Why Discovery sucks - & what to do instead

This Week's Edition

• Introduction
• The Article - Why Discovery sucks & what to do instead
• Tactic of the Week - Can you confirm or deny that?
• Blatant self-promotion

Introduction

Last week I wrote about how to prepare for a five minute executive meeting. I called it part one because the next step is a longer executive meeting.

In fact (with luck, preparation or whatever) you might go straight to a longer meeting. Whether your first long (i.e. more than five minute) meeting comes after a shorter one or is your First Contact you need to prepare for it.

I'll talk about that in the next issue but for now a departure, albeit a relevant one.

Assuming you're a relatively sensible sales executive (or sales leader) you WON'T be thinking about doing a formal presentation or (God forbid) a demonstration in your first executive meeting (unless they have specifically requested either - in which case I'd still resist).

But you might be thinking about doing "discovery". That's what the main article is about - because often (by no means always) people's discovery sucks. Read on for details.

The tactic of the week is related. It covers the psychological difference between asking someone for information and getting them to confirm or deny something.

The last section is a bit of blatant self-promotion - but it's only relevant if you're a very specific type of sales leader or sales executive. If you live in Australia (ideally Sydney) AND you sell high value stuff to senior executives it migh be worth reading.

Otherwise you can probably ignore it.

And as always please ask any questions or make any comments you want to. Gushing praise is always welcome (at least, it would be if I ever got any), strident criticism is much more fun. Whatever I'll respond to them all. And please "like" this on LinkedIn so my fame spreads far and wide. A bit like my midriff.

The picture is from the Day of the Dead Parade, Mexico City 2008.

The Article - Why Discovery sucks & what to do instead

I know there are lots of great salespeople who do brilliant "discovery".

The problem I have is with a prevailing view that some people espouse saying discovery is all about asking the prospect questions to uncover their business issues and needs. Here's the problem.

Let's assume I'm a "senior decision maker" - maybe a CFO, COO, head of a business unit or whatever. In fact let's look at a CFO at a mid-sized company with 1,000 employees. This applies to most decision makers but a CFO is a good example.

I probably cost my company around $1,000 an hour, maybe more, maybe less. So a 30 minute "discovery" session costs my company $500. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of salespeople that want to sell me stuff. Not just whatever you sell but anything that CFOs are involved in making decisions about.

Because of this I have to be very parsimonious with my time. Especially with sales meetings. Research shows that senior executives say that 80% of sales meetings they attend are a total waste of time. (The figure varies from 70% to 90% depending on which research you look at - but whatever the percentage you believe it's a sh*tload).

So here's my question to you as a salesperson.

Why should I waste my valuable time with you and answer intrusive questions about my business and my problems when you're a stranger trying to sell me stuff?

Or rather, why should I choose you to do "discovery" with over the other 173 salespeople who want me to do "discovery" with them?

If I believe you might understand something about my key priorities, you understand something about my business and you have something that can help me solve a problem, that you can bring me insights and teach me something useful I don't know - THEN I'm eager to see you.

Because not many salespeople can do that.

But it isn't "discovery". It's confirmation and calibration.

Discovery occurs before the meeting

If you're a salesperson selling high value stuff to senior executives you need to do discovery well before the meeting. Or someone does, it doesn't have to be you. In fact there are at least two levels of discovery.

Level 1 -Identifying the right targets

We talked about this a few weeks back. Someone (hopefully not marketing in most cases) needs to work out what your Ideal Customer Profile is and then research (or discover) which specific companies in your territory fit that profile, or are close.

One of the factors in developing your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is defining what business issues you can help with. I used the example in an earlier newsletters of someone who sells Accounts Receivable automation software. One of the criteria for their ICPis the target has to have a reasonably high number of reasonably comples Accounts Receivable invoices.

If they don't have AR (because they're a supermarket for example) they're out. If they only do 5,000 invoices a year and you charge 10c per invoice they aren't worth your time. If they sell iron ore to three customers they might turn over $20 billion but their AR department might be one part timer.

If they do 40,000 invoices a year but each one is a single line and easy to put into their ERP, with no collections and cash allocation problems they aren't likely to buy from you.

So "discovery" level one is - pick the right targets.

Level 2 - do enough research to get the meeting

We covered this last week (I think). In order to get a meeting you need to hit a sweet spot, a current priority. This enables you to craft a message that will hit home and get you the meeting. You may have a series of value propositions, depending on which business issue you think is most relevant to the target, based on size, region, industry, position, etc.

The closer your message is to something they care about the better your chance to get the meeting.

Level 3 - research for the meeting

You've got the meeting. They agreed to meet you. For a reason. It's hard to get a meeting at senior level. You don't want to blow it. Especially if winning a new customer is worth six or seven figures.

So it's worth putting in some decent research beforehand.

(That's my Hemmingway style - pathetic isn't it? Better than my Proust style though.)

I'll cover this in a lot more detail next week. But the bottom line is that if you go in unprepared or using standard discovery questions you'll leave very quickly & you'll be disappointed. Maybe with a sore bum from the prospect's boot.

You need to ask questions,for sure. But they need to be intelligent questions.

Intelligent ( and other) questions

There are many kinds of questions but for this article let's consider three:

1. Incredibly stupid questions
2. Mediocre questions
3. Intelligent questions

Incredibly stupid questions.

"There's no such thing as a stupid question" is a stupid satement. Of course there is. Here are some stupid sales "discovery" questions.

• What keeps you awake at night?
• What are your top three business issues?
• What does your role involve? (I actually heard someone ask an ASX 100 CEO that one)

The only possible answer to those is "If you don't already know that, you stupid little man, why in God's name am I wasting my time with you. Get out and never darken my door again."

Mediocre questions

Questions that elicit information that helps you but does nothing for the prospect. Such as:

• How many invoices do you send/receive a week?
• Do you sell on sale or return (you should really know this in advance based on the industry & your research)

Intelligent questions

These not only elicit information but make the prospect think and/or give them insights and/or show you understand their industry and are digging deeper to understand their perspective or specific situation. Or they get them to think "wow, yes, that's exactly my problem, this guy/girl really gets it".

For example:

"When I speak to other CFOs they tell me that their AR people have to work 12 hour shifts at the end of the month to allocate all the cash receipts so you can close the month off in time. They also say they're experiencing hight turnover and low morale because of the workload doing boring data entry. Is that a problem for to you?"

Or

"Your annual report says you have $50 million in receivables and your DSO have increased from 35 days to 39 days. Am I right in thinking this is a concern, especially given how the cost of money is going up right now?"

These questions aren'r really "discovery" questions. They're confirmation questions. They're confirming intelligent assumptions you've made based on your understanding of their situation, of their issues and on your research.

Confirmation & Callibration

So I confess. My headline was (sort of) Clickbait. It's not discovery that sucks, it's the implications of the word, which is why I prefer Confirmation and Calibration, not Discovery.

You want them to confirm your assumptions, or correct them, and to calibrate how big an issue it is for them. The more you can paint a picture that resonates with them the more they will open up - because they'll know you understand their perspective and you have something useful to offer. As I did back in 2001 in the example on the left.

Summary

So that's my take on discovery. You don't just want to discover stuff, you want to do it in such a way that you establish credibility & build trust and rapport. You want them to get emotional about their issues and hopeful that maybe - because you understand them and empathise - you can help fis them.

More on preparing for executive meetings in the next issue.

Tactic of the Week - can you confirm or deny that?

As we're talking about confirmation here's a very useful tactic based in human psychology.

People often don't like to give out information - especially to strangers. If, for instance, you call a compa ny and ask the receptionist "Who is your Head of Customer Service?" you'll often be asked "Why do you want to know?" or "We don't give out that information."

But perversely people are usually happy to confirm - or deny - something they think you already know. They're even happier to correct you. Most of us like correcting people, it makes us feel superior.

If you ask "I'm sending a letter to Elizabeth Smith and I want to get her title right, it's CFO isn't it?" chances are they will either confirm this, or correct you and give you the correct title. Or they may say "Elizabeth doesn't work here any more" in which case you can say, "Oh bother, I was hoping to speak to her ("again" if you're feeling naughty) - who's doing her job now?"

If you ask an EA what someone's email address is they may well say "we don't give out email addresses" but if you say "no problem, I know a lot of companies don't alow that. Tell you what, can I send an email to you and have you forward it for me" they're most likely to say yes - and give you their email address!

I've done that often - so much for not giving out email addresses, And chances are the person you're after uses the same email convention.

So the Tactic is - don't ask for information - ask them to confirm something you already know.

Blatant self-promotion

Do you live in Australia, preferably but not necessarily Sydney? Do you sell high value stuff to senior executives? Or are you a sales leader with a team that sells to senior executives?

If so, this might be of interest. Maybe.

Im semi-retired and I only work an absolute maximum of two days a week. For this reason I limit myself to two clients at a time. í'm also lucky enough that I only have to do stuff I enjoy.'

What I enjoy is coaching sales leaders and sales teams to sell more and at a higher level. I also enjoy helping sales leaders plan their sales and marketing strategy.

I don't like contracts so I do everything on a handshake (I'm happy to sign non-disclosures) and on a basis of "if you're happy pay me, if you're not don't".

I have two rates only and I don't discount:

1. $3,000 per day
2. Free (for friends & special cases) for a short period of time.

Right now I have capacity for one new client for two days a month - possibly one day a week for a short period.

Without boasting I'm damned good and you'll get back ten or more times what you pay me if you become my client. (OK I lied about not boasting)

If that's something you're interested in - and if you have a sense of humour and are OK working with someone who is a bit unconventional - drop me a line or call me. All my contact details are in my profile.