How Does Your CUSTOMER Know When You’ve Done Enough Discovery?

Discovery is done not just for your sake as the vendor, but (even more importantly) for your customer to feel comfortable about your proposed solution.  So, how do you know when you’ve done enough Discovery for your customer’s sake?

For a medical doctor, it is when you have enough information to confidently make a diagnosis to be able to offer a prescription or procedure – and that the patient feels you have gathered enough information to make an accurate diagnosis. 

Consider the following scenario…

You’ve been sick for the past 6 days with what you believe is the flu, since a pile of people from your office have also had it, but you aren’t getting better – and you are beginning to get worried.  You visit Doctor #1 in Hospital #1.  Doctor #1 joins you in the examining room and says, “What’s seems to be the trouble?”

You respond, “I think I have the flu…”

Doctor #1 says, “Yes, it’s been going around – everyone has it.  I’m writing you a prescription for a powerful new medicine call FluBGone.  Get the prescription filled, start taking the pills, and you should feel better in a couple of days…”

Two questions: 

- How did you feel about that interaction?

- How likely are you to get those pills and start taking them?

Most people respond:

- I was not comfortable with the interaction and

- I would not take those pills…

Why?  Because Doctor #1 didn’t ask me any questions…

Unconvinced of Doctor #1, you travel across town to Hospital #2 and see Doctor #2.  As before, Doctor #2 joins you in the examining room and says, “What’s seems to be the trouble?”

Once again, you respond, “I think I have the flu…”

Doctor #2, however, begins to ask questions:

“How long have you had it?  Are you running a temperature?  How high, how long?  Any sweats?  Nausea?  Headache?  Swollen glands…?”  This goes on for 10 minutes (10 doctor-minutes is a long time!), after which Doctor #2 says, “It does sound like the flu, but there are a few things that are a bit anomalous – I’d like to run a blood panel just to make sure nothing else is going on…” 

Later that day Doctor #2 gets the results of the blood panel, contacts you and says, “Yes, it’s the flu.  I’m prescribing FluBGone for you – you should feel better in two days from when you start taking the pills…”

Same two questions as before:

- How did you feel about that interaction?

- How likely are you to get those pills and start taking them?

Most people respond:

- I was comfortable with the interaction and

- I would take those pills…

Why?  Because Doctor #2 asked enough questions and did enough Discovery for me to feel comfortable with his diagnosis and his prescription…  Interestingly, both doctors offered the same prescription – but Doctor #2 made us feel comfortable because of the questions that he asked.

The same principles are true in sales and presales:  We need to ask enough questions for ourselves to be able to propose a solution – and for our customer to feel comfortable that we have gathered enough information to make an accurate diagnosis of the customer’s situation and thereby to be able to propose a solution based on that diagnosis.

[Warning: Shameless Self-Promotion Alert!] Upcoming Great Demo! Public Workshop

We have one more Great Demo! Public Workshop currently scheduled in 2015:  October 14-15 in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Registration and additional information can be found at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/great-demo-workshop-on-oct-14-15-2015-registration-14382720103.

This is an excellent opportunity for individuals, small groups or for teams that have new hires. It will be a 1.75-Day Workshop, with the first day focusing largely on core Great Demo! material and the second ¾ day addressing more advanced topics and techniques. 

Public Workshops take place in the San Francisco Bay Area (Sunnyvale), in conjunction with the folks at SKMurphy. 

We’ve found that these sessions are most productive when there are two or more participants from each organization – and best when a combination of sales and presales participants are present (singletons are also fine). This helps to mimic real-life interactions as much as possible, both when preparing demos and delivering them in the role-play sessions.

PS - If you do decide to register for San Francisco Bay Area Public Workshops and are coming from out of town, you might want to make reservations now at the hotel where the Workshop will take place (or nearby), as hotels in the area tend to fill up rapidly. 

How Do You Know When You've Done Enough Discovery?

In your organization’s practices, do you have a measurement or method of determining when you’ve done enough Discovery with your customers?  Do you have a personal measurement that is different (and if so, what is it)?

For example, what amount of Discovery do you require before delivering a Technical Proof demo (or customized or “deep dive” demo)?  Do you measure “sufficient” in terms of time, a completed document of questions and answers, a checklist of topics discussed, a gut feeling, or something else?

Results of Survey: What Percent of Your Team/Teammates Do a Good Job Doing Discovery?

Here are the results of survey (previous post - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TP6HK3B) as of Monday August 10):

1. What percent of your team or teammates do a good job doing discovery, in your opinion? 

Results?  Averaging around 16%, ranging from 10-20%.  This suggests some SERIOUS challenges...!

2. What percent think they do a good job doing discovery, but don’t really? 

Results?  Averaging around 60%, ranging from 30-80%.  This seems even more serious...!

3. What percent of Discovery information gets adequately communicated within the sales team? 

Results?  Averaging around 23%, ranging from 10-50%.  This is just sad...

4. What percent of Discovery information ends up in your CRM system or other shared location? 

Results?  Averaging around 32%, ranging from 10-80%.  Not surprising, based on the above...

5. In what percent of sales opportunities was sufficient Discovery information collected? Average is 15% 

Results?  Averaging around 47%, ranging from 25-80%.  It looks like there may be varying definitions of  "sufficient"...

What Percent of Your Team/Teammates Do A Good Job Doing Discovery?

Please respond to this Informal survey – I’m very curious to see the results (and I expect you might be as well):

1.  What percent of your team or teammates do a good job doing discovery, in your opinion?

2.  What percent think they do a good job doing discovery, but don’t really?

3.  What percent of Discovery information gets adequately communicated within the sales team?

4.  What percent of Discovery information ends up in your CRM system or other shared location?

5.  In what percent of sales opportunities was sufficient Discovery information collected?

Please use this SurveyMonkey link (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TP6HK3B) to enter your responses - and it is only these 5 simple questions!  I’ll publish the results here shortly...  Thanks!


Update:  Here are the results so far (as of Wednesday August 5):

1.  Average is 15% (OK, there is clearly a problem here...)
2.  Average is 50% (perhaps an even bigger problem...!)
3.  Average is 30% (of what was collected...)
4.  Average is 45% (again, of what was collected...)
5.  Average is about 33% (pretty sad...!)