Your Guide To A Successful Discovery Call

A well-implemented discovery call can be the difference between having a handful of clients each month and being booked with clients for the entire month or year.

If you are a business owner, salesperson, or freelancer, you must master the discovery call if you want your business to scale. This guide to a successful discovery call covers the following:

• What is a discovery call?
• How to prepare for the discovery call
• How to handle the discovery call itself
• Soft skills to practice during the call
• How to follow up from the discovery call

Let’s get started!

What is a discovery call?

A discovery call is an initial consultation with a prospect in which you discover their problems, pain points, and whether or not they are a client that would be a good fit for your company. Discovery calls don’t begin and end with closing a sale, but are important in the sales journey.

A well-implemented discovery call can:

• Save time in the client onboarding process by addressing key issues and answering questions
• Establish your credibility and expertise to the client
• Build trust between you and your prospective client

How to prepare for a discovery call

You’ve scheduled a discovery call and plan to talk with your prospective client in the next few days. Prepare for the call in these four ways.

1. Look at the prospect’s digital footprint

Your prospect likely has a website. They may also be on one or two social media platforms. Find their digital footprint and learn as much as you can about them.

You should be able to list five or more important things about your prospect or their company prior to the discovery call, to help you understand their problems and why they may need your product or service.  

Research and create easy access to the following information before the call:

• What is the company size?
• Who are their competitors?
• Have they been written about in third-party publications? (A quick Google search will give you this answer)
• What are their products or services?
• What are their pain points?
• What is recent content they’ve produced? (This may simply be their content on social media, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram)
• Collect any additional information that stands out to you

2. Know your unique selling points

Create a one-pager that overviews your unique selling points (USP). Your prospect is interested in you and what you offer, but you still must tell them why your product or service is the perfect fit for them.

This doesn’t need to be everything about your offer or your product. It’s that one or two things that are unique to your product or service.

A few example of USBs include:

• Affordable price point
• Quality
• Specialization
• Guarantees
• Timeline advantages

3. Prepare a list of questions

Curate a list of questions based on what you know about your potential customer. The goal here is to get more information to help you:

• Qualify or disqualify the prospect
• Get enough information to craft a scope of work
• Estimate costs
• Establish the next step

Include open-ended questions in your list. Open-ended questions could uncover additional information about your clients needs. This will help you add additional value and  generate more opportunities to work together.

4. Psych yourself up

Take time before your call to get in the right mindframe. Do an attitude inventory in these areas:

• Know your value to the client. Think through why you, more than anyone else, are a great fit for the client
• Know the client’s value to you. Why do you want to work with this particular client? Why will the relationship be a win:win?
• Think through insecure feelings. Many business owners and freelancers doubt themselves and doubt their success or even ability to satisfy clients and customers. You are your own worst enemy when that creeps in. So take some time to believe in yourself and your abilities

Now that you’ve successfully prepared yourself, (and maybe even listened to a favorite inspirational song—one fun go-to is “Don’t Stop Believin’”) you are ready.

How to handle the discovery call itself

It’s time for the call. Plan to record the call if possible (you’ll have to ask permission for this) so you may review it afterwards. This will help you improve for future calls but also keep you from needing to take notes during the call so you can be focused and listen.

Consider these three tips for the conversation flow during your discovery call.

1. Start with small talk

Small talk is a great way to relax everyone at the start of a meeting. It becomes even more interesting when the small talk goes beyond the weather and is based on the interests of your prospective client, which you can figure out from their social media posts.

Maybe they are into sports, travel, home improvement, or something similar that is neutral and fun to talk about. One good tack is to ask how their week has been and how they plan to spend the weekend.

2. Begin asking your questions

Once the small talk is completed, begin asking the questions you have prepared, with the focus on the potential client, not you. Don’t ask too many questions—stay focused on key questions that are the most important. Once you ask a question, remember to actually listen.

Be sure to include the following two questions to find out how to stand out in their eyes and learn about expectations.

1. What efforts have they taken thus far to achieve these goals and how did that go? The answer will help you design your SOW
2. What are their expectations for working with you? This is another way to build or augment your offer to fit client expectations

3. Outline next steps

Clearly outline next steps and timeline. Pay attention to how they respond to gauge the possibility of closing the sales and avoid sending multiple follow-up emails. If implemented correctly, you’ll already know whether you’ve converted the sale.

Soft skills to practice during the call

You’ve asked questions and remembered to listen. Keep these additional soft skills in mind during the discovery call:

1. Pitch but don’t sell

Sounding too sales oriented can be off-putting. As you share what you can provide for the client, keep your tone productive and focused on the benefits the client will gain by working with you.

Examples of points you may wish to emphasize include:

• Efficiencies like cost and time savings
• Strategic vision
• How they’ll gain a competitive edge

2. Establish trust

Use the call to establish trust and rapport. Three ways to do this include:

1. Being transparent in your sales delivery process. If possible, outline what you would do from day one down to the last day. Also include what is expected of them. This will help the client see what it is like to work with you
2. Showing real examples of how you have worked on similar issues, projects, or problems in the past. This can be presented as case studies and include the issue, how it was solved, and the outcome
3. Smiling to show friendliness and confidence. Never underestimate the advantage of being likable and easy to work with in business

3. Avoid unintended insults

Steer clear of comments that may come across as patronizing or critical of decisions the potential client has made in the past. Examples of unintended insults to avoid include:

• “Yeah, your website needs a lot of work.” That’s why the client is talking to you. No one needs to hear this
• “Has the design always been this bad?” Again, if the client didn’t know this, there wouldn’t be a discovery call in the first place
• “Whoever did this shouldn’t have been paid.” You are indirectly telling the prospect that they have bad judgment. Ouch!

Instead, turn a comment like “Wow, your Facebook ads need to be improved!” into a constructive observation more along the lines of “We can maximize your Facebook Ad.” This shows your capabilities without insulting the client.

How to follow up after a discovery call

How you follow up after the discovery call is a major factor in closing the deal and shaping how you’ll work with your client. Each call will end differently. These next steps for three common scenarios may be helpful.

Scenario #1: They requested a contract

When your prospects want to jump on your offer after your discovery call and request a contract, send it right away. Not five days later but within the same day or the next day. Capture that lead as soon as you can.

Scenario #2: They requested a proposal

Some prospective clients may want you to send a proposal before deciding. This may be because they are not the decision maker and they need your proposal to help make the case to hire you. It may also mean they want more time to evaluate your offer. Either way, send both a proposal and an offer. Your prospect has shown genuine interest in your product or service. Including the offer puts you one step closer to landing the contract.

Scenario #3: They’ve said they’ll get back to you

This scenario means your prospect may not be interested in working with you on the project. This is a way to get out of the deal politely. There are two good options when this happens.

One: Be honest and say you are aware the situation may not be what they are looking for. If so, ask what they are looking for instead, or which terms would make them reconsider? Some people will respond to this, some won’t, but it’s worth a try.

Two: Simply let them go. Not every discovery call ends in a contract. Sometimes, you have to let that lead go and direct your efforts toward others who may be interested.

Evaluate the call and overall fit

After the meeting, review the call (which you hopefully have recorded):

• Are you right for each other? You don’t want to work with a client who would be difficult or who isn’t the right fit for you
• Provide a detailed presentation of your client to the closing team and put the information in your sales database
• Look for ways to improve. The more calls you make, the better you become at it

Send a thank you

Take time, no matter the outcome of the call, to send a thank you note to the client that shows appreciation for the time they took for the call. This thank you can accompany the email follow up that maps to the actions you need to take related to any of the above scenarios.

Secure clients with a well-executed discovery call

You’ve now learned the components of a well-executed discovery call:

• How to prepare for the discovery call
• How to handle the discovery call itself
• Soft skills to practice during the call
• How to follow up from the discovery call

Use these tools to continue to improve and even become an expert at the discovery call. If you can handle discovery calls like a pro, a handful of calls will keep you busy for a year because you will be fully booked.

Want to learn more about becoming a master freelancer? Join my course Freelancer Masterclass, available now. Reach out to me on Upwork to find out more.