Learn about the company

Now that you are armed with knowledge and ready to begin on a high note, it’s time to transition into the meat and potatoes of the discovery call – learning about their company and what they need help with. You should already know some of what they are going to tell you from your prior research, but it’s still important to hear it from their perspective. In this step, we focus on learning about the company. In the following step, we focus on learning how to understand their needs.

Transition into the call

Open up dialogue with a lighter, more broad question to gently transition the prospect into speaking with you. In general, you want to ask questions to fill in your profile of company.‍

• What is the solution you provide for your prospects? Why does that matter to them?

• What is the company mission?

• Who is your target audience?

• What metrics are you responsible for?

Add a transition question to your script based on the options above, or feel free to add your own.

As has been mentioned before, you lead the call – but the prospect should do most of the talking. ‍

The Ideal Talk: Listen Ratio

You: 35% of the sales discovery call

Prospect: 65% of the sales discovery call‍

Don’t ask yes or no questions! This may lead you to do more talking than the client, and won’t bring you fruitful answers. So, instead, you’ll want to focus on “leading questions”.‍

X: Are you looking to hire a copywriter?

✔: Tell me what led you to look into hiring a copywriter.

X: Are you interested in revamping your website?

✔: Why is it important to the company that your website gets redone?‍

X: Is the quality the issue?

✔: How could we make this page better?

Go to your workbook and write out all of the questions you want to ask about the company. As much as you can, try and make them open-ended and not just yes or no questions.

By the end of this portion of the conversation, you should have a grasp of the following:

• What the company offers

• What market they are in

• How big the team is

• Any other relevant information as you see fit

Note: Some clients will spend a lot of time discussing their business, but you don’t need a deep dive just yet – that usually comes once you’ve sold the project and you kick off your service. It’s more important to discuss the project and obstacles so you can present your service/solution to them. That said, try to pivot to the next set of questions (found in the next step) by minutes 12-15 if you haven’t yet.‍

In this step, you built a solid opening that can set a positive tone for the entirety of the call and give you a chance to show you’re ready to have a business relationship and that you’re invested in their success.