My GAP Selling Inspired Discovery Workflow

Early in my career I did zero discovery

The problem with that? I had no idea why my prospects wanted to buy and what would be worthwhile pitching them

So I was relying entirely on sheer volume, talking to and pitching as many prospects as I could – Exhausting work.

Eventually I got some decent training which included discovery and everything in sales became a TON easier and more predictable.

So I’m going to share my discovery process to help you inspired by GAP Selling, Sandler, and a few others methodologies that have inspired me over the years.

So I like to break down the goals of discovery into three buckets and we’ll use an example like we’re selling insulation to someone.

What is the Problem?

Benefits don’t sell, if we want someone to change psychology has shown they’re much more likely to do it to avoid loss vs. chase a gain.

For example “We want to be warmer” is less motivating than “We’re cold right now”.

Find the issue with the status quo, what they do today, and you’ll be off to a better start than understanding their goals.

What is the ROOT CAUSE of the Problem?

This is critical to understand as it will later allow you to show directly how whatever you sell will solve the Root Cause of their issue.

We are going to want to specifically pinpoint what is causing this issue then show how we solve that specific origin.

For example lets say you sell insulation and the customer says “My house is cold” there are plenty of solutions to warm up a house. But by identifying that the house is poorly insulated will open up a gap for us to position insulation as the best fit solution vs. trying the customer trying to solve it with a new boiler, in-floor heating, new siding… 

What is the IMPACT of the Problem?

This is probably the most often missed and also the most important thing to uncover because it’s the reason why the customer will care enough to invest in solving the problem

In the example the customer may be “cold” but if they’re getting by wrapping up in blankets and their bill isn’t huge then they’re unlikely to be motivated to spend $5,000

But if we uncover they’re spending $2,000 on heating every month and their kids are getting sick then that’s going to make it much more likely that they will actually invest in solving the problem

It’s important to get specific when understanding the impact, if possible quantify a dollar cost the problem has caused and what it will impacts will continue to occur if left unaddressed (cost of inaction).

So that’s what we need to learn in discovery, what’s the problem, what’s the root cause, and what’s the specific impact of the problem

So how do we uncover those things? QUESTIONS 

Questions to Ask

Technical Problem Questions

What prompted you to want to talk today? (Inbound)

Typically folks come to use when they’re seeing {problem 1} or {problem 2}, which of those is more top of mind for your team this quarter? 

Could you walk me through how that looks today…

You mentioned {problem}, tell me more about that…

Can you give me an example?

Root Cause Questions

What’s the reason you think {problem} is happening?

Impact Questions

So what you’re telling me is {problem} has been an issue and you think {cause} is behind that, am I hearing you right? (potential to challenge the perceived Root Cause if misaligned)

And what happened as a result of that?

Wow, how does that affect the rest of the company?

You mentioned {affect}, could you be more specific?

How often is something like that happening?

How long has this been an issue for?

And what’s stopped you from {DIY FIX} up until now?

So this problem has been an issue for {time} you’ve tried to fix it with {DIY}, but that was ineffective, the example you shared had {impact} & is happening {frequency} so we can napkin math that this issue is costing the business {impact} as well as {other impacts}… is that a fair call?

Transition To Solution

That makes sense. Based on what you shared about this problem being caused by {cause} I’m going to suggest {next step/micro demo}

Common Issues:

If you run into these common issues with your discovery then here’s how you might be able to solve them:

No or negligible impact

Use a label to push away

“If {problem} was to continue, it seems like it wouldn’t be a huge issue” 

Bad product fit

If the root cause isn’t something you solve for, refer to another category/provider

“Sounds like this is being caused by {cause}, that’s not something we address, have you looked into {other category}?” 

Not answering questions

If you’re finding prospects are unwilling to ask questions then make sure you get their agreement to answer questions at the beginning of the call to reduce this.

But if it still comes up you can fast track and give/get

“Sounds like you’re pretty certain you know what you’re looking for here. How about you bring me up to speed and I can jump right into showing you how we handle that…” 

Won’t book next step

Understand why by disqualifying

“Typically if it doesn’t make sense to have another conversation I’ve found that means we’ve actually missed something”

 

If you need a visual guide then here’s a discovery and demo flow chart I made with one of my students you can try using/adapting by making a copy.