“The whole point of the disco call is to reduce time and either qualify or disqualify the customer.” – Alex Young in today’s Tip 1158
How do you run your discovery call?
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Alex Young on Youtube
The Human Performance Podcast
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Alex Young. Alex is a surgeon turned human performance expert, who specializes in revolutionizing the way people learn, train, and perform through immersive tech. His startup, Virti, enables organizations to build VR/AR tools to improve how employees learn skills. Virti was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2021. Here’s Alex:
Alex Young: Hey salespeople, discovery calls are the perfect time to act like a doctor and diagnose your prospect’s needs and probe their pain to set up your solution. The rule of thumb for a discovery call should always be to listen more than you talk. Remember, at least 50% of your prospects aren’t a good fit for what you’re selling. And the whole point of the disco call is for you to learn as much about the prospect as possible. With a successful discovery call centering the conversation around the prospect, their pain points, and how your solution will help them. This mindset will then give you more insight to effectively qualify or disqualify them.
Now, numerous studies have shown the power of the talk to listen ratio. SalesHacker found that the highest yielding B2B sales conversations hovered around a 43% to 57% talk to listen ratio, with the top-performing salespeople speaking even less than this. The best way to make sure your prospect talks more than you do is to ask questions, but you need to make sure that they are the right questions. Instead of using rapid-fire questions at your prospect right from the start, you should aim to distribute your questions evenly across the sales call with more open questions asked at the beginning. Your goal is to use these open-end sales questions that involve in-depth explanations so you can grasp as much information as possible to tailor your sales pitch around the needs of the customer. Remember, various studies have shown the top reasons why deals fall apart, being budget, timing and decision making, which tells you that you need to address these issues sooner rather than later.
Now, if the prospect is a good fit, you’ll understand their pain points and like a doctor, prescribe your offering as the ideal solution. If you can’t do this, then your solution probably isn’t the right fit. But don’t beat yourself up too much because remember, the whole point of the disco call is to reduce time and either qualify or disqualify the customer. And if you’re disqualifying people, that’s fine too. Since you’ve listened to the prospect speak about their pain points for a large portion of the call, you’re now equipped with the information you need to explain why and how your solution will solve these problems for them. Connect your prospect’s pain points to specific features and explain how your solution will solve these. This is the perfect time to offer up case studies or testimonials of similar companies that struggled with similar issues but have since solved them by using your solution. Relate the case studies to the issues discussed, discuss the ROI customers are currently achieving, and have these close by for reference.
Now, not all prospects will follow along with your questions even if you take control of the conversation. It’s your job to guide the prospect through the call, extracting key information that allows you to offer insight and see if you can help them. This is exactly what doctors do in a clinic environment where they have limited amounts of time to see a huge amount of patients and make sure they get them through to the correct treatment options. Common objections that customers might use to derail your conversation can be answered using stock phrases that get them back on track.
For example, a common one is when a customer or prospect asks, I just want to get to the point and know the price well. To counteract this, you can have a stock phrase such as we offer a range of pricing options which would tailor to your needs. So if it’s okay, I’d like to ask you a few more questions before we get going through the price. This allows you to spend time discussing the value of your offering and making sure that it resonates with the needs of the customer and that they’re fully qualified before you move things towards pricing.
Scott Ingram: For links to subscribe to Alex’s YouTube channel and podcast, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1158 and we’ll have both of those links for you. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!