One of the most important early steps in the B2B sales process is the discovery call. This is often the first meaningful engagement with the prospect. You can use the meeting to better understand the customer’s challenges and situation. The prospect can learn about your solution and how you can help them. I get lots of questions on how to book more discovery calls and here are some of my thoughts.
Have a tight ICP and Buyer Persona
In sales there can be a lot of wasted effort expended by targeting the wrong Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona. I would suggest start-ups to have a fairly tight ICP and Buyer Persona for their outbound sales work. This should mean more discovery calls by reaching out to the prospects that would be the most interested in the benefits your solution can bring.
Specific messaging
By having a tight ICP and buyer persona that allows for specific messaging. You can use industry wording, refer to specific use cases, and even mention other clients you have in the space. The goal of the messaging is not to sell them on your solution, but on having a discovery call.
Leverage connections
Start with your outreach to friendly contacts you may have. LinkedIn can be a big help to find your 1st connections that could work at your ICP and be the right buyer persona. The next best connections are your 2nd connections. That means you and your target share a common 1st connection. You may be able to ask a good 1st connection to make an intro. Another strategy would be to send a connection request stating that we have a number of common connections in the industry. The goal is to get to the right contacts faster.
Mix up your outreach
Email is a great outreach tool, but it is not the only one. Email deliverability and engagement is declining, especially with cold outreach. It is good to mix up your outreach tactics. LinkedIn is a great method, but don’t forget about cold calls (https://vapartners.ca/cold-calls-are-not-dead/). At VA Partners we still book about 60% of our discovery calls through phone calls. Create a sales cadence for your outbound efforts with some varied tactics.
Do things that aren’t scaleable
Talking to customers is key to so many aspects of your sales success. You can validate the problem/benefit, test pricing, find out about competitors, and much more. The early sales meetings and discovery calls are essential. You may need to do a few things that aren’t scalable. As an example a start-up I talked with had some success stopping by in-person with restaurants to meet with managers. This was not a good long-term strategy, but it allowed for some early meetings that helped with future outreach.
If you would like some help booking discovery calls please connect with me.
