Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Discovery Don’t BONUS! Don’t Encourage Your Prospect to Go Off Script

 

“Well,” said the salesperson, “We’ve covered all the questions on the list. Thanks for your time…”

 

The prospect had been contemplating revealing another, very important issue, but since the vendor was closing the meeting, the prospect player didn’t offer anything. Bad move, vendor!

 

Years ago, Steve Jobs was famous for casually remarking, at the apparent end of a presentation, “Oh, one more thing…” and then he’d reveal an amazing new product, feature, service, or concept.

 

Hospital Analogy: You’ve been discussing some gastrointestinal discomfort with your physician, who has prescribed an antacid medication. You are about to leave the examination room and, as your doctor’s hand reaches the doorknob to exit, you remark, “Actually, I’m kind of worried about a recurring headache I’ve been having. Can we talk about it?”

 

This is known as the doorknob effect, where patients are uncomfortable to reveal critical information until the last possible moment.

 

Solution? Here’s my favorite discovery question, used at the very end of your conversation: “Is there anything we haven’t discussed that we should be discussing?” This opens the (ahem) door for any additional non-structured information from your prospect. Try it!

 

 

This is BONUS from The Dirty Dozen of Discovery Don’ts – you can find all twelve here! https://lnkd.in/evUnp8YV

 

You can find the full set of DO’s and DON’Ts in Doing Discovery: 

https://lnkd.in/g28PXx55 

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