10 Tips for Discovery in Sales Calls

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

What is the Sales Discovery Process?

Discovery is the heart and soul of sales. Sales are won because of great Discovery and lost due to poor Discovery.

The Sales Discovery Process starts during the Discovery Call. A common mistake in B2B SaaS is treating the Discovery Call as the start and end of the Discovery Process. Discovery is something that needs to be done continuously throughout the sales process until the deal is closed.

High performing salespeople leverage questions to uncover needs, problems, pains, and opportunities. They ask thought-provoking questions that heighten the prospect’s self-awareness and challenge the status quo. These questions are asked throughout the sales process.

Discovery is a journey, not a destination.

10 Tips for Discovery in Sales Calls

1. Be Genuinely Curious and Interested in Your Prospect

Most salespeople approach improving their discovery the wrong way. They focus on sales skills thinking they need to know how to ask, or memorize, the perfect question. Instead, focus on cultivating the right mindset. When you’re genuinely curious about your prospect, everything changes. Your questions become more natural and conversational, you listen more intently, and prospects can sense your authentic interest. They respond by opening up and sharing more valuable information instead of feeling like they’re being interrogated.

Genuine curiosity makes asking the right questions easier. You’ll never be stuck trying to remember what to ask or find yourself scrambling when you encounter a situation your Discovery Call Playbook doesn’t cover. When you’re truly curious, the right follow-up questions emerge naturally from what they’re sharing.

Your prospect will feel the difference immediately. Instead of feeling like they’re being “sold to”, they’ll feel understood and valued. This mindset transforms discovery from a sales task into a genuine conversation that both salespeople and prospects enjoy.

2. Focus on Getting Information, Not Giving Information

This curious mindset naturally leads to getting better information. Without it, salespeople fall into the common trap of just waiting for their chance to talk and pitch. They want to be Don Draper delivering the perfect pitch or the smooth-talking closer who has the right line to close every deal.  

It’s crucial to resist the temptation to jump on opportunities as they arise during Discovery. Your pitch will also likely miss the mark because you don’t have all of the puzzle pieces yet. Every time a prospect answers a question, they’re handing you another piece. Once you’ve gathered enough, the picture becomes clear. You know exactly how to sell them. Without that, the picture is unclear and you’re just guessing.

Instead, when you’re tempted to make a pitch during discovery, make a note to revisit these points later. Your patience in gathering the complete picture will pay off with a more effective and targeted presentation or Demo later.

3. Target a 30% Talk Ratio

When you’re genuinely curious and focused on getting information, a natural outcome emerges: your prospect does most of the talking. Aim for a 30/70 talk ratio. Meaning you talk 30% of the time and your prospect talks 70%. This might seem counterintuitive because when most people think of a salesperson, they picture someone talking.

The data backs this up. High-performing salespeople consistently maintain lower talk ratios and higher close rates. When you let prospects share their world, their challenges, priorities, and decision-making process, you gather the puzzle pieces needed to present a compelling solution.

One reason salespeople struggle with this is that they know they need to build rapport but they don’t actually understand how it’s built. They mistakenly think it’s finding commonalities with others. Stuff like this is so common, “Oh, you’re from Chicago? I love Chicago! I went there last summer and…” 

This approach backfires. Instead of building rapport, it leads to overtalking and shifts the spotlight away from the prospect. True rapport comes from making prospects feel heard and understood. Keep the conversation focused on them. The more they talk, the more information you gather and the more valued they feel.

For more on this, read: Bonding & Rapport Building

4. Never Interrupt Your Prospect

Genuine curiosity and interest in your prospect will prevent overt interruptions. However, salespeople interrupt prospects far more often than they realize through two subtle behaviors that derail discovery conversations.

Micro-interruptions are small verbal and non-verbal signals that show you’re waiting to jump in or start talking. Common verbal ones are:

• “Mm-hmm” 
• “Right” 
• “Okay” 
• “Good”
• “Makes sense”

These seemingly harmless responses interrupt your prospect’s train of thought and cause them to cut their responses short. Non-verbal micro-interruptions do the same. I’ve watched call recordings where a salesperson slightly opens their mouth to speak and the prospect immediately stops talking.

Interrupting a Pause happens when a prospect takes a brief pause to gather their thoughts and the salesperson immediately jumps in not realizing their prospect wasn’t finished speaking. Often, if the salesperson had simply waited 1-2 seconds, the prospect would have continued with additional valuable information.

5. Use The ARQ Method

Ask Discovery questions in the moment, based on the flow of the conversation, and with the end goal in mind. This approach keeps your prospect engaged. Asking every prospect the same set of stock questions will feel like an interrogation. The ARQ Method simplifies this process.

Discovery Call Example

Prospect: “We just rolled out a new employee wellness program last month and the response has been incredible. Participation rates are at 85%, which is way higher than we expected. Our HR team is thrilled with how engaged everyone has been.”

A – Affirm/Acknowledge

Acknowledge or validate what the prospect is saying. This shows you’re listening and understand their perspective.

Affirm → Positive validation

• Example: “That’s really impressive.”

Acknowledge → Neutral recognition of a statement

• Example: “Okay. That makes sense”

R – Repeat

Restate their point in your own words to ensure clarity and confirm understanding.

• Example: “Your employees must be really excited about the new program.”

Q – Question

Conclude with a question that digs deeper or to transition the conversation to a new topic.

• Example: “Why do you think that is?”

Putting It Together

Salesperson: “That’s really impressive. Your employees must be really excited about the new program. Why do you think that is?”

Prospect: “Oh great question! I’m actually really excited about this. I think it’s because we finally listened to what employees actually wanted. We surveyed everyone first and found out they were really interested in mental health resources and flexible fitness options. Plus, we made it super easy to participate…”

Learn more about The ARQ Method.

6. Leverage Open and Closed Questions

Begin discovery with open questions to invite detailed responses and encourage prospects to share their situation and challenges. Open questions tend to put prospects in a feeling state where they share their vision, feelings, and motivations. Once you have a clear picture, transition to closed questions to gather specific details that require shorter answers. Closed questions tend to shift prospects into a thinking state focused on facts, logistics, and qualifying information. This is also a great way to smoothly wind down the call.

• Open Question Example: “What would you like to discuss today?” 
• Closed Question Example: “How many employees does your company have?”

The call visualization below shows this strategy in practice. Early in the conversation, the prospect has longer monologue type responses (long blue bars) to my open questions. Later in the call, their responses become shorter as I pose closed questions to gather specific information. This strategy also helps me keep my talk ratio close to the 30% target (26%). 

This progression follows how buyers make buying decisions, which is buying emotionally and then justifying it logically later. For more on leveraging emotional versus logical states in sales conversations: Thinking vs Feeling.

7. Dig Deeper

Prospects often reveal only surface level information initially. Dig deeper to uncover their true problems and emotions.

Start with easier, open questions and gradually move to more challenging ones as your connection deepens. If you ask difficult or intrusive questions too early, your prospect will feel uncomfortable and become guarded.

For instance, you might start with “What would you like to discuss today?” then progress to “What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing?” and eventually reach “How is this impacting your role?” Each question builds trust while uncovering deeper layers of information.

8. Check the Boxes on All Your Qualification Criteria

Keep the end goal in mind and ensure you ask the necessary qualification questions.

After building a strong picture of the prospect’s challenges and needs through ARQs with open questions, you may find that key qualification criteria haven’t been addressed. Use more closed questions to address these. 

This is where closed questions become essential for filling the gaps. Some common ones are: 

• Budget authority: “Who needs to approve this purchase?”
• Timeline: “When do you need this implemented?” 
• Decision-making process: “What other stakeholders will be involved?”

9. Take Notes

Strategic note-taking keeps you actively listening rather than trying to capture every detail. Don’t write down everything, just focus on key items like questions you want to revisit or important points to reference later. You can always check the call recording or your AI notetaker afterward. 

Taking notes also encourages prospects to share more. When they see you writing down what they’re saying, it signals that what they’re sharing matters and you’re fully engaged.

I strongly recommend using pen and paper. Note-taking on a computer can make you appear distracted (prospect thinks, “Is he responding to an email?”) and leads to poor body language and eye contact that signals you’re not fully present.

10. Don’t Rush

Let your discovery take as long as necessary. Too many salespeople rush discovery with rigid thinking like “Discovery should last 20 minutes at the start of a Demo.” Once they hit that arbitrary time limit, they wrap it up and move to their pitch. This is particularly problematic when selling high-consideration products or to Enterprise clients.

If your prospect is engaged, lengthy can actually be a huge differentiator. During a post-Demo Feedback Call, a customer explained why they had chosen us: 

“There were a few things that really stood out. The interface, the ease of using it, and to be honest, I think the fact that you spent the start of the call with a Q&A with us. It was just about us. It’s about wanting to partner with us. That’s what we’re looking for is we’re looking for that true partnership and we felt that we have it.”

This decision came down to us versus a competitor. At the time, it was one of the top 10 deals in our company’s history. The primary reason we won was the positive feeling my discovery process created. When prospects feel heard and understood, they view you as a partner rather than just another vendor pushing a solution.