Most advice about discovery calls comes down to one instruction: read the room and adapt. That advice is not wrong. It is just incomplete. Adapting is a skill, but adapting requires a destination, and most first meetings do not have one.
Welcome to the Finding Business podcast. Five minutes that will help you learn something new about attracting ideal clients and accounts. I’m your host, Scott Channell. For more about this show, episodes, and services offered, go to Scott Channell — with two t’s, two n’s, and two l’s — dot com. Now, on to the show.
Here is something you hear all the time. You cannot really plan a discovery call or first meeting. It depends on what they say, where they take it, what comes up. So you go in, you read the room, and you adapt.
Adapting is the skill. Anybody who walks in with a rigid plan is going to get run over by the actual conversation.
The problem is not adapting. Adapting is right.
The problem is adapting toward what.
In the military, before an operation, the leader makes clear the desired end state. Not the steps. The end state. Stated clearly enough that when conditions change, and they always change, every person can still make a sound call.
Plans break. Conditions shift. What holds is knowing what the operation has to achieve.
Take that away and what happens? People still decide. They just decide without a worthwhile objective.
Under pressure, with no stated objective, decisions default to comfort.
Ask the comfortable question. Stay on the comfortable topic. Take the polite exit when it shows up.
I wrote something years ago about prospecting that applies here word for word. Without a system, sales reps cherry-pick what feels comfortable, not what is effective.
And here is what makes it hard to avoid. Comfortable does not feel like failure. It feels like a good conversation. You were responsive. You were flexible. Everyone was comfortable.
You read the room.
You just read it toward nothing.
So do not script your first meetings word for word. Before you walk in, answer one question. What has to be true when this conversation ends that is not true right now?
Not what you hope happens. What has to be true.
If the conversation veers off path, or you discover something unexpected. What are you going to do to make sure the conversation ends where it needs to end?
Sometimes it is changing what they conclude about you. They are sorting you against everyone else they have seen, and they are doing it fast. Credibility is the currency. You earn it early or nothing you say matters.
Sometimes it is information. Not the org chart. The real decision criteria and who applies them. The thing you cannot get anywhere except in that meeting.
And sometimes it is alignment. If your champion has to carry this into a room you are not in, what do they need from you to do it? Most reps never ask that. Then they wonder why a good meeting went quiet.
Write all this down before you go in.
Now you are still adapting. The buyer still takes it wherever they take it. You still follow. But every turn you make, you are getting back on the path toward something. The end state you decided in advance.
That is the difference between a Sales Visitor and a Sales Catalyst. The Visitor walks in hoping it goes well. The Catalyst walks in knowing what has to happen by the time it ends.
Same meeting. Same buyer. Two different destinations.
Before your next first meeting, try this. Say out loud what has to be true when it ends. Not what you want to talk about. What has to be true when it ends.
If you cannot say it, you are not going to achieve it. Your odds of closing a good opportunity fall off a cliff.
Hope this got you thinking. For the show transcript and more information about this podcast, episodes, and services, go to Scott Channell — with two t’s, two n’s, and two l’s — dot com. Thanks for listening.
