Discovery Questioning Skills – Doctors vs. Lawyers

Consider the following, with respect to Discovery questioning strategies:

• Doctors seek to understand, so that they can offer an accurate diagnosis;
• Lawyers seek to understand, but with a bias so that they can move the discussion to or from a position.

When doing Discovery, consider using both types of questions – “Diagnostic”, simply seeking to understand the prospect’s situation, and “Biased”, seeking to move or change the prospect’s thinking.

Diagnostic Questions should be the majority in your Discovery conversations, if you are trying to build trust and credibility with your prospect.

Use Biased Questions when you are working to:

• Reengineer a prospect’s vision of a solution
• Outflank competition
• Deeper or broaden “pain” beyond simple diagnosis – e.g., reengineer the prospect’s understanding of their current situation.