Do You Make These 6 SaaS Sales Call Mistakes?

Hey, everyone, Chris Orlob here, CEO of pclub IO, which is the number one learning resource for tech sales professionals and sales leaders. In this video, today you are going to learn six deal killing discovery call mistakes that can throw your deal off the rails before you even begin. Now, as I teach you these six mistakes, I want you to engage with me and keep track of how many of these six mistakes are you making? Okay, Just make a mental note of it and let's get into the six. Mistake number one, asking how does this impact you? Now, this is a question that I would argue is right in theory, but wrong in execution. Most of us in sales understand the value of exploring impact and exploring how a problem impacts a customer. At least in theory, it should magnify urgency. It gets them to think about the consequences in a bigger way than what they were previously considering. However, this current phrase that so many salespeople use, how does this impact you? Comes across as salesy. It comes across as cheesy, and it makes your customers a little bit uncomfortable and not in a good way. They feel like they're being sold to. Okay, so instead of using how does this impact you? You still want to explore impact, but you want to do it in a way that signals business acumen and business sophistication. And one of the phrases that I've used successfully and that I teach others, what ripple effects is this challenge having on the business? Okay, it's essentially the same question, but it sounds less cheesy, less sales, or less salesy, less manipulative. And it comes across as if you're a business professional who happens to know how to sell rather than a cheesy salesperson. Mistake number two, failing to earn the right to do discovery in the first place. This is particularly true with deals you went outbound to. Maybe your SDR reached out or you prospected after them. They agreed to a 30 minute meeting. Now, most, not all, but most of those buyers need to be thawed out a little bit before you start haranguing them with a bunch of discovery questions. Okay? It's a common experience for salespeople to start meetings like this, ask a bunch of discovery questions, and then the buyer just gets impatient and says, can you just show me the product? Or is even less kind than that. Okay? So the idea here is if you went outbound to somebody and they barely want to be on the meeting to begin with, you've got to warm them up a little bit before you get into discovery. Now, the best way I know how to do it and I Have other in depth videos that teach you this at greater length than what I can do right now. But the best way I know how or how is to start your discovery call with a compelling customer story that illustrates the pain you solve. And ideally, the person you're talking to can see themselves in that story. Okay, should. It should feel like a page from their journal or diary or something like that. So if you start the discovery call, you know, setting the agenda and saying, before I get into any questions for you, which I, I do have, I want to walk you through a customer story of ours so that you have context as to what we even solve, what we even do, and then we can start talking about your situation. Does that feel fair? And most buyers, if they talk a lot, salespeople, they're going to feel a sense of relief, right? Because most salespeople are just immediately asking them a bunch of questions. And when you propose that agenda, they're going to be thinking to themselves, thank heavens this person's not going to be a total waste of my time. Maybe a little bit. You still got more work to do. But avoid that second mistake, which is failing to earn the right to do discovery. Mistake number three. This is going to sound really tactical, but it is saying mm and yep. And other affirmative active listening signals too often. Okay, we're on zoom. These days, few of you are on face to face, but you can at least make eye contact with your buyer by looking into the webcam. And that should be enough to signal that you're listening. Now, the people who every five seconds are going, mm, mm, mm. It's really disruptive to your buyer's stream of consciousness, Right? If they're going off on something, they're on a 32nd or 62nd monologue. Just sit there and stare at them. Right? The salespeople who are constantly saying, yep, yep, I'm with you. Mm, mm. It just ruins the train of thought. So this isn't like a deal killing mistake, but a lot of people find it annoying. And a lot of salespeople do it because they want to signal that they are actively listening. But I'm here to tell you, you can do that simply by making eye contact into the webcam in a way that is not intrusive to your buyer's stream of consciousness. Okay, so that's mistake number three. Mistake number four, going through a pre planned checklist of discovery questions. Now, it's okay to plan your questions. In fact, I would actively encourage you to plan at least some of your questions. But what bad salespeople do is they have a list of questions, maybe their boss gave it to them and they just run through it, right? They ask their first question, their buyer answers, they're staring blankly at their buyer, and then they just open a new thread with the next question and it feels very weird and unnatural and scripted and robotic. And the best salespeople, they ask a question and maybe the question is preplanned, they listen intently with life threatening curiosity to their buyer and then their next question, and this is the important point, is predicated on whatever the buyer just said. So the question's spontaneous. It is based on whatever talk track your buyer just went down. Okay? So once again, it's okay to pre plan your questions, but if you pre plan your entire set of questions and you just go through them one by one and you don't change anything, regardless of what the buyer says, you are doing discovery. Wrong. Mistake number five, failing to summarize what you've heard. Often the best salespeople, every five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever, there's no specific amount of time, stop the conversation, pull back, summarize what they've heard their buyer say using as many of their buyer's words as they possibly can, and then say, did I get that right? Okay. This acts as emotional grease to an otherwise interrogative conversation. Okay? If you don't do this and you just keep asking questions, even if they're good questions, your buyer is going to feel exhausted because you're just going and pummeling them. And those questions start to feel like a pickaxe. Now, great salespeople buy themselves additional time and welcoming and get their buyers to emotionally exhale by summarizing often. Right? Every three or four questions they go, all right, let me take a step back and just make sure I understand where you're coming from. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Did I get that right? When you do that well, your buyer emotionally exhales and you don't wear out your welcome as far as new questions go. Now you can springboard into an entirely different thread of conversation without it feeling mentally jarring or emotionally exhausting. Mistake number six, and this is the last one, scheduling next steps without selling the buyer on why they should attend those next steps. Steps. Okay, this is a mistake that is particularly true if your first call is mainly just discovery. Right? If all you've done during a first 30 minute call is you spent 25 minutes on discovery and then five minutes scheduling and you get your buyer to agree to next steps, you're going to have a very high no show rate. If you don't sell them on what those next steps are, who should be involved and why they should attend. Because they didn't. At least if you didn't do this, well, they didn't get value during that discovery call, so why should they show up to a second meeting? Now contrast that with what the best salespeople do. They don't just schedule the next step. They sell the buyer on why they're taking that next step and they add some sizzle to it without being cheesy. They're saying, you're going to absolutely love this. I'm going to walk you through exactly how we attack every challenge you shared with me on this call. And I have a few customer stories to tell that I think you're going to want to hear. So let's find time on Tuesday. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now you can see just my excitement and doing a little bit of selling is going to get somebody more likely to want to attend a follow up meeting with me. If all I do is 30 minutes of questions and then I go, I think we should talk again. How's Tuesday at 10? Even if they agree, they're probably just being polite and they're going to decline because you have not given them a reason to show up. Okay, so give them a reason to show up with you. All right, that brings us to the end. That's the end of these six deal. Killing discovery call mistakes. Write in the comments which one you make the most and which one you're committed to correcting. Like this video if you got value and I will see you next time.