If you’re a salesperson, you have to learn about your buyer. That’s a given. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. And too often, I see salespeople taking the quick and lazy path on discovery calls — the path that alienates and annoys the very prospects they’re trying to win over.
You might call this discovery, but it’s actually more like scoping — that is, determining the scope of the eventual job. And your buyers hate it.
You know what I mean. I’m talking about those tired baiting discovery questions at the bottom of every salesperson’s bag of tricks.
What is the main problem you’re facing?
What is your budget?
When are you looking to make a purchase?
And so on.
Related: 12 Discovery Questions to Ask Your Prospects In Sales Calls
Doing discovery this way gives discovery a bad name — when in fact this stage can be an absolute game changer for you and your buyers. I’m talking about something bigger and grander: questions that prompt actual self-discovery in your customers.
These are a little less easy to deploy but infinitely more powerful in their application. And once you learn how to use them, you’ll never go back.
How to prompt self-discovery in your buyers
Self-discovery is a process that unlocks the true needs, fears, and hopes in your buyers, allowing you to truly understand what they want and need. Here’s how to use the right questions during your sales calls to prompt self-discovery.
Step 1: Get to the root of their actual problem
When my kids are upset, it takes some time to figure out what’s actually going on.
They might melt down about not being able to find their sneakers, but I know it’s never about the sneakers. It’s something else, usually stress about schoolwork, friend issues, or maybe they’re just not feeling well.
Buyers are the same way.
You have to dig to understand what they’re really facing and what they’re trying to solve. Don’t accept their first answer. Typically, the truth is at least three questions deep. You will know when you get to the truth. This will amaze both you and the buyer.
Because here’s the thing: Sometimes the buyers themselves might not even fully understand what their challenge is.
In Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand, he talks about the external, internal, and psychological levels of any given problem. He breaks it down like this:
- Your external problem is the surface-level one. The kind of thing you share when you’re asked the first question. The kind of thing that brought you into the call with the salesperson.
Think: We need new furniture for our office.
- The internal problem they face is more subtle. This is the frustration underpinning the external problem.
Think: Furniture in the past hasn’t held up to daily wear. It looks cheap, too.
- Deeper still is the psychological problem that gets to the core of someone’s identity. This is about fears and desires.
Think: My office should reflect the kind of company we are: cutting edge and high quality.
Now, if you’re asking basic questions, which answer are you going to get? The most basic, surface-level stuff.
There’s no way someone is going to give up that third answer right away. They might not even know it themselves. But if you ask good questions — and keep asking, you’ll get there.
And when you do, you’ll really understand your buyer.
Related: Discovery Call Disaster: 7 Deadly Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
Step 2: Guide the buyer to articulate what happens if they don’t solve this problem
What does the future look like if they solve this problem? What does it look like if they don’t?
Great salespeople will help their buyers see the gap between where they are and where they want to be.
For most buyers, their problems have emotional elements. This is where patience and trust-building come into play. Don’t rush them. Work through this with the buyer. Don’t do it for them.
Try using the following script:
Ask:
- Why are you thinking about addressing this issue now? Why today instead of six months ago — or six months in the future?
- If you don’t deal with this now, what will things look like in six months?
- How do you think you’ll be feeling at that point?
Let them understand what a solution will feel like. Relief, efficiency, simplicity. Whatever it may be, which leads us to step three.
Related: First Sales Call: Discovery or Demo?
Step 3: Help them see the connection between what you sell and what they need
Help your buyers see a new and different future working with your company. Help them see (and articulate) how your solution can fill in the gap that stands between them and the future they want.
Guide them to understand how what you sell can help them. How they can achieve what they want to and avoid what they don’t.
This can mean you simply take the other tack:
If you take this action now, how will your life be different in six months?
How do you think you’ll be feeling at that point?
Suddenly, they see that you’re indispensable.
Related: 5 Must-Have Steps on Your Discovery Call Checklist
Your buyers might not understand their own challenges
The scoping-disguised-as-discovery questions I described earlier generate default answers.
Asking why requires people to think.
When you start using this framework as a guideline, you start reevaluating every question you ask. Suddenly, the checklist questions are no good anymore. They’re replaced by variations and follow-ups that dive deeper.
Here’s an example:
Bad question:When are you looking to get started?
Better question:Why now?
Even a ho-hum question like “When are you looking to get started?” can be greatly enhanced by stripping it back to “Why now?”
All of a sudden, those surface-level answers go away. Instead, you get truth. And, if you’re patient, self-discovery.
You create space for the buyer to actually think, for themselves, and come to their own conclusions.
When this happens — and your product or offering is truly the right fit — you win every time.
Edited by Kendra Fortmeyer @ Sales Hacker 2023
