Why Deep Client Discovery is the Key to Sales and Coaching Success

There’s a mistake that many salespeople, consultants, coaches and even customer success professionals make when working with clients: they jump straight to solutions without deeply understanding the problem.

They think they know what the client needs. They assume they’ve seen it before. They believe their experience gives them an instant pass to offer advice.

But the real power in working with clients isn’t in knowing the answer right away—it’s in asking the right questions, uncovering the real challenges, and mapping out a solution that aligns every function in their business.

The Power of Deep Discovery

Last week, I spent a full day inside a client's business, conducting a deep sales discovery session. But this wasn’t just with their sales team. To truly understand their challenges, I worked with multiple teams across the organisation:

? New Business Development – Understanding how they identify and engage with potential customers, their sales cycles, and their biggest roadblocks to closing deals.

? International Teams – Unpacking the geographical challenges of selling across different markets and regions.

? Marketing – How they create awareness, build demand, and engage customers at the earliest stages of the journey.

? Go-to-Market Team – How they shape the proposition, position their solutions, and ensure the right message reaches the right audience.

? Leadership & CEO – What are the strategic priorities from the top? How do those align (or misalign) with the day-to-day sales and customer experience teams?

? Customer Success & Key Account Teams – The people responsible for making sure customers have the best experience possible. Their insights reveal the real issues that impact customer retention and long-term value.

Uncovering the Patterns That Drive Success

What became clear—something I see in almost every organisation—is that while there are common goals across these teams, there are also huge differences in what they need to be successful.

Marketing wants better early engagement and awareness-building. Sales needs clearer propositions and stronger pipeline momentum. Customer success wants more alignment between sales promises and delivery. Leadership wants scalability and predictable revenue growth.

The challenge? Internally, they struggle to bring all these pieces together. Each team works in its own world, seeing only a part of the bigger picture. That’s where an external consultant provides real value—not just by offering expertise, but by connecting the dots that the business itself is too close to see.

Why Most Businesses Can’t See Their Own Challenges Clearly

Even the most well-run businesses have blind spots.

When you’re inside an organisation, it’s easy to assume that the problems you face are unique—but they rarely are. The disconnects between marketing and sales, between leadership’s vision and day-to-day execution, between customer success and revenue growth—these are common across industries, business sizes, and markets.

But it takes an outside perspective to piece them together and say, "Here’s what’s really happening, and here’s how to fix it."

That’s exactly what I’ve spent 32 years mastering.

• Selling into different businesses, different industries, and different customer types.
• Working with fast-moving consumer products that require tactical, rapid decision-making.
• Selling large-scale transformation projects that require 12–24 months of deep partnership with a client.
• Driving complex sales cycles that include software solutions, capital equipment, licensing models, and integrated service offerings.
• Understanding how subscription and payment models must align with customer value.

The Consultant's Role: Bringing Clarity, Not Just Answers

The biggest lesson I would share with my younger self in sales?

Stop focusing on the pitch. Start focusing on being a consultant & coach to your customer.

When I run deep discovery with clients, I have frameworks and principles to guide me—but I’m not coming in with a predefined answer. Instead, I focus on asking the right questions, challenging assumptions, and helping the client see their business in a way they never have before.

The Hardest but Most Valuable Part of Selling

This kind of work isn’t easy. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.

It requires:

? The ability to ask the tough questions—the ones that make clients pause and rethink their approach.

? A structured but flexible process to adapt to different business needs.

? The willingness to challenge assumptions and push for better clarity.

? The expertise to connect strategy with execution, ensuring that solutions aren’t just ideas but tangible, transformational changes.

The Real Value of Deep Discovery

At the end of this discovery day, my client walked away with:

? A clear roadmap that aligns every function in the business.

? A program that meets the needs of each team while driving company-wide consistency.

? A deep understanding of what’s really driving their challenges—and how to fix them.

That’s why this kind of work is so powerful.

Most organisations are so busy doing the work that they don’t have time to step back and ask:

• Are we actually aligned?
• Are we solving the right problems?
• Are we missing hidden opportunities?

Why This Approach is a Competitive Advantage

The best salespeople, consultants, and business leaders aren’t just experts in what they sell. They’re experts in understanding their customers better than anyone else.

Because when you take the time to go deep, to work across functions, and to truly map out what a client needs to succeed, you’re not just selling a product or a service.

You’re creating real transformation.

And that’s what customers value the most.

Your Turn: How Deep Are You Going with Your Clients?

If you're in sales, consulting, or leadership, I challenge you to ask yourself:

? Are you really understanding your client’s full business challenges?

? Are you going deep enough to connect the dots they can’t see?

? Are you bringing clarity—or just pitching solutions?

Share your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear your experiences.

Feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss how I could help you and your team to accelerate growth this year.

You can learn more about building a winning business team in the best-selling book ‘Inspire, Influence, Sell’. If you’re in a leadership role you will find ‘Coaching Leaders’ equally valuable. If you prefer a more hands on approach to learning, you can enrol on our Inspire Sales Academy or Coaching Leaders Academy courses.

Find out more here:?

https://focus4growth.co.uk/inspire-sales-academy/

https://focus4growth.co.uk/coaching-leaders-academy/

?If you’d like to contact Justin directly his email is?[email protected].

You can connect with Justin and access some of the Focus4growth resources here:?https://linktr.ee/JustinLeigh