Discovery calls in sales: meaning, questions and template
How to run a discovery call from the first minute to a booked next step, with the questions worth asking and a free Word template for your notes.
What is a discovery call?
A discovery call is the first proper conversation between a salesperson and a prospect, held to find out whether the prospect has a problem worth solving and whether your product fits it. It usually follows a first contact, such as an inbound enquiry or a reply to outreach, and comes before any demo or proposal.
The seller asks most of the questions and the prospect does most of the talking. The product can wait: the aim is to understand the prospect's situation well enough to decide what should happen next.
By the end, both sides should know whether to carry on. "Not a fit" is a useful result too, and much cheaper to reach on the first call than after three demos.
Consultants and coaches use the term too, for a first call with a potential client. The idea is the same: find out whether you can help before anyone commits.
How do you run a discovery call?
Most discovery calls follow the same four steps.
Prepare
Spend ten minutes reading up on the company and the person you're meeting, and write down what you need to know by the end of the call. You won't waste the prospect's time on questions their website already answers.
Open with an agenda
Say what the call is for and how long it will take, then ask what they want from it. For example: "I'd like to understand how you handle this today and what made you look now. If we can help, we'll agree a next step at the end, and if we can't, I'll tell you. Is there anything you want to make sure we cover?" With the shape agreed, the questions that follow feel expected rather than intrusive.
Follow the answers
Ask open questions and let each answer decide the next one, rather than working down a list. When something sounds important, stay on it: "What happens when that goes wrong?" gets you further than moving on to your next question.
Summarise and book the next step
Leave the last five minutes for this. Play back what you heard and check you got it right. Then propose a next step and say why: "So the main issue is X, and it needs fixing before Y. The most useful next step is a demo of that workflow with your operations lead. Does Thursday work?" Book it while you're both on the call. "I'll follow up" is how deals drift.
What questions should you ask on a discovery call?
Good discovery questions are open-ended. You won't need every one on every call, so ask the ones you can't answer yet.
Their situation today
- How do you handle this today?
- What works well, and what doesn't?
The problem and what it costs
- What problem are you trying to solve?
- Who does it affect, and how often?
- What is it costing you?
- Why hasn't it been fixed before?
What they want instead
- What would a good outcome look like?
- How would you measure it?
- What would rule a solution out?
Why now
- What made you look at this now?
- When do you need something in place, and what's driving that date?
- What happens if nothing changes this year?
A date with a reason behind it, such as a contract renewal or a product launch, gives the deal a deadline. Without one, even a good fit can sit still for months.
Who decides and how they buy
- Who else is involved in choosing?
- How did you buy something like this last time?
- Is there a legal or procurement review?
Budget
- Is there a budget for this, and whose is it?
- What do you spend on it today?
If asking about money feels awkward, give your reason: "So I don't suggest something that doesn't fit, is there a rough range you're working within?"
Alternatives
- Who else are you talking to?
- Could you build this yourselves, or leave it as it is?
Leaving it as it is counts as an alternative, and it's often the one you lose to.
Which discovery call framework should you use?
Most sales teams run discovery against a qualification framework, which works as a checklist of what to find out before the call ends.
- BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) was developed at IBM. It's quick to learn and suits simpler sales with one decision-maker.
- SPICED (Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical event, Decision), from Winning by Design, follows the order a discovery conversation usually takes.
- MEDDPICC (Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Paper process, Identify pain, Champion, Competition) suits complex B2B deals with several approvers and a formal procurement process. Our MEDDPICC guide covers each letter and the questions that confirm it.
Don't read a framework out as a script. Go through BANT in order and the prospect will feel like they're filling in a form. Ask in whatever order the conversation allows, and check partway through which answers are still missing, so you can steer towards them while there's time.
What are the most common discovery call mistakes?
Pitching too early
When a prospect mentions a problem your product solves, it's tempting to start explaining how. Hold off. Every minute spent presenting is a minute not spent learning, and a pitch built on half the picture usually misses. If you're doing most of the talking, the call has become a pitch.
Asking leading questions
"You'd agree that's a problem, right?" gets a yes, because yes is easier, and tells you nothing. "How much of a problem is that?" gets an answer.
Leaving budget and decision-makers to the end
These feel like the awkward questions, so they get pushed to the last five minutes and dropped when time runs out. Ask them as soon as you understand the problem. Finding out late that three more people have to approve the purchase is a common reason deals stall.
Accepting vague pain
"It's frustrating" isn't a reason to buy, but ten hours a week of manual work might be. Keep asking until there's a number the prospect would repeat to their own boss. A figure they say out loud carries more weight later than one you estimate for them.
Writing it up from memory
Typing notes while you listen means doing both badly, and notes written afterwards rely on memory, which tends to lose the exact date or figure you need later. Going back to ask again tells the prospect you weren't listening. A template with a section for each question shows the gaps during the call, while you can still fill them.
Discovery call template
Our sales call notes template is built for discovery. Each part of the conversation has its own section with the questions to answer, from their situation through to next steps. It's a free Word file with no sign-up, or you can copy it as text into your own document.
[company]
[name, role] · [name, role]
[discovery / follow-up]
[name]
[date]
- What was agreed or confirmed?
- What are the key takeaways?
- What are they trying to achieve this year?
- How big is the team? Which metrics matter?
- What's changed since we last spoke?
- What prompted them to look now?
- Where does this sit on their priority list?
- Whose initiative is this?
- What problem are they trying to solve?
- Who does it affect, and how often?
- Why hasn't it been fixed before?
- How do they handle it today?
- What works? What doesn't?
- What is it costing them: time, money, risk?
- What happens if nothing changes this year?
- Which metric would move if it were solved?
- What does a good outcome look like?
- What results do they expect, and by when?
- What are the must-haves? The deal-breakers?
- Who else is involved in choosing?
- How did they buy something like this last time?
- Is there a legal or procurement review?
- Is there a budget? Whose is it?
- What do they spend on this today?
- When do they want this in place?
- What is driving that date?
- When does the current contract end?
- When will they decide?
- Who else are they talking to, and why?
- Could they build it or do nothing?
- How do we compare, in their words?
- What pushback came up, in their words?
- How was it answered? How did they react?
- What could stop this going ahead?
- Who does what, by when?
- What do they need from us to move forward?
- When is the next call, and who should join?
Sorinai comes with a discovery call template built in, and it can fill this one or your own. It answers each field while the call runs and keeps a checklist of the questions that haven't come up yet. See how template filling works. The BANT and MEDDPICC templates are on the templates page.
Discovery call FAQ
How long should a discovery call be?
Most are booked for 30 minutes. A simple sale can be qualified in 15 or 20, and a complex deal with several people on the call can need 45 to 60. Much under 20 minutes rarely gets past the surface problem to budget and who decides. If it runs well over 45, check you aren't pitching or getting into detail that belongs in a demo.
Should you send your questions before the call?
A short agenda, yes. A full list of questions, usually not: some prospects prepare polished answers instead of candid ones, and you lose the detail that comes out of a real conversation. A line on what you'd like to cover is enough.
What's the difference between a discovery call and a qualifying call?
The terms overlap. Some teams use "qualifying call" for a short first check on basic fit and "discovery call" for the deeper conversation that follows, and others use them interchangeably. Either way, the call is for finding things out, not for pitching.
When should you skip the discovery call?
When the prospect has done the research and is asking for a demo, a long round of questions they've already answered elsewhere is friction. Ask the two or three you still need at the start of the demo instead. The same goes for existing customers and for small deals where a full call costs more than the deal is worth. Save full discovery for long sales cycles with several decision-makers, or products where the wrong setup would cost the customer.