Without Great Discovery, You'll Struggle to Sell

You may not recall the classic TV show Columbo, featuring Peter Falk as a detective with a knack for uncovering the truth. Despite breaking convention—revealing the villain upfront—it was immensely popular. Like Columbo's methods, effective discovery is key in every sales opportunity.

Discovery is one of the most critical components of the sales process. It sets the foundation for a successful deal by enabling sales professionals to understand the customer’s needs, align solutions to their requirements, and establish credibility. Here are key reasons to know more and be better at discovery.?

WHY DOES DISCOVERY MATTER?

Sets the Tone for No Order Taking: Discovery ensures that sales conversations are consultative rather than transactional. It helps position the seller as a trusted advisor rather than an order-taker, setting the stage for a value-based discussion.

• Come with a plan (Case4Change)
• Know your personas and use cases (Value Framework)
• Lead the conversation with great questions (also Value Framework and Pain Points)
• Follow up on what you hear immediately and drill in
• Find the business metrics that align to their pain (will vary, but mostly predictable. — not the same as pain)

Understands and Sets Their Requirements: Through effective discovery, you gain a deep understanding of the customer's pain points, objectives, and requirements, allowing you to tailor your solution. However, requirements can be wrong or naive, sometimes set by competitors, and may not align with your product unless you proactively nudge them. This is a potential trap to navigate carefully.

Gives Metrics: Metrics collected during discovery help quantify the customer's challenges and the potential impact of your solution. These measurable outcomes build credibility and support stronger business cases.

Metrics will be discovered at the moment, not later so you need to become good at asking about metrics the moment the pain is brought up.

Initiates Champions: Discovery is often the first step in identifying and nurturing champions who sill advocate for your solution within their organization.

Your approach will tell you (good or bad). Great discovery wins champions over and sets the stage for success.

HOW DOES DISCOVERY GO WRONG?

Discovery can falter when not executed properly. Common pitfalls include:

Relying on Assumptions: Making assumptions about the customer’s needs without verifying them leads to misalignment and missed opportunities.

Being Too Transactional: Focusing solely on surface-level details without digging deeper into the customer’s challenges or goals.

Lack of Preparation: Entering a discovery call without adequate research results in vague or irrelevant questions, wasting the customer’s time.

Dominating the Conversation: Talking too much and not giving the customer enough space to share their insights and priorities.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DISCOVERY IS INSUFFICIENT?

Failure to conduct thorough discovery can lead to significant challenges:

Order Taking: Without discovery, the sales process devolves into a transactional exchange, reducing the opportunity to differentiate your solution.

Lack of Competitive Edge: Insufficient understanding of the customer’s pain points and decision criteria limits your ability to create a compelling and tailored proposal.

Poor Champions (If Any): Weak discovery fails to identify or engage champions who can drive the deal forward internally.

Technical Sale: Without a strategic understanding of the customer’s goals, the sales process often gets reduced to a discussion of technical features rather than business value.

WHAT COMES OF GREAT DISCOVERY?

When discovery is executed effectively, the benefits extend across the entire sales process:

Better Qualification: Discovery ensures that opportunities are well-qualified, reducing time wasted on deals that are unlikely to close.

The First Elements of Value of Change: Effective discovery uncovers the initial drivers for change, allowing you to position your solution as the ideal path forward.

Lasting Relationships: Customers appreciate the effort to understand their unique challenges, fostering trust and building long-term partnerships.

Better Understanding of Value and Negotiation Success: A comprehensive understanding of the customer’s pain points and goals enables you to articulate value clearly and negotiate effectively.

Easier Close: Deals progress more smoothly when discovery has set a solid foundation of trust, alignment, and understanding.

Long-Term Success with Customers: By addressing the customer’s true needs, the discovery paves the way for successful implementation, renewals, and upsells.

Great discovery is what makes for great selling. For all the reasons above, it sets the right foundation for an opportunity and gets a valuable headstart to MEDDPICC conversations. Take these things to heart, and you’ll see improvements in how you sell. Those improvements include how well you qualify, how well you create critical relationships, and how quickly your deals can progress after qualification. You’ll win more often and discount less. In short–you’ll make more money.

FIX YOUR DISCOVERY MOTION

Fixing your motion isn't a simple matter of educating your people. It can only come from a sustained program that impacts your managers first and foremost. This programmatic approach isn't the same for every company and requires buy-in from the CRO down (and involving the CEO wouldn't hurt, either). We do this routinely for our customers and would be happy to talk about helping you as well. Reach out at [email protected].