Brian LaManna (speaker) briefly introduces a personal milestone—having crossed $5 million in revenue in his career at Gong—and presents a structured set of discovery questions for sales cycles. He groups questions by stage: early-stage (priorities, current state, actions tried), demo-stage (how a feature changes behavior, comparisons, ripple effects), and plug-and-play questions (urgency, personal meaning, and impact of solving or failing to solve priorities). He emphasizes that asking questions differently changes answers and that a single answer can open an entire deal cycle.
Questions this video answers
$5 million
Chapters
I've now crossed the $5 million mark in revenue in my career at gong each of the new logo wins. They had one thing in common. Now, keep in mind, this took multiple conversations with multiple people. It's getting to a point where I could more clearly and concisely articulate their problems and challenges than even they could. That is the apex in every sales cycle. Now here are a few of my favorite discovery questions to ultimately get me there. First, these first ones are for early stage. Number one, what are the top two to three initiatives we're trying to solve for right now as a business and department org? Number two, Obviously all of these are super important, but if you had to stack rank them, what's number one? Number three, how did you determine that was number one? Number four, how is blank showing up in the business today? Number five, where is that at today and where are you hoping to get that to? Number six, what have you tried so far to solve for that? Here are some questions you can use in demo. Number one, what would this allow your team to do differently? Number two, how does this compare to what you're doing today? Number three, how would you do this without insert this feature? Number four, what are the ripple effects of this challenge on the broader business? Number five, what else comes to your mind when you see this and how you would leverage it today? Now here are a few other favorites as well that you can plug and play. Number one, what are the biggest challenges you would regret not solving in the next 60 days? Number two, awkward question here, but why is that meaningful for you? Number three, if we're able to help solve that, why would that be important? Number four, how would not achieving insert priority derail you? The difference in how you ask all of these questions is the difference in how they answer. And one answer can open up an entire deal cycle.
