What are some resources to help us build our discovery skills?

Diana De Jesus

I'd like to continue developing this skill and would appreciate any recommendations from y'all. I'm currently reading "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss and it's insightful but I need something a bit more practical. 

 

Thanks ?

Jeff Breunsbach

Love this question @Diana De Jesus - this has become critical to CSMs.  These were a couple of examples I thought about: 

Go read public filings.
Go listen to speeches from their executives.
Go read their case studies.
Go research their 5 biggest customers.

Kevin Mitchell Leonor

A sales class is also a good place to start. Discovery is where business is won.

one thing CSMs and sales does not do as much as they should is auto-discovery. Gather publicly available information. It’s what sealed the deal with my interview at RingCentral. I used Uber’s 2020 goals of expanding into global markets as a business need that we could impact

Jeffrey Nadeau

@Diana De Jesus Great question and I think you can easily find plenty of books about Sales or CS professional development. The approach I like to take here is to read books about personal growth as this tends to lead towards a better understanding of people and yourself which then enables you to have more authentic conversations. 

I like "The Four Agreements", "Daring Greatly" and "The 5 Second Rule" -- They all bring different values to you as a person and I think you will end up being better at connecting with people which is what discovery is really all about.