Some of the most successful businesses in the world, like Airbnb and Uber for example, were built on Sales discovery calls. 

These are meetings where you dial into a conference line with someone who has expertise about your industry to discuss how they can help grow your business. 

They're so effective that entrepreneurs have begun using them as the foundation of their sales process. This is why we created this guide to Sales discovery calls!

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A Typical Sales Discovery Call Process 

You've finally launched your business. It's been a long time coming and you're excited to see customers use your product. Your first priority is to start making sales, so you pick up the phone and start calling potential clients from the list of companies you generated from your market research. 

You have three hours blocked out for this activity today, Monday through Thursday. In those three hours you'll make as many sales calls as possible to try to find some strong prospects who might want to buy what you're selling. 

After calling the people on that list, if there are still more people in your target customer base that haven't been contacted yet, then it's back on the phone again tomorrow morning for another one!

As you call people, you ask a series of questions to help you figure out if they're the right kind of client for your company.

Some typical sales call questions might be: "How many leads do you need monthly?", "What is your lead generation budget?", and "How soon would you like those leads?". 

You use those questions as a way to assess their current situation so that you can determine how much value there might be in working with them. If they answer one or two of these questions well, then that could indicate that it's worth exploring the possibility of using your services for them. 

More than likely however, they won't have any idea what their lead needs are because no one has told them yet! It's up to you to ask them the right questions so that they will have a clear understanding of their situation.

Once you determine that they are someone who could benefit from what your company offers, then it's time to set up a follow-up call with them! But before you schedule anything with them, make sure you explain clearly how much talking about this first on the phone will cost them. 

If you're selling software for example, more than likely they won't be willing to talk about pricing or any other important details without first seeing some kind of demo or getting something in writing. 

So tell them up front that if they'd like more information after hearing some key points during this initial call, there may be an additional cost associated with setting up the demo and/or getting the proposal together.

Once you've finished your calls for the day, it's always a good idea to follow up on each prospect by sending them an email summarizing what was discussed during the call today. 

This is also a great time to let them know that if they'd like some more information or would like to see a demo of your product, then there may be an additional cost associated with setting something up for them. 

It's all about trying to screen out people who aren't willing to pay for your services and focusing only on those prospects who might want what you're selling! That way you can maximize your efficiency and your revenue!

While it's important to get off the phone as soon as possible so you have time to follow up, don't forget to document everything you did today in your CRM. This will be helpful when you get to this point of the sales cycle again because you'll be able to see what worked and what didn't work for each company that's been contacted. 

Use that information next month during your calls!

Once your prospect agrees on the price to move forward with working together, then you need them to sign a contract before starting any official project with them. If they won't, then persist until they do! 

You've done all the research, invested in getting clients onto the phone through lead generation, now make sure they are legitimately in the market for your services before you stop communicating with them. If they won't sign a contract then they really aren't a lead worth pursuing and you should move on to your next target.

During each sales call, it's important that you come up with ways to make sure this prospect isn't going to take their business elsewhere when you ask them about their current supplier of whatever it is they need from your company. 

You might make a seemingly innocent comment like, "are you happy with what you're doing now?" In an effort to be helpful and gather information, they may end up opening up to you about how much trouble it is for them to get what they need from their current vendor. 

This will give you valuable insight into whether or not they're happy with their current provider! After asking them about this, if they say they are satisfied, then that might be the end of your call. 

If they still aren't completely satisfied or don't have a very good reason for staying with their current vendor, then try to get some more information out of them before you hang up so you can figure out how to handle it later on down the road

This is why keeping track of all your conversations in one place makes it easy to go back and see what happened. It will also help prevent any miscommunication between yourself and whoever takes over this sales process next! 

You may even want to ask each of your prospects these questions every time you talk to them because every project is different! If you have to, then list out all the reasons why they should be with your company again. Don't ask them just once at the end of each call

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Sales Discovery Call hacks

So now we know what does a typical sales call looks like, now let's look at 10 actionable tips which can help you during your next call:

1). Find something unique about the company's business -  try to be as specific as possible. You will be surprised how much people enjoy talking about their businesses if they are asked nicely! 

Find out who is involved in every step of the decision making process and make them give you permission to talk to the rest. Don't start asking for information about their product and services right away, create a clear picture of their company first.

like: who/how many people work there? How long is the company operating? What are customers saying about them? 

2). Get into specific questions as soon as possible -  the longer your call goes on with general informational questions the more boring it gets. The last thing you want is having your client yawn at you during the call! 

3). Ask open ended questions which can be answered in multiple ways -  you need to let the client speak freely and openly without causing any kind of friction.

If he hesitates or doesn't answer directly, ask him why and try to understand the root cause. If he is not sure what to answer, just give him time to think it over and come up with an answer later on during the call. 

4). Try to find out how he found your company -  this might sound like a very simple tip but it's actually one of the most important ones. 

Your client will never feel comfortable if you don't know about their experience with your business so far, so make sure you take notes whenever they mention something good or bad about your company even though they were not talking directly to you. 

Make them feel special!  Everyone loves knowing that somebody cares enough to ask them about their opinions, experience and expertise. Even if this is done for research purposes it shows that you are interested in them as a person and care for their opinion. 

This is a very good way of building trust which will have a positive impact on your future collaboration. 

5). Create an environment where the client can talk about his problems without hesitation -  as I mentioned before every client wants to know that he's talking to somebody who cares. 

You can do this by being as friendly as possible, showing interest in learning more about their company and trying to establish a connection with them, so they feel like you're not just another sales rep from a random company but a friend or colleague they've been waiting to chat with for a long time now! 

6). Delegate tasks wisely -  if possible try finding out what kind of projects your clients are working on at the moment and find out if they will require help from anyone after the call. 

If so, delegate your research and notes to somebody who can continue with it and give you an update during next week's meeting. 

7). Try to negotiate time frames -  many sellers tend to keep their clients on hold until they finish answering all questions which is not a very wise move in most cases as it might end up with your client canceling your call as he feels like you're not interested enough in helping him out. 

This way you risk losing a potential customer, which would be really stupid! 

8). Try asking for feedback from the beginning of the call if possible -  during my first sales job I noticed that some of our reps were taking a lot more time than others to complete calls and we had no idea why. 

I was asking my colleagues and they told me that one of our most successful reps was using a simple trick: he would ask for feedback from the very beginning of the call. 

He would start with "what can I do to help you better understand what we're offering" and then follow up by asking them how they were expecting us to answer their questions, if there is anything else that could be said in order to create a clearer picture of our services etc. 

9).Never take your client's word for granted -  the company might have great products and services but still it doesn't mean anyone is in need of your offerings at the moment in time. 

10). Do not hesitate to ask for feedback from the beginning of the call -  it is very important for you to understand what your client thinks about your company and its services. 

This will help you create a superior customer experience which most likely will lead to repeat business or future recommendations!

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Conclusion

During sales discovery calls it's important that you try to get as much information about your prospect as possible so you can fully understand what their needs are and what kind of timeline they're hoping for. 

This way, when they go over all this information with someone else in the coming weeks, there won't be any miscommunication between anyone about what exactly it is they need from your company and how long it will take before they see results from working with your company. 

Also make sure to find out which technology platforms your prospect uses by asking questions like "Do you use XYZ technology?