“Discovery” has been an important part of the sales process ever since I started selling (Yes, that was back when we had first chipped a wheel out of stone.) In all our training, we’ve gotten playbooks, done role plays, and learned how to conduct discovery and what questions we should be asking the customer.
Implicit in our thinking about the discovery process is that our customers know the answers, our job was to get ask questions to get those answers. We’ve been taught the all sorts of techniques for asking those questions and drilling down into those answers. SPIN is, perhaps, the grandparent of discovery questions, and remains one of the most useful ways to get those answers from the customers.
But we need to think of discovery differently. And, perhaps, this is the most impactful part of the discovery process.
Discovery is a key part of the customer’s change/problem solving/buying process. And it’s something they struggle with–too often failing to do it well. Too often, they mis-diagnose the situation.
We shouldn’t be surprised by this. After all, in complex change and B2B situations, they encounter these issues rarely. They have little experience, often not even recognizing there is an opportunity to change (missed diagnosis).
When they do recognize the issues, they struggle with, “What should we be looking for to better understand the situation? What questions should be be asking? What data/information should we be looking at and how should we look at it? Who else in our organization is impacted and how should they be involved? What happens if we choose to do nothing? What’s the cost of doing nothing? What have others done in addressing this? What if we mess up? How do we look at what we might do about this situation? How do we manager ourselves through this process? …….and on and on……
Too often, they don’t know the questions to ask. Too often, they have little confidence in what they are doing. Too often, they are overwhelmed with the information they get, when they start asking questions.
Discovery is critical to the customer’s success on their change/buying process. But they don’t know how to do it.
And, until they do it, we can’t get the answers to our discovery questions. And if they do it poorly, then we and they have a problem.
So what if we look at the discovery process differently?
What if we collaborate with our customers in their discovery process? What if we conduct our discovery with them? What if we learned and defined the issues with the customer?
We could offer much more, as well. Since we have worked with hundreds of other customers undertaking similar efforts, we can provide deep expertise in helping them navigate the process effectively and efficiently. We can help them develop confidence that they are doing the right thing.
Discovery is critical to both the customer and sellers. So why not do it together.
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