- Last updated on March 9, 2026
- What does a successful discovery call look like?
- How do I know if I am asking the right questions?
- How do I move the conversation forward without being too pushy?
Salespeople like yourself often ask themselves these questions to qualify the best leads, improve their sales skills, and close more deals.
Here’s a fun fact for you:
Being mindful about the length of your discovery call is important to help you make sure the prospect’s time is respected and that attention is maintained.
A long call may bore the prospect; it can put the prospect to sleep.
If the call is too short, it may not provide enough information about the prospect’s pain points.
The length of a discovery call can indicate its effectiveness and potential to close a deal, but it is not the only factor to consider.
What truly matters during a call is to ask open-ended, deep questions and build a connection with your prospects. It will help you find and solve problems for your prospects, leading to more successful discovery calls.
We’ll share a few ideas with you later on.
Table of Contents
What Is A Discovery Call?
It’s an introductory call to qualify your prospects during the sales process.
The salesperson and the prospect discuss the prospect’s business, goals, and challenges to see if the company’s product is a good match.
A discovery call is your chance to discover a problem that your prospect has and whether you can solve it. That is why you need to have a set goal for the call.
During a discovery call, you must ask questions that will provide you with key information about the prospect.
By the end of the call, you should be able to dictate if it represents a business opportunity for your company.
Main Goal Of A Discovery Call
The main goal is to find out information about the prospect and qualify it as an opportunity (aka a Sales-Qualified Lead).
Discovery calls, if done the right way, will let you know if your product is a good fit for the prospect based on their needs and your product’s capabilities.
It provides details on your prospect’s true needs, pain points, budget, and other factors included in your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Discovery Call Tips For B2B Sales Teams
Great discovery calls are characterized by:
- asking relevant questions
- tailoring the conversation to the prospect’s needs
- active listening
- building trust and rapport
To get the most out of your calls and create more revenue-generating opportunities, follow these tips:
Tip 1 - Sell To The Person Behind The Role
Let me explain it to you with an example:
You’re on a call with a CEO from a small tech company and you’re trying to determine if you can help solve their particular problem.
Throughout the conversation, as you both are discussing the CEO’s pain points and possible solutions, please keep in mind one thing:
Don’t sell to the CEO, sell to the person that is the CEO.
Defining the prospect based only on their title or position in a company is not a good idea. Do your research before you meet them and get to know them as a person.
Selling to a person rather than a title helps you build more personal and meaningful relationships with your prospects. It plays a huge role in helping you build trust and rapport and move them down the sales pipeline.
Tip 2 - Always Be Closing
That doesn’t mean to close a deal right away, it means trying to close the next step.
So from now on, ALWAYS book the next step right ON the call and try to bring in more people at each level of the sales process.
The next step after a discovery call could be booking another meeting with more people from the company. We recommend that you:
- prioritize your objectives for the meeting
- determine which of your products can best solve the prospect’s problem
- make the point above the main focus of the meeting
Bringing in more people assures that all relevant decision-makers are aware of your product. It’s also easier for you to address any concerns and gain more insights about the company.
Instead of making the prospect be the middleman and push the next step with their boss, make their lives easier and tell them you will book the meeting. Just ask them to invite their boss on the next call.
The end goal is to make a sale, so take every opportunity to move your relationships with your prospects toward that goal.
Tip 3 - A Discovery Call Is Not Always A Demo Call
Just because you qualified the discovery call as an opportunity doesn’t mean you have to jump straight into showing your product demo.
As mentioned before, the goal of a discovery call is to determine whether the prospect can be qualified as an opportunity. Doing a product demo during the call can distract you from the goal and can be overwhelming for the prospect.
With the information gathered in a discovery call, you can proceed to create a custom product demo tailored to the prospect’s exact needs and use case. It’s not always about selling the product right away.
Give yourself enough time to really understand your prospects and figure out what they’re looking for to solve their problems.
Let your prospects know first that you understand how to help them. When you jump into the demo call after, you can provide them with a better experience and make a bigger impact.
BONUS TIP: When you are ready to show the demo, do not show EVERYTHING, only show the relevant features.
Best Discovery Call Questions For B2B Sales
A study conducted by Mindtickle found that top salespeople ask between 12-15 questions, on average, during a discovery call.
It might sound like a lot, but they do their best to naturally insert the most important questions into the conversation.
Besides, you can get answers to some of these questions as the prospect openly shares information about their company with you. It might not always be necessary to ask too much.
What’s important is that you understand your prospect’s needs and concerns so you can take the next appropriate step.
So the big question here is, what questions should I be asking my prospects during a discovery call?
And here’s our answer:
By having a clear understanding of each point listed above, you should be able to determine if the prospect qualifies as an opportunity or not.
Make sure you only invest time and resources in those who have a high chance of becoming your clients and will benefit from using your product or service.
Ready To Achieve Success On B2B Discovery Calls With Prospects?
According to a Salesforce study, 40% of sales reps are unprepared for a discovery call and 85% of buyers don’t feel encouraged after the call.
Being overconfident and not doing proper research on your prospects makes you unable to qualify them properly. Prospects will most likely lose their interest and trust in the company.
Getting the most out of your discovery calls includes:
- Selling to the person behind the role
- Always be closing
- Knowing when to separate a discovery call from a demo call
- Asking well-thought-out questions to determine if a prospect qualifies or not as an opportunity
Finding out how to best guide a conversation during a call does take time and focus. You will have to experiment with different strategies to identify the best one for you.
If you want to speed up the process and move more qualified prospects through the sales funnel, FiveRings Marketing can help you.
The team at Overview needed a way to tap into the SMB manufacturing sector, as they were going to market with their product. They wanted to:
- sign their first customers
- create a consistent sales process
- get feedback from customers to guide their product development
We were able to deliver the following results:
- $500K in opportunities during the first 4 months
- averaged 18-20 meetings per month during the first year against a target of 10 per month
- $700k+ in closed deals so far
As you can see, working with us is like having your own in-house team, but better. If you’re looking to grow revenue and get a serious lift on your sales this year, book a meeting with us and see how our team can help you close more deals.
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