Mastering Strategic Discovery Calls: Insights from Josh Gillespie's

Time to read: 5 minutes

Host Jed Mahrle welcomed Josh Gillespie, Head of Growth at Aomni, to discuss how sales professionals can win more deals through expert strategic discovery call tactics. With over a decade of experience in sales, Josh shared invaluable insights about the mindset and approach needed for effective strategic discovery calls that qualify prospects efficiently.

The Business of Disqualification

Josh opened with a powerful philosophy that has guided his sales career since 2008: "We are in the business of disqualification." This counterintuitive approach isn't about rejecting opportunities but adopting a skeptical selling disposition that builds trust during strategic discovery calls.

"It has to do with our selling disposition and the benefits of having a skeptical selling disposition. And how we can use kind of softer disqualification to build trust," Josh explained. "That's ultimately what we want to do on a strategic discovery call is build trust."

This approach helps sales professionals avoid the common pitfall of "happy ears" - the tendency to treat every prospect as a hot lead. Instead, Josh recommends qualifying prospects through direct questions like:

• "Why did you agree to take or make this call today?"
• "What are you hoping to accomplish?"
• "Is the conversation that we're having today exploratory in nature, or is there an initiative or mandate to procure a solution like ours by a specific date?"

Coming Prepared with a Point of View

One of the most impactful ways to stand out in strategic discovery calls is to arrive prepared with research and a point of view. Josh emphasized that in the business world, unlike academia, there are "stupid questions" - those that reveal you haven't done your homework.

"What's important is not so much understanding just basic information about a company. But what's the correlation between what this company is doing and what's my value prop," Josh noted.

He recommended researching:

• Recent news and executive quotes
• User sentiment on review platforms
• Employee sentiment on Glassdoor
• Ex-employees who might provide insights

Josh shared a creative tactic for strategic discovery call preparation: "Sometimes just reaching out to a recently departed employee and saying, 'Hey, I'm engaging your old organization, no harm no foul, just curious if I could pick your brain for about 5 minutes.' I've had a lot of folks respond positively to that type of message and give up a lot of gold."

The Coach vs. Champion Mindset

Josh challenged the common assumption that every contact is a potential champion during strategic discovery calls. Instead, he suggested: "Everyone is a coach at best, until they prove to you that they're a champion."

A champion takes actions like introducing you around the organization, getting NDAs in place, and describing in detail how they procure solutions. Without these actions, you're likely dealing with a coach who may provide information but won't drive the deal forward.

This perspective helps sales professionals make strategic decisions about which opportunities to pursue based on whether they're truly in your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) versus just your Total Addressable Market (TAM).

Leveraging AI for Efficient Research

Josh demonstrated how Aomni, an AI research tool, can dramatically reduce the time needed to prepare for strategic discovery calls. The platform finds correlations between what you're selling and what potential buyers need, surfacing relevant information that might otherwise take hours to discover.

In his demonstration, Josh showed how Aomni quickly found a recent Hubspot blog post mentioning that "Enterprise sales teams spend too much time, one to 3 days, researching accounts before engaging prospects" - a perfect pain point for his solution.

"This is the type of evidence that I want to show up to on a strategic discovery call, because probably my champion or coach hasn't seen that," Josh explained.

Recommendations for Better Strategic Discovery Calls:

• Adopt a disqualification mindset to build trust (00:04:15): "We are in the business of disqualification... it has to do with our selling disposition and the benefits of having a skeptical selling disposition. And how we can use kind of softer disqualification to build trust."
• Ask direct questions about the prospect's intent and authority (00:07:54): "Is the conversation that we're having today exploratory in nature, or is there an initiative or mandate to procure a solution like ours by a specific date for a specific reason?"
• Research ex-employees for insider insights (00:15:29): "Sometimes just reaching out to a recently departed employee... I've had a lot of folks respond positively to that type of message and give up a lot of gold right? Because what do they care."
• Assume everyone is a coach until proven otherwise (00:18:53): "Everyone is a coach at best, until they prove to you that they're a champion right? And doing so takes actions, post discovery, as far as introducing you around the organization."
• Be willing to walk away from unqualified opportunities (00:29:39): "If the answer is maybe or no, it's okay to walk away. And it's actually okay to tell the prospect as much at the end of the call like, 'Hey, this didn't actually go as planned. I'm not sure there's a qualified opportunity for us here.'"

By implementing these strategic discovery call techniques, you'll approach prospect conversations with more confidence, efficiency, and effectiveness - ultimately winning more of the right deals while saving time on opportunities that aren't the right fit.

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