Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face
I've been doing some coaching this week with newer AEs
I keep seeing the same pattern play out.
They come into discovery calls locked and loaded with a solid plan.
Questions mapped out.
Framework ready to go.
Confident.
But here's what happens: As soon as the prospect starts answering and the conversation takes unexpected turns, they freeze up.
Mike Tyson said it best: "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
They fall back on safe, vanilla questions.
Closed-ended ones that don't actually uncover anything meaningful.
The result?
Conversations that skim along the surface.
They touch on lots of topics - lots of situation and touching on challenges - but never dig deep enough to understand what's actually happening beneath the surface.
So what's the fix?
I teach a technique called Open-Probe-Confirm. It's simple but powerful:
Open
Open with broad questions designed to get prospects talking about pain points:
- "Why do you feel like your current process isn't working?"
- "Why was now a good use of your valuable time to join this call?"
Probe
Prove deeper once they respond. This is where most people bail out, but it's where the gold is:
- "That sounds interesting. Tell me more about that."
- "Why does solving this matter?"
- "Is John, who leads your team, aware of this problem, or does he have focuses elsewhere?"
Keep probing until you hit the root cause or the real outcome they're after.
Confirm
Confirm by repeating back what you've heard:
- "So what I'm hearing is that X is causing Y, which is leading to Z. Am I on the mark?"
Then move on to the next topic.
This approach lets you go deep on several key topics while still covering good breadth - far superior to skating across the surface with a bunch of high-level situational questions.
I see this is as one of the biggest differences makers AEs can make in their ability to build high-velocity opps with meaningful business-level pains.
I recorded a full 20-minute video breaking down exactly how I use this in my discovery calls.
You can watch it right now here.
Talk soon !
Best
Scott
