[See original article for deeper dive]

Step #1: First and foremost, you don’t want to be ‘that’ salesperson who asks about things they could have easily found on the internet. Therefore, you’ve to prepare yourself prior and carry out pre-call research.

Step #2: After thorough exploration, you take a look at your call prep checklist. You can go ahead and write your own. Alternatively, there are several downloadable discovery call checklists available on the internet.

Step #3: The next step is to kick off your discovery pain by asking situational questions to gauge your buyer. These discovery questions are aimed at collecting background information on facts about your prospect.

Step #4: Unearth the pain. From the information shared by your prospect, focus on their pain points, challenges, and problems. If you’re on a video call, read your customer’s reaction and respond with an appropriate follow-up question.

Step #5: Dig deeper and intensify the pain. Since you’ve unraveled your prospects’ pain, find out how serious it is. If not, make them be by asking implication questions. Probe area of dissatisfaction and use SPIN selling to turn needs into sales.

Step #6: Paint a vision. Move away from frustrations and start building a perfect picture of how your solution will do away with the problem. You can use need-payoff questions to reinforce your products/services benefits and let the buyer see what they can gain by doing business with you.

Step #7: Talk about the next step before ending the call. A discovery call is a process, therefore when you come to closing, schedule the next step. You can use phrases like ‘On that note, I recommend the next step to be…’ or ‘Based on the information you’ve shared with me, the next step should be…’

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