The Discovery Call (DC)

The discovery call and winning the discovery call is the most important part of the enterprise sales process. The reason that this is the case is that you ultimately use questions to form the value concept, check the boxes that front run objections, surface objections, obtain a quantified need, gather ammo for the solutions/product call, and gather data for the coauthored ROI model. In order to get to a PC, you first need to win the DC.

Discovery is an ordered questioning process (qualification) in order to form the value concept and to determine need & buying criteria (the why). The questioning process is ordered in the following manner:

BUSINESS & MARKETING GOALS - Getting a business need and then quantifying the gap they need to close to achieve that goal.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PROCESS DESIGN & VENDORS - How they have designed the customer acquisition process currently, what vendors are they using for it, and why they chose those vendors. The questions here are often derived from their existing marketing strategy and how they have structured it currently.

ROAS & ATTRIBUTION - KPIs (success metrics), KPI goals & how they prove out the KPIs currently.

SOLUTION EXPECTATIONS – CPL/CPA & ROI thresholds we would need to meet in order to evaluate our platform as a potential vendor along with the process design on our platform. This shapes our product call.

DM PROCESS & TIMELINE - How they typically evaluate new vendors within their organization and whether they can add vendors in real time.

VALUE CONCEPT OF THE PLATFORM AKA CONSUMER INTENT - VALUE PROPOSITION

If we are able to focus your marketing dollars on undecided bottom of the funnel users, the effect that has is being able to drive a more competitive CPA/CPL or ROAS due to a better conversion rate (user view/lead conversion and lead/sale conversion).

DISCOVERY CALL Questions are the way to discovery. Questions drive insights and form the value concept in the mind of the DM. Research lead to get to the why behind actions and decisions.

Key Question: Are they willing to evaluate us as a potential vendor?

Goal: To win the DC by following the DC best practice highlighted below and getting the client to agree to evaluate us as a potential vendor.

DISCOVERY CALL BEST PRACTICE:

RAPPORT

FAMILIARITY WITH PLATFORM & RELATE USER EXPERIENCE TO OPPORTUNITY ON PLATFORM (CONSUMER INTENT)

DC QUESTIONING PROCESS (QBS FUNNEL)

NEXT STEPS

RAPPORT

FAMILIARITY WITH PLATFORM & RELATING DEMO TO QUANTIFIED OPPORTUNITY ON PLATFORM

As a consumer to the conclusion that our platform can be used to meet their goal for their new customer acquisition process ie the ability to isolate undecided buying from advantageous demographics (live demo to form conclusion of core value proposition)

DC QUESTIONING PROCESS

Quantifiable Business Goals

New Customer Acquisition Process & Vendors (Marketing) that drives the quantifiable business goals – current vendors and process structure

ROAS Measurement – How tracking success (ex. ROI multiple, Cost per Acquisition, Cost per Call etc)

Solutions Expectations – Need translated to solution

DM Process & Timeline – how the org makes buys

Next Steps

I. BUSINESS & MARKETING GOALS - Getting a business need and then quantifying the gap they need to close to achieve that goal.

II. CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PROCESS DESIGN & VENDORS - How they have designed the customer acquisition process currently, what vendors are they using for it, and why they chose those vendors.

III. ROAS & ATTRIBUTION - KPIs (success metrics), KPI goals & how they prove out the KPIs currently.

IV. SOLUTION EXPECTATIONS - CPA & ROI thresholds we would need to meet in order to evaluate our platform as a potential vendor.

V. DM PROCESS & TIMELINE- How they typically evaluate new vendors within their organization and whether they can add vendors in real time.

VI. NEXT STEPS

QUANTIFIABLE BUSINESS GOALS

With the initial subset of questions, we are trying to get a quantified business need. We use questions in order to find this out and to begin forming the value concept.

a) Is it business as usual?

b) Does that mean you are back in growth mode?

c) What are your greatest areas of need in terms of client acquisition?

d) Where do you see the biggest room for growth across your locations? Why is that?

e) How is the new customer acquisition process currently structured? As in how do you handle client requests?

f) How do you structure agreements with your clients?

g) What are the locations/regions that you need to focus your customer acquisition/advertising efforts on?

h) What is your timeline to achieve these goals?

i) What locations/regions are struggling? Which are exceeding? Why do you think that is?

j) What investment do you need to achieve these goals? How was that number derived?

k) What target increase do you have in mind for sales, # of customers, etc?

l) What does it mean to your company to achieve these goals?

m) What is the average client spend?

n) How many times does a client perform purchase throughout the year?

NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PROCESS & VENDORS (MARKETING)

With the second subset of questions, we are trying to drill down into specific marketing goals in order to complete their specified business goals.

a) What’s your current marketing strategy relative to reaching those goals?

b) What would you like to do that you aren’t doing now with current marketing?

c) Given what you have done in the past, what has worked and what hasn’t?

d) What do you currently do for advertising?

e) Where do you focus your advertising efforts the most and why?

f) Why did you choose online, print, TV etc?

g) What is your budget breakdown per platform and season?

h) What does your budget look like this year?

i) What is your target audience and how are you currently engaging with them online?

j) What are your marketing challenges with current advertising (pain points)?

k) What are your experiences with investing in digital marketing or CPC advertising?

l) What strategies are proven to be most effective?

m) What are the marketing campaigns you have seen success with?

n) What form of media have you found to be most effective/least effective?

ROAS MEASUREMENT

The next subset of questions gets into the quantitative data that will be the basis for a coauthored ROI model. This helps us tell the story of the path to ROI and what we will use to build a business case for our solution.

How will you determine the results of your efforts?

How do you think about attribution in the marketplace?

What is your attribution model for each initiative?

How are you measuring attributions online/offline?

How do you track the performance of their ad campaign (ROAS)?

What metrics matter most when you measure your sales, new customer acquisition, etc?

Per platform, what are some valuable metrics?

What KPIs do you look at and how often?

Which media is giving you the higher ROAS?

Who conducts the performance tracking of your media campaigns?

What cost per lead do you look for or need?

What is your desired CPL/CPA?

What is the value of a customer for you (LTV)?

SOLUTIONS EXPECTATIONS

Given the ROI inputs, what do we need to be able to achieve or do in order to begin coauthoring a solution.

What would you need to see from us in order to redirect more of your budget to us?

What is an acceptable range for a customer lead from us?

How do you like to deliver proposals and reporting?

DM PROCESS & TIMELINE

The final subset of questions helps us check the boxes of DM process and timeline in order to understand how they build business cases, evaluate and ultimately add new vendors.

What does your buying process look like?

What does the process of allocating your ad budget look like?

How are budgets decided?

How much could you alot to our platform for a pilot?

Who else should we involve in this process? Who else needs to be involved in this conversation?

What data have you based your purchasing decisions off of in the past (conceptual vs. quantitative)?

What KPIs are you looking at to decide if you are going to work with a media partner?

What is the typical timeline for decisions?

Do you have any hesitations in moving forward with this partnership?

VI. NEXT STEPS - scheduled PC on the call for same time next week

SUMMARY OF DC QUESTIONING PROCESS:

BIZ & MARKETING GOALS - The business & marketing goals that we are operating to achieve (goals and the gap from where they are now aka need)

NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PROCESS DESIGN & VENDORS USING FOR IT AND WHY - How the new customer acquisition process is currently designed, which vendors they are using to flow into that process and why

HOW TRACKING/QUANTIFYING SUCCESS & ATTRIBUTION METHOD - How they are both tracking success and their attribution method to gather that data

SOLUTION THRESHOLD- What level of that success metric that we would need to hit in order for them to test a pilot with us

HOW ARE NEW VENDORS USUALLY EVALUATED & APPROVED AND TIMELINE FOR DOING SO - How they typically approve new vendors and their timeline for adding a new vendor

DC QUESTIONING PROCESS SUMMARY: 1. Is it business as usual? 2. Does that mean you are in growth mode? 3. How are you tracking that success from a business perspective? 4. What level of that business KPI are you trying to target? 5. Where are you at now on that KPI? 6. What marketing KPI are you trying to drive in order to hit that success metric (store visits, online ordering, phone calls)? 7. What vendors are you using to generate that marketing KPI? Why?

Notes:

BUSINESS & MARKETING GOALS

Quantified need as a part of the dc process before the discussion of current marketing. The quantified or solid need is really part of the motivation for coauthoring a solution. Usually how I do that is asking the following questions in order:

Is it business as usual?

Does that then mean that you are in growth mode?

How do you quantify/track success?

What level of that metric are you trying to obtain?

Is that an aggressive goal or mid level or introductory goal?

Where are they now with regard to that metric

Quantified gap

Do you have marketing budget to close that gap right now?

Are you willing to evaluate a new vendor to close that gap?

CURRENT DESIGN OF NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PROCESS & MARKETING VENDORS

A. How is the current sales process (or related business process) structured and to facilitate what type of flow?

B. Why is it designed to do that? (Buying criteria)

C. What marketing vendors are they using currently?

D. Why them? (Buying criteria)

E. How did they evaluate those new vendors when you were first adding them? (Conceptual vs. Quantitative)

F. Why did they evaluate them that way and is that how you build your business cases within the organization? (Buying criteria)

G. How are they tracking those platforms? (Attribution)

H. Why? (Buying criteria)

I. What KPIs or success metrics? (CPC, CPL, CPA)

J. Why those KPIs or success metrics? (Buying criteria)

K. Any targets for those metrics?

L. Why those targets? (Buying criteria)

M. Any pain points for current vendors?

Next steps - scheduled PC on the call for same time next week

THE DISCOVERY CALL

Rapport building for 30 seconds

Consumer intent connect their experience, unbranded equals ability to isolate undecided buying intent which lowers CPA and boosts ROI (live search)

Total opportunity - red line representing that undecided buying intent

Current ads built to facilitate what type of leads and the sales process

Current ads - what? Why? How tracking? KPI? What was the process of evaluating and approving those vendors? Conceptual evaluation or quantitative?

DANTE (for DM process - Anyone else we need to loop in? for Platform XYZ familiarity - Have you used Y in past? Branded vs. unbranded search, Ads - what doing? Why doing it? How tracking it?

Consumer intent concept - the ability to isolate undecided buying intent

Surface core objection and address not moving past it until completely addressed (schedule 2nd DC if necessary) - Question to see if have CI concept, if not then open ended questions to out and address objection

Solution concept - lead flow process (value in calls, walk ins, online form fills etc)

ROAS flow (data points) - CPA, LTV client inputs

Attribution method(s) - How currently tracking

Goal: Win the DC and get agreement to take a PC, Have DM see Platform XYZ as a place where they can isolate undecided buying intent and agree to evaluate Platform XYZ as a marketing vendor (take a PC), decide whether DM is a conceptual or quantitative buyer (ROAS model)

THE DC HAS AN ORDER

There is an order of concepts in the Discovery Call (DC) that cannot be skipped. You must follow the order of concepts and take enough time to address each to check the box. Only when you have checked the box may you move onto the next one:

Consumer intent concept - Customer journey leading to the conclusion that people use Platform XYZ to spend money (live search showing high intention user) - core value proposition. How do you end up paying lowest cost per acquisition? By getting in front of someone looking for your services right now and they are going to end up buying in a short period of the time (bottom of the funnel). live search, high intent user going to spend money somewhere, research phase is done and now just consideration for a local business since business directory.

Surface core objection

Solution concept - sales process and attribution currently along with the current marketing matched with it and how they are measuring it (KPI & attribution methodology). the ability to be in front of someone the moment they are deciding where to transact (bottom of the funnel).

ROI concept

DM, timeline clarity

DANTE & DEALING WITH POTENTIAL OBJECTIONS

Other than consumer intent, the most important part of the DC is checking the boxes of DANTE which stands for:

DM - understanding how they make decisions like this, I have a lot of good info to put together a solution, when you are typically looking at new advertising, who else is involved in making that decision and can we get them on the next call?

Ads (Digital ads & existing marketing strategy) – Checking this box actually requires three boxes to be checked (3 questions):

What are they currently doing?

Why are they doing those? Asking why FB/Google tells us their buying criteria (the PC will be designing a solution and relating everything back to their buying criteria discovered here)

How are they tracking it?

Need

Timeline

Experience with the platform

EVERY DC SHOULD CHECK 7 BOXES:

Rapport building for 30 seconds

DANTE aka Qualification (for DM process - Anyone else we need to loop in? for platform familiarity - Have you used Y in past? Branded vs. unbranded search)

Need: Need is gap between where they are now and where they want to be based upon how they are tracking success. Need also has to align with their sales process, Kpis, and attribution method. Budget: Is budget currently available to pilot a new vendor? If it isn't, when will it be? DM: When you pilot a new vendor, how are those decisions typically made? Do we need to loop anyone in? Ads: What other marketing vendors have you worked with in the past? What worked, what didn't? Why do you think that Is? What do you like about currently? What Kpis are you tracking? What is your attribution methodology?

Consumer intent concept

Solution concept - lead flow process (value in calls, walk ins, online form fills etc)

ROAS flow (data points)

Attribution method(s)

QASSD to surface objections

Goal: Win the DC and get agreement to take a PC

DISCOVERY CALL OUTLINE: 1. Rapport 2. Acct passed up from local to MLoc 3. Consumer intent concept - their experience, live search unbranded 4. Market share - red line is the unbranded, missed opportunity to connect with bottom of funnel users (Gap) 5. Solution concept - Platform can close the gap on bottom of funnel consumers in market, match your current sales process, and be tailored to drive the type of leads you want and use the attribution methodology you are currently using 6. Surface the objection - consumer intent and solution concepts clear or do we need to dig in to surface objection so we can address it 7. Do not move forward until addressing the objection 8. Once objection dealt with, then can talk current ads, with dig in questions like why that vendor, how are you tracking it 9. Need (sales process & KPIs) - phone calls, form fill, walk in 10. Cost per KPI/CPA and average check size 11. DM process - anyone else need to loop in? 12. Timeline - if we were to put a solution in front of you that works within your budget, is now a good time to get something started? 13. Next steps - same time next week

RULES FOR THE DC:

Don't sell the platform

Don’t talk about product. DC is entirely for learning and not for product, slides in the PC will address red flags and opportunities learned from DC customized for client existing strategy

Don't have an agenda other than learning and clarity

PUTTING TOGETHER THE DC SLIDE DACK

Once the discovery call appointment is set, you are going to need to put together the DC slide deck. The slide deck for the Discovery Call (DC) is going to be very high level and meant to simply begin a conversation.

Within the organization there are going to be vertical specific decks prepared ahead of time that can be utilized and tailored to the specific brand and client.

The deck outline (agenda) looks like the following:

I. Goals & challenges

II. Customer journey

III. Market share on platform

IV. Next steps

During the DC, you are not going to want to talk about your organization at all and limit the discussion regarding any potential products.

The ultimate goal of the DC is to get the DM to commit to a Product Call (PC) where you will be discussing specific solutions to achieve the goals and address the challenges that they shared with you in the DC.

After the DC you can send a thank you email with the slide deck attached, a recap of the meeting, along with a confirmation of the next meeting, the product call (PC).