How to Run an Effective Discovery Call in B2B Sales

If you work in B2B sales, you probably already understand the importance of a discovery call. However, the difference between a standard discovery call and one that sets you up for success becomes very clear once you’ve seen examples.

Luckily, that’s exactly what we’re going to cover here. Below, we’ll look at how to run an effective discovery call in your B2B SaaS niche. Let’s start by defining this type of call before looking at some tips for improving your workflow.

What is a Discovery Call?

In short, a discovery call is an initial conversation between your sales team and a prospective client. It’s a chance to run through your sales pitch and to explain to your prospect why your product or service is what they need.

Discovery calls fit into the earlier stages of the larger sales process. Specifically, you’d conduct it after making contact with a prospective client, whether this is through cold outreach or an inbound inquiry. You should consider them to be a warm lead at this point, although this doesn’t mean you’ll convert them into a customer.

This, in fact, relies primarily on your sales team’s ability to pitch your product or service. In B2B SaaS sales, you need to have an in-depth understanding of what you can do for this potential client before the discovery call starts. While the main purpose of the call is to “discover” their needs, you should base your questions around an initial understanding of their needs.

Why Discovery Calls Matter

We’ve touched on this above, but let’s cover in more detail why discovery calls matter as part of the sales process. After all, you could just arrange product demos for your prospective client and leave them to make their own decision.

Discovery calls are important because:

1. They Allow You to Establish a Relationship

The sales process is as much about building personal relationships as it is about pitching your product. Prospective clients can be influenced by your ability to sell, after all. For example, you might have a very similar product to your competitor, but your ability to pitch it to your lead is what leads to them becoming a customer.

This call will be your first opportunity to meet your prospect, and for them to put a face to your business. It’s therefore essential for you to build rapport on the call and to show your ability to listen to their needs.

2. They Help You to Understand a Customer’s Needs

On that note, understanding your lead’s needs is a major part of this process. In SaaS sales, your customers’ requirements may be largely similar, but the point of this whole industry is flexibility. If you’re tailoring your SaaS product to each client, you need to understand what they need.

Asking open-ended questions during a discovery call is important for this. By the end of the call, you should have a clear idea of the pitch you’re going to put together for this specific client.

Learn about their pain points, business goals, and what they might want from your product demos. This information will show you know your industry and what your client might want and should make it easier for you to close the sale.

3. They Let You Establish Credibility

Being credible is vital for sales reps. They must not only know what they’re talking about but also show why their company is the one to make a difference. A discovery call is the place to do this and your prospect should go away thinking your company is the real deal.

So, how do you establish credibility on a discovery call? Put simply, you need to show you know what you’re talking about. Make sure you have the answers to their questions, you know how your product works, and how it can address your lead’s pain points.

Provided you understand your product, this shouldn’t be too difficult. Sales reps don’t need to be technical specialists, but they should have enough information to show your company’s authority in the field.

4. They Can Save Time in Your Sales Process

Part of a discovery call is to decide whether a warm lead is your ideal client (or at least a good fit). This is why you ask questions, discuss their needs, and learn more about their business. It helps you to separate a qualified prospect from an unsuitable one.

There’s no problem with some leads not working out—this is a natural part of sales. Learning this after a discovery call is beneficial because it saves you from devoting resources to pushing a lead further into your sales funnel, only to find out they’re unsuitable.

As part of your sales strategy, you should have a clear idea of your ideal customer and how your product meets their needs. By the end of a discovery call, you should be able to make a reasonable assessment about whether these factors have been met. If so, move them to the next stage. If not, close them down.

How to Run a Great Discovery Call

The basics of a discovery call are fairly straightforward. However, understanding the process in depth and having an idea of what to cover will make you far more professional (and, hopefully, successful). Here are some useful points to consider along with a step-by-step process for your call.

Is a Discovery Call the Same as a Sales Call?

It’s important to note that a discovery call isn’t the same as a sales call. Whereas a discovery call is essentially a fact-finding mission, a sales call is the process of pitching your SaaS product to your prospect once you’ve moved them on to the next stage.

The differences can be summarized as follows:

• In a discovery call, you learn about the customer’s pain points and needs. In a sales call, you pitch how your product can solve these.
• Discovery calls are conversational—they give you chance to establish a relationship. A sales call is about you persuading the prospect that your SaaS product is the one they need.
• A sales call doesn’t have a set length, as it depends on how long it takes to showcase your product. A discovery call, on the other hand, should be fairly succinct.

In short, you should include both types of call in your sales process. Don’t try to do them both on the same call, as you’ll want your prospective client to go away and think for a while before you try the hard pitch of your product or service.

How Long Should a Discovery Call Last?

The ideal length for a discovery call is around 30 minutes. Remember that this is an initial conversation, not a full sales pitch. You only need to gather enough information to move a prospect on to the next stage of your sales funnel.

However, the quality of your conversation is far more important than the length of the call. You should have a list of questions ready and remain on topic, ensuring you gather enough information about their pain points and needs.

Also, don’t be afraid to schedule a second call if you think your lead needs more information. This is a better option than running over the agreed time of your first call. That said, it’s better practice to cover everything in one call. If you’re consistently not doing that, you might need to revisit your strategy.

What is the Sales Discovery Call Process?

Sales discovery calls essentially start when a warm lead is identified. As mentioned, this can either be via cold calling or inbound contact. The call itself is just one stage in the larger process, so here’s what to do.

1. Start with Research

Before you make the call, you’ll want to research. You should go into the meeting with a fairly good understanding of your lead’s business and why they might need your product. Sure, they’ll tell you this on the call, but their information should be more about confirming your assumptions than informing you.

Look up their company online to learn about their values, market niche, products and services, and anything else you might need. You can never be too well informed about a prospective client!

2. Give Them Freedom (But not too Much)

When booking in a call, it’s best done using some kind of calendar management app. This way, you’re not going back and forth about potential dates and times. Give them a link to your calendar with clear availability and let them pick a slot that works best for them.

Sure, this isn’t a make or break, but letting your prospective client be in charge of the meeting time helps create a good impression. Just don’t give them too much freedom of choice because you do still want to stay in control.

3. Create a Great First Impression

First impressions are a major aspect of sales. Many people unconsciously decide whether they’ll work with someone before they’ve even heard about the product or service. Therefore, you need to ensure your first impression is the best it can be.

Some tips include:

• Introduce yourself, your title, and some brief details of your company.
• Thank them for taking time to meet with you and share your interest in learning more about them.
• Use open-ended questions and active listening skills to show you’re engaged in the conversation.
• Use positive language and an enthusiastic tone, but make sure it sounds genuine!
• Have all your relevant information ready, whether this is case studies, product details, or anything else you might need. Show you’re prepared and don’t waste valuable time fumbling for the file you want.
• Respect their time. Keep your meeting on schedule and avoid going off-topic as much as possible.

4. Identify Their Needs and Goals

The meat of your discovery call should be around identifying your prospect’s paint points and goals. This is the information you need to effectively pitch your SaaS product. Ask them about their long- and short-term goals and try to get some metrics from them.

For example, if they say they want to increase leads, ask by what percentage. They want to increase sales? By how much? You want data during this stage.

Similarly, find out what’s stopping them from achieving these goals—what are their pain points? Navigating this conversation can be tricky because you want to use open-ended questions and avoid things sounding too negative. Some options include:

• What led you to explore our product?

• What do you feel is the biggest challenge that’s stopping you from realizing this goal?

• Do you have any internal strategies in place to help you work on this?

Aim to identify 2-3 pain points and any metrics in place to measure performance. Make sure to take notes or record the call and transcribe it after.

5. Link Their Points to Your Product

While this isn’t a sales call, you should still aim to pitch aspects of your product. For example, if they want to improve client communication, talk about your relevant product features. This is why note-taking and active listening are vital: you should be responding to their needs.

Don’t go through every product feature, though. Keep it brief and only mention things relevant to their needs. You want to demonstrate authority and applicability, but this is stuff you’ll build on in the follow-up sales call.

6. Handle Objections Diplomatically

A straight sell is rare. Instead, your prospect will likely have objections to using your product. You’ll deal with these further in your sales call, but you’ll want to manage them here too.

Always listen and show empathy and understanding. Clarify anything you need to figure out the root cause so you can actually address the issue. For example, if price is a concern, have some data to hand on ROI for previous clients. Show an objective benefit to paying for your service, and you’ll deal with this quickly.

7. Recap and Follow Up

During the last 5 minutes or so of your call, be sure to recap your conversation so you’re both on the same page. You might find that this leads to your prospect giving you further information.

Then, discuss the next steps, which might simply be arranging a sales call. You don’t have to do it there and then, but make them aware that you’ll be in contact to agree on a date. However, arranging the next call now will at least commit them to a time.

After the call, send an email thanking them. This should also include a brief recap of the call along with any relevant information. You might want to send them a product demo, a whitepaper, or anything else that’ll be helpful. Similarly, reaffirm your next meeting time and any follow-up steps.

How to Level Up Your Sales Process?

Discovery calls are part of your wider sales strategy. As with everything else, you need to spend some time planning your process, improving efficiency, and simplifying things where possible.

Although every discovery call will technically be different, there will always be common elements. Think of it as a formula and use the tips below to streamline your prep and call stages.

Have a Bank of Questions in Reserve

As mentioned, the call will involve you probing your prospects to find out how your product is positioned to help. To find out this information, you’ll realistically be able to ask the same questions to most people

Have a list of discovery call questions that all your sales reps can pull from. You can come up with these in a planning session, or add to the list after calls. Either way, the questions aren’t something you should have to think hard about on the call itself.

Just remember, though, to tailor the questions to suit the prospective client, and to only ask questions that are relevant. It might help to divide your cheat sheet into sections, such as “pain point questions”, “goal questions”, and so on.

Practice Handling Objections

Anyone who works in sales should have an understanding of how to deal with objections. However, it’s always something you can be better at. Your sales professionals should practice with each other to come up with suitable answers to better handle real objections.

Better yet, if you notice the same objections coming up regularly during calls, build this information into your pitch somewhere. For example, if prospective clients often comment on things like your product’s price or complexity, aim to explain this somewhere.

It could be as simple as this. When answering one of their pain points, you mention that other customers in a similar position paid X for your service, and saw a Y% return on investment in 12 months. Doing this overcomes their objection before they even mention it and gives them some data to work with.

Match Your Call Quality Across other Sales Stages

There’s little point in devoting so much time to your discovery call process if the later stages of your sales funnel are lacking quality and authority. In short, if you create an initial sense of authority, be sure to maintain it across the rest of the client’s sales journey with you.

But how do you do this? Well, there are a couple of things to consider:

• Use white label products. These allow you to put your client’s branding on digital spaces, which makes things look far more authoritative and professional.

• Set up digital deal rooms. Also known as virtual sales rooms, these are where you collect sales info, such as conversations, product demos, and more. Again, this is about streamlining and professionalism.

• Maintain your level of client knowledge. Always know about your client and never underestimate the power of research. If they send you information, read it, learn it, and understand it.

• Always tailor to your client’s needs. Every customer journey will be different, but also largely the same. Be sure to adapt your product demos, available information, and sales processes based on the prospective’s position within their company, their industry, and what you’ve addressed in the discovery call.

The bottom line is that the standard you set during your discovery call should be maintained throughout the process. After all, they’re not your client until they sign a contract, and they could drop out at any stage!

Set Up Sales Software

If you don’t already have something in place, set up a sales management tool. It should include features such as knowledge management and storage, deal rooms, onboarding and client portals.

But consider extra features mentioned above, such as AI transcription, conversation logging, and other things that can enhance your discovery call process. Assuming you’re going to be making a lot of calls, you should make the process as easy as possible for yourself.

FuseBase does all this, and much more. As a B2B SaaS sales management platform, it can streamline your entire sales funnel and help you make your discovery calls more efficient and successful. Plus, it has a range of built-in features to keep your clients in one place and on the right track to signing up with you.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully you now understand what’s needed to run an effective B2B SaaS discovery sales call. The key takeaways are to be friendly and knowledgeable and to understand how your product can change your prospective client’s business for the better. Be sure to back everything up with data!

This process takes some practice, but having a good understanding of your ideal customer, the questions they’ll ask, and the pain points you need to address will make things much easier from your side. And, perhaps most importantly, don’t overlook the importance of sales management software for streamlining your sales pipeline.

Want to learn more about how we can help? Book a demo with our team or try our software for free.