You’ve booked a discovery call with a potential customer. You’ve prepared your questions, you know your product inside out, and you’re ready to show them what it can do.
But a few minutes into the conversation, you’re already explaining features. The prospect answers your questions politely, you walk them through the solution, and by the end of the call you’re not entirely sure what happens next.
Sound familiar?
The purpose of discovery is to understand the person in front of you and their situation. If you get that right, you can have a much more useful conversation about whether (and how!) you can help.
When I coach teams on discovery, I like to keep it simple. There are three things I want to understand: pain, process, and priority. I call them the three Ps.
They’re not a script you need to follow in order. They’re a way to make sure you leave the call with a clearer picture of what’s going on.
1. Pain: What’s actually difficult?
Start with the person, not your product.
Ask about their role, what they’re responsible for, and what they’re working on. What does a typical day look like? What’s taking up more time than it should? What are the problems they keep running into?
You might ask:
- “Tell me a little about your role. What are you responsible for?”
- “What are some of the biggest challenges you’re dealing with right now?”
- “What happens when that process doesn’t work the way you need it to?”
Then listen. And if something sounds interesting, you don’t need to jump five steps ahead to a clever question. Ask the simple follow-up: “Can you tell me more about that?”
As you understand the problem, you can start exploring its impact. How often does it happen? Who else is affected? What does it cost in time, money, or missed opportunities?
Be careful not to assume the problem is important just because your product can solve it. Let the prospect help you understand what it actually means to them.
2. Process: How do they handle it today?
Once you understand a challenge, find out what happens today.
Even if the current approach is frustrating, the customer probably has a way of dealing with it. Understanding that process helps you see where the real friction is and what would need to change for your solution to be useful.
You could ask:
- “How are you handling that today?”
- “Who else is involved when this comes up?”
- “Have you tried to solve it before? What happened?”
Process also includes how the company makes decisions. If the problem is worth solving, who would need to be involved? How would they evaluate an option? What would have to happen before they could move forward?
You don’t need to interrogate someone about their entire buying process in the first ten minutes. But you do want to start understanding how a decision like this gets made, rather than assuming your contact can make it alone.
3. Priority: Does it matter enough to act?
This is the part that often gets missed.
A prospect can agree that they have a problem. They can like your solution. They can even tell you the conversation was helpful. None of that necessarily means they’re going to buy.
They have other things competing for their time and budget. So you need to understand where this issue fits.
Try questions like:
- “How does this compare with the other priorities on your plate?”
- “What happens if you leave things as they are for another six months?”
- “What would need to change for this to become a priority?”
And don’t assume that the only way to create urgency is to make the problem sound more painful.
Sometimes the more interesting conversation is about what becomes possible if the problem is solved. What could this person do that they can’t do today? What could their team accomplish? What would make a real difference in their role?
For example, an IT leader might appreciate a more efficient process. But they might be even more interested in giving the marketing team capabilities it has been asking for. Ask, don’t guess. The point is to understand what matters to that person and explore the possibilities together.
Don’t make it an interrogation
Discovery isn’t about getting through a list of questions as quickly as possible.
If you keep asking questions without offering anything in return, the prospect may start to feel like they’re being interviewed. At some point, give them something back. Share a relevant observation, an idea, or a short example that connects directly to what they’ve told you.
Keep that example clear. If the prospect has to work out why your customer story is relevant to them, you’ve probably lost them.
And when you do talk about your solution, start with the part that addresses their situation. You don’t prove credibility by listing every feature. You build it by showing that you understand what matters to them and can connect your experience to it.
Prepare questions, not a performance
Before your next discovery call, write down two or three questions for each of the three Ps:
- Pain: What do I want to understand about their situation and its impact?
- Process: What do I need to learn about how they work and make decisions?
- Priority: How will I find out whether this matters enough to act on?
Then put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. What are they responsible for? What might they be measured on? What would make a meaningful difference to them?
You can practice this with your team. Have someone play the prospect, run through a short mock call, and pay attention to where you make assumptions or jump too quickly into your pitch.
You don’t need to get every question perfect before you start taking calls. Discovery is a skill, and you get better by doing it. Go into the conversation curious, listen to the answers, and use what you learn to make the next question and the next call a little better.