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Two Tall Guys Talking Sales
Two Tall Guys Talking Sales
Author: Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey
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"Two Tall Guys Talking Sales," where Sean O'Shaughnessey and Kevin Lawson discuss a single sales topic.
Kevin and Sean together have about 60 years of experience in professional selling. This podcast helps people in sales, sales leadership, and business leadership or company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. This podcast is designed to help those people enhance their companies' sales management practices, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging.
Sean O'Shaughnessey and Kevin Lawson are Fractional Vice Presidents of Sales. They operate their own companies separately but have partnered for this podcast to advise salespeople and SMB companies on successful strategies and methodologies.
Kevin is the CEO of Lighthouse Sales Advisors. Lighthouse Sales Advisors is a sales leadership solution provider for small businesses. Lighthouse helps business owners navigate the potential pitfalls around sales growth, sales turnaround, or scaling up by leveraging sales acumen and decades of experience to build effective sales teams. https://www.lighthousesalesadvisors.com/
Sean is the CEO of New Sales Expert. He helps company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. He helps owners enhance their sales management, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging.
Kevin and Sean together have about 60 years of experience in professional selling. This podcast helps people in sales, sales leadership, and business leadership or company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. This podcast is designed to help those people enhance their companies' sales management practices, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging.
Sean O'Shaughnessey and Kevin Lawson are Fractional Vice Presidents of Sales. They operate their own companies separately but have partnered for this podcast to advise salespeople and SMB companies on successful strategies and methodologies.
Kevin is the CEO of Lighthouse Sales Advisors. Lighthouse Sales Advisors is a sales leadership solution provider for small businesses. Lighthouse helps business owners navigate the potential pitfalls around sales growth, sales turnaround, or scaling up by leveraging sales acumen and decades of experience to build effective sales teams. https://www.lighthousesalesadvisors.com/
Sean is the CEO of New Sales Expert. He helps company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. He helps owners enhance their sales management, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging.
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In a world where artificial intelligence can generate thousands of prospecting emails in minutes, what actually makes a B2B salesperson stand out? Trust, authenticity, and a personal brand that buyers genuinely respect. In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, hosts Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey challenge conventional sales management thinking, particularly the obsession with activity metrics and high-volume outreach. They explore why personalized communication beats AI-generated noise, how salespeople earn the status of trusted advisor, and why professional credibility is becoming an increasingly valuable competitive advantage. Whether you're a frontline seller, a VP of Sales, or a business owner, this conversation offers practical sales strategies to build lasting relationships, strengthen your reputation, and create sustainable sales success. Key Topics Discussed 00:00 – Your Personal Brand Is Your Professional Reputation: Kevin explains why trust begins with integrity, authenticity, and consistently delivering on commitments. Discover why being genuinely helpful is more valuable than simply trying to please everyone—and how habitual over-delivery can create scope creep that actually undermines your value. 02:07 – Building Trust in an AI-Driven Sales Environment: Sean examines how artificial intelligence has made mass-produced prospecting effortless while making genuine human connections more valuable. Learn why personalized messaging, relevant business insights, and attentive listening are essential to standing out from the flood of automated B2B sales outreach. 05:17 – Why Sales Activity Metrics Can Damage Your Brand: Kevin challenges sales managers who demand 100 calls or emails a day without considering the quality of those interactions. The discussion contrasts high-volume prospecting with five thoroughly researched calls, demonstrating why meaningful engagement matters more than impressive-looking activity dashboards. 07:54 – Becoming the Trusted Advisor Your Customers Call First: Sean explores how salespeople move beyond transactional relationships to become indispensable sources of business advice. Through examples involving insurance brokers and medical professionals, he explains why customers return to experts they trust—even when those experts don't directly sell the solution they need. 10:32 – Building Sales Credibility Through Lifelong Learning: Kevin explains the connection between personal branding, earned credibility, and professional development. Reading, writing, developing informed opinions, and strengthening business acumen help sales professionals build the expertise necessary for effective value selling and meaningful customer conversations. 12:47 – Accelerating Professional Growth Through Community: Sean emphasizes the importance of learning from experienced peers, exchanging sales strategies, and challenging your assumptions. Discover how the B2B Sales Lab provides an opportunity for sales professionals and leaders to share practical knowledge and strengthen their effectiveness. Key Quotes Kevin Lawson – 00:00 "Your personal brand is like your last name. It's up to you to manage its integrity." Sean O'Shaughnessey – 04:55 "And it is by treating everybody like a human being and acting like you are a human being that is going to start the process of engendering trust in the world of AI" Kevin Lawson – 06:36 "A well-researched prospect call will outperform 100 dials every single time." Kevin Lawson – 10:32 "Trust is not something you're given, it's something that's earned." Additional Resources B2B Sales Lab – b2b-sales-lab.com Join a community of B2B sales professionals, sales managers, and business leaders who exchange practical sales techniques, discuss challenges, and learn from one another's experience. As Sean explains, developing credibility requires engaging with people who have already confronted the challenges you're trying to solve. Two Tall Guys Talking Sales Podcast Subscribe to Two Tall Guys Talking Sales on your favorite podcast player for ongoing conversations with Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey about sales management, professional development, sales processes, and improving sales performance. A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Replace Five Generic Prospecting Touches with Five Thoughtfully Researched, Personalized Conversations. Before your next prospecting session, identify five B2B prospects who deserve your attention. Rather than relying on generic AI-generated emails or repetitive call scripts, spend time understanding each prospect's business situation, current challenges, and potential opportunities. For each prospect, prepare a personalized outreach message that: Demonstrates genuine research. Reference something specific about the prospect's company, industry, recent developments, or a previous conversation. Introduces a relevant business insight. Share an observation or question that helps the prospect consider a challenge or opportunity from a different perspective. Establishes your credibility. Demonstrate an understanding of their business without exaggerating your expertise or making promises you cannot fulfill. Invites a meaningful conversation. Ask a question that encourages a thoughtful response rather than immediately pushing for a sales appointment. Use AI to support your research and preparation if appropriate, but make sure the final communication reflects your genuine understanding of the prospect. Measure success by the quality of the responses and conversations generated—not simply the number of activities completed. Compare those results with your usual prospecting approach. The objective is to learn whether better preparation creates stronger engagement and more opportunities for productive sales conversations. This exercise reinforces Kevin and Sean's central argument: Your personal brand grows when buyers consistently experience you as someone who understands their business, respects their time, and contributes meaningful value. Summary When everyone can generate more sales activity with AI, the real competitive advantage may be knowing when to slow down. Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey make a compelling case that effective B2B selling still depends on earning trust, demonstrating expertise, and treating prospects as individuals rather than CRM entries. Their discussion challenges sales leaders to reconsider what they measure and encourages salespeople to invest in the relationships and professional capabilities that technology cannot manufacture. If you're looking to improve your prospecting effectiveness, strengthen your personal brand, or become the trusted advisor customers call before anyone else, this episode delivers ideas worth putting into practice. Listen now and discover why the future of sales success may depend less on how many people you contact—and more on how much they trust you when you do.
Tired of competing on features, price, and product specifications while your prospects struggle to understand why they should buy? In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, hosts Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey challenge one of the most persistent mistakes in B2B sales: selling what your product does instead of what your customer wants to accomplish. From breaking through revenue growth ceilings to uncovering the business outcomes that actually get funded, Kevin and Sean explain why effective value selling requires more than a polished presentation or an impressive feature list. Discover how stronger business acumen, sharper competitive positioning, and customer-focused messaging can transform your sales strategies, boost revenue, and give buyers a compelling reason to choose you over the competition. Key Topics Discussed (00:00) Nobody Wakes Up Wanting Your Product—They Want the Results: Sean opens with a revealing observation: nobody wakes up needing a fractional VP of Sales. Kevin explains why customers don't buy services, coaching, or sales management systems for their own sake. They invest in solutions that deliver predictable revenue, stronger profitability, and sustainable business growth. The lesson applies to every B2B salesperson. (02:16) Why Business Goals Get Funded Before Business Problems: Kevin challenges conventional pain-based selling methodologies, arguing that achieving a meaningful business goal often commands more funding than simply eliminating a problem. Sean connects this principle to the artificial growth ceilings that prevent companies from reaching their next level. Understanding what executives are trying to accomplish changes the entire sales conversation. (04:12) WIIFM: The Foundation of Effective Value Selling: Sean revisits the timeless sales training principle "What's In It For Me?" and explains why features rarely create compelling purchasing decisions. Whether you're selling industrial equipment, consulting services, or CRM software, your messaging must connect capabilities to measurable business benefits. Ultimately, your solution needs to help customers make money or save money. (07:47) Understanding What Your Buyer Actually Values: Kevin introduces a powerful discovery technique: determine how your prospect earns a bonus, achieves performance objectives, or advances their business. He demonstrates how two simple words—"so that"—can connect technical capabilities to meaningful financial and operational outcomes. This approach strengthens business acumen and helps sales professionals build a defensible value proposition. (09:41) Competitive Selling Beyond Feature Comparisons: Traditional product comparison sheets and feature-by-feature battles are increasingly ineffective. Kevin explains why superior technical specifications don't necessarily create customer value, particularly when existing operations cannot capitalize on those improvements. The discussion challenges salespeople to stop confusing product superiority with business impact. (10:51) The Ben Franklin T-Chart and Meaningful Competitive Differentiation: Sean examines the limitations of traditional side-by-side competitive analysis. A product winning seven feature comparisons against a competitor's three doesn't automatically make it the better purchase. Buyers care about the handful of differences that affect their objectives—not the dozens of specifications that make no difference. Learn why focusing on meaningful differentiation is essential to improving sales success. Key Quotes Kevin Lawson (02:35): "The why is the goal. The why is why people spend money. It's not pain." Sean O'Shaughnessey (04:26): "Don't sell features, sell benefits. Because it's the benefits that matter." Kevin Lawson (07:11): "The customers don't buy the product you have; they buy the problem you solve." Sean O'Shaughnessey (13:11): "Things that don't make a difference are something that you should not talk about." Additional Resources B2B Sales Lab (14:00): Sean invites listeners to join Kevin and him in the B2B Sales Lab, a community where sales professionals can ask questions, discuss real-world sales challenges, exchange ideas, and learn from one another. Membership begins with a free 30-day trial. Continue the conversation about value selling, competitive differentiation, and whether your solution helps customers generate revenue or reduce costs. WIIFM—What's In It For Me? (04:46): Sean shares a practical sales training concept that reminds sellers to communicate in the customer's language and explain the business benefits of their solutions. The Ben Franklin T-Chart (10:51): A traditional two-column comparison method that Sean uses to illustrate why feature-based competitive analysis often fails to capture what customers truly value. A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Rewrite Your Value Proposition Around the Customer's Business Goal. Choose one active B2B sales opportunity and examine how you're currently positioning your solution. Are you describing product features, capabilities, and technical advantages—or are you explaining the business outcome your prospect wants to achieve? Rewrite your value proposition using this framework: "We help [customer or buyer] achieve [specific business goal] so that [measurable financial or operational benefit]." Then ask yourself whether your competitor can credibly make the same claim. If the answer is yes, identify what makes your solution's contribution to that outcome genuinely different. During your next customer conversation, validate whether the outcome you've identified is important enough to justify an investment. Your objective isn't to demonstrate that your product has more features. It's to establish why choosing your solution will help the customer accomplish something that matters. Summary Your prospects aren't shopping for features. They're trying to accomplish something—and the salesperson who understands that objective has a substantial advantage over competitors still reciting product specifications. In this thought-provoking episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey expose the weaknesses of traditional feature-based selling and offer practical ways to connect your offering to the financial results buyers actually value. Whether you're an AE navigating complex deals, a VP of Sales refining your team's messaging, or a business owner looking to improve revenue generation, this conversation will challenge how you approach discovery, competitive differentiation, and value selling. Listen now and discover why the most effective sales conversation isn't about what your product can do. It's about what your customer can accomplish. B2B Sales Lab is a private, member-led community for sales professionals who want actionable insights, not theory. It's a space to ask real questions, share proven practices, and connect with others who are serious about improving revenue performance. Designed and led by veteran sales leaders, the Lab is where strategy meets execution. Join us at b2b-sales-lab.com You can reach out to Sean at New Sales Expert, LLC - [email protected] - https://www.linkedin.com/in/soshaughnessey/ You can reach out to Kevin at Lighthouse Sales Advisors & Sales Xceleration - [email protected] - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwlawson/ You can book time on Kevin's calendar at https://lighthousesalesadvisors.pipedrive.com/scheduler/JP7rZXH3/virtual-meeting-booking-time-with-kevin You can book time on Sean's calendar at http://newsales.expert/sean-oshaughnessey-calendar/
In competitive B2B sales, knowing your product is only half the battle. Do you really know who you're losing deals to, why they're winning, and what makes your company meaningfully different? In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, hosts Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey unpack the discipline of competitive analysis, revealing how salespeople, sales managers, and business owners can identify their actual competitors, evaluate their competitive advantages, and turn lost opportunities into better sales strategies. From building a practical competitive matrix to uncovering uncomfortable truths about why customers choose someone else, Kevin and Sean deliver a framework for competing on value rather than retreating into price wars. Key Topics Discussed 1. Your Real Competitors May Not Be the Ones Marketing Identifies (00:16) Sean challenges a common assumption in sales management: that the competitors identified by corporate marketing are necessarily the ones individual salespeople face in their territories. A strong salesperson at a weaker company can consistently defeat a superior product, while a weak salesperson at a market leader may pose little threat. Effective competitive analysis begins with understanding which companies and individual salespeople are actually winning your prospects' business. Your territory's competitive landscape matters more than a generic corporate ranking. 2. Building a Competitive Analysis Matrix That Reveals Real Differentiation (03:19) Kevin introduces a practical, spreadsheet-driven approach to evaluating competitors across product features, pricing structures, customer service, business capabilities, and operational advantages. His scoring system ranges from negative 10 (significantly worse than the competition) to positive 10 (significantly better), with zero representing competitive parity. The critical distinction? Just because your company invested heavily in developing a capability doesn't make it a competitive advantage. If everyone offers it, it's table stakes. This framework helps sales teams sharpen their messaging and identify where genuine value selling opportunities exist. 3. Intellectual Honesty: Let Your Lost Deals Challenge Your Assumptions (06:42) Sean takes competitive analysis beyond product comparisons and into actual sales performance. When a salesperson repeatedly loses to a particular competitor, that pattern reveals something their internal competitive rankings may be missing. Was the deal really lost on price? Was delivery the issue? Or was the competitor simply more effective at meeting the customer's expectations? By reviewing historical wins and losses with intellectual honesty, sales professionals can separate perceived advantages from demonstrated competitive performance. 4. Why Asking Customers About Lost Deals Creates a Competitive Advantage (09:29) Rather than accepting assumptions about why a deal was lost, Sean recommends having candid conversations with customers who selected another provider. Ask what went wrong, where expectations weren't met, and what the salesperson, company, or product could have done differently. These conversations can expose weaknesses in sales processes, customer relationships, and value propositions. More importantly, they give salespeople actionable intelligence to improve future revenue generation without automatically resorting to price reductions. 5. Turning Competitive Intelligence into Better Sales Execution (10:41) Kevin connects competitive knowledge with understanding your own company's capabilities. Drawing on the EOS model's concept of three unique differentiators, he explains why sellers must understand both what they offer and how competitors attempt to displace them. He also challenges salespeople to bring their findings into team discussions, especially when they don't understand why certain deals are being lost. Combining field intelligence with honest customer feedback can strengthen sales enablement, improve business acumen, and help teams develop a more effective competitive position. 6. Sell from a Position of Strength, Not a Price War (13:00) Kevin closes with a challenge: build a competitive matrix, understand where you fit in the market, and recognize the capabilities customers actually value. Prepared salespeople understand their differentiation well enough to avoid competing exclusively on price. The discussion also sets up an important topic for the next episode: overengineering solutions. Are your salespeople promoting features customers don't care about? In complex B2B sales, adding more functionality doesn't necessarily add more value, and knowing what customers genuinely need can be just as important as knowing what your competitors offer. Key Quotes Sean O'Shaughnessey (02:26): "The really good salespeople may work for really bad competitors that don't make the marketing list of competitors, but they're good salespeople, so they know how to take your money away from you." Kevin Lawson (06:17): "Even though it was really hard for you to do and you spent a lot of money to get it done, if everybody offers it, that's a zero." Sean O'Shaughnessey (10:08): "Why did I lose? Why did you decide to go with somebody else?" Kevin Lawson (13:20): "You make it as complex as you want it, but know where you fit in, 'cause where you fit in your market is where you're gonna win in the market." Additional Resources Eliminate Your Competition — Sean O'Shaughnessey: Sean references his book on developing sales strategies that make it difficult for competitors to win your opportunities. Its central premise is that understanding and neutralizing competitive threats is essential to winning more business. https://a.co/d/08gdGN6u EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) — Three Uniques: Kevin references the EOS model's concept of three unique differentiators to illustrate why businesses must distinguish true competitive advantages from capabilities that competitors also provide. B2B Sales Lab: Kevin invites listeners to continue the discussion in the B2B Sales Lab, a community where sales professionals and sales leaders can go deeper into topics such as competitive analysis, effective sales execution, and improving sales performance. A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Build a Territory-Level Competitive Matrix and Validate It Against Your Lost Deals. This week, open Excel, Google Sheets, or your preferred analysis tool and build a competitive matrix based on the companies you actually encounter in your territory, not simply the competitors identified by your marketing department. Put your competitors in rows and the capabilities that matter to your customers across the columns. Include product features, pricing flexibility, delivery, service responsiveness, customer support, payment terms, and other meaningful business differentiators. Start by identifying which competitors offer each capability. Then apply Kevin's negative 10 to positive 10 scoring system to evaluate your relative position. Remember, a feature that everyone provides deserves a zero, no matter how much effort your company invested in developing it. Next, review the deals you've lost over the past several months. Identify which competitors are consistently beating you and compare those results with your scores. If you believe your company has a major competitive advantage but keep losing deals to the same competitor, investigate that contradiction. Finally, contact customers who selected another provider. Ask why they made that decision, what you could have done differently, and which capabilities influenced their choice. The objective isn't to create a beautiful spreadsheet. It's to identify the competitive weaknesses you need to address and the advantages you should emphasize in future sales conversations. Summary Are you losing deals because your competitors are better, or because you don't understand why customers choose them? In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey challenge B2B sales professionals to replace competitive assumptions with evidence. You'll learn how to build a competitive analysis matrix, identify meaningful business differentiators, examine lost deals without excuses, and discover the customer insights that can transform your sales strategies. Whether you're an account executive looking to improve your win rate, a sales manager coaching a struggling team, or a VP of Sales responsible for sustainable revenue growth, this 15-minute conversation offers a practical way to sharpen your competitive position. Listen now and discover how to stop guessing about your competition and start building the knowledge needed to beat them. B2B Sales Lab is a private, member-led community for sales professionals who want actionable insights, not theory. It's a space to ask real questions, share proven practices, and connect with others who are serious about improving revenue performance. Designed and led by veteran sales leaders, the Lab is where strategy meets execution. Join us at b2b-sales-lab.com You can reach out to Sean at New Sales Expert, LLC - [email protected] - https://www.linkedin.com/in/soshaughnessey/ You can reach out to Kevin at Lighthouse Sales Advisors & Sales Xceleration - [email protected] - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwlawson/ You can book time on Kevin's calendar at https://lighthousesalesadvisors.pipedrive.com/scheduler/JP7rZXH3/virtual-meeting-booking-time-with-kevin You can book time on Sean's calendar at http://newsales.expert/sean-oshaughnessey-calendar/
Discovery calls can determine whether a B2B sales opportunity advances or stalls, but too many salespeople rely on generic questions that reveal little about the prospect's business. In this episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, hosts Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey explore how to build a discovery question bank that uncovers business challenges, identifies decision-makers, and positions salespeople as credible business advisors. From hypothesis-driven questioning and the PESTEL framework to understanding financial pressures and navigating the buying committee, Kevin and Sean share practical sales strategies that can make your very next discovery meeting more productive. Whether you're an individual salesperson looking to improve your sales success or a sales leader strengthening your team's sales processes, this episode delivers questions you can put to work immediately. Key Topics Discussed (00:00) Building a Discovery Question Bank That Improves Sales Performance: Kevin introduces the discovery question bank as a practical sales enablement resource, similar to battle cards but focused on the early stages of the buyer journey. Sean explains how individual salespeople can use it to sharpen their skills, while sales managers can develop a shared question bank during team meetings to improve discovery consistency and effectiveness. (03:41) Demonstrating Business Acumen Instead of Pitching Products: Sean challenges salespeople to stop asking questions that could be answered by visiting the prospect's website. Instead, ask how the company goes to market, acquires customers, and generates revenue. These conversations expose organizational challenges, internal dynamics, and opportunities for value selling while establishing the salesperson as a business partner rather than another vendor. (05:35) Using Hypothesis-Driven Discovery and the PESTEL Framework: Kevin explains how researching industry pressures, company priorities, and market conditions helps salespeople formulate intelligent hypotheses before meeting a prospect. Using an example involving professional services and financial compliance, he shows how carefully crafted questions can uncover real business needs. Even when a hypothesis proves incorrect, the discovery process can reveal opportunities that generic questioning would miss. (09:09) Identifying Decision-Makers and Navigating the Buying Committee: What happens when your initial contact cannot answer an important business question? Sean explains why that knowledge gap may be your best opportunity to reach additional stakeholders. By asking who else in the organization understands a particular issue, salespeople can expand their relationships, identify decision-makers, and better navigate complex B2B buying decisions. (11:00) Understanding How Prospects Lose Money and Where You Can Create Value: Sean encourages salespeople to investigate the economic pressures affecting their prospects, including supply chain disruptions, tariffs, and changing operating costs. Understanding where a company loses money creates opportunities to connect solutions to meaningful financial outcomes. These conversations help shift discovery toward business value, profitability, and potential ROI. (12:42) Practical Discovery Questions You Can Use in Your Next Sales Meeting: Kevin closes with a collection of questions covering success metrics, budget authority, decision criteria, consequences of inaction, previous solutions, and internal stakeholders. Learn how questions such as "What happens if you don't solve this problem in the next six to 12 months?" help reveal urgency, establish priorities, and improve the quality of your sales opportunities. Key Quotes Kevin Lawson (02:45): "It's gotta be effective, not just efficient." Sean O'Shaughnessey (04:00): "I try to talk about business, because I want to be perceived as being a business partner." Kevin Lawson (08:46): "You've actually gotten them to tell you what their pain point is, what their goal is, and how you can help them solve it." Sean O'Shaughnessey (09:40): "When the customer doesn't know the answer to your discovery question, that allows you to say, 'Is there somebody else in the organization that might know the answer to that question'" Sean O'Shaughnessey (12:33): "Because when a CFO finds out that you can stop them from losing money, life will be better for you." Additional Resources The hosts reference several frameworks and sales enablement resources that can help structure more effective discovery conversations: PESTEL Framework: A strategic analysis approach for identifying political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors affecting a prospect's industry. Kevin explains how this type of research helps salespeople develop hypotheses and prepare better discovery questions. Sales Battle Cards: Sales enablement tools that organize competitive positioning, messaging, and product information. Kevin compares these resources to the discovery question bank discussed in the episode. Product FAQs and Company Websites: Existing sources of customer and product information that salespeople should review before discovery meetings, so they can focus on insights not found through basic research. A Significant Actionable Item from this Podcast Create a Five-Question Discovery Bank Before Your Next Prospect Meeting Before your next discovery conversation with a new prospect, research the company's website, business model, and the external pressures affecting its industry. Develop a hypothesis about a business challenge your solution might address. Then prepare five questions that explore different dimensions of the opportunity: Business performance: "How are you measuring success today, and what KPIs are you accountable for?" Financial consequences: "What happens if you don't solve this problem in the next six to 12 months?" Decision authority: "Who ultimately signs off on the budget for this type of initiative?" Evaluation process: "When you have evaluated solutions before, what criteria mattered most to the decision team or you?" Previous attempts: "Have you ever tried to solve this before? Have you tried any other solutions? How did that work?" Adapt these questions to your prospect's business rather than reading them mechanically. Listen for answers that challenge your assumptions, reveal additional stakeholders, or expose a financial problem worth investigating further. If you lead a sales team, turn this into a collaborative sales management exercise. Ask each salesperson to contribute questions that have produced meaningful discoveries, then assemble a shared question bank your team can refine over time. The objective is to leave every discovery meeting knowing something important about the prospect's business that you did not know when you entered. Summary Great discovery is about understanding the prospect's business, not simply collecting enough information to prepare a proposal. In this practical episode of Two Tall Guys Talking Sales, Kevin Lawson and Sean O'Shaughnessey demonstrate how thoughtful research, strong business acumen, and a well-constructed discovery question bank can transform early sales conversations. You'll hear how to test assumptions, uncover financial pressures, expand relationships within the buying committee, and ask questions that separate competent salespeople from trusted business advisors. Best of all, Kevin shares specific discovery questions that you can adapt and use immediately. If you want more productive discovery calls, stronger B2B sales opportunities, and a better understanding of what motivates prospects to buy, this is an episode worth adding to your playlist before your next customer meeting. B2B Sales Lab is a private, member-led community for sales professionals who want actionable insights, not theory. It's a space to ask real questions, share proven practices, and connect with others who are serious about improving revenue performance. Designed and led by veteran sales leaders, the Lab is where strategy meets execution. Join us at b2b-sales-lab.com You can reach out to Sean at New Sales Expert, LLC - [email protected] - https://www.linkedin.com/in/soshaughnessey/ You can reach out to Kevin at Lighthouse Sales Advisors & Sales Xceleration - [email protected] - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwlawson/ You can book time on Kevin's calendar at https://lighthousesalesadvisors.pipedrive.com/scheduler/JP7rZXH3/virtual-meeting-booking-time-with-kevin You can book time on Sean's calendar at http://newsales.expert/sean-oshaughnessey-calendar/



