What is a discovery call for?
A discovery call is the first real conversation about the buyer's problem. You are there to learn, so the buyer should do most of the talking. You have done the job when you leave with three things written down in their words.
Where their process breaks today, told the way they would tell a colleague.
Hours, delays, errors or money, in their own units. Their number, never yours.
The other people with a say, and a next meeting with a date on it.
If you leave without the cost, you can't tell whether the deal is worth chasing. If you leave without a date, the deal tends to drift. Everything below is in service of those three.
How should a discovery call run?
A first call usually moves through six stages. You won't always hit them in this order, because buyers jump ahead. When they do, go with them and come back to the stage you skipped.
What should you ask at each stage?
Each question here is one open question you can ask as written. Pick one per stage, then let the buyer's answer choose your next question.
1. Why now
Find out what made them take the call this month and not last year.
- What's prompting you to look at this now?
- What made this a priority this quarter?
- What would you like to leave this call with?
2. How it works today
Get the process from start to finish before you look for problems in it.
- How does this work today, from start to finish?
- Who touches it along the way?
- Which part of it takes your team the most time?
3. Where it breaks
Find the problem they'd fix first, and a recent time it happened.
- Where does it break most often?
- The last time it broke, how did you find out?
- What have you tried so far to fix it?
4. What it costs
Ask for the size of the problem once. If they don't give a number, move on and come back to it on a later call.
- What does it cost the team each time that happens?
- Who feels it most when it goes wrong?
- What happens if this stays the way it is for another year?
5. Who decides
On average, 13 people are involved in a B2B buying decision, according to Forrester's 2024 buying research.1 You are usually talking to one or two of them, so ask about the rest.
- Who else feels this problem day to day?
- Who else will want a say in how it gets fixed?
- How has a purchase like this been approved here before?
6. Next step, with a date
Book the next meeting while everyone is still on the call.
- What would you need to see on a next call?
- Who should be on that call with you?
- What date are you working toward?
For a deeper qualification checklist, see MEDDPICC, with questions for each letter. If the buyer is a CTO or an engineering lead, the stages shift a little: see questions to ask a technical buyer.
How do you follow up on what the buyer said?
The questions above get the buyer talking. The follow-up is where discovery happens. In Harvard studies published in 2017, people who asked more questions, especially follow-up questions, were liked more by the people they talked to.2 Those studies measured conversations between strangers, and they weren't run on sales calls. The reason still carries over: a follow-up shows you heard them.
Say the buyer tells you: "Month-end close takes us four days, and two of those are spent fixing the plant files." Here are three follow-ups. Each one uses only what they said, and each asks one thing.
- The impact: "You mentioned two days fixing the plant files. What gets pushed back while that's happening?"
- The cause: "You mentioned the plant files need fixing. Where do they go wrong before they reach you?"
- What happens next: "You mentioned close takes four days. What happens when it runs longer?"
Can you tell me more about that?Generic. The buyer repeats the same story with less detail, and the call stays on the surface.
You mentioned two days fixing the plant files. What gets pushed back while that's happening?It uses their own fact and asks what it does to the rest of their work.
Veracity writes this kind of follow-up for you. While the buyer is still answering, it puts one open question of 20 words or fewer on your screen. As they keep talking, the question upgrades in place to use what they just said: "You mentioned…" Nothing on the card changes while you are talking, and an opening question is ready when the call starts.
Where do discovery calls go wrong?
- Demoing before you know the problem. If you open the product in the first ten minutes, the buyer stops telling you about their process and starts judging yours.
- Asking two questions at once. "How does it work today, and who owns it?" gets an answer to the easier half. Ask one, wait, then ask the other.
- Offering a menu. "Is the problem speed or accuracy?" lets them pick one and stop. Ask "Where does it break most often?" and let them name it.
- Supplying the number for them. "So that's probably costing you a lot?" gets a yes you can't use. Ask what it costs and write down the number they give.
- Ending on "I'll send something over." Ask "What date works for a next call?" and send the invite before you hang up.
After the call, Veracity's Question Tutor grades each question you asked and gives you the sentence you could have said instead. See call grading.
Where the numbers come from
- 1Forrester. "Forrester: To Master B2B Buying Mayhem, Providers Must Prioritize Buyers' Needs." Press release on The State Of Business Buying, 2024. December 4, 2024. forrester.comUsed for: 13 people involved in the average B2B buying decision.
- 2Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., & Gino, F. (2017). "It doesn't hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430-452. doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000097Used for: people who ask more questions, especially follow-up questions, are liked more by the people they talk to.
More figures on buyers and first calls: discovery call statistics.