Discovery Do: Prospects WANT to Be Discovered…

  

Prospects with complex problems want to be discovered, but they are cautious.

 

It’s like to going to see a doctor about a problem: You know you need to communicate the details of your issue to the doctor, but you may be cautious about taking that first step. Once you do, you have opened the door to an unknown future. Will the potential cure be worth the investment and associated risks?

 

We often do some preliminary exploration of our symptoms and possible treatments before seeing a doctor. We want a vision of what to expect and what is possible before committing to the path as a patient.

 

Along similar lines, prospects don’t want to get connected to a salesperson until they are ready to proceed down a path to purchase. Accordingly, prospects often ask for a demo of your “solution” prior to committing to a conversation. They want this from you before they are willing to offer information about their situation. It’s basic quid pro quo.

 

This is why Vision Generation Demos (Chapter 11 in the Third Edition of Great Demo!) are so effective! Vision Generation Demos provide your prospect with a sense of what’s possible with your offering and, if they feel it aligns with their situation and their objectives, prospects are then willing to invest in a discovery conversation. Quid pro quo.

 

Even so, vendors should ease into discovery with most prospects. Doing Discovery’s “About You” process and exploring Demographics provide questions and topics that are easy to ask and easy to answer for both parties. It’s a comfortable way to begin!

 

(Please avoid trite phrases such as, “What keeps you up at night?” My response to this is, “Finding ways to avoid reps who start calls with, ‘What keeps you up at night?’!”)

 

Note that prospect players’ willingness to engage ranges across a spectrum, from executives who want to get to the point right away to lower-level players who often exhibit the “Doorknob Effect.” (The “doorknob phenomenon occurs when patients wait until the last moment in the clinical encounter – often while the physician is grasping the doorknob to exit the examination room – to utter something that, not uncommonly, provides crucial information.”

 

Prospects who anticipate solutions to their complex problems do desire to reveal the specifics of their situation to vendors (who have earned the right to have the conversation).

 

See Doing Discovery for details on these approaches and Great Demo! for the process for Vision Generation Demos, and enjoy the results these methods yield!