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1. Establish authority.

We need to first and foremost let the prospect know that we are someone that they should be having a conversation in the first place. We need to show them that hey, this is someone that I do want asking me questions. So they can't just show up, and we can't just say hey, I've got some questions for you. I want a just kind of bombard you with questions, or I want to probe to understand what's going on. That's low-value stuff. No CEO or VP is going to say, "Yeah, I'm dying to get my brain picked right now." So, when we show up for that discovery, we need first to establish that we are the authority. And so, how do we do that? Well, what we want to do is use what I call the whiteboard pitch, and it's straightforward.

Typically what I'm doing is something like this. It's just a three-part matrix. So I might say something like, "You know what, Don? "Some of the challenges that we see in your space "are the following." And so, we've got challenge one, challenge two and challenge three. And so, obviously, you might mention what those are.

Now I can engage around those challenges, which goes right into the next piece, which is number two, which is engaged around challenges.

2. Understand our prospect's core challenges.

What are those issues that are affecting them? So again, established authority, we've done a little whiteboard pitch, we've now ended it on which of these ring most true to you, and now the prospect is saying, "Oh, well, this one." So say in this case, they're saying, "We're being beaten down by low-cost competitors." And so now I want to understand exactly what's happening around those challenges. And by the way, if you've done this effectively, this little whiteboard pitch, it's going to make everything else so much easier. Because chances are, in a lot of people's world, if you're going to deep in the questions too early without having established some authority, a prospect is likely going to say something like, "You know what can you just tell me about your product?" Or, "Can you just give me the price?" But instead, because we've established this authority, almost like a doctor.

3. Have a high-level sales qualification conversation.

We want to understand the cost. And again, you've established yourself as an expert, so you have earned this question. So you've talked about some of the challenges, what's going on, and now we want to understand what does the cost of these challenges mean to the organization? What are all these challenges costing the organization?

4. Understand their drive.

We want to understand their drive. We want to know what is driving the prospect to be focused on this particular concern. What's in it for them? Why does this matter to them, what's driving them? Or, how are these challenges driving them in a certain way? Understand their drive.

5. Only present to their challenges.

This is one of the biggest mistakes that people make in a demo or a presentation, is that they've done let's say a pretty thorough qualification or a discovery, and then they get to the presentation. They start presenting all of this other stuff that's outside of the challenges that the buyer said in the qualification stage. We only want to present what they care about.