Guide
Discovery call questions that actually qualify
Most discovery calls spend their first ten minutes collecting facts that could have arrived in writing. Here are the questions worth asking out loud, and the ones to ask before anyone picks up.
A discovery call has two jobs: find out whether you can help, and let the other person find out whether they want you to. Both are conversations about judgment, and neither needs you to read a form out loud.
The practical division: facts belong in writing beforehand, meaning belongs in the call. If you know their spend, their stack, their timeline, and what they have already tried before the call starts, you can spend the whole call on the part that only a person can do.
Ask these before the call, in writing
Nobody has ever been persuaded by being asked their monthly budget out loud.
- What they sell, and to whom.
- The numbers that set the scale: spend, volume, headcount, timeline.
- What they have already tried, and what happened.
- What tools or platforms are in play.
- What "this worked" would look like to them, in their words.
The call itself
Roughly in order. The aim is to reach a shared, specific description of the problem before anything is proposed.
- 1
"What made you look into this now?"
The most useful opening question in sales. It surfaces the trigger event, which tells you whether this is urgent or idle, and it usually produces the real problem rather than the stated one.
- 2
"Walk me through what happens today."
Concrete process, not opinions. You are listening for the step where it breaks, and for whether they can see it. What they skip over is often where the problem lives.
- 3
"What have you tried, and why did it stop?"
Stops you recommending something they already rejected, and tells you what they believe about the problem - which you will have to work with either way.
- 4
"What happens if you do nothing?"
The qualifying question. If nothing much happens, there is no purchase here, however pleasant the conversation. Better to find that out in minute eight than in week six.
- 5
"Who else needs to agree?"
Asked plainly and early, not at the end. You are not looking for authority so much as for the people whose objections you will never hear directly.
- 6
"What would make this an obvious no?"
Invites the objection into the room while you can still answer it. People will tell you the truth if you make it easy to say.
Common questions
- How long should a discovery call be?
- Twenty to thirty minutes is enough when the facts arrived beforehand. An hour usually means the first half was data collection.
- Should I send an agenda?
- Yes, briefly, in the confirmation. It sets the expectation that this is a working conversation rather than a pitch, and it improves the odds that the right people attend.
- When should I talk about price?
- As soon as you can do it honestly, which is usually once you understand the scale. Ranges are fine and are better than silence - silence is what makes people assume the worst number.
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Turn 'I think I'm behind' into a dated, honest read on the books - and a discovery call that starts at question five.
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