A Discovery Call of Two Halves

A couple of weeks back I had a discovery call with what I would classify as a 'good fit prospect'. Now in order to provide a defence of my sales abilities, before I proceed to self-critique myself (!), in my opinion – conducting effective and powerful discovery conversations is arguably the most difficult stage of the sales process. Thirty minutes in which to identify pain or opportunities, gain permission to have further time in which to demonstrate products/services, build excitement, and ultimately build a rapport. Lets be honest, when dealing with senior individuals in this situation - you’re up against it. Doing QUALITY discovery is tough.

Anyway, back to my call. If I could summarise it in football terms, it was a game of two halves. The call was about 50 minutes long (despite only being scheduled for 30 minutes)…but more on that later. The first half was going as well as I could have hoped. I had managed to identify two or three killer pain points, aligned this with lost revenue/missed opportunities, and importantly – positioned my product as a means to solve his challenges. In my mind – I had the prospect in the palm of my hand, excited to showcase exactly how I could help him. I had a wealth of ammo to arm me for my no doubt impending sales demo. This guy had made it straight onto my hot prospects list. The call was going so well I started to demo there and then, rather than scheduling a future call in order to do this (normal protocol).

And then came the second half….

Something happened. The vocal tone of the prospect had change significantly. The enthusiasm had noticeably dropped. What had once felt a s**t hot opportunity now felt colder than the dreaded temperature of lukewarm. The call ended with no strong defined next steps…the nightmare scenario. I came off the call deflated and worn out (it was now 11:00pm at night). How could something that started so positively end so…well pretty damn underwhelming?

So I did what any sensible, coachable sales rep would do. I asked my boss to listen to the call (I had recorded it), and to give me some feedback. Lo and behold, a couple days later I received it. The feedback was telling. My boss identified two key coachable moments of where the call had swung in the other direction. In summary, for those interested, they were the following:

·     Time Management – the call had been scheduled for 30 minutes, and ended up being 50. I had kept the prospect on the phone for too long and ultimately suffered disengagement. Had the prospect wanted to get off the phone to rush to his next meeting at one or two specific stages of the call? Perhaps. Probably.

·     Not closing at the right time – Despite me doing the hard work of uncovering the prospects key pain points, I diluted the conversation by talking for too long. I had started to demo, rather than follow the sales process of closing the discovery call by scheduling a demo and making my demo completely focused around his pain points.

It was difficult to disagree with anything my boss had highlighted on my call. The ability to play back these key moments, self-reflect on what was happening at those instances, and hear the noticeable change in response from the prospect was telling. I had gone from being bamboozled about how the call had ended up with no positive outcome, to being completely self-aware of my deficiencies. I knew exactly where I had likely gone wrong and assured that I would not make the same mistakes again. The potential cost of burning through leads is massive. As sales reps we need to identify the mistakes we make, to reduce errors and ultimately become better at what we do.

Lessons learnt….Well would I have made the same mistakes again without my boss listening to the call and giving me feedback? Can we learn from mistakes and improve without the power of self-reflection? Is effective coaching critical to the success of a sales team? I’ll let you decide.