If you want a great discovery call process, do this, and you will be well on your way to providing the wow factor your potential clients are looking for. Think about it: If someone has booked a call with you, you’re halfway there. They have spent time researching you and checking out your social media accounts, and they obviously like what they see. So, giving them a great discovery call process will be the icing on the cake that gets them signing on with you. Use the six steps below to build your discovery call process. All we need sometimes is an idea for everything else to fall into place.
If you work with clients, you probably already have a proposal process. When was the last time you considered your client’s onboarding process? Is it time to change it?
1. Have a discovery call
Use a scheduling program—I like and use Book Like a Boss. I can either share a link or direct people to my website’s contact page, where the link is embedded. Once a call is booked, the person booking it can update, reschedule, or cancel it.
I allow 30 minutes for a discovery call, and when a potential client books, I ask them to complete five questions before they book (it is part of the automated process before they get to choose the date and time). This is enough information for me to commence researching them to help me prepare for their call.
I understand why you might not feel strong enough about driving the process and the call. I highly recommend you do. You are not an employee but a contractor, so lead the conversation. Your business is your business; you need to be in charge. It should be easy if you have done your research. On a side note, this is a bird’s eye view of the discovery call process I use for JMJ—EA for a Day. It’s fluid, and I change things around when new things come to light, but the 6 steps below are the key areas I focus on.
2. Update your CRM
Login to your CRM daily—If you can, integrate your scheduling program with your CRM. The benefit of this is that when someone books a call, they enter your CRM automatically, enter the list you’ve selected, and receive the tags you want them to have.
I have a WordPress website with Active Campaign integration, so when the contact form or Blab is completed, the connection is automatically added to my CRM and tagged as ‘Lead’. Then, I can update the CRM as needed.
3. Create a scope of works
After each ‘lead’ call, I follow up with a scope of work. I summarise our call to ensure I captured all the important stuff, then lay out the scope of work and provide them with the opportunity to add or comment and include pricing.
4. After your discovery call, send a proposal
Once you’ve sent your scope of work and both you and the client have captured what you need. Prepare a proposal or contract and attach the agreed scope of works as an addendum. There are many online signing applications; DocSales or WP eSignature makes the process easy, and my favourite is PandaDoc. I have Adobe, but their process is cumbersome and not user-friendly when other apps can get it all sorted and sent out for signature much quicker.
5. Send an invoice
Use a professional invoicing application if at all possible; everything will be easier and quicker for you when it comes to invoicing and receipting payment. Your bookkeeper and accountant will thank you. And if you are doing your books, a professional app will save you so much time at tax time. I use Xero for my accounting, which I have done since 2014. You could set up an automation to auto-send an invoice to the client once your proposal is signed.
6. Update your CRM
I can’t stress how important it is to keep your CRM updated. Whether you’re using an app or a spreadsheet. This information will be important to look back on as a historical record and also act as a checklist for the onboarding process.
In summary, as with everything, you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. But the more complex it is, the more likely you won’t stick to it, You’ll find 100 reasons why you should continue to manually do everything yourself. Think about it, if you’re going to be advising your clients to try and do new things because it will be better for them and their business and you’re not …
