A short instructional video presenting a framework for asking deeper, higher-impact questions during sales discovery calls. The speaker (Kyle Asay) argues that sellers should avoid surface-level, researchable questions (level one), instead progressing quickly to department/org-level (level two) and individual/motivational (level three) questions to qualify opportunities and create champions.
The fastest way to lose your buyer's attention in a sales call, especially discovery, is to ask them a question that you could have or should have learned on your own. I've listened to a lot of discovery calls and what I found is most tellers spend a lot of time on surface level questions, and the reality is discovery calls are way too short to waste that time. Instead of showing up with surface level questions and wasting your time and the buyer's time, I want you to get much deeper, faster in into level two and level three questions, which is what we're going to walk through in the video today. I'll give you a super simple example to start off the conversation. A question like asking me, hey, Kyle, where are you based? Again, surface level, something you could have easily found on LinkedIn, my website, or a lot of places. A better question that would at least show that you came to the conversation ready to be engaging would be something like, hey, I bet moving to Chicago after so many years in Utah was a big change. What's the best part? Anything you miss? Not an impactful example maybe, but a simple example of how easily you can go from level one to level two. The idea is the faster you get past level one questions, the more time you have on deeper questions that drive the conversation forward because your buyer gets agitated and restless when you spend a lot of time on those level one questions. So a level one question is a question that can be answered by yourself through research. Some of the common questions I see asked are things like, so how does your company make money? Can you tell me a bit more about your role? How long have you been with the company? So again, anything that you can find out through public knowledge, don't ask in a discovery call because you're wasting time. If you're unsure, you can validate by saying, hey, it seems like the way your company makes money is xyz. What did I miss? As a slight tweak that at least shows you did your homework and didn't show up to the call expecting your buyer to educate you, which is quite irritating to be honest, for a buyer to take on that role, then level two questions are questions that are specific to their department or their org. And so questions like, how is your team currently supporting insert company goal. One of my favorites credit to Nate Nasrallah for this one is if he were writing up the headline to announce the outcome of this project, what would you want it to say? And then finally, level three is getting deeper into the individual aspect. What is personally motivating and impactful for your buyer, the kinds of things that turn them into a champion that literally want your solution to win because of the benefit they see to themselves. And so questions like, if successfully implemented, what would this enable you to accomplish that you can't today or another one? And for you personally, how could this impact your career goals? Save this one from when they're almost a champion or are a champion as a little bit personal. But you'd be surprised at the depth of conversation you can have with a question like that. If you spend too much time in discovery or on those level one questions, questions that you could have gotten to public research, what you're going to hear from your buyer a lot at the end of the call is, hey, why don't you send me a case study and we'll get back to you if we want to learn more. If you spend time on level two questions, you're going to find qualified opportunities. If you spend time on level two and you're able to get to level three, you're going to find yourself winning a lot more deals. If you found this video helpful, let me know I'm going the right direction by leaving a like on this video. Then if there are any questions or topics you want to make sure I cover in a future video, leave me a comment. I read all comments and I love recommendations that will help me help you sell more. Finally, don't forget to subscribe. That way you won't miss any of my upcoming content that I'm creating to help you improve the way that you sell.
