Understanding the prospects’ requirements and technical details is critical in today’s fast-paced sales environment. While initial Sales Discovery meetings may focus on wider aims and ambitions, in-depth technical and functional discoveries often determine the success or failure of a sale. This chapter examines the subtle art of the Functional/Technical Discovery phase, drawing on past insights and methods to construct a comprehensive approach to this key point in the sales cycle. (Cohan 2022)

Peter Cohan writes in his book that discovery is the stage in the process that will provide you with a competitive advantage (Cohan 2022):

Client trust grows as one learns about and explores one’s desires and goals.

Demo is more personalised, result-oriented, and provides value.

After reading this book, I think you should read the Doing Discovery by Peter Cohen. He talks in a lot more depth about how to make a proper discovery and win the client’s heart. In addition, taking one of his courses brings you a competitive personal advantage, which has helped me a lot in my sales cycle.

For Vendors: Discovery enables vendors to fully understand the needs of a prospect. This understanding enables them to propose an exact answer, thus increasing the likelihood of a sale. (Cohan 2022)

For Prospect: Through the discovery process, prospects can discern which vendors truly understand their requirements. The vendor investing time in comprehensive discovery often stands out, as you accurately echo the prospect environment, culture, and challenges. (Cohan 2022)

In its most basic form, discovery is a collection of knowledge. Having a thorough understanding of the prospect issue, the suggested solution is a perfect fit. Discovery is defined as “the process of gathering knowledge to enable a detailed suggestion of a solution to a prospect problem” in its simplest form.

Skipping discovery and jumping straight into a product demo is like a doctor giving out medicine without checking what is wrong with the patient. This is too soon and can even be risky.

In the world of PreSales, discovery is the bridge between understanding and solutions. It is a pathway to cultivate relationships and ensure that solutions resonate with each prospect’s unique challenges and visions.

Discovery is essential in the PreSales process for both vendors and prospects. For vendors, it’s about deeply understanding the prospect’s needs, enabling them to propose precise solutions that significantly boost the chances of making a sale. Prospects, on the other hand, use the discovery process to identify which vendors truly grasp their requirements. A vendor that takes the time to fully understand a prospect’s environment, culture, and challenges stands out by reflecting the prospect’s needs accurately.

Discovery is fundamentally about gathering knowledge. It allows for a tailored solution that fits the prospect’s issue perfectly. Skipping this step is risky — it’s akin to a doctor prescribing medication without diagnosing the problem first. In PreSales, discovery acts as the critical link between understanding a prospect’s unique situation and proposing solutions that genuinely address their challenges and aspirations.

Mastering the discovery process involves a delicate balance of acquiring sufficient insight into the prospects’ problems while also fostering strong relationships with them. The goal is to gather all necessary information to confidently recommend the ideal solution. This thorough understanding not only benefits vendors by positioning their solutions more effectively but also ensures that the solutions offered resonate deeply with each prospect’s specific needs and visions.

The PreSales discovery process is a systematic approach to understanding potential clients and tailoring solutions to their specific needs. Here’s a breakdown:

Preparation: Arm yourself with background knowledge of the client and their industry. Conduct preliminary research, review any past interactions, and prepare open-ended questions to facilitate discussion.

Initiate Engagement: Set the stage for a constructive dialogue by scheduling a discovery session with key stakeholders, initially recommended for 25 minutes, to express commitment and the desire for a deeper understanding of their needs and challenges.

Information Gathering: Utilize open-ended questions and active listening to unearth the client’s wants, needs, and pain points, making sure to document all responses for future reference. Utilizing AI tools for summarizing conversations can be beneficial.

Technical Assessment (if applicable): Evaluate the client’s existing technical setup and any constraints that might affect integration with new systems, identifying potential challenges.

Stakeholder Interviews: Engage with various stakeholders across the client’s organization to gain a wide range of insights, tailoring questions to each individual’s role and ensuring a comfortable setting for open conversation.

Gap Analysis: From the information collected, identify any discrepancies between the client’s current state and desired outcomes, prioritizing these gaps by impact and urgency.

Feedback and Validation: Share a summary of your findings with the client to confirm your understanding and align with their expectations, refining your insights based on their feedback.

Documentation and Sharing: Systematically document all findings, insights, and feedback, and share this documentation with the sales, technical, and product teams to ensure everyone is aligned. Utilize tools like the Opportunity Scoping Document (OSD) for effective communication.

Plan Next Steps: Based on the insights from the discovery process, tailor your solution or proposal to meet the client’s specific needs and schedule follow-up sessions or demos to demonstrate how your solution addresses their challenges.

Opening the Conversation: Initiating rapport-building questions sets a warm, congenial tone. This helps foster bonds, making the prospect more open and receptive. A question reflecting a genuine interest in your professional journey can be a great start. (Rackham 1995; Greene 2018)

Deciphering Demographics: The goal is to map out the organizational structure, delving into team sizes, roles, and workflows. This structural understanding serves as the foundation upon which solutions can be built.

Understanding Workflows and Tech Infrastructure: This step focuses on assimilating information about the technical landscape, ensuring that your solutions integrate seamlessly.

Understanding the Supply Chain & Business Operations: Uncovering dependencies, bottlenecks, and potential areas of vulnerability in the Supply Chain.

Pinpointing Pain Points: Identifying core challenges is crucial. It involves gauging where the shoe pinches the most and offers a cushioned sole in response.

Expanding the Horizons: Beyond immediate challenges, related areas may be affected. This exploration can reveal additional layers of potential value for a product.

Culture & Integration: Recognising the company’s ethos and method of adopting new solutions ensures that the offering is in harmony with the company’s intrinsic nature.

Concluding with Vision: A wrap-up centred around the prospect’s forward-looking vision ensures alignment and charts out a roadmap for subsequent interactions.

Effective discovery in PreSales is akin to peeling an onion, revealing layer after layer to unearth the core issues, needs, and goals of a prospect. To achieve this, PreSales professionals employ various techniques, each offering insights into different aspects of the prospect’s situation.

Open-Ended Questions: These invite the prospect to share more than just yes or no answers, encouraging them to elaborate on their challenges and needs. This approach not only uncovers the presence of problems but delves into their severity and impact.

Active Listening: An engaged form of listening that ensures understanding not just of the words but also of the emotions and concerns behind them. Reflecting and summarizing what the prospect has said validates their concerns and clarifies any misunderstandings.

Empathy Mapping: A tool that allows PreSales professionals to step into the prospect’s shoes, understanding their experience on a deeper emotional level. It segments feedback into what the client Says, Feels, Does, and Thinks, providing a rounded view of their challenges.

SWOT Analysis: This tool assesses the prospect’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, giving a comprehensive understanding of their business landscape. It identifies areas of advantage and potential risks, ensuring proposed solutions are both effective and holistic.

The 5 Whys: A method of questioning that digs deeper with each ‘why’, tracing the problem back to its root cause. This technique transforms a superficial understanding into profound insights, pinpointing the foundational issues that need addressing.

Discovery in PreSales is essential for understanding a potential client’s challenges, needs, and aspirations. However, this process can be fraught with difficulties that may hinder building a strong understanding between PreSales professionals and their prospects. Here are some common challenges faced during the discovery phase and key takeaways on how to navigate them:

Surface-Level Information: Often, responses from clients during discovery meetings can be generic, offering a broad view without much depth. This makes it hard for PreSales teams to grasp the intricacies of the client’s issues, complicating the task of crafting tailored solutions.

Defensiveness: Clients may enter discovery sessions with their guard up, hesitant to divulge too much information for fear of being pressured with a sales pitch. This defensiveness can stymie the flow of valuable insights, leaving PreSales professionals to navigate in the dark.

Misalignment: In organizations with multiple stakeholders, differing opinions on what constitutes a “primary challenge” can muddy the discovery process. This divergence can lead to challenges in identifying core issues and proposing solutions that satisfy all parties.

Time Constraints: The limited time prospects are willing to allocate to discovery sessions can force a rush in gathering information, potentially leading to oversight or incomplete understanding of the client’s needs.

Despite these challenges, recognizing and understanding them is crucial for developing strategies to effectively address them. By honing their techniques, fostering genuine relationships with clients, and maintaining keen observation skills, PreSales professionals can turn these hurdles into opportunities for deeper engagement and more effective solutions. In the complex dance of discovery, each obstacle is an opportunity for growth, and every successful navigation is a testament to the adaptability and resilience of the PreSales field.

Overcoming challenges in the PreSales discovery phase is crucial for building meaningful connections with potential clients. Here are strategies to navigate these hurdles effectively:

Building Trust: Addressing prospect hesitations is vital. Establish trust by showing genuine interest in their challenges rather than focusing solely on making a sale. Demonstrate transparency and prioritize listening to cultivate a trusting relationship, encouraging prospects to open up and engage in deeper discussions.

Engaging All Stakeholders: B2B decisions often involve multiple stakeholders, each with their unique perspectives and priorities. It’s essential to engage all relevant parties to gain a holistic view of the challenges and needs, ensuring proposed solutions align with the broader organizational goals.

Adopting a Flexible Approach: Flexibility in the discovery process allows for adjustments based on the prospect’s comfort and preferences. Whether accommodating shorter sessions, changing questioning tactics, or demonstrating patience with time constraints, adaptability ensures that the discovery process is a genuine dialogue rather than a rigid script.

Leveraging Testimonials: Showcasing past successes through testimonials and case studies can highlight the value of a thorough discovery process. Real-world examples provide tangible evidence of the benefits and help bridge the gap to trust by illustrating the potential outcomes of engaging in deep discovery.

The essence of PreSales involves not just uncovering client challenges or understanding their operational context, but bridging the gap between these challenges and the unique value provided by solutions. This process is akin to mining for gems — extracting valuable insights and then meticulously crafting these into compelling value propositions.

Align Solutions with Pain Points: Begin by precisely matching your solutions to the client’s identified issues. For example, if a client struggles with outdated software impacting real-time data analytics, highlight how your solution specifically addresses this by eliminating latency and ensuring efficient data processing. This direct linkage transforms your offering from a mere tool to a tailored solution in the eyes of the prospect.

Showcase ROI: Beyond explaining how the solution addresses pain points, it’s crucial to demonstrate its economic impact. Craft a potential Return on Investment (ROI) model showing how your solution can improve efficiency, reduce client attrition, or increase revenue, using tangible metrics to solidify the value proposition.

Craft Tailored Demos: Leverage insights from the discovery phase to create demonstrations that speak directly to the prospect’s context. Highlight functionalities that address their specific challenges, perhaps simulating real-world scenarios discussed during discovery. This approach not only underscores the relevance of your solution but also offers the prospect a vision of a future where their issues are resolved.

The principle of never conducting a demo without prior discovery is fundamental in PreSales, emphasizing the importance of understanding a client’s needs before showcasing solutions. However, flexibility is key, especially when sales partners or clients request a demo upfront.

Here’s how to navigate such situations effectively:

Capitalize on Initial Excitement: Use the prospect’s curiosity as an opportunity to present a broad overview of the solution’s potential. This initial pitch should be concise and focused on conveying the big picture rather than detailed functionalities.

Conduct a “Look & Feel Demo”: Offer a brief demonstration to give a taste of the system’s interface and basic capabilities, akin to a movie trailer. This demo aims to whet the prospect’s appetite for a deeper dive in future engagements, without getting caught up in specifics.

Avoid Deep Dives Prematurely: While curiosity may lead prospects to ask detailed questions, skillfully acknowledge these inquiries and suggest a more thorough exploration following a comprehensive discovery process. This ensures the conversation remains focused and productive.

Integrate Discovery into the Demo: Utilize the demo to ask probing questions, turning the demonstration into an interactive session that also serves as an opportunity for discovery. This approach requires balancing presentation skills with the ability to extract insights about the prospect’s challenges and needs.

Provide Supplementary Materials: After a brief demo, offer additional resources like brochures, whitepapers, or automated demos. These materials serve as appetizers, preparing the stage for a more detailed and targeted demonstration later on.

Conducting a Functional/Technical Discovery is crucial for tailoring solutions to the prospect’s specific needs, challenges, and operational context. This phase goes beyond initial Sales Discovery by focusing on in-depth technical details and functional requirements, ultimately determining the sale’s success or failure.

Peter Cohan emphasizes the competitive advantage provided by effective discovery, noting that it builds client trust, leads to personalized and value-driven demos, and significantly increases the likelihood of a sale. Discovery enables vendors to understand prospects fully and propose solutions that directly address their needs, while prospects can identify vendors who genuinely understand their requirements, setting apart those who invest time in comprehensive discovery.

The discovery process, akin to mining for gems, involves extracting valuable insights and then refining these into compelling value propositions. It starts with aligning solutions to the prospect’s pain points, emphasizing the unique benefits of the solution tailored to their specific challenges. The process also involves demonstrating the solution’s tangible impact, particularly through ROI metrics, to underline the economic benefits of adopting the solution.

To bring these value propositions to life, tailored product demos are crucial. Rather than a generic feature showcase, demos should be customized based on discovery insights, focusing on functionalities that address the prospect’s unique needs. This approach not only reinforces the solution’s relevance but also provides a glimpse into a future where their challenges are effectively addressed.

Navigating scenarios where a demo is requested without prior discovery involves balancing the prospect’s excitement with the need for a thorough understanding. Strategies include capitalizing on initial excitement with a brief overview, conducting a “Look & Feel Demo” to offer a taste of the solution, and integrating discovery into the demo by interspersing it with probing questions. This flexible approach allows for gathering critical insights while maintaining the prospect’s engagement and interest.