Sales Tip 1846: Sales Discovery Process Walkthrough – Debe Rapson

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today, for Throwback Thursday we feature a clip from an interview we did with Debe Rapson in episode 11 of the Sales Success Stories podcast over 7 years ago. Listen to this:

Debe Rapson: I always try to start in asking general questions that aren’t going to threaten people or make them more uncomfortable, right? So I want to ease right into it. So I want to understand a little bit about how they are marketing organizations. I sell marketing technology, so how they are organizations, organization is structured, you know, what are the different goals that they’re looking to achieve in supporting the business? I typically ask broad based questions about their business. What is the company, where are they trying to grow their revenue, what are the key initiatives that the C level folks are pushing forward in the coming year, et cetera. So starting broad and then narrowing in to what are their challenges and what are their goals. And I typically like to ask the same question a little bit, bit differently, maybe three or four times because when I do I find that I get a different answer. So and I typically do that around their challenges and their pain points and what’s really hurting, what’s really keeping them up at night, if you will, in a less canned way than that. But I think it’s really valuable to go deep and to ask those questions a little bit different way because it nudges additional information out of them.

And then I’d like to very often to different areas, probing deeper around some of those pain points, how they support the business, what is going to make them look good, how do they measure their success, those types of things. My first discovery call is never any less than an hour where I’m just probing and asking questions and giving a little nugget here and there so that I’m keeping them engaged and feel like they’re getting something out of it, but really focusing on their story.

Scott Ingram: To find out more about Debe and for a link to full episode, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1846 Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!