How top enterprise salespeople sell mega deals

You finally got that crucial meeting with the CEO or VP. Yay!!!

Now it’s time to nail this meeting, turn it into an opportunity, progress into a sale or decide that it’s not the right account, and stop wasting time and precious resources.

In B2B sales, we call this initial meeting a discovery sales call.

Discovery meetings happen because you or your prospect/clients initiated a discussion.

Discovery meetings are a great way to know your clients and their needs. This will help you provide them with the best service or product.

But sometimes most salespeople get carried away! I use to be this salesperson! 🙋🏽

Why? Because as soon as our client ask, what do you and your company do—we get carried away and plunge into how good we are!

Sounds familiar?

I see five key defining moments in the sales and buyer process:

Initiate: Should we be talking?

Qualify: Should we keep on talking?

Validate: Are we on the same page?

Strategise: How will we do this?

Proposal: Should we do this together?

The Importance of Client Discovery Meetings in the Sales Process

80% of lost sales opportunities result from a lack of an effective sales strategy and buyer process.

The discovery meeting at start of the sales process is a crucial part as it will not only allow you to understand their needs, but they also help build trust and rapport. This is your first step to building that connection with your client. Clients who feel you genuinely care about their success will be open to sharing important information.

The key to the first meeting is to collaborate and make decisions together.

How to prepare

Before the meeting

Develop a deep understanding of the company and the individuals you will be meeting with, and prepare sales materials tailored to your client’s needs and interests.

1. Write an Account Profile

   • Start with their Annual Presentation report, website, LinkedIn and Sales Navigator.

   • In this video, I shared how to create an account profile in less than 5 minutes.

Download Account Customer Profile Template to help build your business hypothesis. I also used Perplexity AI to research clients.

📺Watch below on how I used Perplexity in gathering sales intelligence. It only took me less than 5 minutes!

1. Research and learn everyone who are invited to the meeting.

2. Research their LinkedIn profiles, including recent posts, articles, and career history. Look for any podcast appearances, webinar presentations, or speaking engagements they’ve done. Many executives now share their thoughts through these channels, giving you valuable insights into their perspectives and priorities. Also, check if they’ve published articles on industry platforms or been featured in business news.

3. Create a brief business problem assumption. Remember, this is your own thinking; for now, this is all your business hypothesis. We will discuss later on how to validate your business hypothesis during the meeting.

There are three angles to consider:

• Your client’s situation

• Your solution

• Reasons why they should work with you and apply your solution

During the meeting

Start the meeting with a quick introduction.

When giving an introduction in client discovery meetings, it’s important to keep it concise and focused. Let’s cut out long stories. I almost lost a client because my ex-boss kept talking about himself and giving a detailed career history during our meeting!

1. Build a Personal Connection.

Offer a warm smile and a firm handshake if meeting in person. Stay genuine and attentive without being overly enthusiastic. Listen actively and pay attention.

Being listened to and heard is a profound experience.

This is partly because it happens so rarely. People seem “larger” when being listened to; they have more presence. They feel safer and more secure, and they begin to trust.

2. Introduce yourself clearly and confidently.

Remember that the introduction is just the beginning of the meeting. Avoid going into too much detail or overwhelming the client with unnecessary information.

3. Don’t jump to solutions. Focus on finding problems first.

We are in the early phase of the buyer process. We don’t know if we can help or not. Ask relevant, hyper-specific questions based on the business hypotheses.

How to do this:

Use the DLER framework to avoid jumping to solutions too early and create mutual collaboration.

DLER Framework

• Don’t Jump to solutions (self-awareness)

• Listen

• Use Empathy Statements

• Redirect Questions

You might say,

“But Ren, we requested the meeting and most of the time they expect us to present.”

I find this is a common practice. Unfortunately, it’s a waste of time because we don’t know what the client’s problems and priorities are.

When your client says:

“We need a company-wide inventory system—tell us about your product.”

Sounds familiar? When you hear this... slow down. And initiate a dialogue. Instead of sharing a PowerPoint slide and presenting your company capability, etc.. start with a PROBLEM QUESTION or a RESULTS Question.

• Problem Question

Great, I love presenting our solutions and talking about our capabilities. For us to focus on those relevant to your situation, what are the most important business issues you are trying to address this year?

or

Thank you for this opportunity, before rushing straight to our product, what kind of challenges are you experiencing with your inventory?

• Results

I am happy to show you how our product can help and before I jump into details. Do you mind me asking what business results you hope we can help you achieve?

or

Let’s say we are able to provide you with the perfect solutions; what would allow you to do as a business that you can’t do today?

These are just examples, you can adapt to your business and expertise. The more specific your questions, the better you uncover the real problem.

If you know the specific problem, you can create better positioning strategies when you build the proposal because there are multiple strategies to enter an account. Specially if they already have existing providers and you are the one that can uniquely help them.

This post on LinkedIn by Fletch, using a B2B marketing lens, resonated with me as it’s similar to B2B sales.

Visual Image by Fletch

It’s how smaller players can defeat a Goliath: focus on what you do exceptionally well and leverage your positioning and relationships that align with your solution.

4. Create curiosity or interest.

Use the research to validate their problems, challenges, results or goals.This is your business hypotheses on an in-depth knowledge of your clients company and industry.

For example (this is a real opportunity with one of my clients):

You are an ERP solution provider, and you have read in your prospect’s annual report that they are implementing a new customer experience through a new customer self-service portal that will offer better visibility of network inventory and easier ordering of products and services.

Say:

I read your annual report; congratulations on a massive year! (client might comment; let them know as they might immediately share their challenges).

Then Say:

I noticed in your investor documents that you’re launching a new customer experience initiative with a self-service portal—how is that progressing?

You might find out several things:

• They are working on it and are happy with the current provider

• They are working on it but do not have a provider or are not happy with them

• Not yet working on it and am in the process of looking for help

Our clients need to open up about their challenges and goals and how we can help them.

Here are 52 discovery questions to guide and help you in your sales meetings.

Next week, we will get deeper into how to qualify for the opportunity and move your client to a collaborative conversation. We will qualify the Opportunity, Resources (People, Time and Money) and an important factor, how our clients make Decisions (ORD Framework).

5. Wrap-up and Next steps.

Agree on the next steps after the meeting, including any follow-up actions or meetings.

After the meeting

Send an email summarising all the key points and next steps. Book the next meeting by sending a calendar invite.

Stay in touch with your client and consistently get micro-commitments on your progress.

This is how top enterprise salespeople sell mega deals.

Don’t begin with selling.

No pitching features and minimise the time spent talking, pitching, or talking products-it's too early.

Instead, focus on building a smart business opportunity through preparation, intelligent discovery, and collaboration.

I hope you found this week’s lesson helpful.

What do you think? Hit reply as I love hearing from you. 💜 Like really love receiving emails from you.

See you next week!

Ren