Discovery

Now you are in the room — a meeting is booked. The most common mistake founders make here is to start talking about the product immediately. The good salesperson does the opposite: asks questions and listens first. Discovery is the phase where you understand the customer's situation well enough to know whether, and how, you can help. Do this well, and the rest of the sale becomes almost easy.

Ask questions that uncover real needs

The goal is to understand the customer's world: what they are trying to achieve, what is in the way, and what it costs them. Good questions are open and are about the situation, not about your product.

Some types of question that work:

• Situation: "How do you solve this today?"
• Challenge: "What is the most frustrating thing about the way it works now?"
• Consequence: "What does it cost you when it fails — in time, money or irritation?"
• Desired outcome: "If this were solved, what would be different for you?"

Notice that none of these mention your product. You build a picture first. A founder selling a staff-scheduling tool to a restaurant learns more from asking "what happens when someone calls in sick on a Friday?" than from listing features.

Listen more than you talk

A simple rule of thumb: in discovery, the customer should do most of the talking. Your job is to ask the question and then be quiet long enough for the customer to actually finish answering. Many sellers interrupt or fill the silence — and miss the most important thing, which often comes after a short pause.

Active listening also means confirming that you have understood: "So if I understand you correctly, it is really the Fridays that are the problem, not the rest of the week?" That shows you are listening and lets the customer correct you. Often the customer sees their own need more clearly when they hear you repeat it.

Connect the need to value before you mention price

Once you have understood the need, you can connect it to the value of solving it — before price comes up. The order matters. If the customer sees that the problem costs them a lot, your price becomes a small number by comparison. If you mention the price before the value is established, it is just a cost without context.

Let the customer put the value into words where you can: "You said the Friday failures cost you a fair bit in overtime — how much would you estimate that is per month?" When the customer says the number out loud, they own it. Then the value almost sells itself.

Qualify need, budget, authority and time

Discovery is also where you qualify properly. Four things are worth understanding before you spend much more time:

• Need: Is the problem real and important enough to act on?
• Budget: Are they able to pay for a solution?
• Authority: Are you talking to someone who can decide, or influence the person who decides?
• Time: Is it urgent, or is this a "someday next year" thing?

You do not need to interrogate the customer — this weaves naturally into the conversation. But if one of the points is entirely missing, you know the deal either has to mature or be deprioritised. Better to know now than after five meetings.

A common beginner's mistake is to hear one problem and jump straight to the solution, because at last there is something you can answer. Resist the temptation. Dig one question deeper: "Tell me more about that" or "what have you tried so far?". Often the real need lies one layer beneath the first thing the customer mentions. Whoever can stay a little longer in the questions before the solution understands the customer better — and lands far better when it is time to show what they have.

Do this now

Write five open questions you can ask in your next customer meeting — at least one of each type (situation, challenge, consequence, desired outcome). Practise asking them without mentioning your product. In your next conversation, ask the questions and note how much the customer talked compared with you.