The Secret to winning that sales pitch, is Nailing the call just before it...

Hi folks! 👋 Doug here,

Everyone talks about solving a customer’s pain.

Unfortunately you have to find it first, and what you think your “Ideal Customer” or even “most people” may be struggling with may not be what is most important to the specific person you’re actually talking to.

Let’s talk about Discovery.

Discovery meetings are often described as your opportunity to see if your solution is a fit. A healthier, more accurate description would be:
Your opportunity to gather any information you may need to more precisely serve the customer.

Ok - demo or not… if you’re talking to customers, discovery is vital.
It’s the meeting BEFORE the big pitch.
You need to make sure the discovery meeting is ALL ABOUT your customer. It’s their time to talk about what is important to them.

This is the only way you can be truly prescriptive, and OVER DELIVER on the pitch. It’s how you make it a no brainer to choose you.

Taking the time to understand your prospect’s business builds trust in YOU and your solution.

Here’s the HARDEST thing about running a good discovery meeting:

YOUR offerings should NOT come up at all.
The disco meeting (that’s the cool way to say discovery meeting) is NOT your chance to validate that your solution fits.

You can do that later, without the customer sitting in front of you. This is about learning what their day to day is like, and trying to uncover real everyday pain.

Thinking about how to solve that pain comes later. Keep YOUR stuff out of this meeting.

And here’s the 2nd HARDEST thing about running a good discovery meeting:

You should not be doing the talking.

Customer discovery is a fundamental of solution based selling. It’s a topic that people get passionate about. Books have been written, frameworks devised, courses sold.

In my experience, doing it well really comes down to one thing… 
Genuine Curiosity.
Talking to customers we are given an amazing opportunity. We are invited into their business, health, family, faith, finances, education, etc. Whatever your niche, take advantage of this incredible learning opportunity and dig in!

Some of my favorite discovery questions stem from me geeking out about their business more than trying to fit them into a particular solution:

• Walk me through a typical day for you, what’s the process for XYZ like?

• Why that process? Why do you do it that way?

• Do you like the process? What is awesome about, and what isn’t?

• How’s it working?

• How do you know?

• What happens if you get the flu or want to take a break?

Once you get as much great discovery as you can, you’re going to take it back to your HQ and start to design a solution presentation for them.
Specifically for them.

When you get back in front of them, you’re going to Wow them with a pitch that isn’t about you or your solution. It’s about them and how great things are going to be when their pain is solved.

And they trust you.
And you close the deal.

Ok here are some tips for running a good disco meeting

1st) Start calling them disco meetings.
All the cool kids are doing it.

2nd) Do NOT MENTION your offering or solution.
This isn’t about you in the slightest. I know I’ve mentioned this already.
It’s that important. Solutioning comes later.

3rd) Have a list of questions
The meeting isn’t about you, but you DO know which things you usually need to know. It’s ok to prepare for these. Build a list of “conversation areas” and “Questions to cover” But….

4th) Don’t use the list of questions
Let the conversation take you TO your topics, not the other way around. (see the section above about Genuine Curiosity)

5th) Ok MAYBE use the list of questions
when there’s a lull in the conversation or a topic feels exhausted THEN go the list. Don’t be shy about it. Look at the list and say something like ”ok… what else did I want make sure we covered? …”
You’re talking to a regular human person. It’s ok

6th) Take good notes
Take good notes. If the customer is ok with it, ask if you can record the meeting so that you can focus now and take notes later.
Star important items as you go.
You’ll thank yourself late when you are going through your notes to prepare that killer presentation!

7th) Recap any appropriate starred items.
Highlight some of your starred take-aways with the customer before ending the call. Take this opportunity to validate your understanding.

This is also a great value-add way to show you were thoughtfully listening.
It builds trust - you’re showing you want to get it right

Now that you’ve collected some GREAT discovery data… the real work begins.

In future issues we’ll dig into how you turn all that discovery into a presentation / demo plan. After all If a client gives you time for a discovery session you better not come back and waste their time with the same generic pitch you give everyone.

If you want to stand out…
Don’t be like everyone else.

Previously on @DugLvlsUp:

If you want to chat more about this the twitter thread is below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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[ Twitter Thread ]

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☝ Thanks, You’re the Best! 😁
~Doug