--- title: "B2B discovery calls: how to diagnose before you present" description: "Do you show the product before you understand the problem? What to find out in discovery to know whether there is a real priority and whether a demo makes sense." url: https://duranb2b.com/en/insights/b2b-sales/b2b-discovery-call language: en-GB author: Eduardo Durán Velázquez · B2B Sales Partner contact: eduardo@duranb2b.com spanish_version: https://duranb2b.com/insights/b2b-sales/discovery-call-b2b --- B2B SALES · PLAYBOOK 5 min read # B2B discovery calls: how to diagnose before you present a solution A good discovery call is about understanding what is going on inside the company and deciding whether it makes sense to move forward. Filling in a questionnaire doesn’t get you there. **Eduardo Durán** B2B Sales Partner A discovery call can start with a seemingly simple question: “What would you like to achieve?” From there, the conversation can go in many directions. The prospect may have a fairly clear problem, may be comparing options, may be trying to work out whether anything is worth changing, or may even have accepted the meeting without a well-defined need yet. That is why I think it is a mistake to go into discovery aiming to reach the product pitch as fast as possible. First you need to understand what is going on inside the company and what has made this conversation relevant now. That doesn’t mean turning the meeting into an interrogation of twenty prepared questions to fill in the CRM. If the prospect says something relevant, that is where to dig deeper. If something contradicts what we thought before the meeting, we change course. The quality of a discovery call depends far more on what we manage to understand than on how many questions we ask. ## First, understand what the company is trying to solve When someone says they need “more sales”, “lower costs” or “a better process”, we still know very little. The same phrase can hide completely different situations. A company that wants more pipeline may have a problem with activity volume, account selection, access to certain decision-makers or converting the meetings it already gets. If we start presenting our solution as soon as we hear the first description of the problem, we risk trying to solve something we don’t yet understand. So I would start with context: what they are trying to achieve, how they are doing it today, what has prompted them to look at it again and what happens if nothing changes. From there, you can go deeper into whatever really seems to matter. It also helps to know what they have tried before. If they have already used another solution, hired someone or built the process in-house, that changes the conversation considerably. Knowing they tried it isn’t enough; we want to understand what happened and why it didn’t work as they expected. The aim is to understand the situation well enough to decide whether there is a problem worth solving and whether our solution makes sense in that context. It’s also worth telling a need apart from a priority. A company can fully acknowledge it has a problem and still not be ready to put resources into fixing it. There may be impact but not enough urgency. There may be budget but nobody driving the change. All of that is part of the opportunity, and it needs uncovering before any proposal goes out. The conversation clarifies those pieces bit by bit, without turning them into a questionnaire. ## A presentation makes more sense once we know what we are presenting One of the most common situations in B2B sales is getting to the demo too early. The prospect describes something that seems to fit our solution and the salesperson starts showing the product. The problem is that we don’t yet know what that person needs to see. A solution may have twenty relevant features, but probably only a few relate to the problem we have just heard. If we don’t understand the situation well, we end up giving a general demo and hoping the prospect finds what matters to them on their own. When discovery is done properly, the demo can be far more specific. If we know which process is causing problems, what impact it has and how they are handling it today, we can explain how our solution addresses exactly that situation. We can also ask questions during the demo and check whether what we are showing really answers what the company needs. That doesn’t mean discovery always has to end in a demo. Information may be missing, we may need to speak to someone else, or we may find our solution doesn’t fit. In fact, that last possibility matters. Not every sales conversation has to become an opportunity. If discovery shows the problem is different, the priority is too low or the company already has something that covers the need well enough, forcing the next step won’t improve the sale. I apply the same rule in [my own diagnostic calls](https://duranb2b.com/en/contact): 20 minutes to understand where sales are getting stuck and, if there is no fit, to say so there and then. Who is in front of us matters too. They may know the problem inside out and play no part in the decision. They may control the budget and need technical sign-off before moving forward. They may be the person who helps us understand how buying works internally, even if they are not the one who signs in the end. Discovery lets us start uncovering that structure. So what a good conversation leaves behind is clarity: what is happening, what impact it has, who needs to be involved and what would have to happen for it to make sense to move forward. The proposal can wait. If the next step is a demo, we will know why we are doing it. If we need to bring someone else in, we will know what role they play. If we need more information, we will know what is missing. And if there isn’t enough fit, we will know that too. For me, that is one of the differences between a discovery call and a sales pitch with a few questions at the start. In the first, the conversation decides what makes sense to present next. In the second, the pitch was settled before anyone really understood the problem. **Eduardo Durán** B2B Sales Partner [About →](https://duranb2b.com/en/about) · [LinkedIn →](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardoduranvelazquez/) ## You might also like - [B2B SALES · STRATEGY From discovery to close: how to manage a full-cycle B2B sale 5 min](https://duranb2b.com/en/insights/b2b-sales/full-cycle-sales) - [B2B OUTBOUND · FRAMEWORK How to build a B2B outbound system that generates pipeline without relying on volume 4 min](https://duranb2b.com/en/insights/outbound-b2b/b2b-outbound-system) - [GO-TO-MARKET · STRATEGY Selling B2B SaaS in Spain: prospecting, decision-makers and the sales process 3 min](https://duranb2b.com/en/insights/go-to-market/selling-saas-in-spain) ## Where are your B2B sales getting stuck? Let’s look at it in 20 minutes A diagnostic video call, with no obligation. If we’re not a fit, I’ll tell you on the call. [Book a call (20 min) →](https://duranb2b.com/en/contact?from=insights) · [eduardo@duranb2b.com](mailto:eduardo@duranb2b.com) CLEAR AGENDA 1. **01** Product and market 2. **02** Bottleneck 3. **03** Diagnosis