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Discovery Question Bank ​

Version: 1.0 | Last Updated: Nov 2025

Question Framework: SPIN Selling ​

Situation - Understand their current state Problem - Uncover pain points Implication - Explore consequences Need-Payoff - Quantify value of solving

Situation Questions ​

Company & Context ​

  1. "Tell me about [COMPANY] - what does your organization do?"
  2. "How many employees do you have? How many locations?"
  3. "What's your role and what are your primary responsibilities?"
  4. "Who else will be involved in evaluating a solution like this?"

Current State ​

  1. "What tools are you currently using for employee engagement?"
  2. "How do you currently measure employee engagement?"
  3. "How do you handle recognition and rewards today?"
  4. "What's your current approach to training and development?"
  5. "Do you have any gamification or engagement initiatives in place?"

Problem Questions ​

Engagement & Retention ​

  1. "What's your current employee engagement score?"
  2. "What's your annual voluntary turnover rate?"
  3. "What's driving employees to leave?"
  4. "How do high performers know they're valued?"
  5. "What percentage of employees feel their work is recognized?"

Productivity & Performance ​

  1. "How do you track employee productivity?"
  2. "What percentage of employees are meeting performance expectations?"
  3. "How long does it take new hires to reach full productivity?"
  4. "What's preventing employees from being more productive?"

Training & Development ​

  1. "What's your training completion rate?"
  2. "How do you measure knowledge retention?"
  3. "What's the biggest challenge with employee training?"
  4. "How much time do employees spend in training annually?"

Change Management ​

  1. "Are you going through any major changes right now?" (ERP, digital transformation, hybrid work, etc.)
  2. "What's been your experience with change initiatives in the past?"
  3. "How do you typically drive adoption of new systems or processes?"
  4. "What percentage of employees actively resist change?"

Industry-Specific Pain Points ​

For Recruiting: 27. "What's your average time-to-fill?" 28. "What percentage of recruiters hit their hiring targets?" 29. "How do you track recruiter activity (calls, interviews, etc.)?"

For IT Service Desk: 30. "What's your current CSAT score?" 31. "What's your first-call resolution rate?" 32. "What's your agent turnover rate?"

For Sales: 33. "What percentage of reps hit quota last quarter?" 34. "How long does it take new sales reps to ramp up?" 35. "How do you motivate your sales team beyond compensation?"

For Agile Development: 36. "What's your average sprint velocity?" 37. "How quickly do pull requests get reviewed?" 38. "What percentage of your backlog is technical debt?"

Implication Questions ​

Financial Impact ​

  1. "What does it cost you to replace an employee who leaves?"
  2. "How much revenue are you losing from incomplete training?"
  3. "What's the financial impact of low productivity?"
  4. "What would a 20% reduction in turnover be worth to you?"

Operational Impact ​

  1. "How does low engagement affect your team's performance?"
  2. "What happens when change initiatives fail?"
  3. "How does slow onboarding impact your ability to scale?"
  4. "What's the ripple effect when top performers leave?"

Strategic Impact ​

  1. "How does employee engagement impact your ability to execute on strategy?"
  2. "What happens if this problem doesn't get solved?"
  3. "How is this affecting your competitive position?"
  4. "What opportunities are you missing because of this?"

Need-Payoff Questions ​

Vision & Goals ​

  1. "If you could wave a magic wand and fix ONE thing about employee engagement, what would it be?"
  2. "What would success look like 6 months from now?"
  3. "What metrics would tell you this problem is solved?"
  4. "What would be different if employees were more engaged?"

Value of Solving ​

  1. "If we could increase engagement by 40%, what would that enable?"
  2. "What would a 30% reduction in turnover mean for your team?"
  3. "If training completion went from 40% to 90%, how would that help?"
  4. "What could you accomplish if onboarding took half the time?"

Decision Process ​

  1. "What's driving the urgency to solve this now?"
  2. "What happens if you don't solve this in the next 6-12 months?"
  3. "What other priorities are you evaluating?"
  4. "How do you typically evaluate and select new vendors?"

Budget & Authority (BANT) ​

Budget ​

  1. "What's your budget for employee engagement or HR technology?"
  2. "How much are you currently spending on engagement initiatives?"
  3. "What's the ROI threshold you need to see to move forward?"
  4. "Is budget already allocated, or do you need to make a business case?"

Authority ​

  1. "Who else needs to be involved in this decision?"
  2. "Who has final approval?"
  3. "What's the decision-making process?"
  4. "Has anyone else looked at solutions like this?"

Need ​

  1. "On a scale of 1-10, how critical is solving this problem?"
  2. "What happens if you don't solve this?"
  3. "What's already been tried?"
  4. "Why didn't previous solutions work?"

Timeline ​

  1. "When do you need a solution in place?"
  2. "What's driving that timeline?"
  3. "Are there any upcoming initiatives this needs to support?"
  4. "When would you ideally start implementation?"

Technical & Integration ​

Systems & Tools ​

  1. "What systems would PulsePlus need to integrate with?" (CRM, ATS, ITSM, HRIS, LMS, etc.)
  2. "How do employees currently access tools - SSO?"
  3. "Who on your team handles vendor integrations?"
  4. "What are your security and compliance requirements?"

Data & Privacy ​

  1. "What are your data privacy concerns?"
  2. "Do you need GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2 compliance?"
  3. "Where does employee data need to reside?" (data residency requirements)
  4. "What's your vendor security vetting process?"

Competitive & Alternatives ​

  1. "What other solutions are you evaluating?"
  2. "What do you like about [COMPETITOR]?"
  3. "What concerns do you have about [COMPETITOR]?"
  4. "If you don't choose a vendor, what's your plan B?"

Closing Discovery Questions ​

Wrap-Up ​

  1. "Based on what we've discussed, what resonates most with you?"
  2. "What concerns or questions do you have?"
  3. "What would you need to see in a demo to feel confident this solves your problem?"
  4. "What's the best next step from your perspective?"

Set Expectations ​

  1. "If the demo goes well, what happens next?"
  2. "Who else should attend the demo?"
  3. "What timeline are you working toward for a decision?"
  4. "What could prevent this from moving forward?"

Discovery Call Structure ​

Opening (5 min) ​

  • Agenda setting
  • Permission to ask questions
  • Start with Situation questions

Middle (30 min) ​

  • Problem questions (identify pain)
  • Implication questions (quantify impact)
  • Need-Payoff questions (envision solution)

Closing (10 min) ​

  • Budget, Authority, Timeline
  • Next steps
  • Schedule demo

Question Selection Guide ​

For 30-Min Discovery Call: Ask 15-20 questions For 60-Min Discovery Call: Ask 30-40 questions

Priority Order:

  1. Situation (understand context)
  2. Problem (identify 2-3 key pain points)
  3. Implication (quantify cost of pain)
  4. Need-Payoff (vision for solution)
  5. BANT (qualify the opportunity)

Red Flags to Listen For ​

❌ "We're just exploring options" → Low intent ❌ "Budget hasn't been discussed" → No urgency ❌ "I'm not sure who else needs to be involved" → Not the champion ❌ "We tried gamification before and it didn't work" → Need to understand why ❌ "We need to see it work before we buy" → Proposal may need pilot/POC

✅ Green Flags: ✅ "This is a top priority for [EXECUTIVE]" ✅ "We have budget allocated" ✅ "We need a solution by [DATE] for [INITIATIVE]" ✅ "I can pull together the decision-makers" ✅ "I have authority to move this forward"

Note-Taking Template ​

Discovery Call Notes - [COMPANY NAME]

Attendees:Date:

Situation:

  • Company size: ___ employees
  • Industry: ___
  • Current tools: ___

Problems (Top 3): 1. 2. 3.

Implications/Impact:

  • Turnover rate: ___%
  • Turnover cost: $___
  • Engagement score: ___
  • Training completion: ___%

Goals/Vision:

  • Success metric 1:
  • Success metric 2:

BANT:

  • Budget: $___
  • Authority: ___
  • Need: __/10 priority
  • Timeline: ___

Next Steps:

  • Demo scheduled: ___
  • Stakeholders to invite: ___
  • Materials to send: ___

Document Owner: Sales Enablement Review: Quarterly

PulsePlus Sales Enablement Library

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