Your prospect admits, \u201cIt\u2019s a manual process.\u201d<\/p>\n
You reply, \u201cDoes it typically go smoothly? What happens when someone is on vacation?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mess! We literally have tickets piling up on people\u2019s desks\u2026!\u201d divulges your prospect.<\/p>\n
Congratulations! You\u2019ve just deepened and broadened your prospect\u2019s pain using the essential discovery skill of Expansion Questions. So, what are they, how do you use them, and when?<\/p>\n
Expansion Questions are a series of interrelated questions designed to span five of the seven discovery skills levels, from uncovering pain to reengineering vision. They are a simple, yet essential skill to master in doing discovery enabling you to extend, deepen, and quantify your prospects\u2019 pains and related impacted areas.<\/p>\n
Expansion Questions leverage your experiences with other prospects and customers, providing you with lists of likely problem areas, impacts, and outcomes to explore with new prospects.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s return to the conversation above. A skilled vendor and their prospect are talking about the prospect\u2019s current workflow that handles customer requests and issues. Let\u2019s listen:<\/p>\n
Prospect comments, \u201cIt\u2019s a manual process\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor responds, \u201cSorry to hear this \u2013 what takes place today?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect explains, \u201cWell, each request is entered, reviewed, processed, escalated, and closed in a series of steps, with each step done manually by an individual, then passed to the next person in line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vendor asks an Expansion Question, \u201cDoes it typically go smoothly? For example, what happens when someone is on vacation?\u201d<\/p>\n
The vendor knows, based on previous experience with similar prospects, that vacations often have serious negative impact on these workflows.<\/p>\n
Prospect replies, \u201cIt\u2019s a mess! We literally have tickets piling up on people\u2019s desks\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor responds, \u201cWhat happens then?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect offers, \u201cAt minimum, it causes delays in response time which impacts customer satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our vendor makes a note to come back to this impact statement later, but focuses on the current issue for now:<\/p>\n
Vendor asks, \u201cI see\u2026 How many folks are involved on your team?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect says, \u201cWe have a total of 12 people doing this, and it is far too many!\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor pursues, \u201cUnderstood. And what would you like to reduce this to?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect states, \u201cI\u2019d love to get this down to two people. There\u2019s plenty on the team\u2019s plate that needs to be done in addition to this process!\u201d<\/p>\n
Note that our vendor has quantified a desired outcome \u2013 a Delta \u2013 reducing the number of people in the workflow from twelve to two. Next, knowing that manual processes typically result in errors, our vendor introduces another Expansion Question:<\/p>\n
Vendor queries, \u201cI see \u2013 how often do errors creep into your process today?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect declares, \u201cOh, all the time\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor expands, \u201cAnd what happens when errors occur?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect admits, \u201cWell, we often have to go back, find the error, and then rework the downstream portion of the workflow. It can get pretty bad!\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor quantifies, \u201cSorry to hear this \u2013 how often does this occur and how long does it take to correct, on average, for each occurrence?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect notes, \u201cAt least once a week and it can consume hours to fix each one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor offers, \u201cAnd I\u2019m guessing you\u2019d like to reduce this to zero or near zero, if possible. Is that correct?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect responds, \u201cAbsolutely\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n
Note that our vendor has now quantified two aspects of the manual process, so far, capturing the prospect\u2019s specific numbers. Our vendor then explores more impact through another Expansion Question, again based on experience with other prospects:<\/p>\n
Vendor asks, \u201cAnd what happens downstream? Who else is impacted?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect notes, \u201cOh, it ripples throughout the organization, resulting in sending the wrong patches, incorrect documentation for customer success managers, mistakes with our product roadmaps, inaccurate renewals forecasts, and the worst cases can result in very unhappy customers, which we know contributes to churn!\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor asks, gently, \u201cDo you get grief from these other teams, as a result?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect admits, \u201cYes, it\u2019s added a lot more pressure to fixing this problem\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendor confirms and moves towards a discussion of solutions:<\/p>\n
Vendor resumes, \u201cI see. So, this is really impacting the organization broadly. Let\u2019s change gears back to your current manual process: are you looking to automate this following the existing workflow or do you have any other changes in mind?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect says, \u201cThe individual steps are all fine, we just need to get rid of the manual work and physical hand-offs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our vendor realizes that the prospect is unaware of the range of possible solutions and expands using a Biased Question to explore Vision Reengineering with the prospect:<\/p>\n
Vendor notes, \u201cInterestingly, many of the other companies we\u2019ve worked with found that the ability to both automate their workflows and implement AI rules-based processing and alerts not only eliminated the errors and handoffs but also resulted in dramatically reduced churn and increased renewals. Some of our customers report 10-20% less churn and 5-10% increases in renewals and add-on sales. Is an AI rules engine something that might also be useful in your practice?\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect responds, \u201cWow, I hadn\u2019t thought about that. Yes, that would be really cool! How does that work?\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll leave the conversation at this point and let our vendor and prospect continue on their own\u2026<\/p>\n
Yes, absolutely\u2026!<\/p>\n
Expansion questions take advantage of your knowledge about other, similar prospects\u2019 situations. Any time you know, from your experience, that another aspect of your prospect\u2019s pain is likely, that\u2019s a candidate for an Expansion Question.<\/p>\n
Here are a few logical examples:<\/p>\n
In the brief example above, our vendor moved the prospect gently (but firmly!) through five levels of discovery, using Expansion Questions to drive the process:<\/p>\n
Level 1: Uncovers statements of pain:
\n– Manual process.<\/p>\n
Level 2: Explores more deeply:
\n– [Expansion Question] Vacations?<\/p>\n
Level 3: Broadens the pain and investigates the impact:
\n– [Expansion Questions] Errors? Downstream impact?<\/p>\n
Level 4: Quantifies:
\n– Reduce from 12 people to 2; eliminate weekly errors that take hours to fix.<\/p>\n
Level 5: Reengineers vision:
\n– Introduces the AI rules engine using a Biased Question.<\/p>\n
Expansion Questions, along with Biased Questions and related probing techniques, are fundamental discovery skills and are key components of a cohesive, integrated discovery methodology.<\/p>\n
The classic set of Four Stages of Competence is particularly apropos for doing discovery:<\/p>\n
Stage 1 \u2013 Unconsciously Incompetent:
\nThey don\u2019t know what they don\u2019t know. Many (most?) sales and presales folks are in this category but are unaware\u2026!<\/p>\n
Stage 2 \u2013 Consciously Incompetent:
\nThey understand that they need to do better or operate differently, but don\u2019t know what or how to accomplish this.<\/p>\n
Stage 3 \u2013 Consciously Competent:
\nThey know what to do but have to consciously think to execute properly.<\/p>\n
Stage 4 \u2013 Unconsciously Competent:
\nThey do the right things without extra thought.<\/p>\n
For example, are you aware of and apply the following skills?<\/p>\n
Where are you and your team on the competency spectrum?<\/p>\n