Episode 107 – The 10 Questions That Make Consulting Discovery Meetings More Valuable

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A discovery meeting is the first conversation with a prospect after they show initial interest in your consulting services. It’s an opportunity for you to gather the details required for you to build out a proposed solution(s) for the potential consulting client.

Imagine that you conduct a discovery meeting to understand the client’s requirements and goals and you think you know everything you need to know, then you sit down to write a proposal and that’s when you realize you have big gaps. 

  • You’re not sure how to lay out the proposal
  • You’re not sure how to price it
  • You’re not sure how to calculate some form of value for the client or what the guardrails are

This happens all the time. So if this is happening to you, you’re not alone. 

Today, I want to help you improve your discovery process and make them more valuable so you can 

  • Improve the recommendations and solutions that you’re proposing to your clients
  • Set yourself up for more value based pricing scenarios where you truly understand what the solution means to the clients from a bottom line perspective and 
  • So you have valuable context for your pricing

Listen in as I share what a discovery meeting (and what it isn’t), the goals of a discovery meeting, what your mindset needs to look like in order to have a high quality discovery meeting, some examples of what to do and what not to do, and the ten (10) questions that will get you started with mapping out a higher value discovery meeting for you and for your potential clients.

Key points in this episode

1.What’s the main reason you wanted to meet with me?

2.What do you want to accomplish?

3.Why?

4.What have you tried?

5.What do you see as the greatest barrier/difficulty?

6.What do you think your options are?

7.What is this costing you? What will not fixing it cost you?

8.How is this impacting you personally?

9.How will you measure the success of this initiative?

  • Quantitative
  • Qualitative

10. What are the tangible results of this initiative?

  • Calculate specific cost savings
  • Calculate revenue

BONUS QUESTIONS

11.  Is the budget approved? If not, what will the approval process look like?

12. Who will be involved in the decision to proceed with this project? What do you anticipate their feedback to be?

13. We’ve got xx minutes left…is there anything we still need to cover that we ought to discuss today?

14. What would you need to see from me to confirm this effort and get started?

15. Let’s schedule the next step while we’re here together. How does XYZ DATE sound?

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE —

FOR MORE RESOURCES SPECIFIC TO THE INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT —

  1. Discuss working with me as your coach – Click here to schedule your consultation
  2. LinkedIn 
  3. Website 

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