Webinar Q&A: Master Discovery Selling: Guide Prospects & Avoid Pitfalls

Dina Osman

Hello everyone,

Thank you for joining us for our recent webinar, Master Discovery Selling: Guide Prospects & Avoid Pitfalls! Your attendance and active engagement made it a fantastic session, and we’re grateful for the energy and insights you brought.

For those who couldn't attend live, you can catch the full recording [here]. We also had some excellent questions come in during the session! Our team, along with Nick, has provided answers to any questions we couldn’t address live, and you can find these responses in the comments section.

Thanks again for being a part of this event, and we look forward to seeing you at future sessions!

Best regards,

https://www.youtube.com/live/uCwsasqwGwc?si=bMBboMn1_18b5e2-

Dina Osman

Answers from the Pipedrive team:

When do you move your Leads to Deals within this Framework?
When there's a clear understanding of timeline and customer interest. If they are willing to jump to the next step based on recommendation we can determine them to be a warmer lead.

• Can pipedrive Goal Dashboard show product filter?
  Really need this function to keep track of the specific product selling vs goal
  I think many users also need this basic filer
  Thank you for your time!
  As of now, the Pipedrive Goals feature does not natively support filtering by products directly within the Goals Dashboard. We will provide your feedback to our Product team.

• What is the best call center sales engagement platform that integrates with PipeDrive that you would recommend? We are looking for something that can autodial numerous contacts at once for our reps.
  For call center sales engagement platforms that integrate seamlessly with Pipedrive, here are a few top choices: Kixie, Aircall, RingCentral, JustCall and Cloudtalk.

• As a follow up to that question, how would you track an activity like this call where you are selling the product, but it isn't tied to a specific lead?
  You can determine a specific activity type for example: Webinar or Product Webinar but it would always be best to tied it to a specific person.

• please a need to have the calender by month not only by week !!! VERY IMPORTANT .... i do have to see the reservation by month
  Even though the calendar view is only possible to filter by week, you have a filter view that you can customise to any period you'd like such as monthly activities and organise it based on day as well.

• Disponibilizarão o video desse treinamento com legendas em português-Brasil?
  We can consider doing another Session in other languages in the future. Thank you for your interest.

• Is there a way to inject pipedrive into my veins?
  As long as it's injected in our mindsets and day to day :)

• Do you guys actually use PD for records?
  Yes, we do use PD for our records.

• I do not understand everything but please the view is it possible to have it by month the calender not only by week it very important for me ... it the only thing that dont work whit pipedrive !!!
  Even though the calendar view is only possible to filter by week, you have a filter view that you can customise to any period you'd like such as monthly activities and organise it based on day as well.

• We automatize the SPICED technique in meeting report that shows up after meeting or Teams calls are one. Do you think PD could create SPICED template window pop up in specific stage of the deal stage?
  We will provide your feedback to our Product team. Alternatively if you use tools that fully integrate with Pipedrive you could gather SPICED in data fields, or alternatively pin a note with SPICED questions in every deal.

• Primeiro Follow-Up (7-10 dias após envio da proposta)
  Follow-Up de Valor (3-4 semanas após o primeiro follow-up)
  Check-in Periódico (mensal até decisão final)No Pipedrive
  Automatizações: Configure automações para ajudar a lembrar desses check-ins e personalize as etapas da proposta.
  Scripts: Use o recurso de “Notas” ou “Atividades” para deixar esboços prontos desses templates e ajuste conforme necessário.
  Engajamento Visual: Se possível, utilize o envio de propostas em PDF visualmente atraentes, pois uma proposta visual clara pode aumentar a atenção do cliente.

Dina Osman

Nick Cegelski's answers:

How many days after sending a deal to a client can I call them to get a return?
Nick Cegelski: Honestly, I would go over a proposal, which is what I think they're asking about, live with the prospect. If for some reason they won't go over it live with you, I generally try to send a video to the prospect as a way to insert my voice and context into the proposal. Now, if that's not possible, to directly answer your question, I would literally call them as soon as you send over the proposal.

How do you get that context fast enough to be worth your time? Obviously, you're not going to sit through a webinar or read a press release for every single cold call.
The answer to this is yes. What I recommend is to build your punch list of the top things that you can easily observe about a prospect that would inform the context that you lead with.
To directly answer this, yeah, you're not going to sit through a webinar, but if you see they did a webinar and your product helps with marketing efforts that you can relate to, then you might cite that.
So, things that I would look for when I sold billing software, to make this a bit more real, I would look for things like, had the law firm won a case recently?
Because that would mean they'd be collecting money. I didn't need to read about the case that they won; I just needed to cite, “Hey, I saw you won this case,” and then use that as a way to say, “Usually when you win a case, it means you're collecting money.”
Or I would look for things like, had they opened a new office? I don't need to read the full press release in depth, but I do need to know what it's about.
Or I might say, “Oh, you've launched a new product!” I don't need to know everything about the product, so I think there's a difference here between observing what has happened and actually knowing in full depth everything about it.

What are some phrases that are 'not' good to say in a sales pitch?
The way I would answer this question is to think about your typical sales pitch and remove anything that you think a typical salesperson might say from your vocabulary.
I have a belief in sales that you cannot be perceived to be better until you are first perceived to be different, and this is one way to ensure that you are different.

If your activity failed and the call or meeting was canceled, what should be the process of analyzing such failures in the future?
I would sit down and think, “What would I have done differently if I had a do-over?” That's what I would do.

When do you consider a prospect lost?
I would consider a prospect lost if you have had no communication from them for 30 days.
So, if it's been 30 days and you've heard nothing from them, then, yeah, I would consider it lost.

Do you throw a dart at the calendar for less-interested clients? ala Cold Calling Sucks?
Yeah, it depends. It really depends.
If you're like, “Hey, this is not a qualified lead,” then no. If you're not going to be able to sell them something or help them, no.
But if yes, then, yeah, you want to try to fight to get on the calendar. You don't want to just give up.
So I would try to get them back and figure out, “Okay, how can I win them over on that next call?”

Although locking the next meeting for 3 days max, how will this give time to the prospect to onboard other participants? In enterprise sales, these things take so long.
What I would say is that deadlines create urgency. It doesn't take that long in enterprise sales.
It allows your prospect to communicate with the other people on their team.
So, yeah, if you set it two weeks out, then, yeah, it's going to take two weeks. If you set it three days, it might take three days.
What I might also recommend here is that if you can help your customer with their internal communications, I like to ghostwrite messages from one stakeholder to another. That's something that I'll often do.

What number call is the last follow-up call that you would do with a nonresponsive prospect?
I think it's again thirty days of no communication from them.
I generally will reach out every three to four to five days to a prospect that I'm trying to get back on the books.

Do you talk about pricing on the first call? And what do you say when they ask about price on that call or even early on the call?
It depends on what you sell.
I will typically give a range of pricing: “Okay, we can cost between X and Y,” and I have a couple of questions for you that will help determine where you would end up falling on that spectrum.
So that's how I talk about it.

It sounds like SPICED is best for inbound sales primarily. Is it optimal for outbound, or are there better frameworks for that?
You can do SPICED for outbound sales.

How do you balance going with the prospect's timeline with the fact that if you wait a long time before the next contact, they tend to completely forget about how much they liked your solution?
I think that every time you meet with them, you need to remind them of the things that they liked, and you should also encourage them to move their timeline faster if you believe they need to move it faster.
Again, you want to try to tie it to a compelling event.

How could I possibly limit the conversation to a 30-minute call if the client just has question after question and they do not seem to end?
One thing that you can do is, if your prospect keeps asking you questions, you can answer their question with a question of your own.
An example would be, if they say, “Oh, how do your integrations work?” What your typical salesperson does is answer and explain all of their integrations and how they work.
What a more sophisticated salesperson does is say, “Well, we've got a lot of different integrations. Was there one in particular you were hoping to learn about?”
Now, what I can do is take command back of the conversation and help give a more targeted and pointed answer.

Dina Osman

What do you recommend when a lot of other people will be involved in the decision and that discussion will be happening without you, the sales rep, involved?I like to use ghostwritten notes. I like to send video recaps as opposed to text recaps.I also recommend you call those other people. “Hey, who else is going to be involved in this? My guess is it's your COO. I'm going to give that person a call later this week just to catch them up on context. Are you cool with that?”Most prospects will say yes. Thank you.

How do you get them back into the next closing call? How do you get the other decision-makers on the call when they tell me "they just rubber stamp my decisions" (which is never true!)?Some of this is about whether you go around your champion or not. I think, again, the answer to this is very similar to the prior question:How can you insert your voice in the room? If you can, obviously, you want to push to try to get everybody there.Anytime you push your prospect to do something, you should explain why it's in their best interest. “Hey, no problem if it's a rubber stamp.In my experience, folks who are rubber stamping usually have a couple of questions, and I would hate to put the work on you to answer them, to have to re-explain everything to them. Do you think it might be helpful if I gave them a sense of what this looked like? It'd probably take about 15 minutes.”

What's the best length for a call booked with the demo button?I would recommend 30 minutes.

Getting people on two different calls seems like a big opportunity to lose them between calls. Why not do the discovery then the demo?I think you're asking in the same call. You certainly can.I would recommend doing what's called demo-discovery. You're not going to show a full deep-dive demo in 15 minutes, but you can give them a taste and use that as a way to incentivize them to see the full demo.

So in the same call, do you do ACE -> PPO -> SPICED?Yeah, generally that would be the flow.

How do you get the call back on track if the prospect takes control of the call before you get through PPL?Re-establish the purpose. I think it's what they're asking in PPO.I actually had this happen recently. A prospect said, “Alright, tell me what you got.” And I said, “Okay, cool. Hey, I just want to align quickly on the purpose. So I think the purpose for today is...” and then go into PPO from there.

Dina Osman

I'm curious if you've tested any AI tactics that would be smart to implement in any part of the sales process.
"I like to use AI for data analysis. So one of the frequent things that we'll need to do is put together data about our audience or our following or our growth, etc.
And frankly, AI is better at analyzing Excel data than I am. So I use AI for that. Generally, not for communications because I think generative AI distills you down to the masses.
And again, I want you to be different. Um, and that is how I get perceived to be better."

How long does it take you to get through the SPICED model on a call? If you have to cut something out due to time restraints, what do you cut parts of this out, or do you just try to reschedule the meeting?
"One thing to note is you probably won't get all of it in full on a call. Your goal is to get that over time.
And honestly, even if you can get SPI, you're in a pretty good space, and you're better than most salespeople. Most salespeople never get to the problem."

How much do you prep for the call about the company etc. whatever's available online or your past relationships?
"Probably spend about 10 minutes prepping for a call. Um, depends on, like, the, eh, that's not totally true. It depends on the stakes of the call and who you're meeting with.
Um, I have a really, really big renewal call with an SVP of marketing recently. I'm prepping for that one way more than an intro call with a manager of marketing at a company that I'm at.
So, um, it can be as short as 5 minutes sometimes. It can be as long as 2 hours. It really depends on how needed."

Joanna, what are your 5 questions?

1. Tell me about your company, what does your business do?
2. What are your current processes, i.e., (do you use a spreadsheet or another CRM)?
3. It would be helpful to learn more about your requirements so that I can better tailor a demo to your needs; can you tell me about those?
4. What does your team structure look like and how would you like to implement that within your CRM of choice?
5. What does your timeline look like/are you the decision maker?

What do you do if the final decision maker doesn't communicate with you because they're only gathering information from the team, and their sole responsibility is to make the decision?
"You're in a tough spot if that happens. Again, I would try to get your voice in there via ghostwritten notes, videos."

How can you help create a "critical event" or timeline for someone who has no urgency at all? For example, someone who doesn't see their problem as very big, very important, or for whom the solution feels like a lot of work.
"I hate to tell you this, but you probably don't, and you need to move on to other prospects."

What if you caught the gatekeeper? How do I get through?
"I covered this live in the session."

What do you do if your product is not a Spiced...it's a nice-to-have, not a severe pain point?
"That is wrong.
Every prospect, or rather, every product has a, um, pain point associated with it. What you have to do is flip your value into a problem.
An example of that would be, let's say you're a pro, your product helps people get more awareness. This is something I deal with.
I sell advertising; I sell a sponsorship solution, and folks come to us and they say, yeah, we want more brand awareness.
Well, that's a nice-to-have, isn't it? You can turn that into a pain point by saying, okay, if they want that, what does that mean that they don't have?
If they want brand awareness, that might mean that not a lot of people know about them. That's a pain point.
And so, flip your nice-to-have into a pain point."

Do you think it's better to talk about your solution during the Discovery Call itself? Or should you hold it off till the next call? My fear is that the prospect will disappear (or the probability of winning the deal will go down) if I add more stages to my sales process.
"No, talk about it. Definitely, talk about it. But it has to be in the context of the problems that you heard."

I have a low-price monthly product ($150), but it can be $1800+ in a year...do you recommend doing a "quick chat" call before the sales demo? Or try to do the demo in one?
"Yeah, there's nothing wrong with calling a prospect before the demo and saying, hey, I'm prepping for our demo next week.
I want to make sure this thing is super targeted to you. Is there anything in particular you really want to make sure that we cover in our time together here?"

Do you use a Slide Deck during Discovery Calls? Or do you focus more on 'discovering' the prospect's needs and avoid using a Slide Deck?
"I use a slide deck, but I actually often will pull up a blank slide and note take live while talking about sharing my screen as a way to show that I'm listening.
You will find this is a great way to get them to open up."

How to schedule a call with the client more efficiently? Is there any strategy for that as well?
"Um, suggest times in their time zone as opposed to yours.
You will find this is a great way to get them to open up. How to schedule more efficiently? Um, suggest times in their time zone as opposed to yours.
Take all the work off of them."

What do you mean "framework"?
"It's a structure for, um, teaching. Or following a process, I would say."