Chris White

Couple things come to mind for me here... First, relevance. Your questions have to be relevant to the individual and organization. Second, demonstrate the you've done your homework. Don't ask questions you should already know the answer to. Third, be polite. Use phrases like "May I ask..." or "Could I trouble you to..." And this is not a technique to manipulate. You can't fake this. Motive is transparent. Be sincerely curious. Be sincerely interested. Be polite and courteous.

Because the goal of discovery is to get a thorough understanding of the individual, organization, and situation - to the extent necessary to determine whether or not your solution is a good fit and how best to position your solution in such a way that they will understand the unique value you have to offer them. In other words, the goal is to get them to open up and elaborate about their goals, priorities, challenges, perspectives, etc. This requires building rapport, earning their trust, demonstrating credibility. Open-ended questions, asked in the right way will go a long way towards achieving those things.

Questions that begin with "who", "what", "when", "how", "where", or "why" - the six interrogatives. In other words, questions that cannot be answered with a Yes or No. What's the opposite? Closed ended questions. Those that can be answered with a Yes or a No. These questions begin with words like "Do", "Can", "Are", "Will", "Should", etc. And sentences that begin with "Tell me about..." or "Share with me...", etc. ARE NOT questions. They are statements. And depending on the "temperature" of the people you are speaking with, i.e. their level of receptivity, you might put people off.

And there are so many more ways to do this than ever before. The Presales Collective is a great place to start. It's the largest online community for sales engineers and sales engineering leaders. In addition, software vendors that provide solutions explicitly for sales engineers, such as Consensus and Vivun have created online and host events, such as Demofest (Consensus) and UNXPCTD (Vivun) that bring presales professionals together both online and in-person. Get involved. Find your voice. Use platforms like this one to share your insights and opinions. And the best advice I have on this one... learn how to turn "loose ties" into "strong ties". A simple random connection online may lead to your next job or your next hire.

A large part of developing your skills is getting feedback from your sales counterparts. After every demo or meeting with a client schedule 10-15 minutes with the sales rep or account executive you are partnered with and use this simple "Continue, Stop, Start" technique: 1. What should I continue doing because it's working? 2. What should I stop doing because it's not? 3. What should I start doing because I'm not? Asking those three questions after customer meetings as often as you can will dramatically help you develop your skills.