Qualify
SalesAccelerate — Opportunity Planner: Qualify stage
Is this deal worth your time?
Before you invest hours in Discovery, run the prospect through this check. Thirteen questions, about four minutes, one honest answer at the end: are you qualified to move forward, or do you have more work to do first.
Think of one active opportunity while you answer. For each question, choose the option that's most true right now — not where you hope it'll be next week.
Choose an answer before continuing.
Where the gaps are
Bruce's rule of thumb: most stalled or lost deals didn't die on price — they died because the seller moved to Discovery before the prospect had agreed there was a real, measurable problem worth solving. If you scored low on compelling event or measurability above, that's the conversation to have again before you book the next meeting.
Discovery
SalesAccelerate — Opportunity Planner: Discover stage
How to run a Discovery session
A good Discovery is not an interrogation and it is not a demo. It is a collaboration where the prospect draws their own process, hears themselves describe what is broken, and arrives at the cost of it before you ever mention your solution. This guide walks the session start to finish. Take notes in it as you go, then print it and bring it to Prescribe.
Your objective
Confirm and quantify the compelling event, and test your unique value proposition.
Their objective
Get outside expertise on how similar companies solved the same problem, and start documenting requirements.
Decide what size Discovery this deal deserves
Pick this before you book anything. Scope too small and you will miss the moment of truth; scope too large for a deal that has not earned it and you will not get the room.
Resist the urge to sell
The goal is to get the prospect to reveal their real pain points and the solution they want — but you have to build trust before they will invest that time with you. The single most common way sellers lose a Discovery is by opening with their own company.
- Lead with what similar clients achieved, not with who you are or what you sell.
- Have the counter-examples ready — companies in their industry that stayed with the status quo, or chose a competitor, and did less well.
- Bring before-and-after diagrams from a customer in their industry. This is your unlock if they are not yet ready to talk about their own environment.
- Plan to draw, not to present. Whiteboard, tablet, or paper — illustrations create a far more collaborative room than slides do.
- If you must demo, keep it under five minutes and go straight back into collaboration mode afterward.
The shape of the conversation
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Reset the framefirst 5 minutes
Remind them of the process they already agreed to in Qualify — Discover, Prescribe, Propose — and say plainly what you want to leave with today: an understanding of how the work flows now, and what the problem is costing them.
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Anchor with a peer story5–10 minutes
Tell them what a similar company achieved, and what happened to the ones that did nothing. You are establishing that you have seen this before. Watch for the moment they lean in — that is your signal to stop talking.
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Get to the whiteboardthe bulk of the session
The moment they start asking questions, get up and start drawing their people, process and information. Work the eight questions below as a conversation, not a checklist. Let them hold the marker whenever they will.
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Read the requirements backlast 10 minutes
Summarize their top five to ten requirements out loud, in their words, and let them correct you. Being corrected is the point — it is how the list becomes theirs.
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Close toward Prescribe
Use the transition line at the bottom of this page and book the next meeting before you leave the room.
The eight questions, and why each one earns its place
Draw these out rather than reading them off. Every why matters more than the answer that precedes it — the first answer is what happens, the why is what it costs.
When they will not open up
- Go back to the diagram. Show the before-and-after from another customer in their industry and ask which half looks more like them.
- Shrink the question. Ask about one step rather than the whole process: “walk me through just what happens after the order comes in.”
- Ask about the workaround. People who will not describe a problem will happily describe the spreadsheet they built to survive it.
- Ask who else feels it. If your contact is guarded about their own team, they are often candid about the department downstream.
Their top requirements, in their words
When you believe you can solve the problem with a solid UVP, stop asking and start summarizing. Five is enough; ten is plenty. Use their language, not your product's.
Where the compelling event actually gets triggered
A perfect Discovery reveals the one or two places in the current process that cause customers to leave, costs to balloon, revenue to be missed, or an executive to miss a bonus. Find one you can uniquely solve — that is where your unique value proposition comes from. If you cannot name it after the session, you have not finished Discovery.
A.Which step in their process is the moment of truth?
B.What can you do about it that no one else can?
The 3X test
People are drawn to large rewards that carry minimal risk, effort and cost. A change that returns roughly three times what it costs tends to become a priority. Gather these numbers with the client, in the room — people trust their own data and become attached to analysis they own. An ROI you built alone is a number they will argue with.
Enter both numbers to see the return multiple.
→Where did these numbers come from?
If you cannot name the person who gave you each figure and how they got to it, the number will not survive contact with their finance team.
The line that moves it forward
“Well, I believe we have a solution that will meet or exceed most or all of your requirements. How best can I help you understand how our solution could potentially work in your environment?”
Then stop and let them answer. Whatever they ask for next is the agenda for your Prescribe meeting — book it before you leave.