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April 25, 2026 · Louie Bernstein
The second discovery call
sales discovery
I was on a sales call with one of my salespeople. We had done the discovery. We knew the problem. We had the solution ready. Everything was in place.
My salesperson opened the call by thanking everyone for being there. Then he turned to the decision-maker and asked for the business.
Before he could finish, a lower-level person who had participated in the original evaluation asked: "Did you get our support request resolved?"
The decision-maker looked up. "What support request?"
We spent the next twenty minutes managing a conversation that had nothing to do with the sale. Questions piled on top of questions. Clarifications turned into concerns. The momentum we had built over weeks evaporated in the time it took to ask one unresolved question.
We got the sale. But we took the longest possible route to get there.
And it was entirely avoidable.
The lesson I took from that call, and have taught ever since: never walk into the second call assuming everyone remembers where you left off. They do not.
And if you skip the work of bringing them back to the problem before you present the solution, you will spend the rest of the call climbing out of a hole you dug yourself.
What's a tip you have for the the second "discovery" call?
My salesperson opened the call by thanking everyone for being there. Then he turned to the decision-maker and asked for the business.
Before he could finish, a lower-level person who had participated in the original evaluation asked: "Did you get our support request resolved?"
The decision-maker looked up. "What support request?"
We spent the next twenty minutes managing a conversation that had nothing to do with the sale. Questions piled on top of questions. Clarifications turned into concerns. The momentum we had built over weeks evaporated in the time it took to ask one unresolved question.
We got the sale. But we took the longest possible route to get there.
And it was entirely avoidable.
The lesson I took from that call, and have taught ever since: never walk into the second call assuming everyone remembers where you left off. They do not.
And if you skip the work of bringing them back to the problem before you present the solution, you will spend the rest of the call climbing out of a hole you dug yourself.
What's a tip you have for the the second "discovery" call?