A lot of consultants run discovery calls with clients.
They talk to prospects and ask good questions.
And yet, many still walk away feeling unclear.
This is because we often listen but only on the surface. We don't listen deeply enough to change our thinking about our prospects pain points in meaningful ways that inspire clear action.
When discovery calls don’t work, it’s usually because the goal is to confirm an offer that already exists in our minds rather than really listen to the prospect and understand their core pain point.
Because we tend to listen with a bias to a solution we've already decided is going to work for them, we don't really 'hear' the problem as they're experiencing it.
This confirmation bias (in our listening) leads to products that don't really solve problems for the customer.
It's the old hammer and nail analogy. We're walking around with a hammer and deciding every problem the prospect talks about is a nail (when it might actually be a screw).
We move forward with blind confidence and then wonder why our offer doesn’t quite 'land'
Our pricing feels off and our prospects say: “interesting, but not right now.”
Better discovery calls involve deep listening.
Our focus moves from proving our offer is right and to really understanding what the prospect's day-to-day actually looks like.
We ask: “Can you walk me through the last time this problem showed up?” and then we listen to exactly what's being said and more importantly what's NOT being said.
We listen for frustration, workarounds they're doing.
We listen for how their tone changes when they're speaking about workarounds and when they hesitate.
We listen for sighs and watch their body language (face to face calls are best).
What people do usually matters more than what they say.
A few simple ideas make discovery calls far more useful.
Talk to people as close to the real situation as possible. This means you want to visit them at their place of work if possible. Physically go to their environment and watch them in their environment.
Notice the phrases they repeat and their tone when they're describing their pain points.
More importantly notice when they struggle to articulate the problem. Don't help them articulate the problem (yet) just watch their body language and their hesitation as they try to get clarity on the problem.
Our goal is to understand their problem deeply enough so that our offer feels like the obvious solution to their problem.
If our offer isn't an obvious solution then we probably don't understand our prospect's problem deeply enough and we need to do more work on understanding the problem and the prospect.
In a world full of templates, playbooks, and AI-generated advice, clarity still comes from listening carefully to real people.
If you'd like to talk through how your own discovery calls are going, you can book a 15-minute call with me here.
Ciao for now,
Ash