REALLY Messing Up An MSP 'Discovery Call'

A discovery call is the thing that turns a warm lead into a booked sales meeting – here’s a 6 part format for getting the most from them. Also this week, how to market your MSP during a quiet spell, and the secret to being recommended more by AI. Welcome to Episode 356 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge. The format for a perfect discovery call The discovery call is the most underloved, most misunderstood part of the entire sales process for MSPs. Most owners treat it as an opportunity to tell the prospect about their services, but that’s not what it’s really for. Done properly, a discovery call is the thing that turns a warm lead into booked sales meetings. And right now I want to give you the exact format for running one that actually works, including the differences between a B2B call and a co-managed IT one. And I’ve broken this down into six easy parts to make it easy for you to understand, follow along, and of course implement. Part 1: The mindset shift. When we’re talking about a discovery call, we mean normally a video call and it’s normally the first quality contact with a new prospect. And the goal of the video call, the discovery call is not actually to sell anything. It’s actually to do two things. Number one is to qualify the prospect as someone that you really want to work with, someone that’s worth pursuing. And then secondly is to make them feel as though, “Ooh, this is interesting. These are the guys we should pursue.” So you know that you want to work with them and they are intrigued… they feel heard, they feel as though you could be the right people for them. And the way that you do that is by zipping your mouth because the prospects should be talking like 80% of the time. You ask questions, but then you shut up and you listen really, really carefully and you just occasionally reflect back what you’ve heard, what they have said. Because the best sales don’t come from talking at someone the best or having the best pitch. They come from actually the best listening. So most MSP owners, they get on a discovery call and start talking about their services and their accreditations and their qualifications and their tech stack. And do you know that the prospect doesn’t really care about any of that stuff. At the very beginning of the process, which is what this is, they just want to know if you can understand their world and if you can listen to them. And feeling heard is one of the most powerful psychological forces in all of human connection. When someone feels like you genuinely get them and get their situation and you understand their hopes and their fears and their wants and their needs, then you’re going to form some trust. In fact, they’re going to know you, they’re going to like you and they’re going to trust you. And when those three things are in place, they’re much more likely to give you a wad of cash and commit to you for a three-year contract. Beautiful, right? Part 2: The ask – how long should you request for a discovery call? This is where B2B and co-managed IT are slightly different. So in B2B, I believe you should ask the business owner for just 15 minutes on a discovery call. Why? Because it sounds like a tiny, tiny commitment. Most people are going to say yes to 15 minutes, whereas actually if you ask them for 30, that feels like a bigger chunk and certainly you don’t ask for an hour. So 15 minutes is absolutely perfect. Now in co-managed IT, you do ask for 30 minutes and that’s because IT directors, even though they’re super busy, super overstretched, they also have more complex situations to explain. And 15 minutes isn’t enough to have a peer-to-peer conversation about the real frustrations in their life. Because with business owners, it’s them as a normal perso...