After 3 tech unicorns, 11 years in sales, and 4 years as an enterprise AE, I’ve learned 10 Discovery questions that I swear by.
Here they are, in order (kinda):
- In this role, I talk to [your industry] leaders all day long. They tell me about their heartburn around problems A, B and C. How much of that sounds like your world & what did I miss?
- For executives: What kinds of things did you get hired to change or start?
- Happy to answer question X, but can you give me some context around why you’re asking?
- You just mentioned X…. why is that important?
- So you’re looking to change or improve X…by how much? (Millions or tens of millions? 9% or 49%?)
- This has likely been a problem for a while…Why change now?
- How widely felt is this pain across your whole organization?
- How does something like [my product] line up with what’s important to your boss right now?
- How will others in your org feel about using something like [my product]?
- Who will feel left out if we don’t include them next time we meet?
Big credit on the above goes to Charles Muhlbauer. He’s a must-follow.
Also, David Rubinstein, Craig Henehan, Jay Cañete & Ryan Iacoviello
I borrow from the best.