Are you prepared for your Discovery call?

Founders and sellers must master and maintain the fundamentals for consistently great outcomes

Teams are using prompts to better prepare for calls, but we often find that most don’t understand why they’re conducting research or what they’re actually gathering information for. If your goal is to drive a deal forward or collect product feedback, here are the key insights you should have before entering a call. If you’re using prompts and you get the information—great! However, it’s crucial to understand why this information matters and how to leverage it effectively during the call. We are pro-speed and pro-AI (of course), but you must know the fundamentals of your GTM! 

If you’re a Founder learning sales (or have experience in sales), hold yourself accountable so you can learn this inside and out and enable your team with the same mindset when you’re ready to hire your first Account Executive (AE). While none of this is groundbreaking, it's a valuable reminder to always approach calls with a plan. No plan, no solution! If you already have AEs on your team, ensure they are properly preparing before entering any customer conversation. We recommend asking them the following questions about their upcoming calls to gauge their readiness. If they can answer these questions clearly, your team is well-prepared.

What does the company we’re talking to do? 

• It's one of my favorite questions to ask. Most people don't truly understand what their prospect does or how their solution could support the prospect's workflow. You'd be surprised how often teams fail to conduct a thorough review of their prospect's business. At a minimum, this should be your primary step before any discovery call.

  • As an example, if you're an ML infrastructure company, it's crucial to understand how machine learning integrates into your prospect's organization. You should know:

    • How does ML fit into their organization today? Is it a primary or secondary focus? 

    • How does ML make a positive impact on their business? What examples do they publicly showcase? 

    • What is table stakes to their organization? Do they have a high bar (very largely scaled team), or still learning how to leverage this in their company? 

Without knowing this, or coming in with a hypothesis, it will be difficult to build a compelling business case around your technical win, even if your champion loves your product

Who are we talking to (Name, Link to LinkedIn, Title)

• You’d be surprised how often people skip detailed preparation going into a call. You want to know more about this person. Their motives, who else they know, and most importantly, where they fit within the organization. Are they likely influential, a user, a buyer? How do you know?

Relevant Roles on their Job Boards

• If the company is actively hiring for a relevant position you would need to sell to, do some additional research: 

  • Is there anyone at the company with the relevant experience I need to sell to yet? Else, am I selling to a company working on a new or existing initiative? 

• Job boards and job descriptions tell you so much about a company: 

  • What they’re looking for and why

  • Vision and forward outlook on the company

  • Tech stack (if they don’t support your tech stack, how much is this work pursuing?) 

  • Types of people who are a fit for the role (are they typically the type of person you need to get a deal done?)

  • (Occasionally) the hiring manager. This sometimes signals the buyer or the more influential stakeholders you need to sell to 

Their team — who else should we potentially talk with?

• Do some digging on LinkedIn after you learn the above – you’ll be surprised what you find! 

  • You’ll often hear folks encourage “multi-threading,” which is always an important part of driving sales cycles, but you should know or have a strong hypothesis on who these folks are to get in-roads to 

Goals of the Call

• No goals, no outcomes! Come in with a plan

Good luck out there!