How do you actually approach a discovery call for a speed-to-lead offer?

#347 · one question that triples your sales call CVR

How do you actually approach a discovery call for a speed-to-lead offer?

The simplest and easiest way to run a discovery call: somebody comes on, do your building rapport, make them happy, make them smile for a second. Then say, 'Hey, I know we've got a lot to cover, so I'd love to get into things. Here's how these calls typically go — I start off asking you some questions about your business. After that, we'll make sure there's a fit mutually on both sides. I'll walk you through the solution we have for you and how I think it could apply to your particular case. And then if it makes sense, we can chat about next steps. Does that sound good?' Then the first question is: why the hell did you take the call? You probably get brushed by 50 of these emails or Upwork applications or LinkedIn DMs per day — what made you want to jump on this one? That's literally all you need to kick off probably 80% of the call. The reason is: one, you're building rapport so they hopefully like you a little bit. Two, you're setting an agenda for the call, which is important because now the customer knows you're in control and understands where things are going and what's coming next. Three, you literally just ask them straight up, 'Dude, why are you here?' and they'll tell you, 'I'm here because my business is really struggling with XYZ and I was considering this solution and thought I'd give it a try.' Fantastic — they've given you the ammo you need to shoot them later. It's a shitty analogy, but they've given you everything you need to close it and make it a win for both sides. Just ask that question first and your sales calls will immediately go three times as good. Then later, after they tell you what they want to accomplish, ask, 'Have you done anything to try and get to the solution before?' If they say, 'Yeah, we hired somebody 3 weeks ago and they weren't really good,' ask 'Why weren't they good?' — 'Because of X, Y, and Z.' Now they've given you everything you need to close the call and everything you need to avoid too — just don't do what those guys did and you're good. People overcomplicate the sales process and end up talking about themselves for hours. You don't need to make it anywhere near that complex to achieve what both parties want: someone has a problem, and you come in and solve it.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Sales

My partner runs the sales calls while I do ops and handle appointment setting. How would you develop a skill in my situation? I'm open to solutions outside business too.

Yeah, I mean on the articulation bit, you should just be doing the sales calls. Obviously, your partner should run the sales calls if they are the person initially contacting the lead and getting in touch with them, just for congruence's sake. There's nothing stopping you from doing sales calls or being on sales calls. Probably one of the biggest unlocks I had is when I just stopped deferring and delegating all of the sales work to my partner because I thought my partner just had some magic sales sauce that I didn't. The reality is they really didn't. And I was reminded of this just a couple of weeks ago when I jumped on a call with one of my business partners. Now I have a few, right? Because I run different businesses and stuff like that. And I just remember like, 'Wow, you know, this person really knows a lot about their product and how to sell them.' But then I jumped on a call and I was just like, 'Whoa, wait a second.' Like, 'Why did they say that? That seems kind of weird. Hold on. They're talking about this. That seems suboptimal. Why are they not asking the customer more questions about themselves?' And then I was reminded, oh, wait a second. Like, first principles, I'm actually really good at this stuff. I don't even need to know a lot about the product to know how to sell it. And it made me be like, 'Right, right. Why the hell am I deferring and delegating these sales calls to this person?' I'm like, if I really wanted to learn how the product worked and how best to sell that, I should be doing the sales calls myself. So, guess what? I started jumping on a bunch of sales calls. Now, I deeply understand the product and how to articulate the benefits of said product. Yeah, you just got to do it, Roby. Hopefully, that makes sense. Okay, I'm going to drink this coffee because it's pretty early and I got to jump over to breakfast soon.

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youtube ↗Lead Generation

How do I get in contact with people who make big‑ticket decisions?

It's fairly straightforward: you contact big‑ticket decision‑makers the same way you contact anyone else. These people have less time, so their threshold for what deserves their attention is higher—think of turning up the difficulty in a game from medium to hard or extreme. It's still possible; many people succeed at extreme difficulty, though it's a bit harder overall. Their main concern is the extra marginal time they'd have to spend managing you to get a project from start to finish. New business owners often think the amount of money is what matters, but it's really the value you provide and the time that value frees them up. Beginners might say they'll work for free or do anything, but high‑level executives don't care about that; offering marginal value would actually cost them more time than it's worth. The way to pitch them is to make them certain that working with you won't consume any more of their time—that you're 100% self‑managed and will immediately solve a direct need that's currently costing them money, on which you can deliver multiples. It's not about offering to work for free or cheap; instead, you say, 'Hey Pete, I know you're suffering from XYZ problem because I've worked with a big name trying to solve it before—it cost them $48 million a year (or $400 k a year). We've solved it and made them $1.5 million. I've already started working on this for you. I know your time is valuable, so this requires no supervision. I've already eliminated XYZ % of this leak, and I want to continue doing this for you. If I do, you're likely to make this much or that much money. All I'm asking for is a simple okay from you, maybe a 10‑minute call to shake hands and orient you. I'll have no ongoing management costs and am entirely self‑directed. You can think of it as you spending just 5 or 10 minutes of your time and receiving a fix for a $40‑$50 k/month problem. People love this approach because it shows you understand how many directions their time is pulled into. My recommendation: pitch anyone whose problem is worth over half a million dollars a year—which really isn't that much when you think about it.

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youtube ↗Client Acquisition

Nick, I'm looking for the main constraint to landing my first paid client. I'm an appointment setter for a high ticket online coach and I built him a free chatbot for DMs and SMS. It books appointments but still makes some basic errors and I'm building it in exchange for a testimonial. The owner is open to commission-only ideas but doesn't have anything in mind himself. He's happy for me to work with other businesses and already employs an agency to run his ads. What should I prioritize? Should I perfect the chatbot to earn the testimonial, start outreach to other high ticket coaches, and propose a commission-based marketing service to an owner or something else?

A common issue I always see is people tend to think it's X or Y. They have to do option one or they have to do option two. That there's a fork in the road where every downstream option is mutually exclusive. All options are not mutually exclusive. You can do all of the things that you want to do simultaneously. The main core bottleneck is actually just the amount of effective focused time you are spending working. And so it is almost not always like sacrificing X in order to do Y thing. It's not like doing outreach or working on your current clientele. It is doing both simultaneously. And the benefit to that as well is when you do more and you're constantly pushing your zone of competence and what you are comfortable with, you will usually find better and more effective ways of working as well. So in the case of you know a hypothetical fella that was asking me what should I prioritize? Should I, you know, try and fulfill this current client? Should I start outreach to other prospective clients? Should I like try upselling the client on some sort of, you know, thing that I have going on? You should actually and legitimately just do all three simultaneously. You know, we come from a line of people that had to hunt, they had to cook, they had to secure water, they had to tend to their families, they had to, you know, constantly defend themselves night after night. You can't you don't just do one thing. We're obviously highly specialized today, but there's 16 hours available in the day. Everything there would might only take you an hour or so. You still have a lot of time available, right? To go hunting your saber-tooth tiger or to go get some water. So hopefully that makes sense.

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youtube ↗Cold Email

How can I position myself as the person who handles outreach for clients who don’t have someone to do it, and should I manage the systems myself or rely on automation/content help to make the solution frictionless for them?

Ah, great question. I like this because you're asking how you make the client's life easier—that's really the most important thing. You'll find that as clients grow bigger and better, they want less work on their end and prefer an all‑in‑one done‑for‑you service where they pay a set amount and get the result. I feel the same way: at this point I don’t want to be a partner who constantly discusses the best way of doing things; I’d rather hire someone who’s good at what they do and trust them to deliver a great job. This is taking ownership and minimizing friction—reducing client complexity. Clients don’t care about the inner workings of the black box that is your product; they only care about the input, output, and the interface. So what I think about this is that it’s great—exactly what you should be doing, and what you should have been doing all along. To be that someone, you just position yourself as the person capable of handling everything. You are the person who does cold email: I will handle your cold email systems from start to finish, completely autonomously. All I need from you is a brief three‑minute form you fill out right now, and I’ll do everything for you for 90 days straight. If I don’t deliver the X, Y, Z results I guarantee, you don’t pay a cent. Make it a complete and utter no‑brainer for them—get them to give you what you need up front in a couple of minutes, then you’re off to the races. Handle it completely autonomously, give them progress updates (but don’t disappear or demand anything). That’s how you do it.

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