my name is will barron i'm the founder over at salesman.org where we make selling simple if you want to learn more about discovery questions qualification or any other part of the sales process head over to salesman.org today and check out all of the free content that's over there so let's jump into discovery questions and the place to start is what the heck are discovery questions well discovery questions are the questions you ask a sales lead during a discovery call and of course you've probably already learned a little bit about the prospect before you jump on your discovery call with them but your discovery calls going to help you fill in the details that you can't find online that you can't find on linkedin and give you a clearer picture about their situation and their needs and the answers to your discovery questions help you determine several things first off can your product solve the need of the buyer can you deliver your product within the buyer's constraints of timeline and budget what's the best way to pitch your product and if the prospect's answers line up well during your discovery call then they'll move on to the next step of the sales process and if they don't that is absolutely fine as well you can redirect them through a nurturing campaign or pass them back off to marketing because they're not a sales qualified lead so what makes a discovery question effective uncovering your sales leads genuine business problems what are the principles of great sales discovery questions so the type of discovery questions and how you physically ask them to the buyer will determine the quality of the information you extract from your discovery call and with the right discovery call questions you can really quickly and seamlessly gets to the heart of your prospect's needs if you ask the wrong questions you waste the buyer's time you may lose the buyer's trust and sync the deal entirely so what do great discovery questions like well first off they're open-ended you need to avoid questions where the answer is yes or no because you need to get the sales lead talking and you want to avoid them feeling trapped in an answer that you've set up via a question next great discovery questions are well informed you need to do your research before you call the individual novice level questions are going to torpedo your credibility in an instance but informed discovery questions prove that you're a professional and prove that you're worthy of trust from the buyer next great discovery questions move the needle so each question that you ask should always take you one step closer to qualifying or disqualifying the potential customer these questions allow sales reps to dig deeper and move the entire sales process forward and finally great discovery questions are ripe for follow-up questions as well because a sales discovery call should be a conversation not an interrogation of your prospect your question should add value to the potential customer asking relevant follow-up questions let you naturally uncover pain points and hints for creating a perfectly catered sales pitch later on down the sales process and decent questions are going to help you build rapport with your buyer which means that they're going to open up you're going to get better answers and deals will close faster than ever before so let's take a look at the nine discovery questions for salespeople i'm also going to cover 12 follow-up questions that you can use to extract even more valuable information from your buyer as well so the first question i want to ask is tell me about your company and your role and you got to be careful with this one because once you've broken the ice it's time for a little bit of sales discovery right and this question lets the potential buyer take on the lead and ease into the conversation it's an obvious question to ask and best of all people love talking about themselves so they're going to be excited to share with you so this is more to build rapport than anything else but keep your ears peeled for any hints about the prospective buyer hints like well do they have decision making power in this deal what areas of the business do they oversee and what difficulties have they been hitting recently the problem with this question and we've got to be careful when you ask it is you've got to have research the buyer you're not asking the buyer what their job role is because you can find that on linkedin you're not asking to buy what products that they sell because you should have found that on the company's website so you need to tell this question depending on the person that you're asking it to and let me give you a follow-up question here you can ask what specific metrics are you in your role that you just outlined for me responsible for and this is perfect for aligning your pitch later on in the sales process to what is specifically essential to this specific buyer's job next up question number two i want you to ask tell me about your upcoming goals and this question is an excellent lead-in to get more information specifically related to the prospects business it's a fundamental discovery call question so for example are they looking to save on costs streamline their processes boost their customer satisfaction well you'll find out with this question plus it's so open-ended that it keeps the conversation moving forward without you sounding pushy or sound like a stereotypical salesperson a follow-up from this could be hey what are your timelines for achieving those specific goals and the buyer's answer to this question is going to help you determine whether the implementation time for your product matches up for how long you want to spend with this customer and if it's worth investing with them if they turn around and say hey well this is my goals for the next decade i probably want to close this deal in eight years from now this is probably an unqualified buyer and you shouldn't spend too much more time with them the next discovery question is hey what's keeping you from achieving the goals that you just outlined and this might seem like a bit of a vague question but we're keeping things general here we're keeping things open we want to work out what challenges the buyers facing because if we can help with these challenges with our product or service we're miles ahead to get their deal done and this question also leads the buyer into what we call a challenge oriented state of mind so the more concrete these challenges become in the buyer's head and we can help them this is one of the ways we can add value as a sales professional to a potential customer the more valuable your product is going to seem if you can solve these issues moving forward so let me just recap that so for a lot of you there the clearer the challenges are in the buyer's mind and the clearer that we are in how we can solve these issues the easier it is for a deal to happen that's why some of these discovery questions add more value than what they seem up front so a follow-up question we can ask here is why are you having these problems in the first place the answer here to this question is going to help identify if the buyer's current solution is working even a little bit maybe not and if yours can solve all these issues in one fell swoop next we need to layer on a bit of pressure in our discovery call we're going to ask the question what happens if these problems go unresolved because setting up a what if scenario solidifies all the risks involved in just letting this problem go from ending the conversation right now from not replying to your future follow-up in the not too distant future it underscores the challenge that the prospect is facing and if the consequences for not solving this problem are pretty dire it makes your solution even more rock solid and appealing than ever before and beyond that this question also lets you selfishly that's fine to be selfish in some of this lets you gauge the buyers urgency as well you can judge whether you need to increase the urgency that you push on to your buyer or if they're in a pickle if they really need to solve this problem quick you don't need to add any more pressure just let them solve it with your product as quick as possible a follow-up question here could look like hey you solved the problem then what would success look like exactly this follow-up question helps you determine if the buyer's expectations are realistic and this is vital for you deciding whether you're going to qualify or disqualify the buyer based on this discovery call discovery question number five is who else is involved in choosing a solution and one of the essential aspects of any qualification framework in determining whether the person you're speaking to is an authority or not do they have decision-making power or are they just a gatekeeper who responds back to the actual authority so rather than asking hey sucker that i'm chatting to who's really in charge here this question allows you to uncover that information without eroding rapport without getting your prospects back up and the follow-up question here is so so valuable this might be the most important follow-up question in the whole of this video in the whole of the discovery process you're going to ask do you already have a specific criteria crafted for choosing a solution and this is literally the holy grail of qualifying and disqualifying information if you can pull it out of a buyer and some buyers won't give up this criteria willingly but if at this point in the conversation you've built up some good rapport you might be able to get access to that information and once you know what the criteria is for success the criteria to get your product in that organization it's a box ticking exercise you've got to go through take each of the boxes then hand it to the buyer and say hey we've done everything you've asked let's get this deal signed an additional follow-up question could be hey who created those criteria and this will give you a subtle hint at who the true decision-makers are within the account the next discovery question is if we can find the right solution for your problem what will it take to implement this said solution and the point of this question is threefold first off this question gives you a clearer idea of the process that's needed to get this implemented what steps do we need to go through to get a deal approved what departments does it have to pass through before we get things signed off and this information here is going to help you nail down timeline and a hint as authority as well second it's going to further connect your product with the idea of a problem being solved as an underlying premise for the whole of this sales process that makes it way easier for the buyer to say yes to you and lastly we're going to use the vital we we language in this question this puts you and the buyer on the same team you're solving the same problem and it's going to boost rapport throughout the rest of the sales process as well i follow the question here could be what are the main hurdles you see that's going to stop us having a smooth implementation this further clarifies that last question and it's going to give you an idea of any potential challenges any issues that may be lying ahead or you could follow up with hey what are your other options for solving this problem this question is going to reveal your competitors whether they be internal competitors of this budget could be spent here or this or that or there or it could be very literal competitors of hey this training program is going head-to-head with your training program and we're only going to implement one of them the seventh sales discovery question that i want you to start asking is what is your implementation timeline so getting a bit more into the nitty and gritty and by this point you've hopefully built some strong rapport with these questions you've added some value in your responses so asking this question more assertively and going hey how much time do we really have here is this even feasible is going to be more than appropriate here with this question we're checking for realistic expectations and we're also looking to potentially disqualify the buyer as well because if the bias problem isn't driving them all that much pain right now and they turn around and say the implementation period is going to be six months 12 months five years then it's time to end the discovery call and move on and if you want to move things forward if you've heard all the right things through these first set of qualification questions well a great follow-up at this point is hey are you ready to begin solving this today the buyer might say yes let's do it the buy might say no i'm not ready yet either way is absolutely fine what we're doing with this question of hey are you ready to begin solving this issue today is we're judging how urgent the problem really is directly succinctly we're not beating around the bush anymore because ideally we want them to be excited about your solution and if they aren't well it's your job to build that excitement and this question will tell you whether you are at that point or not last but not least what is your approximate budget now discussing monetary terms can be a little bit tricky so be sure to leave this question perhaps later on in the discovery conversation but but it must happen at the beginning of the sales process you don't want to go through the entirety of the sales process you've done all this work loads of content has been sent away you've had a bunch of calls you've presented and you find out that they're never going to have the budget to get the deal done fine leave it to the end of the sales discovery call or towards the end of it but the discovery call must come towards the beginning of the sales process you've got to get ballpark figures at the very least frankly inquiring about the budget is a necessity if they can't afford this project then disqualify them this deal is a non-starter a potential follow-up question here is hey is the budget owner a executive sponsor what we're looking for with this question is are there any senior level employees directly involved even if they don't make the end decision if you know that a vp of sales a vp of marketing a cro has to at least go through the deal or see a presentation you can customize your presentation to give them the facts they need to agree it as well and finally this is how i like to wrap up my sales discovery calls i ask the question how is this going to make your life better and it's essential to wrap up the conversation by helping your sales lead envision what your product is going to do for them how are you going to brighten their future specifically are they going to have more time on their hands are they going to be less stressed are they going to be able to finally attract the ideal potential customer will the department be able to boost their efficiency and meet the lofty goals that have been set for them post covered whatever it is you need to get the buyer to think about those benefits doing so makes your solution so so much more appealing when your buyer really envisions using your product when they're sold on this idea and they can see themselves using it each day they're going to be able to then sell your product internally and passionately to the other stakeholders within their account and the final follow-up question i love to ask to wrap up these sales calls is hey how can i make this easy and this lets the buyer turn the table slightly they get to start asking you questions pull more information from you leverage your expertise and it's a great way to start building more rapport the buyer at this point is going to coach you of what they need from you to make the deal happen and typically there'll be one or two things in there that you haven't considered yourself no matter how many of these widgets products or services that you've sold in the past every bio is unique that's what you're there for as a salesperson to close an individual if it's just a large b2b marketing deal it can happen without sales people involved this final question allows you to get that last little bit of information to make everything run seamlessly moving forward so there we have it a strategic discovery call does way way more than just let you see if a sales lead is a good fit for your business it also allows you to uncover valuable information that you're going to use later on throughout the sales process to deliver a customized bespoke spot-on sales pitch what does that mean for you it means the rest of the sales process is easier higher close rates and better commissions so i hope you enjoyed this video if you did make sure to click the video on the screen right now to continue 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