The Second Discovery Question

How to learn your prospect’s priorities and challenges quickly.

Author

Mike Gallardo
August 11, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

The Best Sales Newsletter

The second discovery question — How to learn your prospect’s priorities and challenges quickly.

Song of the week: 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins
This one always makes me feel nostalgic.

Hey friends,

I’ve reviewed 1000s of sales calls.

And the question that gets messed up the most is the second one — Here’s what I mean.

The Mistake

Usually, when someone gets an inbound lead the first question is some form of:

“what brought you to company?”

Then, the prospect shares for 3 to 5 minutes about their business, situation, etc.

The mistake: Asking some sort of qualification question that only benefits you.

Example:

Thank you for sharing.

I really appreciate you walking me through your business.

Curious, how many people on your sales team do you currently have?

What to Ask Instead

Instead, focus on questions that target the prospect’s priorities or challenges.

This is the most critical information to learn because it’s how you’ll position yourself as the best provider throughout the entire sales cycle.

There’s multiple ways to do this based on what the prospect shares after your first question.

Example 1: Prospect shares a bunch of high level business details.

Thank you for sharing.

I really appreciate you walking me through your business.

Usually when I speak to other founders in your situation they’re focused on a couple priorities:

1. Priority 1

2. Priority 2

Curious are either those top of mind or is something else more important in your evaluation?

Example 2: Prospect shares a bunch of high level business details.

Thank you for sharing.

I really appreciate you walking me through your business.

What I’m hearing is:

[insert summary of what you heard].

Given that, I imagine you have specific priorities for what you’re looking to accomplish with this evaluation.

Can you spend some time walking me through what’s most important to you? This will help me better understand how we can specifically help.

Example 3: Prospect shares a priority or challenge.

Thank you for sharing.

I really appreciate you walking me through your business.

What stood out to me was:

[insert priority or challenge they mentioned].

Can you talk to me more about that?

Basically, there’s always a way to make your 2nd discovery question focused on your prospect’s priorities and challenges.

So don’t miss that opportunity.

You have any discovery tips?

Reply to this email and let me know!

— Mike G

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