Doing Discovery: The Single Most Important Element of Software Sales and Buyer Enablement Processes

by Peter Cohan, Giorgio Gnoli

Un Direttore commerciale ha "L'80% del mio team crede di fare un buon lavoro con la discovery, ma ahimè non è così: non sanno quello che non sanno...!".

E tu a che punto sei con le tue skill di discovery?

Livello 1: Scopriamo i pain point;
Livello 2: Scopriamo i pain point e li esploriamo più a fondo;
Livello 3: Scopriamo i pain point e li esploriamo più a fondo, li ampliamo e ne indaghiamo l'impatto;
Livello 4: Scopriamo i pain point e li esploriamo più a fondo, li ampliamo e ne indaghiamo l'impatto, quantificandolo;
Livello 5: Scopriamo i pain point e li esploriamo più a fondo, li ampliamo e ne indaghiamo l'impatto, quantificandolo e dandogli una visione
Livello 6: Applica queste competenze nella vendita verso prospect che si trovano nei diversi stadi dalla curva di adozione tecnologica, alle cosiddette "vittime di fallimenti", ai potenziali acquirenti di nuove e disruptive categorie di prodotti, ai classici cicli di vendita transazionali ecc;
Livello 7: integra e allinea le competenze di cui sopra in una metodologia di discovery integrata.

La maggior parte dei team di vendita e prevendita opera al livello 2 o 3 della discovery, con pochi che raggiungono il livello 4.
Questo lascia un ampio margine di miglioramento!

E, come osserva Cohan, "il vendor che esegue la migliore discovery viene percepito dal prospect in una posizione estremamente vantaggiosa rispetto agli altri".

Leggere e seguire gli esercizi di Doing Discovery può trasformare singoli individui, team e aziende intere da venditori standard a professionisti altamente performanti, in grado di raggiungere più agevolmente i propri obiettivi di vendita e al tempo stesso rendono veramente coinvolti i loro prospect, dando vita a partnership di successo reciproco che durano nel tempo.

Genres: Technology

501 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 13, 2023

Reviews

[John Klassen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever found a handyman who was so good that you didn't want to give their name out?

That's how I feel about Great Demo. Doing the last thing first transformed my demos and I don't want my competitors to find out!

Peter knows the art and science of demos. He's a trained scientist who gets to the root of why things work and don't work. He's mastered his art from doing demos for decades.

You can see Peter speaking online but there is no substitute for reading the book to build the foundation of your Great Demos.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Levels of discocery
1. Uncovers pain
2. Uncovers pain and explores more deeply. Why is excel not great?
3. Explores and broadens the pain. Make it tangible.
4. Quantifies the impact. Must find a delta using customers numbers. Days or dollars.
5. Re-engineers vision. Agrees on specific capabilties that the customer wants that snowflakes offers.
6. Applies all these depending on customer on the technology adoption curve
7. Bakes in all 6 into a cohesive sales mehology for my industry, being a data platform saas solution. Have simple discovery doxuemnts to fill out.

[Mark Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me longer than I had hoped and the principles are good for self assessment but felt some of it was repetitive - worth reading however as there is some great takeaways most impactful thing for me was my self assement on my current level of expertise in discovery - it has giving me a guide to reach the following levels now to put a plan in place to get there

[Grace Naughton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for work - I didn’t love it as much as similar reads like Start With Why.

I think part of it is I’m biased towards the frameworks I already know, and this book presents very similar concepts but just slightly differently.

It’s also *so* American.

Would to find a sales / tech / business book that is Aussie centric, so I can actually relate and apply it to what I am realistically doing.

[Kirsten Gesenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um. In a book about great demos we start with 4 (!) forwards, about the author, preface, acknowledgements (?!) and an introduction. I guess do what I say...not what I do...

[Shane Meade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Structurally it's all over the place. Too many spelling mistakes. Some decent content here too.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been in the SC role for over 15 years and often find myself in the mentoring role at this stage. What Peter captures well in this book is all the various threads of what we should do and probably, usually sometimes do. But very few of us do them, do them consistently, and do them well. And thus, it can be a hard thing to teach. I know, from trying to do so.

I appreciate the structure of the book pulling all those skills and practices into a framework. It tries to turn discovery into a repeatable pattern that is easier to teach and practice. He augments the framework with examples, both concrete and imaginative (who knew catering was so much work!)

This book is helping me to take a closer look at how I approach discovery and I'm trying to use the framework within it to improve the consistency of how I execute on it. I've already incorporated (stole) examples from the book to help in explaining concepts to my mentees. Thanks Peter.