One of the most common challenges sales reps (both SDRs and Account Executives) deal with is not knowing how to do in-depth discovery without interrogating the prospect.
It’s a tough line to walk. If you ask too many questions, you can come across as pushy or intrusive. But if you don’t ask enough questions, you’ll never uncover the true needs of your prospect.
So how can you find that sweet spot?
Here's a framework to have conversational discovery:
L = Listen
O = Observe
L = Label
A = Ask
Listen: This is where you need to pro-actively listen to what your prospect responded.
Observe: While you were listening, what made sense or didn't make sense? What were you curious about?
Label: After you've listened and understood what you heard, label it by calling it out to the prospect. This usually begins with the words, "Sounds like..."
Ask: Either ask them to clarify or ask them another question.
This process takes practice, but if you can do it well, you'll uncover the true needs of your prospect without sounding interrogative.
So let's wrap this together:
The prospect says, "Every time we reach out to COMPETITOR's customer support they take forever to respond."
L = every time they contact CS it takes too long to respond
O = why do they have to contact customer support? why are they trying to accomplish this?
L = what are your assumptions based on listening and observing? Example: "Sounds like
this was chewing away at productivity"
A = ask them to clarify why they had to contact customer support so much. Example: "Curious though, what was the reason you constantly had to reach out to customer support, to begin with?"
P.S. You don't ALWAYS have to do this for every response your prospect gives you, but using LOLA on calls is super easy to adopt.
Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways FDTC can help: