What Is a Discovery Call In A Sales Process?

It is a no brainer that discovery call is one of the most important parts of your entire sales process. This call may decide if the customer is going to buy your solution or not.

The discovery call will be your first impression towards the customer and you don’t want it to go sour.

Now before we get down to understand the different steps that are needed, let’s understand what exactly is discovery call. 

What Is A Discovery Call?

The Discovery call is an open conversation between the sales rep and the customer. It is a part of the lead qualification process of the sales cycle. Here the rep talks to the customer to ask him questions, understand his pain points, budget, and overall needs. 

Be sure that you choose your discovery questions for sales wisely. You may also need more specific discovery call templates.

So, here are the steps generally used for discovery call.

Step 1: Pre-call Strategy

You don’t want to jump on the call with the prospect and then sit there with no idea of who they are. So, before you talk to them, do your homework. Research thoroughly. Take into consideration, the below questions and practice well before the big game.

• what business niche they are into?
• What is the size of the company?
• Who is the decision-maker of the company?

A sales rep can have a role-play before getting into the discovery call. It will help them boost their confidence and realize the points they want to cover when they actually get on the call. 

Consider this as a rehearsal for your play before the event. You practice and note your flaws. The same goes for planning and strategizing for your discovery call.

Step 2: Lead Qualification

You have to decide if the customer fits your ideal customer profile or not. If they are not qualified, then it’s better to disconnect right away, or else it will end up eating your entire productive time that you can use to close other deals.

To know if they are an ideal fit, ask the below questions that will help you decide better.

• What are you going to use our solution for?
• What is the annual budget that you have for X
• What is the process for X in your company?
• How much time did you spend on X?
• What impact does X have on your business?

There should be a limit on the questions that you ask. Prioritize your questions for a better understanding of your customer. Follow a certain pattern. Ask questions and then wait for the answer. Follow this with a discussion and then shoot another question. In this way, the discovery call will look like a conversation and not like an interrogation. 

Once you know the answers for the above questions, match them with the user persona. If they match, go ahead and continue with the below steps, if not, better disconnect at step 2.

Step 3 - Talk About Pain

If you have reached step number 3, congratulations you have been doing pretty well till now. Till now you have planned the strategy, researched, and qualified the prospect.

Now you talk about the actual issue. Discover the problems and suffering s that the customer has. If not, you need to explore more and then point to the minor problem that they have and make them realize how big they can become, if you do not solver them.

At this stage, understand the customer behavior, read his pains, and respond with an impressive follow-up. Because compared to all the other calls, like demo call, presentation, this is the only conversion that feels human. Moreover, discovery calls have only two people, it’s you and the buyer. 

Step 4 - Press Where It Hurts

Now you have almost everything that you need. You have discovered the pain points, already have researched their business model, and plus the customer is qualified when you asked the questions in step number 2. 

So once the pain points are discovered, talk about them. Let the buyer realize that these are some serious problems that they have and how important it is to address and solve them.

Use the below questions to intensify the pain of the buyer.

• How much revenue they are losing due to X?
• How does the X improve Y and Z of your business?
• How many deals you would have closed as a result of doing so?’
• What are the opportunities you are missing by not implementing X?

At this stage, your buyer is already feeling at risk for not using your solution. Since you have shown him a mirror of problems, you are going to ask him to trust you how you understand his pain. 

This is the decision-making stage. Beyond this stage, you cannot sell. Now let them decide what they want. But if you have used the above steps ell, the ball is already in your court and you want to move to step:5 directly.

Step 5: Talk Of The Future

In this step, you are building a vision for your customer. In this stage of the discovery call for the sales, you want to discuss the future and have an open conversation about the results that you can provide them with your solution.

Make them understand your product/service. Share the benefits that your solution will provide them. Ask the below question that talks about the values and importance of the solution. 

• How much money did you save every quarter by solving the X problem?
• What did you benefit from this deal?
• What steps do you need to take to help make this deal happen?

One of the important discussions in this stage is client testimonial. Discuss the case of a similar user that you had and how you helped them achieve and scale from X% to Y%. During this discussion, talk about the problems that your other client had and how did you manage to helo him. 

Step 6: Schedule The Next Step

You never end a conversation on a cold note. There is no end to the sales conversation. 

Make sure you take a minute and go through the topic that you have covered in the above steps. Summarize everything and check if you have not missed anything important as this will be your last chance.

Ask the buyer the following questions for a closing note.

• When will be the right time to connect again?
• How soon can you respond back?
• Is there anything else that we can help you with?

Conclusion

Discovery calls are important for any company. It is a first step in closing a deal. They also are the necessary functions for the ultimate success of your sales team. Add values to the discovery call and provide a way to help the buyer. It may be possible that the buyer may go cold after the discovery call so follow them accordingly. But if you have aced the above steps, the buyer is most like to come back to you again with more business if you have created a positive impression with them.