Discovery Is the Most Important (and Most Neglected) Stage in B2B Sales
Before we get started. Quick announcement:
We launched our sales recruiting and search services for companies that can’t afford another bad hire.
We’ve hired over 200 salespeople in the last 20 years. We know what actually predicts success. We screen for skills, not resumes. And we only present candidates we believe can do the job.
If you need to fill sales roles and want to talk about how we do it differently, email me at adam@thenorthwoodgrp.com.
I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. I’ve worked with 150+ sales organizations. And I am still astounded at how poorly discovery is done.
Not sometimes. Almost always.
I’ll sit down with a CEO or a sales leader and ask them to walk me through a deal. I want to know what’s going on with a prospect. What’s at stake. Why they need to buy. Why they’d buy from us.
And I get… almost nothing.
“They liked our presentation.”
“They said they’re interested.”
“They’re going to get back to us after vacation.”
Congratulations. You’ve got a forecast built on a magic 8 ball.
The Problem
Most salespeople don’t do real discovery. They do a version of it. They ask a few surface questions, get a little bit of information, and then sprint to the pitch.
Here’s what that usually looks like.
Prospect agrees to a meeting. Salesperson gets excited. They open with “Let me tell you about us.” They rattle off the company history, the differentiators, the client list. Then they ask a couple questions. Maybe three. And then they jump to “What if we could help you with that?”
That’s not discovery. That’s a presentation with a question mark at the end.
Even the ones who are a little better than that… they’ll listen, ask a few questions, and move too fast. They’re already thinking about the proposal before they understand the problem.
What Real Discovery Actually Looks Like
Let’s say you’re a CEO of a mid-market company and you’ve reached out to me because sales are lagging.
Most consultants would say, “Let me tell you how we can help.” A slightly better one might ask, “What are you struggling with?”
Here’s what I’m going to do instead.
I’m going to ask you why we’re talking. What you’re trying to accomplish. What you believe is going on. And then I’m going to start figuring out what’s really going on.
I want to know about your lead flow. Your conversions. Your opportunity cost. What you’ve already tried. Why it didn’t work. Why you think you need to grow. What happens if you don’t.
I’m looking for the things you didn’t bring up. The missing pieces. The stuff you haven’t connected yet.
And then we need to talk about what’s at stake. Financially. Personally. For the company.
That’s probably 50 or 60 questions. It’s a 30 to 40 minute conversation. And at the end of it, I should know more about your situation than you’ve ever articulated to anyone.
That almost never happens in a sales call. Almost never.
Why This Matters More Than Closing
People always think they need “closing skills.” They don’t.
Closing is the most overrated part of selling. If you do everything before it well, the close becomes easy. Almost automatic.
Here’s what actually happens when discovery is done right. People have their own discoveries in the conversation with you. They connect dots they hadn’t connected. They verbalize things they’ve been thinking but never said out loud. They go from “here’s what I think I need” to “here’s what’s really going on” to “here’s how I feel about it.”
When that happens, they realize you’re the one who can help. You didn’t pitch them into it. They arrived there on their own. Because you asked the right questions in the right order.
A Story That Proves the Point
I was working with a company. Transactional environment, high volume. I pulled a sample of six sales calls and the pattern jumped off the page.
They talked too much about themselves. They didn’t ask the right questions. They didn’t connect with the person on the other end. They rushed the call because they were worried about time. And they weren’t even asking for the business. Just… “here’s a link if you want to do something.”
We restructured the flow of the call. Trained the team to execute it. Took about five months. They went from an 18% close rate to 32%. Then they raised prices. Close rate held.
We didn’t teach them to “close better.” We taught them to have a real conversation earlier in the process.
So What Do You Do With This?
If you manage salespeople, here’s what I’d tell you.
Stop obsessing over closing. Start obsessing over the quality of your team’s discovery conversations. Sit in on calls. Ask your reps to walk you through a deal. If they can’t tell you what’s at stake for the prospect, why the prospect needs to act, and how they’ll make a decision… you don’t have a qualified opportunity. You have a hope.
Pre-call plan. Post-call debrief. Every time.
Your people will wing it if you let them. And they’ll keep making the same mistakes they were making five years ago. Ten years ago. Experience doesn’t compound like an investment. Not without coaching.
The best salespeople I’ve ever seen aren’t closers. They’re incredible at getting to the real conversation before anyone else does.
That’s where you win. Or lose.
And most of you are losing there right now.
