How To: Ask the Right Discovery Questions

Having first read the book in 2018, I admit to have been late to SPIN Selling. But I loved it nonetheless. It finally provided a systematic approach to questioning prospects and was backed by numbers. So much of the sales training I had experienced prior was based on anecdotes and provided basically no evidence of its effectiveness whatsoever.

Sure, sales trainers would point to how sales went up for some company or other after they worked their magic, but that still left a number of questions unanswered. For instance, were perfomance levels possibly even higher at an earlier stage? What other factors influenced the change? What were the long term results?

Discovery Questions: Theory ≠ Practice

So SPIN Selling was one of the very few methodologies providing questions to guide a prospect to discover the effects of his pains, even if he might not be aware of them. What fantastic value. But putting theory into practice proved to be anything but easy to me.

A prospect is not a robot just waiting for you to formulate your questions in the exact order that you want, immediately providing the answer that you hope for and allowing the time for you to further digest it. In reality, prospects will jump from one issue to the next, provide single word answers and not even mention a multitude of other issues because your questions don't lead them there. In my many conversations, I found it difficult to identify what question I should be asking at a given moment. More often than not, I found my attention divided between listening to the prospect, taking notes and thinking about my next question.

The result was that I missed important things the prospect said, had incomplete notes or, worst case of all, even confused the prospect with my questions because I had not been listening attentively. I got better with more practice, but somehow I still never really felt I could engage in a natural conversation using SPIN selling.

Enter The Science of Selling. David Hoffeld's book is a great read, but best of all, he bases his claims on a multitude of studies and experiments conducted by scientists. Some of whom have also written their own books (such Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely). So what does David Hoffeld have to say about asking questions?

Asking the Right Kind of Questions

David Hoffeld insists the quality of your questions is essential. Did you ever catch yourself asking your prospect a question of little to no relevance because you were unsure what you really wanted to ask and were looking to buy time? I have. Do that too often and your prospects will get bored or, worse yet, question your competence.

But it is equally important to consider how the brain is wired to reveal information. The social penetration theory, initially published in 1973 by Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, states that people will reveal information in layers - the more we know and get to trust someone over time, the more information we reveal.

Knowing this, if the questions you ask your prospects address the different layers of information, the quality of your questions will dramatically improve. Even in the short time period available for a discovery call. David Hoffeld defined three layers of questions:

1st Level: Introductory Questions

These are questions that will open up a conversation by addressing thoughts, behaviours, facts or situations. For example "What brought you to us today?", "What do you think about the latest developments your company is undergoing?" or "How are you dealing with how the market is developing?"

These questions are meant to set the stage in order to allow prospects to openly express an initial point of view, formulate their plans and provide other basic information that you can pick up on.

2nd Level: Follow-Up Questions

The purpose of these (open ended) questions are to ask your prospects to assess or explain the answers to your first level questions and provide you with a deeper understanding. Studies in both Stanford and Harvard have shown that they have multiple positive effects. The most important of which: they follow the natural flow of a conversation and don't take any effort to think of (e.g. "Why exactly is this an important issue for you?").

When fMRI scanners were used to scan brain activitiy, they showed that people also actually enjoy answering these questions. So you asking your prospects to share their opinions with you makes them feel valued as a person. Just make sure to keep your questions open ended, else they will feel like being subjected to an interrogation.

In addition, these questions also have the benefit of you becoming more open to the arguments of your prospects. Imagine that. An empathetic sales person. And there's more: these questions will also lead to your prospects viewing you and your arguments in a more favourable light because you are actively expressing interest. This, in turn, will make them more likely to engage in future discussions with you.

How do you formulate good follow-up questions? In my humble opinion: they will come naturally if you are present in the moment, listening attentively and actually interested in what your prospect is telling you. And I mean beyond using that information to close a deal and earn a large paycheck. Kind of like you are interested in a good book beyond finally turning the last page and closing it (pun intended).

3rd Level: Desire for Gain / Fear of Loss

Third level questions are, in all honestly, pretty much the same as the implication questions you might remember from SPIN Selling. Their purpose is to ask your prospects to quantify what impact a solution (or lack thereof) will have on the business. But by thinking of your questions as adressing different layers, third level questions come much more naturally.

Sales is all about change: driving it or avoiding it. So naturally, a prospect is always interested in using your solution to gain something (more profit) or address the fear of losing something (market share).

Most sales people focus on a prospect's potential gain. It's what we have been taught. Always think what the customer will gain with our solution that he didn't have before. But there is some very interesting research regarding loss aversion. Apparently, as discovered by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahnemann, the effort somebody will put into keeping 5 EUR is far greater than what (s)he will invest into gaining 5 EUR. So the fear of loss influences human behaviour significantly more than the desire for gain.

Knowing this, sales people should leverage loss aversion far more than they currently do. And not just by putting up a price that will (supposedly) no longer be available after a certain date. Often this only requires paraphrasing a little and/or framing the question as though the customer was already in possession of your solution. Here are a few examples:

• What additional effort would you have to invest, if you didn't have a solution with APIs as open as ours?
• With our solution you can grow by 10% next year as you planned - what effect would it have on the company and its future plans if you decide to do nothing?
• You already described your ideas on how next year's events could be organised using our project management solution - how would sticking with your current solution hinder you?

Wrapping it all Up

So, if you ever struggled asking your prospects the right question at the right time during your discovery, fahgettaboudit. Just have some good introductory questions ready, listen to your prospects and formulate the follow-up questions that naturally come to mind. Then all that's left to do, is to try and figure out what impact your solution could have. Easy as that.

You'll find this to lead to a much more natural flow of conversation requiring significantly less cognitive effort. And best of all: its effectiveness is backed by scientific evidence. Happy selling.